In the face of ‘eradication’, one trans activist is preparing to fight – and she’s sick of silence and neglect from her supposed allies. Raquel Willis tells Io Dodds why Republican bathroom bans are everybody’s problem
Democrats have forgotten their history. They like to say that trans rights are a “distraction.” They forget that not only were trans people some of the first victims of the Holocaust, but that liberal papers like the NYTimes similarly dismissed Nazi antisemitism as a “distraction” as well. They predicted that, just like Trump and trans people, Hitler was just using Jews as a scapegoat to get elected. They thought that despite widespread antisemitism in Germany, it was just a campaign distraction. They thought there simply weren’t enough Jews in Germany to make real oppression something worthwhile for the Nazis to pursue.
In pre-Nazi Germany, Jews represented about 1% of the population. That is the same portion of the population that trans people represent in the US today.
Itt: liberals still fever-dreaming that Democrats (as a corporate party, not the voters) are on the side of marginalized communities.
We largely couldn’t in the first place, but thanks for the heads up. There was a hope, sure. But little trust due to little action.
It’s a matter of degree. I felt a heck of a lot more protected than I had previously. Action? Not as much as there should have been but hardly zero.
hardly zero.
Yeah, like I said: little. It felt like they were content to do enough to get credit and then kick the can down the road until they were forced to do more. Now we enter an era that will likely strip back what progress has been made. In four years we’ll be pushed back forty.
They are political creatures. I wouldn’t say they were “content to do enough to get credit” so much as lacking the courage to do more. But I’m also not going to blame them for doing what they think is most likely to keep them elected even if I vehemently disagree with that.
A shocking percentage of the US population is transphobic and the answer is not to expect politicians to put votes on the line to “do the right thing” (LOL) but to work to ensure they don’t have to because that transphobia goes away.
You only get action when you’re living in a blue city, under a blue state, with a blue President.
If anyone on the stack is Republican, your civil rights dissolve in the face of bureaucracy and legalese.
Republican courts, Republican governors, Republican sheriff’s department, Republican school board… anything is enough for Dems to defer and compromise on your liberty.
They won’t even stand up for their own elected Congressional coworkers to use the fucking restroom.
With Trump in office, you’re going to see Dems retreat from any kind of LGBTQ rights on a sweeping scale. Just wholesale capitulation, as they blame their electoral defeat on being insufficiently servile to bigots.
If anyone on the stack is Republican, your civil rights dissolve in the face of bureaucracy and legalese.
This is so easily disproven and it’s not the way our political system works. If it were, a single Republican in congress would kill a bill.
Republican courts, Republican governors, Republican sheriff’s department, Republican school board… anything is enough for Dems to defer and compromise on your liberty.
No, it’s not and frankly that level of hyperbole isn’t constructive.
With Trump in office, you’re going to see Dems retreat from any kind of LGBTQ rights on a sweeping scale.
What do you mean “retreat from”? If you mean being vocal on that stance I’ll bet you a cookie you are wrong. What kind of cookie is your favorite? If you mean being actually able to effect any positive change, you are only right up until the midterm elections next year.
Democrats were pretty cool about protecting trans people. But thanks to non-voters and $hill Stein voters (along with tens of millions of “low information” Trumpledorks), Trump has all three branches of government at his disposal.
Considering Democrats are now complaining that their protection of trans people cost them the election, I wouldn’t say they were all that cool to begin with. They use trans people as a political tool and then toss them aside the second it becomes inconvenient for them to support trans rights. Just look at how the Democrats have “defended” their newest trans colleague.
Specific people in the Democratic Party have made those complaints. The party has not. Your comment is no different than stereotyping a group for the actions of individuals.
Has the party as a whole done anything to say otherwise? Silence is a different kind of choice.
Just hours after Willis’s interview with The Independent, House and Senate negotiators revealed a bipartisan compromise spending bill that would ban military health insurance from covering transition care for children. On Wednesday, 50 House Democrats who previously denounced that provision voted in favor, and key Senate Democrats said they would reluctantly back it too.
What did they get in return?
It’s politics, they got something, what was it?
It doesn’t say? Huh. I wonder why.
The problem with democrats is that they always hold progressive action overhead like a carrot. “Vote for us, we’ll establish trans rights/universal healthcare/codify roe v wade!”.
Then they don’t do it because they want to use it as a fundraising and election platform next go around. If they just did things when they had power people would be more willing to vote for them.
And yes, I know that there are Republicans and independents blocking progressive action. But that doesn’t excuse the DNC from doing what I described above as well as constantly shitting on popular progressive candidates.
Not really, like their supposed protection of black people their protection of trans people is contingent on how the minority behaves.
That’s not support, that’s blackmail.
Username checks out
Not really, like their supposed protection of black people their protection of trans people is contingent on how the minority behaves.
“Behaves”?? You mean votes? Yeah it is contingent on how people vote. See gestures to everything
No, behaves. Liberal darling Tim walz called the national guard on the Floyd protests long before any semblance of violence happened.
If any minority protests a Democrat, they go back to their kkk roots faster than you can say southern strategy.
Voters: Not enough votes for Democrats, letting the people who want to convert trans people and make hormone therapy illegal and God knows what else come to power
Republicans: Hey now that we’re in power, we’re going to convert trans people and make hormone therapy illegal and God knows what else
Voters: You guys really fucked this one up, I can’t trust you
