Is Your State This Bad?

[Ashley0616]

Old article but sad that there are people with this kind of logic!

 

Mississippi Republican calls for execution of transgender people... by firing squad - LGBTQ Nation

[awkward-yet-sweet]

I have mixed feelings about this one.  Personally, I think that firing squad is a better and cheaper method for capital punishment.  Calling it "barbaric" is hyperbole....if the government was gonna try to kill me, I'd actually prefer that method.  And what Foster said about conservatives "not conserving anything" seems pretty accurate to me, along with his observation that some things will need to be dealt with "directly."  

 

HOWEVER.... Foster himself seems to be pretty wacky.  We don't have state leaders here acting like that, mostly.  Suggesting capital punishment for things nowhere near the severity of offenses commonly considered capital crimes?  Irresponsible at best, and a stupid idea for anybody who wants to get elected.  Even those who believe stuff like that are usually smart enough not to SAY IT in front of large audiences or cameras. 

 

Where I live, what happens at the state capital tends to stay there.  The farther away from that viper pit you live, the less affected you are.  I'd personally like to have the capital (city, not building) placed under quarantine.  No matter what form it takes or who it oppresses, love of government power is like a virus.  When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.  Deo Vindice

[KatieSC]

Death by firing squad. Seems like they want to continue their pursuit of reliving the early 1930s of Germany. We may think they are crazy, but these nuts are really wound up serious about eradicating us. I put nothing past these folks. They figured out how to strike a nerve, and they are running with it. I just wonder what group comes after us since we are estimated to make up between 1-2% of the population.

[Ashley0616]

Funny how he says to protect his kids but this happens how frequently? When it does happen punish the individual not the whole group of us. If his kids get hit by a drunk driver he's probably going to try and make Mississippi completely dry. 

[awkward-yet-sweet]

4 minutes ago, KatieSC said:

 I just wonder what group comes after us since we are estimated to make up between 1-2% of the population.

 

Yeah, I wonder about it.  From what I've read, trans folks are less than 1% of the population.  A minority of a minority.  I wonder how such a small group can irritate so many.  While I hesitate to make comparisons to the 1930s, the Jewish minority in Germany was of similar proportion to the rest of the population.  And the NSDAP didn't get a majority of the votes, either, and probably a majority of the population never bought into the ideology.  People were shocked after WW2 at the thought that so many people simply did nothing, and didn't realize that government power used against one group would get redirected at so many others until nobody is safe.  People in the 21st century don't seem to remember that lesson, in spite of having so many textbooks and films and the testimonies of survivors. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, Ashley0616 said:

If his kids get hit by a drunk driver he's probably going to try and make Mississippi completely dry. 

 

That was tried about 100 years ago.  Didn't work... but some Southern states still have "dry counties."  Much of my state was dry until a few years ago... I guess its why we still have so many folks who know how to make moonshine. 

[Ashley0616]

Hey we are above 1%. 

 

What percentage of the US population is transgender? (usafacts.org)

[awkward-yet-sweet]

8 minutes ago, Ashley0616 said:

Hey we are above 1%. 

 

What percentage of the US population is transgender? (usafacts.org)

 

Just a side thought looking at the graph... typically there's always more men than women.  Kind of looks to me like those who identify as trans might be more AMAB... 

[KatieSC]

This link is to an article that came from the Smithsonian. It chronicles the targeting of transgender people in the early 1930s in Germany.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-research-reveals-how-the-unhealthy politics-targeted-transgender-people-180982931/

 

Targeting us with execution...History repeats?

[awkward-yet-sweet]

1 hour ago, KatieSC said:

Targeting us with execution...History repeats?

 

If so, note some of the precursors.  Even in the relatively liberal Weimar Republic, transgender folks has to be registered and permitted.  Meaning, there was a list.  That was the first step in a lot of what happened.  Everybody the NSDAP didn't like got put on a list, starting around 1934.  "Papers, please!" 

 

Now compare to the USA.  We've got lists and lists and more lists.  Both major political parties have cried for more lists and more IDs for decades.  They've got detailed information beyond the wildest fantasies of the Gestapo, and the system keeps growing.  Just one example is every annual signing of a National Defense Authorization Act (intelligence aspects of it used to spy on US citizens.)  Everybody who votes for it is complicit, which is usually around 75% of those in Congress from both parties.  And that's just one tool used against the population. 

[Ashley0616]

1 hour ago, KatieSC said:

This link is to an article that came from the Smithsonian. It chronicles the targeting of transgender people in the early 1930s in Germany.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/new-research-reveals-how-the-unhealthy politics-targeted-transgender-people-180982931/

 

Targeting us with execution...History repeats?

Wow! I had no idea that happened!

[Susan R]

10 hours ago, awkward-yet-sweet said:

Foster himself seems to be pretty wacky.

