Trans Politics, Trans Activism, also 'rolling is this transphobic?' thread

Didn't pull this out but yeah..

imagine pulling out The Big Lie in an argument and failing to understand that Hitler wasn't talking about himself, he was accusing Jewish people of using "the big lie".

Great idea mentioning Hitler in the first place.

yeah it always goes well

🚨🚨 TONIGHT 🚨🚨

Especially important to turn out if you're cis.

We'll be there throughout. DM us if you want to find us, and let us know if you have any particular welfare needs.

Love and solidarity ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 pic.twitter.com/fYAowCP1qv

— Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants (@lgsmigrants) January 18, 2023

Glasgow is also having a Trans Rights protest on Saturday at 11am at Buchanan Galleries

xposted from the US politics thread, a great piece by Tom Scocca on US media's transphobic turn: https://popula.com/2023/01/29/the-worst-thing-we-read-this-week-why-is-the-new-york-times-so-obsessed-with-trans-kids/

A fabulous piece. I linked it in the politics thread.

yeah I saw that! Hopefully this gets attention. He did a great job of linking it to the earlier media panic over cancel culture (as well as the Times' past bullshit crusades)

The Times has been homophobic going back to the 70s. Jeet Heer dug up some examples of them saying the exact same things about homosexuality that they are now saying about trans issues.

It's especially galling to me because the Times was the first place I ever worked with a trans coworker — Donna Cartwright. She used to come and do overtime shifts in our department sometimes.

https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/zk51vh06v

speaking of the times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/01/theater/tonys-justin-david-sullivan-and-juliet.html

That's a great Popula article, it really nails Jesse Singal

…you’ll see that mere discomfort with the way you are “supposed” to act or dress as a boy or girl, and a desire to act or dress differently, means you’re trans (if you want to be), even if you don’t have gender dysphoria. Sure enough, a lot of people, particularly young ones, seem to come out as trans much more to make a statement about their desire to transgress gender boundaries than because they are suffering serious anguish at having a (fe)male body or being seen by others as (fe)male.

Some of these people aren't even miserable!

luv 2 tell other people what 2 do

thanks for that pamela paul editorial nyt, you just killed a couple more of my friends

hi btw

Hi Kate. Been pretty depressing over here on Shitty Transphobe Island lately. I didn't want to update this thread just with bad shit so didn't post about it, but Brianna Ghey has been weighing heavy on my mind. Everything sucks.

Turned on the radio the other day and caught a BBC News bit about Sturgeon's resignation. And of course the first of two completely impartial talking heads they spoke is a raving terf. Of fucking course. I wanted to punch my radio.

hi Kate, it is good to see you around again <3

sorry about the world and everything

Tennessee is fast-tracking its ban on gender-affirming care for minors, already passed the state Senate and basically assured to pass the House next week. I covered a rally against that and our criminalizing-drag bill organized earlier this week by our local pride group — it had good turnout, lots of spirit and anger, but at the moment in this state we're decisively headed backward on all LGBTQ rights. Don't see it turning around any time soon. Feels grim.

I was at a vigil in Glasgow for Brianna Ghey tonight and the turn-out was a lot higher than I (or seemingly the organisers) expected. Which is good - it sends out the message of support and love we need to send out - but I can't believe in 2023 we still have to do this stuff, that "let people exist as their authentic selves" is now seen as a political position and not just a basic tenent of human existence.

I'm afraid "let people exist as their authentic selves" has been a political position for a long-ass time. Much too long, I agree.

the murder itself has really fucked up my sense of safety too. I'm not trans, but I am a gay man and I'm not exactly the type who can or even bothers to try to mask it in my mannerisms etc. I've learned when to police myself - to know the kind of environments I'm not welcome in, to know when to adapt my behaviours, even when to deepen my voice and be careful with my language. I know not to walk home alone at night with headphones on because I'm possibly a target. I know to text my friends when I get home. I'm sure women, POC, etc have similar experiences about feeling like potential "targets." Nobody ever actively sits you down to teach you these things - you learn them instinctively, as a measure of precaution to protect yourself. There's direct bigotry, but we live in the shadow of ambient bigotry - the knowledge that the potential to be assaulted and attacked is always present and you can never really be 100% certain it won't happen to you. What has happened to Ghey - ie being attacked, in broad daylight, for simply existing - feels like a confirmation of the possiblity of those worst fears coming true. It's fucking terrifying.

