I’ve seen a depressing trend of Democratic politicians embracing anti trans talking points and compromising gender affirming care for young people. This is extremely concerning as states and the federal government are undermining access to care now more than ever. Democrats standing by trans people has far more dire consequences now than ever, yet we’re being treated as politically disposable by people who used to campaign on lgbtq issues like Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg.
I can’t say I’m surprised. Liberal papers like the New York Times has been uncritically promoting unscientific transphobia for years that claims alternatives exist to gender affirming care. My guess is that people see a person transitioning as an unfortunate thing, desperately wishing there was another way. They ignore the fact that gender affirming care is both the best treatment for dysphoria, and one of the most successful treatments for any mental condition ever discovered.
To put it simply, making gender affirming care harder to obtain for kids will kill many of them. Kids being kept from care by their parents already drives people to suicide, and a slimy politician preventing supportive parents from helping their kids will do the same. Every time I see people claim these guys are our best shot at beating fascism, I die inside. I have no doubt that they’ll eventually axe care for all adults like everyone who was originally “worried about fairness in sports” is currently pushing for. The only way they won’t is if we make it a costly issue for them.
Trans right is a Canary issue for me. If you are willing to compromise your values there, it tells me you are willing to compromise in other areas.
Transphobia IS gender fascism
Oh my friend. You haven’t figured out that the Democrats are just really “right light” without a backbone?
Would have they been better than Trump. 100% yes. But anything can be better than Trump’ Republicans.
There is no real social left movement in the US. Maybe Bernie and AOC get close to it but still quite centrist.
So, the Democrats are the right throwing some social crumbs around but supporting regressive policies. Once people realize that, a real social movement can start.
There are left movements, though. There’s the Democratic Socialists of the USA.
I’m pretty sure even Communists. But your political system and the leaning of most of the US people means that they will never be able to have any impact.
I’ve known this for years. What I’m pissed about is liberal asshats who think transphobes are the messiahs who will save their already dead rule of law.
If people want me to vote blue then surely they must disagree with the idea that Democrats have been continuously moving right.
How can Democrats dominate the popular vote and enjoy all this success when times are relaxed, yet we end up here? Now when times are precariously tough, voting blue is supposed to help?
Who knew “Vote for the lesser evil.” was a synonym for “Vote Gavin Newsom.” If I make a moral judgement and choose a lesser evil like accelerationism or nonviable third parties, suddenly “choosing a lesser evil” is wrong. People want to dish out top-shelf rhetoric with the force of a cannon but get mad when you take it seriously.
Personally, I don’t see a difference between combating fascism, and gender rights, gender affirming care, and recognizing people as the gender that they feel most comfortable as. I also don’t see a difference between combating fascism and LGBTQIA+ rights in general.
Fascists would have all of those rights stripped away from people. So bring pro LGBTQIA+ and being against fascism, is essentially the same thing in my mind.
The thing about it is, you can be against fascism, but not pro LGBTQIA+, but it would be, in my mind, impossible to be pro LGBTQIA+ and not be anti fascist.
So anyone who wants to deny LGBTQIA+, gender affirming care, or the recognition of people’s gender, but who is self-proclaiming to be against fascism, is either under some confused notion of what fascism would entail, trying to find some “middle ground” which doesn’t really exist, or they’re still fascist, but only if their way of life is what’s being promoted under fascism, and we can it something other than fascism.
All of those people can suck my dick.
LGBTQIA+ rights are human rights.
EDIT: I want to add that I’m not LGBTQIA+. I just believe that anyone who is, should have the same rights to be just as happy, or as miserable, as everyone who isn’t. I am an ally. I am a humanist.
Honestly I am very much a supporter of pragmatism and strategic politics towards building unity on the left, even if it means sacrificing some issues in favor of more pressing ones. I hate purity testing and assume most people who engage in it are acting in bad faith. But I completely agree with this. A coalition without respect for basic human rights is just a nonstarter.
It’s also really weak to point at fascism and say “look they treat some people badly for no reason. On an unrelated note, we are also going to treat some people badly for no reason.”
Yah fuck that. Trans rights are not something I’m going to be willing to agree to disagree on. If you allow any group of people to be denied their freedom in order to stop fascism, you’re not defeating the fascists at all. You’re fucking joining them.
Gender and sexual minorities’s right are human right.
That’s being said some people seems to care a lot about women, gays and trans when it comes to bombing brown people.
Nobody’s free until we all are
I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make. Can you reword it?