Robert Foster is just another failed politician spewing misinformation about our community. He’s so much more than wacky.

 

His idiotic tweets,  “Some of y’all still want to try and find political compromise with those that want to groom our school aged children and pretend men are women, etc,” along with his follow-up statement, “The law should be changed so that anyone trying to sexually groom children and/or advocating to put men pretending to be women in locker rooms and bathrooms with young women should receive the death penalty by firing squad.” will have at minimum some influence on the pliable minds of the American public. His constituents are foolish putting a single dime into any of his campaigns with such outrageous assertions. I doubt he really cares and his party is gladly using him as the tool he is.

[Heather Shay]

My state is getting there. Ohio now is crushing trans youth now trying to cut off adult trans as well. I am so scared.

[Ashley0616]

5 minutes ago, Heather Shay said:

My state is getting there. Ohio now is crushing trans youth now trying to cut off adult trans as well. I am so scared.

Trans youth has been cut a while now. I don't know if they will go after adults though unless you know who wins the election. 

[Charlize]

NJ is seemingly going in a different direction.  The GOP is trying to ride its horse of the fear and hate of trans folks but it isn't working for the most part.   That being said in this election year some trump flags are appearing as the wacko's come out.  It is certainly disturbing.  I was at at a showing of a film about me in South Jersey yesterday.  Some in that area unfortunately believe they believe in the south so it felt good to be in a theater speaking to many who support our existence.

One huge guy hugged me saying i need not worry in a manner that produced even more good feeling.

 

Hugs,

 

Charlize

[Astrid]

2 hours ago, Ashley0616 said:

Trans youth has been cut a while now. I don't know if they will go after adults though unless you know who wins the election. 

At some point in the future, the House, Senate, and Presidency will be under the control of conservatives (either Republican, or a future party that replaces Republicans).  At that point, even if we have "moved on" from today's Trumpian chaos, I expect there to be efforts by the furthest-right whack jobs to pass a nationwide ban -- via a law passed by Congress and signed by the President -- to make it illegal to be transgender at any stage of life. This will enable them to enforce new federal law(s), even in places such as my relatively liberal state of Massachusetts.  

 

At a minimum, they want us back in the closet, afraid of expressing who we are in person or in words.  We've committed the "crime" of making them feel uncomfortable, and enough voters do not object to the current onslaught of laws being passed by state legislatures that this could well, in the future, move upward to the federal level as well.

 

Of course, such legislation designed to ensure that "the beatings will continue until morale improves" are doomed to failure.  Such laws will never eradicate transgender and other gender non-conforming people.  We've always existed and, even under repressive governments, we will be among the population, even if times are difficult.

 

So, courage.  And vote against those (and encourage others to do so), at every level, who spread disinformation and think of ever-bolder ways to erase us.

 

Astrid

[KathyLauren]

Things where I live are pretty good for us.  So far. 

 

I worry, though.  The current eradication campaign in parts of the US is not just the work of a "bunch of wackos".  It is an organized campaign by several special-interest groups with enough money to corrupt any politician.  The campaign has already started here.

 

We transgender people are the test case, as we were in 1933.  They will not stop when they have eliminated us from public life.  Every minority will be at risk, except the special-interest groups themselves, unless decent people, whom I hope are still in the majority, speak up. 

 

When I read what I just wrote, it sounds like paranoid ravings.  But I am reminded of the old saying: "Just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you."

[KatieSC]

I am lost as to how the lives of all of these conservative people will be so much better if we are all eliminated. That leap of logic just eludes me.

 

Yet, the current avalanche of state legislation continues. None of the state legislatures even slowed down when all of the medical groups came out in support of transgender individuals. If they will not listen to these associations, who will they listen to? These conservatives take every obtuse item they can from the Bible. Do we live in a country where all law will be based on the Bible? It makes me wonder what happened to E pluribus unum.

 

While we can hope that there will be some folks who will have common sense and end this mess, I worry about how fast the average person will normalize life regardless of what is done to us. Once the anti-trans legislation goes through, I do not see the courts reversing it. As for the states that currently support us, and are trying to establish safe sanctuaries for us, if the anti-trans and LGBTQ legislation goes national, they will be in violation of Federal law. 

 

I am worried without a doubt. They have already figured out how to target our identities. Even our medical records may not be as safe as we think they are. We are unable to change our social security number when we change our legal name and gender marker. Finding us through the social security records would take about 48 hours or less depending on the programmer, and the speed of the computers to search and sort the records.

 

We need to be the best people we can be. It is the only thing that can slow this up, and possibly reverse it. Some news outlets (I won't mention the name) go out of their way to publish anything that is anti-trans. The other media outlets will talk about television stars or other media stars who are trans, but they never seem to control the narrative of all of the good that is done by the trans population. 

 

Some things to worry about.

[Ashley0616]

This is going to definitely be a scary world.