I once worked in an animal surgery, and one night a 150 lb dog hooked a claw under an experimentally exposed carotid artery and exsanguinated itself. I walked into the room in the morning to find a lake of blood turning dark brown, full of fibrous clots, and the poor dog dead in the middle of it. I don’t know why I suddenly thought of that. Maybe it has something to do with the choice of colors in this map.
That’s the current state of anti-trans legislation in the US, a spreading pool of hate oozing up the middle of the country. Florida has already gone necrotic.
They also have maps of the legislative status in 2022 and 2023 where you can see the reds darkening over time as the evil spreads — you can also see that Minnesota has been getting bluer, at least. There’s a sickness in this country that is getting worse.
It’s horrifying. I don’t want to scaremonger, but I ask myself when in my lifetime I’ve seen such unhinged hostility toward a minority – and I think the closest I can remember is Muslims immediately after “9/11”.
But in this case there was no catastrophe. Just a sudden demonization of a tiny harmless minority who have always been there. :-/
What the fuck is wrong with people?
The reason that map was assembled, btw, was so that trans people would know where are the safe places to flee.
If you’ve ever asked yourself whether you would have resisted anti-semitism preceding the Holocaust; the answer can be found in whether you are resisting transphobia today.
@Silentbob #1:
They’re people, that’s what’s wrong with them. You could predict this about pretty much any social issue. It always gets worse before it gets better, and then after a decade or so people have either forgotten how bad it was or are ashamed at how they once thought about a subject and don’t want to express it. Then the next issue comes along and it all starts all over again.
I think Florida has gangrene.
This is so heartbreaking. There are refugees fleeing from one state to another.
The next civil war will be over trans rights. We already know who’s on the good side. ‘But trans hate was normal those days’ won’t be an excuse this time.
I see the Republican kooks in charge of Alaska and Wyoming are mercifully lazy. Legalised cannabis?
Skepticrat 200 just arrived.
“Mickey Mouse kicks DeSantis in the balls”.
I think the brownshirt brown of the map is well chosen.
There’s a sickness in this country that is getting worse.
And, like all right-wing domestic terrorism, no one is willing to do anything about it. The conservatives/Republicans won’t because THEY ARE the right wing domestic terrorists in question. The Democrats won’t because they’re sniveling coward who think being a sniveling cowards is somehow noble.
Once again, a lot of these anti-Trans laws are likely to be unconstitutional and thrown out by the courts. It’s already happening in Alabama.
Laws prohibiting accepted medical care for Trans people have been blocked by a Federal judge.
Targeting a minority like the Trans people violates the 14th amendment principles of due process and equality under the law.
In some cases, these laws also violate the First amendment guarantees on freedom of speech.
“Don’t say gay.” Oh really, why? I’ll say gay if I want to. In fact, the very title of the law is self contradictory. It has the word gay in it.
Speaking of necrotic Florida.
I read the WaPo review on Desanti’s first book. Basically, Desantis says slavery happened, get over it, no need to dwell on (study) it. A comment and response below with a link if you’re interested.
“Slavery,” he writes, “had been a fact of life throughout human history.”
It’s a variation on the false argument that “people didn’t know it was wrong back then.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/05/21/ron-desantis-book-founding-fathers/
Justice Department Challenges Tennessee Law that Bans Critical, Medically Necessary Care for Transgender Youth
The Federal Department of Justice is challenging all the anti-Trans children health care laws.
Based on the 14th amendment, equality under the law.
Trans people are the new Jews.
We cannot fix stupid, there are other ways.
Buy up land, offer it as a bantustan state for the dangerous id…the patriots.
They “know” government claims about stuff is false so there are plenty of high-arsenic water table regions we can hand over.
Also I am told there are a lot of abandoned towns in Russia. Sarah Palin can see Russia from her state, she can work as a guide.
@ birgerjohansson : “I think Florida has gangrene.”
It’ll drop off – or vanish into the sea due to Global Overheating soon..
Of course DeathSantis denies the reality of Climate science as well as denying the value of reasonable covid pandemic heath measures, the rights of Trans and other Queer people, womens’s rights and so much nmore
I don’t quite know why all of the sudden, the haters of the fundie xians/GOP are targeting Trans people as their main hate target.
I’m guessing it is because they have run out of other groups, temporarily at least, and Trans do not currently have legal protections under our laws.
They’ve been there before. Hate is one of their main organizing principles, used by tribes to build internal cohesion by providing in groups and out groups.
It’s been Catholics, Irish, Germans, Blacks, Asians, women, hippies, Yankees, etc. and the last groups were the Muslims, immigrants, and gays. None of these groups have completely dropped off their to hate lists but they’ve dropped off their current attention lists.
