Decoding the language of the anti-trans movement
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how conservatives and the gender critical movement were using euphemistic language to imply that they wanted to rid the world of trans people. Unsurprisingly, they haven’t let up since. Last weekend, conservative activist and Daily Wire pundit Michael Knowles all but confirmed that plan by telling a delighted crowd at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference that he wanted to “eradicate transgenderism.”
There’s been much discussion in the media since his speech about whether or not Knowles was actually saying he wants to “eradicate” trans people. The pundit has since tried to walk his statements back, explaining that he merely wants to eliminate the idea that trans people can exist in society—not literally kill all trans people. But to me, a real, living, breathing trans person, there is no difference between those two outcomes. Either way, you’re producing a society with no trans people in it.
As I mentioned in my recent column: if you eliminate the thing that makes me who I am, you are eliminating me.
But there are other language choices we need to unpack—such as the right’s use of terms like “transgenderism” or “trans activists,” and what they’re really saying when they use them.
I want to engrave your words on a big piece of Texas limestone and leave in the middle of my neighborhood.
Thanks for calling it.
Thicker on the ground here in Texas, but widespread in time and space.
Serious question: what to do?
What o what did we learn from the geopolitics of The [Christian] Crusades?
People have long memories? History is alive, not dead, not even past? (Thanks Faulkner.)
“They hate our freedoms” claimed George W. Bush of the men who made 9/11 a day of Pearl Harbor-level infamy. Of course it was terrible, it was mass murder, it was inconceivably B-A-D.
I am frustrated that Bush’s oversimplified, carefully crafted soundbite fails by design to acknowledge the historical truth of Christian Dominionists who left home in medieval Europe to enrich themselves, murder untold numbers of people residing in their own countries, in the name of a specific Christian deity.
Yep.
It’s part of not just Texas’ modus operandus but of course all of the history of the U.S. (and elsewhere, but I can only speak about what I know directly).
From the enslavement of kidnapped Africans here, to manifest destiny, to the abhorrent “Indian schools” to every single death at the hands of police and of our soldiers for the Imperium U.S. government, in wars for oil, for more geopolitics, and dominance. Dominion.
Thank you for keeping history alive.
It is shaping us here now.
Even if gets written or rewritten by the victors.
And a big reason why oral traditions and oral histories are so important, and why genocides are such a common tool in the fascist toolbox. It’s one thing to burn books, close libraries, control the presses and the media. To eradicate the truth in narratives inside people’s heads, the “only” “solution” is to destroy those people and that culture: the holders, the rememberers of that narrative.
Trying to end on an upnote:
Thank you for your work.
We need a thousand more of you. Thousands.
History is remembering.
This is what I ask people who use “woke” unironically:
“What do you mean by “woke?”
[gibberish response]
“So you have a problem with treating people with respect and dignity.”
Response: “I have a problem with being forced to treat people with respect and dignity.”
“How does it cause you harm?”
[something along the lines of “freedom”]
“Your freedom ends where it bumps into someone else’s. There is no such thing as a ‘freedom’ to hurt someone else.”
[changes tack: something about tax money going to “those people”]
“So you resent tax money going to anyone but you. Are you a socialist?”
I use a variant of this line when talking to conservatives in whom I’ve given up hope. Bait them into praising some program or other they like and want protected, then exclaim “YES! That’s exactly why I’m a socialist!”
Tucker Carlson’s Ex-Producer Called Election Deniers ‘Terrorists… Cousin F***ing Types’
In a lawsuit against Fox News by Dominion Voting Systems, internal texts show network talent expressed frustration with Trump’s lies but still gave them airtime.
“Like negotiating with terrorists,” former producer Alex Pfeiffer said in a text, “but especially dumb ones. Cousin fucking types, not saudi [sic] royalty.”
Aren’t royals generally also “cousin-fucking types” - just fancier, with more power and social standing?
I mean some of these people are terrorists.
The bill imposes thousands of dollars of fines on private employers who give work to undocumented people; employers are not allowed to continue employing someone if they find out they are undocumented.
Nudge nudge wink wink.
The league revealed that it had been denied permission by the Florida Department of Management Services to hold an outdoor rally on the steps of the Old Capitol in Tallahassee under a new DeSantis administration rule requiring groups to first get sponsorship from a sympathetic state agency.
I am sure this will not be used to partisan advantage, now will it?
Bothsides bullshit
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/experts-attacks-free-speech-rising-us-97877709
This
In Washington state, a lawmaker proposed a hotline so the government could track offensively biased statements, as well as hate crimes.
Is not the same as this
Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed for legislation that would criminalize drag shows, limit what pronouns teachers can use for students
Media needs to do better!
Daniel Dale. Journalist. Bane of the Murdoch-Koch-media-sphere and those who consume their media products.
Hero.
LEGEND.
New Randy!
Well, it’s not as though a politically-affiliated paramilitary organization, acting on behalf of (if not officially controlled by) the state is without precedent…
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ETA:
I don’t imagine any armed militia could present itself as being nonviolent (which, to me, means “not implying even a threat of violence”).
Yeah,. Let the cockroaches out into the daylight, and the next thing they’ll be “standing guard” on election day.