Honestly and in all seriousness, I don’t think trans rights matter enough to drop them. Like these people aren’t in favor of e.g. trump because of trans rights. They are in favor of trump. Why? There is no actual reason. We are talking about people who want the death penalty and a small government??? Who want to cut spending and vote for the guy who spends more money??? they are worried about the quality of life of workers and vote ice cold capitalist into power??? Trans rights don’t matter for them, it is a story that they can tell themselves. It is a “reason” because “idk i am just really frustrated and I don’t understand to deal with the mental discomfort of acknowledging that my behavior especially my political behavior supported the creation of the situation that I strongly dislike” just isn’t comfortable for them.
Trans rights are more extremely important but politically, they just don’t matter. Dropping them will change nothing, but make us worse people.
To say it another way, even if you were to drop support for trans rights, you wouldn’t gain much of anything.
Yeah, thanks for putting it that way.
Like I said elsewhere, they already held these views and see now as the perfect time to push them. They think that because the fascists won they don’t need to try as hard, even though them not sacrificing their pet beliefs on TikTok and Palestine contributed to that result. They think Harris being a brown woman is where they failed rather than her being Biden’s VP.
the old guard is trying to avoid another zohran, bernie, aoc, or the minnesota mayor, hence pedalling a republican lite is the best they can do.
We dont have to give up on any single group to fight MAGA morons. Just start calling MAGA what they are, the pedo party.
They’re a party of groomers, in every sense of the word. They are heavily invested in brainwashing kids from an early age to serve their authoritarian order, while their system of unchecked power over children perpetuates child abuse both sexual and non sexual. They rely on grooming emotionally lost young men to be their foot soldiers and enforcers, encouraging them to bully and abuse women and minorities while stealing everything of value they produce. They are everything they accuse their enemies of being.
Ok, look, as long we PINKY PROMISE that we’re going to stop at the VERY FIRST one of the “first they came for the…” marginalized groups, you gotta let us murderize JUST THEM and then bada bing, bada boom, fascism is cooked!
I get it, but conservatism has taken over by ratcheting the country to the right. They’ve been patiently putting people in positions of power from dog catcher up to the presidency for the last forty years.
Progressives aren’t satisfied with ratcheting the country to the left. It’s all or nothing.
No “buts”.
Liberation cannot be done with giving it to everyone, provided that fascists get buried 6 ft under.
It’s not liberation until it’s for everyone. But we won’t get there in one legislative fight, or even one legislative session, once and for all. It will always need to be fought for.
Conservatives won’t turn down a smaller victory for one that’s out of reach. That’s why they’re winning.
I get it, but
🖕
Constructive and useful. Go fuck yourself.
They make a great point, but nope. Gotta make them feel stupid for thinking about the obvious problem with idealism.
You think basic human rights are idealism?
No wonder the Democrat’s approval rating is so low. Your party is so spineless.
The country never moves towards the left or socialism in any meaningful way. Gay marriage has been one of the few major wins in recent history, but that’s not “ratcheting the country to the left”. You could be the most staunch supporter of capitalism and “free markets” in the world and still support trans and gay rights/be socially liberal.
Progressives aren’t satisfied with ratcheting the country to the left. It’s all or nothing.
The Democrats aren’t satisfied until the country is completely to the right and they aren’t interested in winning elections or seriously fighting MAGA - their focus is firmly on suppressing the left.
Progressives do not hold significant power in elected office or in the DNC. Bernie Sanders had two primaries rigged against him, and David Hogg was recently ousted out of his position as Vice Chair of the DNC
for gender diversity reasonsbecause he was pushing progressive primary challengers.Ken Martin also ensured DNC officer neutrality in future primaries this year, in order to neuter David Hogg not long after he committed to funding these challengers (which is likely why David Hogg refused to run for reelection). Democrats only have a problem with rigging primaries when progressives are the ones getting support.
Progressives are unpredictable and difficult to control, may be of the socialist variety, and disincentivize major donors - which the DNC and Democratic party rely on.
“Ending” slavery, suffrage, the New Deal, income tax, * gay rights… They were all steps to the left.
I’m not arguing that the democratic party as it stands is the vehicle to institute a just and fair society. But I did watch the Tea Party subvert and consume the republicans. It can be done to the democratic party as well. It has to be in tandem with regular wins, like how the conservatives did it.
