Religion.
this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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I'm a southerner. Take what I'm about to tell you as close to the grain of the problem as possible, because it is.
Here's the thing. 9 times out of 10, a Southern man is going to meet a lone trans or gay person, have a pleasant experience talking to them and go about their day, they even make friends with the person, spend years talking to them, send gifts, become family members, etc.
But you know what?
Behind closed doors, it's "fuck those trannies", "not in my schools", etc. My mom does it, her sister does it, my dad did it. It's hypocrisy at an extreme level while also ignoring it at an extreme level.
"Well I have gay friends... I'm not homowhatzit"
THEY'RE TEACHING WHAT!?
"Double Standard" might as well be the tagline for the entire South. They'll protect their religion and the expectations put on them by their parents and social norms on a general level across the board, while still shaking hands and eating cake with their lgbtq+ buddies.
Just remember any southerner is one thought from God away from stabbing you in the back at all times, because no matter how close you get to them, even as a family member, that book and the expectations behind it means more, was beat into them more, every day since they were born until you met them.
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Sorted by controversial, wish me luck boys!
He ded
I can only recall one instance of a trans person going postal. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Nashville_school_shooting
Even trans people aren't beating the "nearly all mass shooters are men" statistic.
He must have been bullied terribly.
The interesting thing about the furor over trans people existing is that 90% of any harm, real or imagined, stems from mistreatment of people. Conservatives treat trans people badly (supposedly) due to mental issues that are caused by the way conservatives treat trans people.
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They have to have somebody to hate so they don't hate themselves so much.
As someone who grew up in a conservative household in a deep red state, I think that part of it is that a lot of people are letting Lizard Brain dictate their response to transgender people.
Let me give you a personal example. A while back, I went to a social dance, and there was a trans woman there. Before the dance starts proper, the couple that runs it will teach a dance lesson, and we rotate partners while that's going on. Eventually, I was rotated into being her partner. For some background, she was obviously early on in her transition; she still looked like a dude in a dress, she didn't quite have the appearance down yet. But she gets huge props for not only having the bravery to go out as herself, but doing it in fucking Arkansas.
So I rotate over to her, and it dawns on me that she's trans. In my head, Lizard Brain immediately starts screaming. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! THIS PERSON IS OBVIOUSLY A DUDE IN A DRESS, HE MUST BE UP TO SOMETHING IF HE'S DRESSING AS SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN WHAT HE IS! RABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLE"
Keep in mind, where I grew up, you just didn't see trans people, and even now, it still tickles that primal part of my brain that was trained to be uncomfortable around people who aren't white and straight.
The difference between me and many of the people I grew up around is that I recognize that it's happening and try to tone Lizard Brain out when it starts screaming. A lot of other people listen to it and don't care that the person that it's screaming about is exactly that: a person.
This is so real. It takes a LOT of effort and time to train this out. If someone isn't willing to go through that then it makes sense that it would fester.
I had lots of times when i was younger learning about queer culture when i got mad at things. Especially after an overly polite and patient person took the time and effort to explain something to me. Unlearning hate is painful. Learning to liberate yourself is painful.
I think a lot of people feel that pain and decide to run from it and double down on the hate because that way they don't need to learn and change or pry open their mind to an alternative.
Then there's the whole fear of conflicting with your own community as a factor.
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A brave, vulnerably nuanced answer. Suspicious... what are you planning?
Excellently said!
The only thing I have an issue with, and it's a small issue at that, is:
Keep in mind, where I grew up, you just didn't see trans people,
You most assuredly did see them. You just didn't realize it because they were forced to hide who they really were.
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From what I have seen, it seems trans and gay people are used as a "bar." Since these people aren't inclined to be gay or trans they believe themselves to be above the bar they have set. Racism works the same way.
They tried to put their religion into politics and it backfired; now their religion is just random politics with a few supernatural beliefs that do not effect their day to day actions.
I don't think it's most people. I (choose to) believe that's a loud minority.
Most of the culture wars bullshit is originating from a tiny but disproportionately noisy number of people.
But then, because their claims are so outrageous, the media picks up onbit and runs with it, without bothering to be proportional to the number of people causing the problem in the format place.
It's a failure of empathy. People hate and/or fear what they don't understand.
They can't empathize with someone not feeling right in their own skin like that, so all their rationalizations for things like "why would they want to use that bathroom" end up stemming from what they have left, which is unsavory intent, making them threatening.
Because stirring up hate against vulnerable minorities, by positioning them as a threat is a well tested and effective technique for the power hungry to gain and retain power. And it's effective, because it works by pulling people in and making all of the conversation about whether or not it's right to hate on the group they're targeting.
