Disturbnce Ensues After Anti-TG Rights Bus Arrives In Chile

[Carolyn Marie]

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/clashes-after-bus-against-transgender-rights-arrives-chile-n781526

 

Carolyn Marie

[VickySGV]

There has been one of those buses here in the U.S. too, but except for one "tagging" incident which some sources attribute to the "bus riders" they have been studiously ignored, and police cars have hurried them through some towns from end to end.

 

[tracy_j]

Quote

Really such ideas are counterproductive no matter what view you take unless totally anarchist

 

 

[Guest Edu]

So they are still going at it?

This (sadly) began in Spain earlier this year (about February IIRC). The "ultra-catholic" organization Hazte Oír began riding their bus, with its original hate message, in Madrid (Spain's capital). Madrid's local law forbids advertising in road vehicles, other than public transportation vehicles, throughout the city, so the bus was automatically halted and fined early on. In addition, it had to be forcefully removed from Plaza Cibeles after having been parked in a no-parking spot and having been warned by local authorities. Pretty much local cops doing their daily job dealing with road infractions. Although from Hazte Oír's perspective it was some kind of complot or conspiration by some "gender ideologists" (not my words, really, just translating some of their statements as accurately as I can) to prevent them from exercising their "free speech right". In the meanwhile, Madrid local and regional authorities, plus some trans* and LGTB organizations, pushed charges against Hazte Oír for hate speech and similar crimes. Once the investigation was formalized, the bus was forbidden to circulate, as a preventive measure, as it is due procedure. Again, we had some conspiranoic statements from Hazte Oír; and they just rented a new bus, painted a tweaked version of the hate message on it, and started all over (technically, it is another bus and a different text, so it was unaffected by the prohibition).

Despite all this, their work in Madrid was pretty much done: a substantial portion of citizens and many media had already made explicit their reject towards what was already being called "El autobús del odio" in most media (literally "The Hate Bus"). When they decided to take it to other cities (including Barcelona and Valencia) it was rejected in advance by most public authorities, clearly stating that "such hate message wouldn't be welcome in those cities" and similar official statements. With the "surprise effect" from Madrid quite gone, the bus was met with protests in each of these cities. Some of these protests sadly became violent; and conservative media made sure to exaggerate each isolated incident as "huge attacks against free speech", while they also made sure to not mention others, such as the bus invading a pedestrian pass and trampling over a protester in Pamplona (no major injuries fortunately).

In the aftermath, the Hate Bus' campaign in Spain ended with only the support from far right radicals that already supported those views, and having raised a lot of awareness about trans* issues (especially about the reality of transgender children), just before trans* awareness day. So, with that result, Hazte Oír resorted to their international brand CitizenGo and took their hatred campaign abroad, first in the USA (probably hoping that "Trump-land" would be more welcoming to their hate speech and to use that as leverage in Spain afterwards), and later touring several Latin-American countries. But you are probably aware of that part of the story already.

Hugs,
Edu

[Briana]

Interesting story.  These far right groups just "amaze" me...but in a bad kind of way.  They get SO riled up over things that don't fit into their ideologies.  There's always a lot of buzz about hate/terrorist groups like the Taliban and ISIS but are these other groups that far off??  Throw in some covered faces, AKs, and IEDs and they're all pretty similar - they hate and hate some more and do evil crazy things...and think it's the right thing to do.

Off topic I found the story right after that regarding Jameka Evans being forced from her job at a hospital for being a lesbian interesting.  We're so compassionate and accepting in health care here, ain't we...?