Today, the main group to hate and persecute are Trans people.
Will it work?
I don’t know, I can’t predict the future. It might not though because at the end of the day, why should I fear and worry about Trans people anyway?
As an example, consider gay marriage, which was the last big culture war of the christofascists, one that they lost.
They lost because if two same sex people get married, it doesn’t matter much to anyone else.
Are there gay people living on my road and are they married? Sure, it is a long road although I have no idea who they are or care. It’s none of my business and doesn’t affect me in the least.
The same argument holds for Trans people.
Are there Trans people living on my road. Sure, it is a long road, although I have no idea who they are or care.
If people are Trans, it doesn’t affect me at all, it’s none of my business, and I don’t care.
Are there Pagans living on my road? Looks in a mirror.
Well, maybe we won’t go there.
raven @16:
It’s because trans people are a tiny minority without political power and the fact that trans people often (not always) use hormone therapy and surgery to alter themselves gives fighting trans people a “think of the children” component to the attacks that they can’t do against any other minority. It’s much easier to get people who are nominally indifferent to buy into the “OMG THEY’RE PRESSURING 14 YEAR OLDS TO CUT THEIR PENISES OFF!!1!” baloney.
If Florida was an independent country, the Florida government’s behavior over the last few years would have led to the State Department declaring it a terrorist state and issuing a travel ban.
That map is a good thing. Next year’s BRAC list. Each and every one of those states depends upon military installation contributions to their economies and out of concern for the welfare of our service members, we need to shutter those installations.
Florida getting a triple whammy of BRAC closing down around 1/3 of the state’s employment and Disney finishing the rest off.
microraptor @18— The NAACP has issued a travel advisory in Florida. The State Dept should add Florida to their map.
Aside from the horrors they are visiting on groups like trans people, what’s really scary about that map is it means the wealthy oligarchs who control American politics, particularly conservatives/Republicans, are essentially in the position to call a Constitutional convention. I would expect the result of that to be encoding all the bigotry they have used for decades to rile up the ignorant masses, plus the most important thing for them: get government oversight and taxes out of their way so they can get back to the business of raping the world.
The only good news in this area is that Republicans are sensing a backlash over their push to ban abortion.
i understand and relate to the wish for optimism believing that the federal courts can be trusted to do the right thing, but that’s pale comfort to people who have to live in these states or try to find some way to flee from them, even if temporarily. let’s not rest on a belief in a just world because of law. law is fragile and only as powerful as those who are tasked with enforcing it care to make it.
i also understand the comparisons to the Holocaust, but let’s not put trans people in the place of jewish people. both were principal targets for extermination, and the modern right that pushes this anti-trans stuff is no less antisemitic. transphobia and antisemitism are coequal in the very old conspiracy theory that the american right operates under and all people who aren’t american enough in their eyes are valid targets.
I joke, but it is to avoid depression.
Here is a link to professional skeptics & comedians, telling the tale of -among other things- the Florida eejit (the one still in public office) getting in legal trouble. I call it “harnessing schadenfreude”.
https://youtu.be/hz_3dtL-SS8
@ Halcyon Dayz #13
“Trans people are the new Jews.”
Please, please, don’t say stuff like this. True, trans people in the US are taking a pounding right now. And if we avoided that pounding in the past, it’s only because we were in hiding. But it’s not as if Jews have sailed unscathed through history or as if they’re even doing so at present. Lots of people in this world have their sorrows to recount.
And if the right wing takes over the US, every last damn minority will be melted together in the same crucible. We’re seeing viciousness on a serious scale now. There will be plenty of suffering to go round.
If we just threw Texas and Mississippi out of the union then republicans would never control congress or elect a president again. And we’d have third world shitholes right on the border that we could drone strike and wall off to our hearts’ content. Its doable!
I am surprised Ohio is not worse than it is, but I guess that is because they have only introduced hate bills and have yet to pass all of them.
As for needing a minority to beat up. If one is not readily available, folks on the right can always fabricate one: e.g. Qanon.
I made a suggestion that the government should put a travel advisory on the likes of Florida and Texas due to severely lax gun laws, persecution of gays and trans, criminalizing abortions regardless of the moms’ condition and other atrocious stuff happening over there. Looks like a travel advisory is needed in both states now.
Travel ban my ass. If Florida t were a “terrorist state” (which it is) every major city would be piles of smoking rubble as they should be.
Oh wait… Florida doesn’t have any oil. What about Texas, they got oil. Can we invade Texas?
The fact that all we can do in the face of fascism is issue travel advisories tells me that our system of government is WOEFULLY ill-prepared to deal with domestic tyranny.
I suppose it’s not “fascism” when it’s democratically elected, eh?
Before checking the captions, I thought the “red” states were the ones with lax anti bestiality laws.
