Wednesday, October 31, 2018

While Trump demonizes immigrants for midterm elections, the religious right demonizes transgender community

With good reason, a lot of folks are up in arms about Trump's attempt to demonize immigrants and asylum seekers to get his base out for next Tuesday's election, Unfortunately, folks are missing how anti-LGBTQ groups are doing the same thing to the transgender community in order to undo non-discrimination protections in Massachusetts. A vote about this will also be on the ballot next Tuesday. Look at this commercial they are running.



Of course this is a damn lie which has two goals - reduce the argument of trans-inclusive nondiscrimination laws to a single argument about bathrooms and then to scare the voters. According to a wonderful article in IntoMore:

 In seeking to strike down the two-year-old law, the Massachusetts campaign is hewing extremely to the tactics waged by anti-LGBTQ activists in Houston three years ago. The Campaign for Houston successfully lobbied to overturn the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which was voted down by a 61-to-39 margin in November 2015. Commercials claimed trans-inclusive protections could allow “registered sex offenders” to abuse innocent people in public restrooms simply by “claiming to be a woman that day.”



 IntoMore also pointed out how both ads are deceptive:

Each segment relies on what is a widely debunked myth to stir up anti-trans sentiment. A recent study conducted by UCLA’s The Williams Institute showed the passage of local nondiscrimination ordinances in the Bay State had not led to an increase of attacks on women and children in public bathrooms — a crime which remains illegal even with trans-inclusive protections in place. 

But deceptive ads and claims geared to motivate fear is the standard modus operandi of the anti-LGBTQ industry. It worked for a while regarding non-discrimination ordinances in general and against marriage equality.

Next Tuesday, we will learn just how successful it will or won't be against the transgender community.

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