That's not to say this is about me at all - I have so much more privilege than anyone in the trans community has today. But it makes those abstract fears feel so much more real. And if it's messing me up, I can only imagine how awful, how frightening, and how depressing it must be to want to simply exist as a trans individual in a world where your identity is literally attacked to the point of murder.

It’s really been a bad fucking week for it.

I saw this, just now, and this feels like something, even if it isn’t.

For Brianna ❤️

Taken far too young. Our club and town sends our condolences to her loved ones pic.twitter.com/wbwRgzzegG

— Warrington Wolves (@WarringtonRLFC) February 16, 2023

I appreciate people who can form cogent and thoughtful and responsible thoughts about this when I'm just struggling to suppress violent feelings about the british establishment the entire time

This kind of thing is relentless in the British media:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/02/11/west-busy-woke-rights-combat-russia-life-frontline/

A Ukrainian soldier has warned the West is too busy fighting for transgender and feminist rights when they should be preparing for the threat of Russia invading countries beyond Ukraine.

"Today it’s Ukraine. Tomorrow it’s Poland, Germany. We’ve already destroyed more planes than the British Army has in total and Russia keeps fighting," said Artem, 32, who is just about to join his brigade stationed in Bahkmut.

Adding: "If you will not help Ukraine now, you will fight Russia in five years. If you’re thinking about human rights, transgender, feminists you’re not thinking about your country."

"If you’re thinking about human rights, transgender, feminists you’re not thinking about your country."

is quite the sentence.

Glad to see Artem from Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and the Daily Telegraph agree on that one.

I know the telegraph's rep but wow

The Telegraph has gone completely culture wars batshit in the last few years.

It Is Journalism’s Sacred Duty To Endanger The Lives Of As Many Trans People As Possible https://t.co/e8aZ5CSrhi pic.twitter.com/2wq3dBnI7Q

— The Onion (@TheOnion) February 17, 2023

“ A Ukrainian soldier has warned the West is too busy fighting for transgender and feminist rights“

He will be so relieved when he finds out the West spends no time at all fighting for these

Glinner is absolutely furious about The Onion right now, so job done there.

lol

Man Cries Over Onion

“Man”

The only actual funny thing he’s done in years is “thanks, another man”. I genuinely use that one all the time even though I’m not a man. Classic although not as he intended it.

Actually, I tell a lie. This was funny too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwVxMJcQDWM

I feel boxedjoy’s post very much, although this part wasn’t my experience:

Nobody ever actively sits you down to teach you these things - you learn them instinctively, as a measure of precaution to protect yourself.

My parents, and the parents of every African-American I know, sat us down at an early age and told us that we were not safe in America and that vigilance was going to be instrumental to our ability to flourish as adults.

I have gotten much more exposure to/information about what happened to Ghey from Twitter than I have from any mainstream US media outlet, which I suppose makes some amount of sense from a regional standpoint combined with the insane number of mass shootings we allow. It’s all terrible though, all of us deserve a much better world than the one we currently have and it’s demoralizing to realize how much some people want things to be like this.

I saw this, from the sister of a trans girl who took her own life after being denied care (the situation in the UK is really horrendous in large part due to constant and vicious lobbying to deny access and also aimed squarely at the rollback of existing rights).

we’re right to name the political conditions of Brianna’s death, and any attempt to paint that as ghoulish or opportunistic is unbelievably cruel. when Alice died my mum was talking about posting her ashes to Rosie Duffield within days

— kate litman (@kate_Iit) February 14, 2023

DJP massively otm, heartbreaking but necessary post

I was at the Brianna vigil on Thursday night outside the department of education and what impressed me was all the young LGBT people I saw there, just these sweet, gawky, nervous kids who were figuring out who they wanted to be and how they wanted to dress, I just wished that when I was 17 I'd known some people like that, the years may have been a bit less lonely. I wouldn't interact with any of them now of course, last thing they need is a middle-age owl man in a suit talking to them, but just seeing them / hearing so many them gave me some hope for the future.

