To a lot of older LGBTQ people, the recent legislative and other attacks on transgender people are very familiar. We've had seen it before. In April, Jack Turban, assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, published an opinion piece at CNN which spelled it all out.
Turban's piece, What the anti-trans movement is all about, deserves a read and a share. Here are some excerpts:
If some of these arguments around fairness and protecting children from LGBTQ people sound familiar, it’s because they’re the same ones used against gay people in the 1990s. These Republicans have simply repackaged old anti-gay rhetoric and scaremongering to target transgender people.Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, some cities in Colorado began passing laws prohibiting anti-gay discrimination. Frustrated by this progress, social conservatives in the state created an organization called Colorado for Family Values.Worried about more localities passing anti-discrimination laws, which it saw as endorsing non-Christian values, the group came up with a bold strategy: Start a ballot initiative to amend the Colorado Constitution to prohibit state and local government bodies from passing more. The question was: How would it convince voters, who were increasingly tolerant of gay people, to support it? The group developed two primary tactics it thought would appeal to different types of voters. The first was a more palatable “fairness” argument. It created the false narrative that anti-discrimination laws would give gay people preferential or “better” treatment than straight people. It ran with the catchy slogan “equal rights, not special rights.”
The second was a bit more grotesque — reverting to age-old accusations that gay people were sexual predators and “groomers” who posed a risk to children. The strategies worked, and what was known as Amendment 2 passed
. . . . We’ve also seen a resurgence in social conservatives labeling LGBTQ people as dangerous to children. When advocating for Colorado’s Amendment 2 in the 1990s, Colorado for Family Values distributed 750,000 copies of a pamphlets saying that “sexual molestation of children is a large part of many homosexuals’ lifestyle.” Things are much the same today. US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted this month that “Democrats are the party of pedophiles,” a comment she doubled down on in a recent interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”Some conservatives have turned this rhetoric into public policy, arguing that laws are needed to force transgender people to use bathrooms of their sex assigned at birth, suggesting that otherwise sexual assault rates in bathrooms will rise. Though research shows that such policies are linked to transgender youth facing higher rates of sexual assault, I worry that facts won’t win out.In the 1990s, Colorado for Family Values won in large part because it had carefully crafted, emotionally inflammatory rhetoric, and its opponents didn’t. It didn’t matter that facts weren’t on the group’s side. The same is true today.In recent years, this rhetoric has been most effectively applied to attacks on gender-affirming medical care. Some conservatives have labeled it “mutilation” and in some instances “child abuse” despite endorsements by major medical organizations.
How petty are homophobic and transphobic people? This petty. They are having an intense tantrum about the White House Pride celebration held last weekend. While some of them are outright saying they hate the idea of President Biden celebrating LGBTQ lives and issues (poor babies), others are manufacturing other excuses.
It's the old "I have no problems but gays but they are going too far because . . ."narrative. Now usually they say this before they are about to falsely accuse us of going after kids. In this case, it's all about flags:
It's been like this on Twitter all day Saturday and Sunday with various "social media influencers" showing the same image, which spewing the same dramatic spiel about the end of America, how wokeness is wrecking the country, etc etc. You know how they are. Whenever there is a narrative they can exploit, they tend to repeat it until it's drilled into our heads and becomes the story. In other words, we can expect to hear the lie that the Biden Administration disrespected the American flag because of Pride Month until we can repeat it in our sleep.
But, like so many other times the far-right creates a cause celebre, this one is a lie. Luckily a lot of other folks on Twitter easily pointed that out:
There is a certain glee I take when it comes to these idiots. LGBTQ people are supposed to be the disruptors. We are supposed to be liars, the enemies of truth, the danger to kids and American values. Yet it is the supposed morally straight and religiously pure who are reduced to telling easily disproven lies.
What a bunch of pretentious bitches.
Religious right forefather Pat Robertson died on Wednesday, so allow me to get to the chase.
He was a hateful son of a bitch. A bigoted monster used his power and influence to make life more difficult for LGBTQ people. And don't even start whining that I am attacking him simply because I didn't share his religious beliefs. That's bull. Pat Robertson was a monster. An evil bastard who reduced Christianity to a petty weapon which he used to bash LGBTQ people every chance he got. He is a shining example of how some on the right use their supposed faith as a cover to justify or excuse some of their ugliest prejudices against LGBTQ people.
But I do take solace in the fact that he is yet another enemy of LGBTQ people who we have outlasted. It's something to remember as we face the newest challenges to our equality and God-given right to self-determination.
Below are various examples of awful things Pat Robertson said about LGBTQ people such as when he claimed we infect people with AIDS via special rights, we recruit kids, parents should treat their gay sons like drug addicts, and his constant whining about anal sex.
This was a demagogue. This was a terrible man who hurt people by his words and influence. I defy anyone to tell me that he was a man of God.
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| RuPaul |
One thing LGBTQ people have to deal with these days are wannabe social media influencers trolling us for content. Groups such as Gays Against Groomers and Libs of TikTok and people like Matt Walsh and Tim Pool have had much success stirring up by the gullible sending out videos and clips mischaracterizing teachers and drag queens as 'groomers' and mischaracterizing our events as dangerous to kids.
Unfortunately, so many others want to get into the act, including this person below (Editor's note - the original tweet has been deleted but I saved a picture of it as you can see):
It's Photoshopped. Here's the original.
— NateTalksToYou (@NateTalksToYou) June 7, 2023
This guy should sue for defamation. https://t.co/bvrK87zi1j pic.twitter.com/x50GTIp2DI
