FWIS3

https://twitter.com/erininthemorn/statu ... 5719399431

Greg Abbot has officially directed Family and Protective Services to begin investigating all trans children in Texas and prosecuting their parents as child abusers.

He has also instructed all teachers, doctors, and caregivers to begin reporting any trans students they see.

I am feeling numb with horror right now.

Also, a note: trans kids do not receive hormones or surgery. Some trans teenagers get treated with hormone blockers, the effects of which are fully reversible. Do not come for me about permanent damage to our children's bodies etc. - and believe me, I would have had a much happier life if the permanent damage of male puberty hadn't been allowed to happen to me.

"The cruelty is the point."

@Rommie

Yes. Exactly.

It's also not lost on me that this came out of the precedent set by Texas' earlier abortion ban - it's the same deal, rewarding and protecting vigilantism by conservative busybodies rather than an outright legal ban. A totalitarianism of volunteer bounty hunters rather than secret police. Disgustingly American, isn't it?

Good Grief...

There's some legal blockage of it now... for now, but thank gods:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ender-teen

And it gets even worse: https://twitter.com/erininthemorn/statu ... 9190910976

Ken Paxton (Texas) is suing Biden to prevent disruption of his cruel targeting of families of trans kids as child abusers.

From the letter it's clear he wants so much more... bathroom bans, workplace harassment, and gendered dress codes.

This cruel policy is just the beginning.

Been quiet on this a while, not because it's quieting down, but because so many states are now enacting oppressive anti-trans and anti-abortion legislation. Often one after the other.

So many people are going to die. I am so fucking tired. Please, y'all, find the time and energy to call your reps about this stuff, or to just do... anything, IDK what. Phone bank for Democratic candidates, donate to Planned Parenthood (they provide trans care as well as abortions) , literally anything IDGAF. The future looks so fucking bleak right now, and I'm so tired.

And now Florida issues DOH guidelines to forcibly detransition all trans kids/teenagers, both medically and socially. So basically the state e.g. telling trans boys, "You have to dress girly and grow your hair out and keep pretending to be a girl."

https://mobile.twitter.com/ErinInTheMor ... _m1IwqAAAA

This is so fucking bleak. So many kids are going to die. They won't even be able to lean on the mental healthcare system, if they go to a psych ward they'll be required to "be cis", have their parents notified regardless of the impact on their wellbeing etc.

Is anyone on this forum hearing me? Or am I just screaming into the void here?

We do, there's just unfortunately nothing to add that you aren't already saying.

Also, I feel anyone who says "and socially" has never really hung out with kids. Tons of little kids do things about the other gender that are not trans because it's a natural part of self-expression and experimenting (though I think society accepts a girl insisting her name is John and wears a Batman costume more than a boy who wants to be called Alice and wants to wear a tutu sometimes). What are we gonna do, go after them all? It's also really common for parents of girls to give masculine names to their daughters as they're thought to be strong (Taylor, Regan, Charlie short for Charlotte...), will they be penalized now for that?

Definitely the work of a guy who wants to be president someday...

Sorry, Rommie. I'm in a pretty shit headspace about this stuff. And FYI they're starting to target adults now too... There's a bill in one state (forget which one) to ban transition for everyone under 25. And with moderate Democrats constantly making noises about pivoting the party to the right to "appeal to fence-sitters", or how they're losing votes because "woke bullshit" is detracting from the core issues...

Tons of little kids do things about the other gender that are not trans because it's a natural part of self-expression and experimenting (though I think society accepts a girl insisting her name is John and wears a Batman costume more than a boy who wants to be called Alice and wants to wear a tutu sometimes). What are we gonna do, go after them all?

Honestly? Yes. Part of where the trans stuff intersects with the abortion stuff is, a lot of transphobes are very clear that they don't want trans men/boys to transition because they must be forced to carry the next generation of white babies. It's... really bad.

And as for trans fems, well. Murdering us is pretty much a tradition, as is forcing us into survival sex work (or even outright sexual slavery). But yeah I'm not kidding when I say this is the early stages of a genocide. The goal is to destroy trans women, forcibly assimilate and impregnate trans men, and destroy us culturally so that our kind can never appear again. And all in the name of protecting "the purity and innocence of white womanhood" and "preserving the white race" and all that. Just straight up Handmaid's Tale shit.

I wouldn't go that far (for one thing, it is very much illegal to rape anyone right now and no one is forcibly impregnating anyone a la Handmaid's Tale- yes, I realize abortion stuff rn is fucked up, but not the same as raping someone). This is basically the playbook for the culture wars against gay people some years ago, with a slightly different flavor.

Mind, just because that fight was won doesn't mean it wasn't hard to gain those rights, and that this is going to be the same unless people fight against oppression.

I am hopeful that this is a depression in the bell/sine curve of progress which is more like watching a drunk walk than anything resembling a straight line progression. In theory, once people start realizing just how egregious some of this crap is they will start showing up to the polls and voting these bass wipes out of office. Of course, that may not be much consolation to the folks in Florida and other places who are currently being punished.

@Rommie

Not what I meant, sorry. This is kind of a case of language gap between trans and cis people, not just me being paranoid. Might see if I can come up with a summary later.

@Fisher

Part of the issue in the red states where this is happening is the sheer scale of gerrymandering. It's hard to get rid of these creeps.

Also just... the record is not good. Oppression tends to be very "out of sight, out of mind" for a lot of voters.

e.g. a point one of my friends likes to make - Biden didn't give out any stimulus money. Trump gave out $2000 of it. For working class voters who weren't directly targeted by Trump's bigotry, or who had it so bad already that the bigotry didn't outweigh the govt checks, voting Republican again might seem appealing even if they thought Trump was a terrible President, just on the level of personal survival.

I met a Lyft driver in this boat recently. Dude was working 17 hour days, every single day, to pay out of pocket for his grandfather's chemo (as the family had no health insurance). He kept telling me: "Trump was crazy, he was awful, he was a bad person and I hate him... but at least he gave us money. Biden isn't giving us anything at all."

I pointed out that Trump wanted to kill people like me, and probably people like him... but he didn't care. And I can't blame him.

Likewise if you look how almost every genocide throughout history has worked out. People who aren't targeted don't care until it's their own friends, their own family, and by then it's too late.