This post is part of a blogging protest arranged by Julia Serano, in response to not only Republican transphobia but – horribly – Democrat enablement and caving to the bullies. More details at the link, but the short version is that 1. a trans woman has just been elected as the first transgender member of Congress, 2. a Republican Congresswoman who apparently isn’t interested in spending her time doing the actual job she was elected to do has instead devoted herself to posting unbelievable numbers of transphobic tweets and trying to bar this woman from the women’s bathrooms, and 3. most of the Democrats just seem to be… nodding their heads and OK-ing this?

(Sorry; this stuff is so freaking depressing I can’t even face looking up the names of the people concerned right now. I just want to get this post up before the deadline.)

Anyway, Serano’s suggestion is that today – Tuesday, 3^rd December – as many people as possible use their blogs, podcasts, or what have you to put up a post with the above title speaking out against transphobia and homophobia. (Yes, that’s why a bunch of posts with the same title are showing up on the FTB menu right now.) Trans people, cis people, gay people, straight people. Anyone who finds this bigotry disgusting.

I’m going to have to keep this brief – even with time zones on my side, I’ve not got much time to get this up for the deadline – so please excuse the fact that this really isn’t going to be one of my most clearly written posts. I’m writing this because I have this shouldn’t-really-be-radical idea that people deserve respect and dignity and fair treatment regardless of sexuality or gender identity, and it seems that’s not going to happen without people being willing to speak out.

For my views on the whole transphobia-fuelled bathroom controversy, I refer you to the post I wrote on the topic back when Rowling came out as full-on transphobe. (I might add that in this case it’s reached a whole new level of egregiousness; the Republicans here aren’t even falling back on the hypothetical ‘but what if an abuser pretended to be a woman to get into the women’s toilets?’ but are attacking a specific person just for trying to use the bathroom while transgender and are doing so within a month of having voted a known sex abuser who has invaded women’s bathrooms for abuse purposes in as President. I mean, it really could not be more obvious that this is really all about ‘let’s point and sneer at the trans person’.

Anyway… this whole blogging action is meant to be directed at Democrat politicians who think it’s OK to back away from supporting a very vulnerable group who are facing horrendous attacks on their rights (not to mention, in many cases, physical attacks on themselves) Or, worse, not just to back away but to agree with the bigots. And I’m actually drawing a blank on what to say, because I feel that anyone who doesn’t already realise that this is a fundamentally shitty thing to do is probably not going to be convinced by anything I could say on the matter.

So, instead, I’m going to make a practical point: This isn’t even a good political strategy. The people who voted against you because of transphobia did so as part of an entire package of Libs Are Evil, and aren’t going to change their mind because you say a few transphobic things yourself. The ones who voted against you because of the economy don’t care. Politically speaking, transphobia just isn’t that much of a winner. Throwing trans people under the bus isn’t even going to get you that many voters in exchange for your souls.

I’ll leave Pastor Niemoller with the last word.