Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults.
“I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation.
It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year.
And it’s not even about Trans Adults, or Trans Kids, or other LGBTQA+ groups, or any other small marginalized group that really doesn’t have a real political power.
What it is about are sociopathic assholes that want political power and money, who are using the bigotry of simple minded assholes to create “boogie men” that only the sociopaths can “fight” to protect the bigots’ children. When the last “boogie man” has been defeated, there WILL ALWAYS BE ANOTHER that requires the bigoted to vote for the sociopaths to “protect them” yet again. These groups, LGBTQA+, are targeted because there are not enough of them, or they are so marginalized already, that they are unable to push back effectively in the political arena (actually don’t think that is true for LGBTQA+ as a whole, as long as they fight together).
It’s LGBTQA+ now, next it will be some other group that poses a “threat to society”. In 1930’s Germany, this marginalized group were the Jews and, if you read your history, you know how that went. With 4,000,000 Jewish men, women, and children killed. All so that some sociopathic assholes could have power and money.
If you really want to see this in action, read about Germany’s history in the 1930’s.
It is sick, it is disgusting and it is happening in the United States RIGHT NOW.
There are no appropriate apologitics for this type of behavior, PERIOD THE FUCKING END.
How to fix what is going on? If you are of age (18 in the U.S.) to VOTE, then make sure you go to EVERY FUCKING ELECTION you are eligible to vote in. There are a LOT more elections going on, than the Presidential and and mid-terms. You are on the internet, the list for all elections you are eligible to vote in is easily available with a simple search with your favorite search engine.
Tl,Dr: If you are over 18 in the US… GET OUT AND VOTE! It may not be cool, or rad, or whatever the current thing to say is, but if you do not want a future where politicians are living in your uterus and bedroom, VOTE. Especially if you are in the younger generations (Gen Y and Z). Full disclosure, I am a Gen X’er with Silent Generation Parents (pre-Boomer generation).
Voting in Red States is extremely difficult for anyone that has a job and family. That is by design to make sure only the Conservatives vote.
It’s difficult, but not impossible. The GOP counts on making it just difficult enough to add a barrier that will discourage the least interested voters (and particularly in locations where their voter base isn’t located). We still can combat those barriers. Eg, if your state has passed voter ID laws, spread the word well ahead of time and help people get ID. If your state has shitty placement of polling stations, help arrange transportation. Make sure people know about legal protections afforded to them for taking time off work to vote.
And above all, simply encourage voting and dispel misconceptions about “mY vOTe dOeSn’T MattER”. Most people who don’t vote are eligible, have means to do so, and aren’t working the full stretch of polling station hours. They don’t vote because they simply don’t care or are discouraged.
But it is about those groups, it was us first targeted by the Nazis and now it’s us first on the chopping block again
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_für_Sexualwissenschaft
In the state of Florida, it is illegal for school teachers to tell their students WHICH books the Nazis chose to burn first.
Elections aren’t going to save us. I will make sure to vote against anybody who has the slightest whiff of engaging in this anti-trans hysteria, but you could hardly describe this place as a democracy to begin with. The desires of the people have absolutely nothing to do with what gets enacted as public policy in this country.
We need to prepare as if the state will do NOTHING to protect us, and treat any counterexample as a pleasant surprise.
Red won the election in 2016: Abortions no longer a civil right nationwide.
Blue won my state in 2020 and 2022: Abortion a right again. (Staewide)
Elections do have impact. Republicans won the election in 2016, so we see their will writ large. Vote, vote, vote, or it will only ever get worse.
