When a Republican says something genocidal, I don’t think it affects leftists the same way it affects the specific group they’ve decided to genocide today. We’re simply too familiar with what’s been going on, and we’ve been targeted so many times that it just seems normal now (please imagine that James Franco meme here). There’s been a lot of mainstream media reaction to a fascist douchebag who announced at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) during the first weekend in March that:
There “can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It is all or nothing.” He said that for “the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology.”
Michael Knowles, Fascist Douchebag
I guess I’m glad people noticed, but it’s the same thing that has been going on for 7 years now — overt fascism. It’s true that the group that is first in line to be genocided cycles through a list that includes Mexicans (racist shorthand for anyone from south of the US border), anarchists, Muslims, communists, trans people, trans women specifically, all LGBTQ people, Jewish people, antifa, all antifascists, Black people, Satanists, liberals, Democrats, Ukranians, woke people… I sincerely apologize if I missed your group.
Today’s group that is first in line to be genocided is trans women.
Why trans women? The brutal marginalization of trans people (with an emphasis on women) in American society (including murder, homelessness, and loss of employment) has been ongoing for quite some time. It was easy for fascist propagandists to make significant progress with their anti-trans narratives because trans people were already so marginalized. Fascists don’t really care who they genocide first as long as there’s someone to genocide soon. You may have heard that a Mexican cartel kidnapped four Americans recently and killed two of them, so it is entirely possible that the focus will now shift back to Mexicans. Wait… no… America has already lost interest in that story.
I’m being a bit flippant about the current situation for trans people, but only because I am exhausted from trying to convince liberals about what is real and watching them constantly reacting in the most ineffective way possible to the ongoing hell-circus of far-right America (such as: trying to negotiate with the fascists, or trying to make the fascists feel shame). An effective insult against a fascist doesn’t change anything; making a fascist recant a genocidal statement makes no difference — the other fascists already heard it. I’ve found myself in some LGBTQ spaces online, and the fear and sorrow from trans people has been truly heartbreaking, particularly when it comes from young trans people who have just found the courage to go down that road, and then this happens.
Now, of course, the fascist douchebag claims his call for eradication was not genocidal. Trans people can just choose to comply with conservative culture, after all, right? I suppose that is technically true, but imagine if someone speaking to the Democratic National Committee was met with applause when they said:
“There can be no middle way in dealing with Christianity. It is all or nothing. For the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, Christianity must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology.”
Nobody said this.
Nobody’s saying that, because it’s only the Republicans that are genocidal. Let’s try another one:
“There can be no middle way in dealing with heterosexuality. It is all or nothing. For the good of society, and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, heterosexuality must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology.”
Nobody said this.
Again, no one is saying that, but you can see how this sentence is clearly genocidal, and again, we can all imagine how Republicans would respond if someone made a speech to Democrats that included this sentence and they all applauded. Has there ever been a radical feminist who said something like this? Probably (Mary Daly, I’m looking at you), but almost no one took her seriously — certainly not a major political party.
Democrats do sometimes call for objects to be excluded from society — like guns or gasoline vehicles or natural gas stoves — but they never call for people to be excluded from society. Democrats are not leftists, but guess what — the only people the left wants excluded from society is people who are genocidal because the left understands the Paradox of Tolerance: If you tolerate intolerance, intolerance will eventually win.
Right-wing genocidal narratives are successful when there is at least one major weak point in our existing culture that allows them to cram a wedge between a marginalized group and the rest of society. This wedge itself is always at least partially fabricated, but is usually based on something real. With Trump’s initial first-in-line group, “Mexicans”, the wedge was that white people are afraid of people with pigmentation and can easily be driven to terror by describing something true in just the right way. Never mind that immigrants from across our southern border are more law-abiding on average than the average American; never mind that when crime happens to someone, it is almost always someone of their same nationality and ethnicity. The real part is that people are coming across the border illegally, and although those people are much less violent than the average American, the number of times someone came across that border and later did something violent is greater than zero.
There are definitely some wedges that are available regarding trans women, and fascists have put them to effective use:
- Our society, and Democrats in particular, does not respect motherhood or mothers… this is despite the uniquely essential function that mothers provide and the centrality that motherhood occupies in the self-worth of many women. For a woman who wants to be a mother (i.e., do the job of a mother), offering to pay for her childcare expenses while she goes to work for some capitalist is a cutting insult for her and it is dehumanizing for the child.
