this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
332 points (100.0% liked)
LGBTQ+
6167 readers
11 users here now
All forms of queer news and culture. Nonsectarian and non-exclusionary.
See also this community's sister subs Feminism, Neurodivergence, Disability, and POC
Beehaw currently maintains an LGBTQ+ resource wiki, which is up to date as of July 10, 2023.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Hostility may be driving the transphobic to the polls and driving away the indifferent. You’re never going to convince the transphobic to vote for politicians who support trans rights. But you can convince people who regularly don’t vote to help you at the polls. But a lot of the people who don’t regularly vote that I know in real life, don’t vote because they hate the hostility and perceived pointlessness of politics. If you’re hostile then you’re not going to get their support. Convincing them that they can really help all the good people who are trans will bring them to the polls. getting them onboard would help a lot in elections.
So 1 to 3% of the US population somehow has been hostile to a full quarter (25%) of the population?
Please explain to me how this is physically possible for the people in the extreme minority to have produced enough hostility to a much larger (like nearly 10 times as large) population? Because fully a quarter of the US voting population seems to be getting out to vote about trans issues, but I'm pretty sure they're driven by fucking religious fascism not trans people being hostile.
I just don't see how its conceivably even possible. Unless every single trans person sits downtown with a bullhorn ranting angrily while also ranting angrily in every forum they exist on.
No, it's usually fucking shitheels coming to trans spaces to shit all over them. But the hostility from the trans people is the problem!
Give me a break.
If you are driven to the polls because you dislike someone for existing a way that upsets or confuses you, even though they do not hurt you or anyone else, you're the one who is fucking valueless and needs to be stripped from fucking society. If someone being hostile is all it takes to turn you into an extremely shitty person, then the reality is you were already a shitty person looking for an excuse for it to begin with.
I get that you’re angry and certainly have a right to be angry. You have let your anger blind you to reason though. You comment reads like you didn’t actually read mine at all. Or if you did, then your anger wouldn’t allow you to at least understand what the main point was.
But tldr: the bigots are lost. The people who aren’t strongly aligned can be convinced to vote, but hostility towards people who aren’t being hostile towards trans rights is driving them away even if it isn’t directed at them. It’s not your job to win them over, but it would be effective at the polls.
To clarify your opinion for myself: the most common reason cited by moderates for opposing the 1960s civil rights campaign was “I agree racism is bad, but why can’t black people be civil and polite when asking for equality?” Do you agree or disagree with that opinion?
The thing is that these people aren't being honest when they say things like that. They're lying, but they're often lying to themselves as much as to others. They always have some objection or another to opposing bigotry. Because the reason they're giving is just a post hoc justification for opposing progress.
Think back to the George Floyd protests. People said the exact same thing, that they oppose racism, but they can't abide riots (even though the overwhelming majority of the protests were not violent). Then later, an NFL player kneeled during the anthems, literally the tamest, most inoffensive protest I can imagine. And people lost their minds.
It doesn't matter how disruptive or civil the protest is, it will never be inoffensive enough, they will always oppose it. And if you somehow do find a form of "protest" so inoffensive that they accept it? Then they'll ignore you.
Are you saying the Martin Luther King and his strategy was bad for the civil rights movement???
Seriously though. These kinds of trap questions are pointless and counterproductive.
MLK Jr has pretty famously discussed the issues with respectability politics wrt white moderate. He also shifted his beliefs towards socialism and realizing the necessity of violence to the success of the civil rights movement before being assassinated so… even MLK didn’t think his original strategy was going to succeed.
Nearly all of the accomplishments of the civil rights movement occurred during MLK’s non violent strategy. The switch to a more violent philosophy was not successful.
But more importantly, we’re not talking about violence. If trend supporters can force change through violence, then maybe it’s a successful strategy. But at the moment, the only strategy we have is legislative. And turning off the undecided instead of bringing them on board to vote with you is foolish and counterproductive.