Unisex urinals have existed for ages, so even that isn’t a good reason.
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To add to what @Mindysan33 said:
Iran is less transphobic than Florida. The choice of transition or death for gay people is a extremely bad thing, but it would be safer for me to live in Tehran than Jacksonville.
TERs have used Iran as a stick to beat trans people with, because TERs don’t seem to understand personal autonomy. Removal of choice one way or the other is an evil we don’t want.
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Call them reactionaries if you don’t want to call them fascists but they’re not radicals.
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The Republican miseducation system has failed you.
Right wing radicals are not a thing. Radicals fought for civil rights, universal suffrage and an end to slavery. On those grounds radicals are far to the left of the modern Republican party, who are a coalition of reactionaries and fascists.
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Radical assumes wanting to radically change society. Fascists are reactionary, in that they are seeking to turn back the clock to a kind of society where only some people have rights. Fascist often hijack the language of the left in order to get more followers, but they very much want a class-stratefied society, often based on white patriarchy and adherence to a strong man (similar to a king).
Or what @the_borderer said.
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Hiding people’s shins doesn’t magically make fascists accept transgender people. One thing fascists (mistakenly) whine about is transgender people peeking between the door cracks. Taller doors won’t change that.
I was being too succinct, clearly.
It is not just shins and not just fascists.
I have never in the UK been in a public toilet that had ‘door cracks’ someone could peep through. Why this is the case in the US is a mystery to me. If I were transgender, in whichever direction and whichever gendered toilets I was using, I might fear being the one peeked upon - the other side of that coin, and surely as, if not more, pertinent.
So I was not suggesting full doors as a sop to pacify fascists whining, but as a privacy protection for everyone, of any gender, using any toilet, whether labelled for men, women, or neutral - a protection which may make everyone (and particularly transgender people) slightly more relaxed about using neutral/mixed facilities or trans people using facilities of their choice.
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So do we all.
As a unicorn chaser, may I suggest…
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There is indeed an issue here.
On one hand we all need to be aware of what the fascwits are up to - how else are we to oppose them? (And this fascwit is one of the most egregious ones - needs monitoring.)
On the other hand it does somehow seem that many of these posts, whilst serious, have a detectable undercurrent of being posted as ‘entertainment’ (or ‘amusement’) - no doubt the analytics show they get more engagement (‘clicks’), and in the end this website has to earn its living…
That this is the issue motivating you to make your first post might be an interesting anecdata point for the editors.
And welcome to the BBS!
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Inigo Montoya is a bigger philosopher than Ron DeSantis
Knowing what the Republicans are up to is a matter of life and death for some of us. You do know that genocide prevention organisations have put Republican run states on a watch list, don’t you?
That might be difficult because most of the people who are making a difference are keeping their heads down, due to the high likelihood that they will be doxxed.
But since you asked:
Those threads combined are a third of the size of the transphobia threads that started at a similar time (the first one closed when it became full earlier this year). Maybe that will tell you about the amount of bad news compared to good news for the last few years (and we are actively looking for the good news to help our mental health).
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My cat is a bigger philosopher than DeSantis.
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This is rough because honestly I agree about a lot of it, but at the same time I think the severity of the anti-trans agenda and how badly it is hurting people is something that isn’t being appropriately reported either.
On one hand it’s nice mainstream culture wants to move away from unmitigated hate and bigotry in discourse but on the other hand the damage being done is very real and often ignored and isn’t actually stopping. It will take people years of concerted effort to rectify some of these laws and it will take resources, which require attention.
It’s a legitimate dilemma and I don’t have a great answer or idea for how to deal.
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Well, they want to keep “both siding” it I think. That those of us concerned with rising fascism are just being hysterical and it’s not THAT bad:tm: and that the right has a point about the left thinking they are too extreme… but they ARE too extreme. They are restricting voting when they can, targeting marginalized people with highly specific laws and rampantly banning books… Those are indeed extreme actions and the fact that some people don’t want to hear about it is telling if you ask me.
Some people are lucky enough to be able to ignore this problem, though. After all, it’s not their rights being trampled here, so why should they give a fuck about marginalized groups… 
It sucks to hear about this stuff. It sucks so much more that it’s happening.
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That’s what’s so dangerous too, I think, the both sides mentality is toxic.
A major world power is using the full force of law to pick a micro-minority of people, like under five percent of the human population at best, also a minority group with absolutely no actual power within law enforcement or governance…
and now that major world power and the people who gain fame, money, and power within that system are creating a barrage of very real laws hyper targeting this tiny minority to destroy them and their lives as thoroughly as possible…
Then I hear people say things like “well all that only actually affects a tiny minority of people, it gets blown out of proportion”
I don’t know whether they mean that this is how unjust laws are passed or do they mean they are ok with these laws because they only affect trans people?
This ambiguity is dangerous and only emboldens fascism imo.
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Yep. As is the “it’s just a tiny minority, so we shouldn’t worry too much” mindset. Plus, the whole “it’s depressing, so can we ignore it” argument. It betrays a willingness to go along to get along, in the case of the rise of this kind of extremism… But…
It really fucking sucks, and we should not ignore this if we’re not trans or non-binary. It never just stops at one group. People DeSantis are literally running on genocidal policies… that it’s a tiny minority people our fellow humans should not matter. What we DO know is that they don’t stop at the tiny minority. They always find new groups to target, because they stay in power via grievances against those minorities. And there is always going to be some subset of the population that embrace that targeting because it helps them to feel important and connected to something larger than themselves - they are “saving” the majority group from infiltration by an “other”… We know that feeling part of a larger group that is doing important work can motivate people to do awful things that they normally would not do. It’s a weird interaction between our individual psychology and mass mediated political movements.
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I would add that trans rights deal with issues not exclusive to trans people. This article does a good showing how trans rights and abortion rights both issues of bodily autonomy.
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I get why you’re tired of hearing about DeSantis and his efforts to make Florida into a hellscape. If, for the sake of your own mental health, you shouldn’t read these stories or threads, you should utilize the mute button.
But we, as a society, really cannot afford to ignore these things. We cannot say “let’s stop talking about this awful thing because it makes me uncomfortable.” Because these laws are hurting real people. They should be getting more attention in both mass media and smaller areas like this one.
Saying “let’s not talk about this anymore” is saying “my comfort is more important than the real lives being hurt by these laws.”
Turning away from uncomfortable topics is part of how the US got so deep into fascism.
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that is desantis’ education policy in a nutshell.
race, gender/sexuality, slavery, diversity, equality, inclusivity? those make his little white privilege fee-fees hurt. don’t say “gay” it makes him uncomfortable. can’t have that for the little white chi’ren.
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