Related: The Politics of Sydney Carter’s Clothes - Rape in American society is so common as to be normal. Many American women live in constant fear of men and deeply value woman-only spaces including (but not limited to) women’s bathrooms. Many parents live in constant fear that their children will become victims of pedophiles. Never mind that this problem is dramatically worse in conservative spaces — conservatives necessarily base their worldview on the world that they can see. (I’m pretty sure that conservatives don’t realize that there is effectively no pedophile problem for liberals and their children.)
- Our society continues to be extremely conservative when it comes to sex and gender norms, a circumstance we inherited from the far-right “pilgrims” who were a significant part of early immigration to the US from Europe.
Leftists (and especially Marxists) tend to get a bit bogged down in “materialism” which is basically thinking of things in terms of economics and especially control of manufacturing machinery. Things like survival, comfort, respect, and meaning are really what matters to a human being. Things like “money” and “ownership” are mere abstractions that get us the things we really want; they aren’t real even though capitalists are always working to tie real things to capitalism. Fascists understand that from the perspective of their potential followers, money and economics aren’t as interesting as saying, “They don’t respect you,” or, “Everything that matters will be destroyed,” or, “Your life will become uncomfortable,” or, “You’re going to die.”
One manifestation of these 3 anti-trans wedges is the “tradwife” — i.e., a woman who would like to live as a traditional wife and mother. They don’t feel respected (because they aren’t), they fear strange men (because they should), they value woman-only spaces (which is a reasonable conclusion to reach), and they are comforted by traditional sex and gender (just like most people). They’ve been told quite repeatedly that trans women are basically the antithesis of everything that they want — a threat to traditional womanhood. They’ve been enthralled by a notion that is also quite popular in radical feminism — that of “gender essentialism”.
Gender essentialism, which has long been discredited by psychologists, is a lay theory that posits that men and women are fundamentally different due to their biology. This theory suggests that there are essential, unchangeable qualities that make males and females who they are.
What is gender essentialism?
Gender essentialism has at least four broad drawbacks (in no particular order):
First, it limits individual freedom. If the only thing you’re allowed to be is something directly related to the form of your body, then that eliminates other possibilities. Moreover, the traditional concept of gender is extremely specific, limiting individual freedom far beyond what might be implied by the configuration of your body. We now live in a world where many aspects of the forms of our bodies can be altered, but gender essentialism also demands that we do not alter our bodies except in ways that strengthen these very specific gender ideas; again, this limits individual freedom. If you think you’re a libertarian, but you hate trans people, you might be a fascist.
Second, it is untrue in many ways; for example: Sex isn’t as black and white as gender essentialists pretend, and gender itself is a social construct, not a direct result of sex. Despite what gender essentialism says, women are not more emotional than men, the color pink is not inherently feminine, men can be beautiful, not all cis women have a uterus or even a vagina, not all cis women menstruate, not all cis women will create new humans in their bodies, not all cis women will act as mothers to children. (And, yeah, I understand you may not want to be called “cis”, but we’re only being forced to use that term because conservatives are trying to eradicate all trans people.)
Third, gender essentialism promotes narcissism because it puts value on what a person is above what it is that they do. For example, with gender essentialism, a woman is often valued for being a woman, and not necessarily for doing important things that the female gender might do in society. Similarly, a man is valued for being a man, and not necessarily for doing anything important (although male narcissists will constantly suggest that they might at any moment do an important man thing, like defending a woman from violence, without ever doing it). When someone who is a woman but doesn’t really contribute anything to the world discovers that a person who used to be identified as a man can “just” become a woman, this creates a narcissistic crisis for the useless woman — suddenly her woman identity isn’t as valuable and since she doesn’t have a real value, she’s going to have a psychological crisis over it.
Fourth, apparently, it inspires people to murder trans people.
If you are trans or a trans ally, here are things you can do:
- Organize with people you know to come up with strategies for opposing fascism.
- Arm yourself, and train in the use of the weapons you own. Make sure you are following all applicable laws.
- Expand your notion of community beyond people like yourself to other people who are potential targets of fascism. We are losing because we are divided, we are divided because we are selfish.
- Develop a plan for how you can survive if things get worse for you, personally. (For example, what if you lose your job? What if your home is no longer physically safe? What if your city, county, or state is no longer a safe place for you to be?) …and then include other people in your plan.
- Develop a plan for maximizing your own happiness. Purposefully find things to look forward to. Enjoy being yourself, and find safe places where you can do that around other people. Replace at least some of your time online with in-person interactions.