The more I read these comments it sound like the USA is entering its Hitler phase.
https://www.faena.com/aleph/umberto-eco-a-practical-list-for-identifying-fascists
In an essay published in the New York Review of Books, Umberto Eco distilled the 14 typical elements of “Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism,” while warning that, “These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”
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The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
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The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
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The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.” Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
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Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.” Appeal to social frustration. “[…] one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.
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The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
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The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
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Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
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Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
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Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
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Machismo and Weaponry. “This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”
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Selective Populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
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Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
They very much are...
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Conservatives use fear to manipulate their constituents as their primary means to rally support. A minority scapegoat many of their supporters don't know in person, like trans people, are easily demonized by politicians and clergy to pretend trans folks are pedophiles and sex assaulters projecting their own party and priest crimes, it's the same thing they try to do with fear mongering homosexuals as a previous scapegoat to distract and deflect from their awful policy privileging the wealth class and harming poor and middle class people, they need someone to blame for their own awful behavior and choices.
Hating gays isn’t cool anymore and will get backlash even from conservatives.
Trans people are the new gays in this sense
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Because there are only 2 possibilities:
- Trans people are real and the Bible is a book filled to the brim with bullshit
or
- Trans people are not real but merely EVIL men and women possessed by Satan because god created Adam and Eve, not they and them
They are in fact mutually exclusive. So what do you think the moron cult members will choose, the option that requires deprogramming... or the option that aligns with their stupid bullshit cult beliefs?
Because fascists need a ~scary other~ to scapegoat to erode everyone’s rights.
They're conservative. The whole name is based on the principle that they want to maintain the old way rather than progress. I think it stems from fear of a changing world. The old world with the old rules provided safety, it was understandable, the rules were clear, and the rules didn't hurt them. Now some people are "attacking" their world, their rules, everything that offers them safety and understanding. So they feel attacked.
It's the same thing, but with another subject every time. Whether it is women getting rights, which threatens their safe world with clear gender roles. Or gay people, who threaten the simple rules like "boys love girls", "in order to be successful, get a job, marry, and get kids". Or non-white people getting rights. What if they vote for things that "we" don't want? What if "they" ruin the world that "we" got so used to.
Trans and especially non-binary people are just the next group in line that threatens their simple world. When men are people born as men and women are people born as women, it's way easier to force people into the traditional roles. The old rules still work, "boy marries girl, gets kids". And when they speak out about their "concerns* they are (rightfully) called out for it. So they become defensive and start doing whatever they're doing now.
I don't think it's quite that simple. I'm a dad to a FtM trans teenager and I was born in the early 80s. There's a lot of "inertia" to the worldview presented as "normal" in education, media, and society at large just in my lifetime.
I think the first time I learned that homosexuality was a thing was from Ellen. I know now that everyone isn't hetero but every relationship I saw around me, in books, in movies for my the most formative years of my life defined it as "normal" in my brain.
All I knew outside of "gender norms" was Bugs Bunny in drag, Bosom Buddies, Some Like it Hot, Rocky Horror. It was "not normal", a joke.
I come from a liberal family with a liberal upbringing. I've considered myself an LGBT ally for a long time, but I still have a lot of implicit biases in my head.
When my child came out as trans, those implicit biases were the first things into my head. I love my son for who he is, want him to be happy, and fully support him. When he decided to dress fem for the first time after hatching my implicit biases were confused. But it doesn't matter what those biases say because I consciously support what makes him happy.
My parents were born in the 50s. They are both unabashed feminists but they had another 30 years of that "inertia" to overcome when my son hatched. They still occasionally forget the right pronouns. His one remaining great grandmother has almost 20 years more inertia to overcome and still uses the wrong name occasionally.
I guess what I'm saying is that I agree with you to an extent. These things threaten their "inertia" and it's hard to question yourself like that. It's easier to dig your heels in and fight back.
Because of tropes like https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreepyCrossdresser from movies like Silence of the Lambs, Dressed to Kill, and Psycho. It puts the idea of men dressing like women as a means of tricking women to attack them into the collective unconscious.
Because Trump spent $19 million on transphobic ads during football games in battleground states. Because they need a Boogeyman to rile up their base.
It doesn't have to make sense. You might as well be asking how can the KKK hate people of color or how can Nazis hate Jewish people.
It seems like it's always projection with these fascists.
They are the ones whose "party" is full of violent sexual predators. They will never bring up the monsters (including their "president") on their own "team".