*I can’t believe I left out Roe v Wade
“Ending” slavery
Slavery only increased under neoliberal policy. Where does our lithium come from? Modern slaves and child slaves. Our cocoa? In part, child slaves. Where do most of our goods come from? Sweat shops and exploited third-world countries. Our prison labor, which has absolutely exploded under neoliberal policy, is also by definition slave labor. Before Trump, over 40% of our agricultural labor force were undocumented immigrants - modern slaves.
I’m sure if you looked hard enough, you’d see how much suffering and exploitation went into every single item around you.
suffrage, the New Deal, income tax
Ancient history, and none of these things represent the left. Maybe if you warp the left to mean anything that MAGA doesn’t currently support in the present day.
Left = socialism. It means that in political theory and in other first-world countries.
gay rights
Again, you could be the biggest capitalist and be in support of gay rights. You could be even a bigger fascist and authoritarian than Trump, including being a Christian, and be in support of gay rights. See Peter Thiel.
But I did watch the Tea Party subvert and consume the republicans. It can be done to the democratic party as well.
Will this come in time to address the fresh water crisis? Will it come in time to address the climate crisis? How many trans people will die by suicide because it’s “too radical” to support them even a little bit? How many people will die because of preventable disease? How many people will forego higher education? How many people will be laid off and rendered homeless until we establish UBI? I could go on and on and on.
It has to be in tandem with regular wins, like how the conservatives did it.
Progressives have been playing ball way more than you suggest. Enough. It’s become a game of dodgeball where progressives can’t throw, only take hits from the Democrats and everybody else. Shifting to the right is not an effective strategy for Democrats, not even a little bit. 1/3 of the country doesn’t vote, why the fuck is nobody looking at that group?
You’re going to sit there and say you wouldn’t have voted for fucking Lincoln because he did “really” end slavery?
I’d like to believe that I would be arguing for the abolition of all social, race, and class-based hierarchies, among other things, but this isn’t then and I wasn’t born in that time period.
Suppose I were born at that time, had access to a very good education, and possessed roughly the same spirit as I do now; I’d likely be politically active and influencing people like Lincoln as best I could.
Nobody is entitled to another’s vote though, and I’ll just leave it at that.
Well I would definitely 100% be supporting moderate pussy Lincoln because the Confederacy fucking sucks and I don’t want their supporter to win.
Sorry to hear you were on the fence about it.
There were historically people calling Lincoln’s abolitionist ideas not radical enough, so bite me.
You’d likely unquestionably vote for a self-proclaimed Zionist committing a genocide, and that was your point in reality - to shame me for having principles in general and in particular in regards to how I vote. You are free to push the Democratic party to the left or away from supporting genocide at any point instead of attacking me - I don’t vote for genocide and my vote must be earned through representation.
It’s basic democracy, the Democrats don’t automatically earn or own my vote because they play at being socially liberal when it suits them.
I could imagine you arguing to Lincoln that he actually should be less radical, that he should compromise on his principle of seeing slavery as being wrong. Just allow a little slavery Lincoln… c’mon man.
“Let’s meet in the middle and only oppress people 50%”
If every time you give in to their demands and they take a step further to the right and ask for more with the intention of surviving to fight to protect what you value another day, you will eventually lose what you value and have nothing left to defend.
Which is why the whole narrative that we either compromise or continue to do the same all-or-nothing approach is a false dichotomy spread by our enemies.
You don’t capitulate, you don’t conceded, you redirect.
We need to leverage this into a class-war, we are SO close to it, every time we get close to large-scale movements against capital, the right throws some hissy fit about bathrooms or drag queens and we all get distracted trying to uselessly butt-heads instead of pushing our whole country towards the objectively key solution of attacking money.
The conservative chuds who give Trump and his ilk so much power and political capital are dumber than boards, they can be captured, they can be used, they can be pushed towards goals mindlessly if you give them the right WWE spectacle story to follow. The things that don’t work on them are the lectures, the speeches, the appeals to empathy and other ideas they just can’t connect with if they don’t have clear-cut villains and heroes and a storyline that they think impacts them personally.
The rich elites are just SITTING there, safe in the fact that every time the nation’s liberals start to feel uncomfortable, they can pull some levers and suddenly everyone is focused on Epstein and “lol president bad” narratives. This is why we’re not getting anywhere, we’re falling for the tactics. We’re getting pulled into the endless debates that don’t go anywhere. If we could even make them twitch, if we could get them to falter and pause and worry that they’ve stretched us too thin for a moment, we can capitalize on that, we can install our own local leaders, our own judges, our own county and city board members. It’s slow, painful and takes focus on a goal I just don’t see the left in this country rising to sadly.
