i can’t even guess as to why they went quiet. not one guess at all. we will never know.
edit: well they’re not quiet now once they get called out
Im visibly queer myself and gender nonconforming. Catering to 1% of the population and turning it into a wedge issue (trans people in prison getting taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgery - a ridiculous concept that affects maybe 100 people in a country of 330 million, thanks ACLU for the gotcha) is a great way to get trump re-elected because 1% of the blue no matter who voters get their panties in a twist if people won’t play their pronoun police games. Cis people wearing pronoun placards and putting their pronouns in their email signature is about as helpful to the queer cause as painting a fucking rainbow in the street. Do nothing feel good -ism.
Pronouns and males in women’s sports are dumb wedge issues to lose an election over, just to cater to the precious feelings of 1% of the population. And now ALL of us queers are under threat.
You know what helps queer people? Focusing on the insane cost of living crisis. and that’s a winning platform that doesn’t just focus on an insignificant cultural decadence issue but rather affects most of the population. But instead biden/Harris gaslit the public about inflation and now they’re blaming everybody but themselves for the loss.
Pronouns and males in women’s sports are dumb wedge issues to lose an election over, just to cater to the precious feelings of 1% of the population. And now ALL of us queers are under threat.
The moment the democrats take a step back on this, the republicans will take two steps forward. If we don’t fight them here they will keep coming. Give an inch and they’ll take a mile.
I agree that this shouldn’t be front and center to the campaign. It wasn’t. All they did was (somewhat) stand their ground when the republicans attacked them on it. Ceding ground would be selling out members of their own base to appease a small percentage of people who are so obsessed with us that they’ll vote to hurt us regardless of anything else on the ballot, and those people are going to vote republican regardless. The number of trans people may be small, but if we get sold out it tells every other minority that the democrats will sell them out too whenever it becomes politically convenient.
Yes, economic issues should be what democrats focus on, and yes that’s something that benefits queer people along with everyone else, but ceding ground to appease bigots is a terrible strategy.
The democrats allowed the ACLU to get a gotcha this election cycle over trans prisoners getting taxpayer funded sex reassignment surgeries. How many trans people are in prison, let alone going through with an invasive surgery while in prison? 10? 100? 1000? More than that? Unlikely. In a country of 330 million. Harris should of just deflected the answer instead of giving a sound bite and soothing the precious feelings of the out to brunch ACLU whom long ago gave up on their mission of protecting free speech. (I used to donate to them, around the election of trump or even before they started taking anti free speech positions that were socially progressive but against the concept of free speech)
I don’t disagree with you - we should fight for trans rights always because when they start chipping away at human rights they aren’t gonna stop with just trans people.
But making niche social issues a campaign focus is a losing strategy and playing by the Republican playbook. I actually wonder if the ACLU gotcha was a Republican operation or a really dumb progressive not thinking things through.
“Cis people wearing pronoun placards and putting their pronouns in their email signature” is helpful to me due to the number of (cisgender) people named Alex, Jordan, Morgan, Casey, Taylor, Avery Parker or Cameron lol.
Overall I agree with the gist of what you are saying, it’s just really fucked that you are lumping an incredible spread of wedge issues under “too hung up on getting their pronouns right.” You literally could have just said “wedge issues and messaging failures surrounding trans folk” instead of “pronouns” and I would never have commented.
Being kind!
I use pronouns as an example because it’s 1% of the population and well meaning cis liberals love to virtue signal over it and beat everyone else over the head with it in a smug sense of superiority. In reality, it doesn’t matter at all and shouldn’t even be part of a political platform. It’s bad strategy and stupid, catering to the special feelings of a tiny group of people over the realistic needs of the larger group.
When it comes to people with gender neutral names, if you’re not sure just ask. Or guess, and if you guessed wrong, apologize. Only the power tripping type are gonna get hung up on it. People misgender me all the time. I don’t care. It’s not out of malice.