My uni students, many of whom are trans or otherwise queer (art school), give me great hope.

Thanks, all. This thread has lifted me.

Ah, talking of the youth of today - my local started running a casual 'hang out and talk books' book club and half of the members are early-20s queerkids. They're proper adults and that but now that I am super old I feel very protective and proud of them. I also feel like I now have a space where I'm allowed to be queer again, despite always being read as cishet (I am much clearer in my identity as a bi/pan non-binary person these days even if the massive guilt of not being queer enough is still present).

one of the things I really wish had existed when I was 14-17 was a physical local space for LGBT+ teens to hang out in. I mean, yeah it was good to be able to go online and meet people, and the unders disco I went to was a safe space for me to kiss people of the same gender, but that was only three hours on a Saturday evening. I would have loved somewhere where I could have went with the lad I was "dating" and just hang out, holding hands, not worrying about being seen and judged by my peers or even worse "adults." I was always under the impression that LGBT+ Youth Programmes were about activism and visibility and really all I wanted was: a place that didn't have windows.

I don't know if DJP's experience re: being sat down and warned, is better or worse. It's tragic and disgusting that we live in a world where this has to be done but at least you were prepared and equipped for the practical reality of life, I guess? I'd like to know more how that conversation went, if you're happy to say more about it. Was it a general, "this world is bad, be prepared?" or were there more specific examples of behaviours to mask, places to avoid, etc? I say nobody ever sat me down and told me "these things" - I'm referring as much to practical stuff as much as the overall principles I use to maintain personal safety.

one of the things I really wish had existed when I was 14-17 was a physical local space for LGBT+ teens to hang out in. I mean, yeah it was good to be able to go online and meet people, and the unders disco I went to was a safe space for me to kiss people of the same gender, but that was only three hours on a Saturday evening. I would have loved somewhere where I could have went with the lad I was "dating" and just hang out, holding hands, not worrying about being seen and judged by my peers or even worse "adults."

I wish an older person -- queer or straight -- had sat 16-year-old me down to explain the tangle of feelings. If I had had it sorted in high school, college would've been a better place.

xp this will cover some of it, I'd guess (tho ILX code will probably mangle the URL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_talk_(racism_in_the_United_States)

I wish an older person -- queer or straight -- had sat 16-year-old me down to explain the tangle of feelings. If I had had it sorted in high school, college would've been a better place.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

of course, when we do that we get called "groomers". few things make me angrier than this lie. i see these kids who have been taught to hate themselves, who are hated by their own _parents_, their own _family_, and if i tell them that it's ok for them to be who they are, whoever they are, that they're not broken or sick but they're worthy of love and kindness, the response to that is for these vicious people who don't even love their own children to call me a "groomer", to say that what i'm doing is "social contagion". people who do this _disgust_ me. i have no other word for it.

My first thought after my post, "Well, that's not happening in Florida now!"

Agreed with Kate and Alfred OTM— I really do believe that if my parents had believed me and treated me with love and respect the first time I came out to them, at age 14, I would be a much more well-adjusted person and would have avoided a lot of pain and confusion of my late teenage and early adult years. That so many of these articles completely deny the *fact* that teenagers are individuals who are in tune with their feelings and thoughts around sex, gender, and etc, is completely bonkers to me.

I'm an ally at my school and spend some Monday lunchtimes in the magnificent babble and lunacy of the assigned safe space for queer and trans kids. In a school of 1400 kids, the room is usually full of around 40 kids, at a guess? As a straight bloke, I'm never *quite* sure what my role is. One, for sure, is to get laughed at for being so straight and square and old and white and I'm 100% here for that, but mostly I just circulate and talk about music, books, films, comedy and whatever the hell comes up.

To speak to Alfred's point, I mean, I'm never going to be precisely what anyone needs, but other than the golden rule of being a decent human being, some guidance and training as to what to say would be so useful. School don't offer anything and anyway, maybe I should just stfu, accept the limits of my role and just be around if anyone needs anything.