This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1459638
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1459638
What The Nazis’ Attacks On Trans People Tell Us About Today
It tells us that those that attack Trans folks, today, are basically Nazi’s
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This article makes a strong case for a Democratic landslide in 2024. If that doesn’t look like it will happen, make a loud case against GOP as modern-day Nazi. History repeatingitself… the time for head shakes, polite shaming, and whispers is past.
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i will never understand why people, who are not doing any harm to anyone, are persecuted simply because of who they are…
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American rightists are outraged about trans women, not trans men. Why? Women have been passing as men to get paying jobs, for at least as long as women have been discriminated against and relegated to home-maker, child-rearing status. In other words, for as long as civilization has existed. Why no particular outrage over that deception?
I think it’s mainly because men don’t feel a particular entitlement to touch or otherwise access one another’s junk.
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Msgr. Monster: “Hold my chalice…”
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I must have missed the part about what the Nazis did then says about contemporary attacks on trans folks. It was bad then, and it’s bad now.
We must call out all performative bullying, whether it’s directed againts trans people, drag queens, migrants, or any other vulnerable group of people.
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Because rightists fear they will find a man in a dress attractive and they will have to confront what that means for their own sexuality.
It’s that simple really
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Rightist men, I think you meant.
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I think a) women have been wearing pants for a long time now so you have to be deep into quiverfull or complementarianism or some other religious view about how women should be submissive skirt wearers to regard women dressing “like men” to be offensive, or b) you are a misogynist and the idea of a man wanting to look like or be a (eww) woman is disgusting and threatening.
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While, there are clearly people who object to any kind of sexual or gender deviations. There are rational people including die hard liberals, who have concerns about the medicalization of gender non–conforming children, fairness in women’s sports, and male bodied individuals in sensitive spaces reserved for females, including rape shelters and prisons. Those concerns are not based on bigotry and deserve open discussion.
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Yes. And many of those discussions happened long ago. The current panic is in bad faith, refusing to acknowledge any of this. [ETA, not saying these guidelines are above more discussion, just that they exist among people who have tried to apply knowledge & compassion]
For example
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I originally read this as, “This article makes a strong case for a Democratic TRANSlide in 2024”
Which I thought was appropriate!
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Thanks for your reply. Yes, many of those discussions that happened long ago were related to sexuality. That has been resolved and arguments regarding same sex marriage, for example, likely happen in bad faith. But, it is only in the past few years that every form I fill out asks me to identify my sex AND my gender. That is new… An 8000% increase in girls identifying as trans-- that is new. Puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, and on rare occasion surgery) administered to adolescents, that is new. Laws allowing mere self identification for gender/ sex identity-- that is new. Much of the backlash is not bigotry, its from parents confused about why their 1st grader is being asked to identify his or her pronouns. That is new.
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Policies regarding trans kids in sports - a very concrete, specific target of this most recent moral panic - have been analyzed & implemented already. And in K-12 there are only a handful of kids competing under these rules across the entire US. Even in my liberal area, I have not come across an example of an actual trans kid in sports, much less one causing controversy. And, although kiddo is now an adult, I’m still close enough to the PTA & swim-mom communities that I would have heard of it.
Causing a moral panic among parents is like shooting fish in a barrel. We’ve lived through rainbow parties, razorblade apples, LSD skittles,… I can’t even keep track. Never were any of these started by actual events or concerned parents.
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A lot of the discussion about “fairness” and “discomfort” in this context makes me think about the “discomfort” among white kids that apparently justifies forbidding history classes from mentioning slavery or racism. Somehow lost is the part where alleviating discomfort among the cis involves telling the trans that they can’t do certain activities they care deeply about, and that might be their ticket to a fulfilling life/career. (Of course, I’m privileged here – my trans daughter is a theater kid, and when she came out no one even blinked.)
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For the same reason that they hold gay men in disdain - particularly fey men - and get genuinely confused & agitated when confronted with the image of a gay man (or worse trans man) who isn’t a “sissy”. Laith Ashley (pictured) makes their brains melt.
At it’s root, it’s fear. Fear that they might (or do) harbor “those tendencies” or worse, that someone might perceive that they do and they get the same treatment that they’ve doled out…
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Timely. Hopefully it does more good than what happened in Germany when the Nazi’s rose to power there.
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This is an excellent, though frightening, article. I read a book called The Pink Triangle years ago that explored the Nazi history in this regard, including noting the advances communities had gained under the Weimar Republic before they came to power. Sadly, few know it, though we’re certainly barreling in a similar direction now.
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This article sucks.It is cetainly not journalism. And as opinion it is also pretty thin. Just word association slander. “Hey, the Nazis persecuted trans people horribly, so it follows anyone who has any disagreement with any part of trans ideology is a Nazi.” You don’t like the idea of your kids, starting with pre-k, being told maybe they’re a boy or maybe they’re a girl - time will tell. How exciting that they will get to pick or discover the answer to that riddle and let us know! You don’t like that? Then you are a Nazi! And in some states if you do not want them to start taking puberty blockers when they are 12 or 14, the state can remove your parental rights and give puberty blockers to her anyway. You don’t like that idea? Then you are a Nazi! You don’t like the idea of your 11 or 14 or 16 year-old daughter taking locker room showers with kids who have penises? - then you are a Nazi! You don’t like the idea that your serious athlete daughter will never even have a shot at winning a race in her entire school career because there is a trans person who will win every single race? - then you are a Nazi! Not journalism, not smart opinion - just angry ignorant sanctimonious bullshit.
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