20 Feb 2023 - by: Darkwraith Covenant

The cruelty of modern day conservatives knows no bounds, especially when it comes to the oppression and hatred of increasingly small, vulnerable minority groups. The most recent group being targeted for nothing more than the fact of their existence is the transgender community. US conservatives in the Biden-era have trained their ordnance on the trans community with laser guided precision, using the ammunition of bathroom bills and bans on gender affirming care. As social mores evolve and trans people become more visible in society, so does the opportunistic outrage-bait-click machine’s backlash.

While I acknowledge that nuance is a prerequisite in any conversation about political ideologies, I believe history can be divided crudely along 2 lines:

• Those who organized around the idea of being kind, compassionate and gracious to fellow human beings and

• Those who refuse and actively work against those efforts.

In relation to our modern day understanding of politics, conservatives typically fall into the latter category, even if cleaving ideological motivations along this line will inevitably result in jagged edges.

Ironically, there is an entire religion based around the concept of unconditional love and empathy, and conservatives became that religion’s most ardent zealots, twisting the words of its namesake prophet towards cruel, draconian ends. Nearly every conservative, traditionalist, or reactionary group the world over – throughout history – predictably shares this latter quality to varying degrees of spitefulness. We’ve observed centuries of one group refusing to extend the same common courtesy they expect from others towards those they deem the “other.”

The Cruelty is the point

USAmerica is quickly becoming less white, more ethnically diverse and less bound by traditional gender roles. This is a reality that the Republican Party understands may one day be its undoing, yet continues to double down on fascist tendencies to cater to its most rabid, far right fringes.

Transphobes often couch anti-trans their bigotry in concerned language about “mutilating children” and “irreversible damage,” despite the body of evidence that concludes gender affirming care has positive mental health outcomes for trans youth and that puberty blockers are a valuable, reversible treatment for youths experiencing gender dysphoria.

These shocking proclamations are meant to appeal to a basic human desire to protect and defend children, another vulnerable group the right has in practice shown very little actual concern for. The positive impact of gender affirming medical care is well established, and all major medical organizations have come out strongly opposed to legislation banning this type of care. Despite this, a number of bills are currently being rammed through statehouses throughout the United States, mostly in red states that limit or outright ban transgender care for either youth or all ages.

Medical detransitioning is often weakly cited as a justification for these attitudes, suspiciously without mention of why people detransition, without regard for how many people do, and how many report satisfaction with their gender affirming treatments. Transphobes have demonstrated that they are more disgustingly concerned with a person’s genitals than with their mental and physical well being. This cruelty under the guise of concern for wellness is a common refrain among reactionaries through the ages (i.e. “immigrants will take our jobs, blacks are taking our women, jews are taking our money, gays will give us AIDS and taking our children away, etc”).

These are nauseous bigots who are either straight up lying or have been lied to by charlatan hacks like Matt Walsh and Jordan Peterson, both of whom have become increasingly genocidal in their anti-trans rhetoric on Elon Musk’s $44 billion dollar therapy replacement, Twitter. These grifters have made quite a lucrative living lying to people and scaring them into believing that glass from broken estradiol vials is metaphorically falling from the sky, coming for your children’s anatomy.

Liberals aren’t immune to transphobic tendencies

Recently, the New York Times published an editorial defending arguably the world’s most infamous liberal transphobe JK Rowling, mere days after a young trans girl was murdered in an apparent hate crime in the UK. To add insult to mortal injury, they published that irresponsible piece seemingly in response to a letter written by former contributors who had the audacity to ask the NYT to fix their reporting around trans people and consider the potential harm they are causing. Rather than take the pleas in the missive to heart and pledging to do better, an easily cleared bar in 2023, they chose instead to suggest that “no, actually it’s the people who are angry at the person who doesn’t believe this group should have basic rights who are the real incivil ones.”

Using the paragogic virtue of “civility” as a cudgel is a classic tactic employed by centrist liberal fence sitters who are more interested in maintaining the status quo than justice. This creates a false equivalence between people who simply are asking vociferously to be allowed fundamental rights and those who would do everything to deny them of those rights, claiming both of these groups are indistinguishable on observation. If only we all just got along and had a conversation, as the adage goes, maybe the genocide doers would politely cease trying to eradicate the minority group. In some ways, these people are more insidious than the outright bigots.

The world is noticeably more queer, and it seems many haven’t noticed yet

GenZ and their successors in Generation Alpha are growing up in a world less tolerant of intolerance, which should at least give us some hope for the future. There is a growing chorus of people speaking out against transphobia, even as trans rights are legislated away by entrenched forces. The more I go on tour and play shows for people of these younger generations, the more it becomes undeniably clear that the future is a lot more queer and trans than that of my microgeneration, the X/Millenial crossover of the late 70s and early 80s.

Gender and sexuality is much less rigid than it was even 10 years ago, especially in subcultures like goth, punk, and indie. Perhaps rather than a slap upside the head, maybe all these people need is to see that the kids are alright. And the kids are going to fight you to their last breath on this issue, and we will carry them into this firefight one battle worn pink, blue and white flag at a time. I’m sorry that your generation wasn’t allowed to express itself to this degree – mine certainly wasn’t – and all you’ve ever known is the business end of repression. But if history itself is any indication, history won’t be kind to you and you will one day lose this war. Because fascists, without fail, to invoke the great Woody Guthrie, are always bound to lose.

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