The political satire doesn’t make me laugh so much as it crushes my spirit.
Civil rights for black people alienate the working class
—same satirical headline in the 50s
In less than ten years, I saw three of my cousins transition. This seemed to correspond neatly with trans-rights being mainstreamed as a social issue. Almost as though there are a lot of trans-people, many of whom were simply in the closet until the moment it became socially acceptable to be themselves.
There absolutely are a lot of them; it’s great that they finally feel comfortable to be themselves.
We saw the same thing with gay people. I’m an 80’s kid. When I was young, gay was something you saw on TV and in the movies. There ‘were no gay kids’ at the schools I attended. Because that was simply not something that you could admit to being.
Earlier this year I met a teen girl at work who casually mentioned her girlfriend. I was delighted that kids these days are comfortable enough in their own skin to just say that to someone they just met. That was not a thing when I was her age. It’s nice to see how far we’ve come.
Huh. I’ve met this guy on lemmy.
Why subtweet Hillary Clinton on this one? It’s almost an exact quote.
It’s not as close to an exact quote as I thought, to be honest, but I stand by the sentiment that the statement was unsupportive of the trans community.
My espresso has arrived. Clinton asks for more iced tea. I cannot allow the lunch to end without questioning the direction of her party. I say that Democrats seem to be going out of their way to lose elections by elevating activist causes, notably the transgender debate, which are relevant only to a small minority. What sense does it make to depict JK Rowling as a fascist? To my surprise, Clinton shares the premise of my question.
“We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window,” she says. “Look, the most important thing is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority.”
From an interview with the Financial Times
I’d note 4 things:
- The question is obviously heavily framed as an anti-trans question
- A lot of right wing news outlets reported the initial question as if Clinton herself was the one who said it, which isn’t true.
- Most non-right-wing outlets didn’t mention the context that she was responding to a question about trans people at all
- She never retracted or clarified her statement after the fact