If you are in Canada, please sign this petition before May 26:
https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4268
I am pleasantly surprised that the Morridor does not make an imprint beyond Utah.
And Pennsylvania looks nearly liberal.
rietpluim @5: The next civil war will be over both trans rights and reproductive care. I haven’t checked, but I am guessing the map of extreme abortion limits and bans is very similar.
It amazes me that some people think an identity is political. Or that healthcare for pregnant people is political. I’m trying to think of outliers but I’m pretty sure politics is only about protecting the citizenry and managing shared resources. Being a bigot or following a hateful religion isn’t political. I think that’s the real stand that needs to be made at some point. This sort of hateful woo needs to be driven out of politics. Until the point is made and reinforced that this nonsense doesn’t even belong in the discussion we’re still going to see significant segments of the country fall for it.
As far as hoping the courts will sort out all the unconstitutional laws, that’s not really something to be confident about. We’ve already seen the court system make ridiculous rulings that are divorced from reality and there are more to come (mifepristone and who knows what will be next). We know at the top, the US Supreme Court is corrupt. We know Republicans have made concerted efforts to put incompetent shitlords on the bench who will prioritize their brand of woo and nonsense over provable reality. And we know what happens when you have that sort of setup. 80 years ago we had internment camps for Japanese Americans. 20 years ago Bush revived the idea of unlawful confinement in Guantanamo and every Republican legislature since has made damn sure we can’t get rid of it.
The courts aren’t going to protect trans people, not consistently. They won’t even protect the reproductive healthcare of half the population. Republicans are happy with this, even if they don’t win everywhere, because where they do win we either go along with their bullshit or delegitimize the courts which would let them and the rich people who back them do whatever they want. The only way to defeat this stuff is to keep driving home the point and make more people understand: if your healthcare can be compromised or you can be driven from public life with justifications this flimsy then everyone is vulnerable. When the government is deciding who has cooties we’re all screwed.
Ha!
Even Rick Scott and that other guy -Marco Rubio?- are getting fed up with DeSantis. They are hardly men of flexible intellects or liberal values so this is a signal he has gone too far.
https://youtu.be/oqV21GsWocg
rabbitbrush @ 20, Owosso Harpist @ 27, I initially thought that the warning was from State, then I remembered that State only issues such for foreign nations, not domestic terrorist states.
Akira MacKenzie @ 29, State only issues travel advisories and warnings, US citizens have a Constitutional right to free travel.
That said, we are woefully unequipped to deal with domestic fascism. To properly equip our nation, we’d have to repeal the first amendment, just to start with. Does that seem a wise course?
@11
I read that as necrocratic. Seems to fit.
gijoel @ 37
Teratocracy. Rule by monsters.
@anat #33 Good point.
People in 1860 new slavery was wrong. People in 1789 knew slavery was wrong. Louis X of France knew slavery was wrong in 1315. The Code of Hammurabi, over 3700 years ago, endorses slavery, but in doing so it acknowledges that some free people back then knew slavery was wrong:
They wouldn’t have needed to make a law against harboring escaped slaves if people weren’t doing it.
And of course, slaves have known slavery was wrong since the beginning.
Just read the news that South Carolina is criminalizing abortion again from six weeks. Allegedly because from that moment the heartbeat can be heard. They just can’t do without lying, can they?
Today in the Netherlands, the national parliament is debating decriminalizing abortion. Though legal in practice, officially abortion is still covered by criminal law. A citizen initiative and some political parties want to change that.
And now a school in Florida has banned ‘The Hill We Climb’. Fascism is on the rise.
This isn’t new. I realize the colored maps before this weren’t as deeply red, but as a transgender woman I really won’t go to any of those states 3 years ago, nothing has changed, it is just in the open now.
There will be no civil war. First of all no one, not even trans allies, give enough of a fuck to go to war over them. Slavery caused a civil war because that form of economics was not only immoral but holding the country back because capitalism is much more preferable and profitable. That’s why the capitalist north pushed hard for end of slavery. Trans people don’t have that. Hell pro trans allies don’t even fucking vote let alone go to war lol.
LOL@ the people who think Florida is a terrorist state. Hyperbolic much? Florida sucks but are no way near that.
@29
Why do you sound like you are upset that the authoritarian totalitarianism is not proposed by people you approve of? Do you think we should demolish democracy? This kind of dumb shit annoys me because we Floridians democrats lost the Hispanic voters to republicans strictly because of bullshit like this. A lot of us now believe democrats are authoritarian commies. Flipping the Miami-Dade county red, and securing Ron Desantis. Thanks for being part of the problem asshole. I’m sure you are a great trans ally with all that ultra left wing totalitarian posturing.