I’ve been working on a couple posts about this general topic for a while now, and I’m hoping I’ll have them done soon. This is one of those topics where my own ignorance on the subject makes me wary of mistakes. It’s also one of those problems where the longer I take to finish a post, the more stuff I have to add in. The fascist effort to erase trans people from U.S. society is moving at a horrifying speed, and they are quite openly using stochastic terrorism as a weapon. Jessie’s work is always worth looking at, but I think this particular breakdown of how the right wing is creating and aiming outrage is important. They are trying to get people killed. They are trying to create a climate of terror, with the goal of either killing all trans people, or forcing them into hiding. This is not a drill, and while I think it is related to the 2022 midterms, I do not think it will go away without a very deliberate mass movement to crush this genocidal campaign.
I haven’t watched the video (I really have trouble with videos), but this isn’t news to me, perhaps because I”m trans myself and have been watching it get worse and worse, particularly since Trump was elected. There’s a post on this very blog collective — https://freethoughtblogs.com/atg/2016/06/29/what-trans-people-mean-when-we-say-misgendering-is-violence/ — that describes the progression. Unless they are stopped, I expect to see anti-trans, anti-gay, etc. pogroms and ultimately concentration camps.
I am trying to figure out at what point I should flee the USA, but I don’t know which countries are safe from this madness. The UK is, of course, even worse — AFAIK, pretty much everyone in a position of power in the UK (or at least England) is openly anti-trans. I was thinking of Canada, but I see folks in Canada claiming that it’s not much better there, it just doesn’t make the network news as much. I am seriously considering transferring what assets I have to banks in some safe country, since I expect that they would be confiscated at some point.
This is so remeniscent of the Nazi rise to power in Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s. People mostly remember that Jews were demonized, but LGBT people were also, and my understanding was that they took measures against them first — e.g., the burning of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft in 1933 and murders of transsexuals around the same time. Just like in the USA, they were lumped in with homosexuals and pretty much anyone with an “un-German” lifestyle.
FWIW, a lot of the groups doing this stuff are also antisemitic and white supremacist as well.
I wish I had some reason to think that you’re wrong.
@Allison – I’m remembering a tweet I saw a few days ago – someone said they’ll never forgive the US education system for teaching us that the Nazis burned books, but not teaching us WHICH books they burned, and why.
Looking back, it really does feel like there was a deliberate effort to obscure who and what the Nazis were, and what motivated them. Hell, it’s happening as we speak, with Jordan Peterson making up all kinds of random bullshit to explain the Holocaust. If memory serves I’ve heard him blame “revenge against God for the crime of being”, a nation getting “caught up in a dream”, and something about Cain from the bible, though that might have been the whole “revenge against God” thing.
Anything to avoid talking about what actually happened.
@ 1 Allison
I’m in the Republic of Ireland and I’d say we’re about as safe a haven as you’re likely to find these days. Under the Gender Recognition Act of 2015 lots of us (i.e., binary transpeople 16 and over) gained legal recognition. Kids under 16 and NB people of all ages are still waiting their turn.
Discrimination against LGBT people is prohibited by law. This is not to say it’s an LGBT paradise here. Recently I heard of a serious assault against a gay lad. So it still happens from time to time. I myself until recently was living in a tiny little town where people knew me, and apart from a bit of harassment from the usual suspects (young/youngish males) I had no trouble. It was a laid-back town and people were happy to leave me in peace to live my life. My experience is much in line with what you’d hear from other transpeople around the country.
There’s no vibe here of an extremist right-wing movement breathing fire against us. In fact things seem to be going in the opposite direction. In the next elections in two/three years time, there’s a realistic chance that we could end up with a left-wing government for the first time in Irish history. That is to say, politically I think our position is about as secure as it could be.
How easy would a transgender refugee find it to gain asylum here? Frankly I have no idea. I suspect we’re going to start getting British refugees here. But outside the British Isles, it’s a different story altogether. You might try contacting TENI, our national transgender organization, to see if they have any ideas.
https://teni.ie/
It may be that the easiest way to get out would be a student visa and student loan.