this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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Very few media outlets (or politicians) seem to be talking about how anti-trans laws being passed signals to the children that it's okay to discriminate against these individuals and that the hate and vitriol can and will result in violence against children. This news is incredibly tragic, but it is not in the least surprising. This is a war on trans folks, plain and simple.
More than that, it signals to these children, that state-sanctioned violence gets a free pass. And when the media all but ignores it, it signals to everyone else that it is tacitly, at least, condoned by everyone else.
And that’s precisely what they want. They want everyone to think that these innocent little children deserved to be murdered by their peers simply for being who they are. It is vile, it is disgusting, and everyone who fails to speak up at the top of their lungs is complicit in their murder.
We no longer live in a society of innocent bystanders. You can either take an active role in stopping this, or you are, at best, playing a passive role in enabling it. Fight back or die.
Here in the UK, when I was at school, we had a law called Section 28, which prohibited teachers saying that queer relationships were equal to straight ones. It used much worse language, calling straight relationships "natural" and queer ones "pretended". Absolutely awful stuff.
The result of it was that queer kids had to hide, there were no role models or adults that could allow them to relate to being normal, no place to feel safe, especially if their home life was not safe. It allowed bullying to be rampant, and gave queer kids no quarter to retreat to.
The effects of this are still felt to this day, even though the law was revoked in the early 2000s. Straight adults who were at school during this time didn't notice. The queer ones absolutely did and it caused deep hurt. Seeing the same things happening in the states but worse pains me greatly.
What's even worse IMO is that it seems to be worsening. A lot of countries were pretty backwards in the past but we've come a long way through emancipation. But now things seem to be reversing.
It feels like LGBTQ+ rights are worse off now than they were 20 years ago. Not just in the US. One of my friends in the Netherlands was suddenly foaming at the mouth about his children being 'indoctrinated'. Asking more about this, it turned out they had received a standard and pretty mild educational programme aimed at understanding of non-CIS relationships. Nothing actually 'indoctrinating' and the other BS he was spewing (like that 8-year-olds are physically transitioning which is just complete nonsense, it's a strict 18-yo minimum with an exception of puberty blockers only where absolutely needed) was just made up too. He seems to be totally mindfucked by extreme-right propaganda (who won 24% in the last elections here, sadly). I tried to show him the facts but he's been so screwed up by extreme-right tiktok propaganda that there was no point. Soon after this he began foaming about 'woke'. I had to block him and he was a friend for 20 years.
We can't change the past, sad as it is, but the outlook for the future doesn't look good. I dont really know what to do about this, I've tried confronting him with facts but there was just no effect. And continuing to engage with him hurts me so I'm kinda done with that.
And don't forget the Netherlands was traditionally quite LGBTQ+ friendly (at least since the 60s/70s, before that it was just as bad as the rest really)
Unfortunately the only way to reach people like this is to listen to them and expose them to another viewpoint but without challenging their beliefs. It's a skill that can be learned, but also it requires a lot of emotional bandwidth and it is absolutely emotional labor. You have every right to be done with him and no obligation to help him out, but if you do want to learn more about how exactly you can persuade someone out of being brainwashed I'd recommend the following three books (in that order) for some perspective and thoughts on the matter: