Anti-trans queer people somehow don't get this. They don't see transphobia as the thin edge of the wedge - do they really think that when the TERFs are done with the trans people they'll call off the crusade? If compassion for someone else's plight doesn't move them, self-interest ought to.
I'm a lesbian! There's a reason trans people belong under the queer umbrella no matter their sexuality, and it's because transphobia is, at the root, the same normativity policing that endangers cis queer people. Trans rights are queer rights are human rights.
When Helen Joyce had me brigaded on Twitter for calling her an idiot (she's an idiot), her flying monkeys went after me for being on a surrogacy journey. I'm cis, but I was repeatedly told how disgusting it was that I wanted to have children, including being told 'it's just part of the deal' for....
...gay people to not get to have children. These people are not our friends! They aren't our allies! They're just being loud about trans people *right now*. It doesn't mean that that's all they'll be loud about *ever*.
The “suffering is an inherent part of your identity & that can never change, so u should be gwatefuw Our Betters are letting us be the boot this time~ uwu” nonsense from both terves & useful “drop the T” idiots is tiresome. Weren’t we SUPPOSED to be fighting for a better world?
This fucking BAFFLES ME. Like, okay, I'm in my late 40s, I can remember the queer panic over HIV a lot more clearly than people younger than me, but come the fuck on!
Homophobia and transphobia are the same root cause, and that root cause is "attempting to destroy anything that threatens the idea that sexuality and gender are both simple, normative concepts that have a Correct and an Incorrect answer"! WHY IS THIS SO HARD
I'm not disagreeing. But I can easily see the appeal of assimilation thought for people whose lives wouldn't raise an eyebrow if not for the sex of their partner. Being gay doesn't crack the top 5 in traits I see as defining my identity. I can envision a less politically aware alt me assimilating.
Right? Like, if you're queer, and you look to your left and see Donald Trump, and look to your right and see Vladimir Putin, it's time to reconsider what you're advocating for out of self interest *alone*.
Yes! It’s the SAME language. The SAME arguments. (I am turning 50 this week.) The SAME appeals to protect children from alleged predators. The SAME “we can always tell” and “I don’t care what people do at home but why do they have to flaunt it in our faces?”
And, you know, when cis straight people don’t spot this, it’s annoying but I get it, I guess? But when queer people don’t spot it, or think this time is different somehow??? I can’t understand that. I really really can’t.
Ah, but they do care what you do in your home and with whom. They want the return of sodomy laws, the return of miscegenation laws. I have 5 yrs on you. I remember the chants 'AIDS kills f@gs dead. I'm still sickened by it.
That’s exactly what I mean, yes. They SAY they just don’t want to see us Doing Queer Things, but in reality they would very much like us to Not Be Queer.
as a B, it’s particularly darkly humorous to see the LGB with out the T shit, because those fucks don’t like us either! like just be real and say you don’t like it when people don’t fall into your categories
They're just going to attack whichever letter is last in line, like hyenas going after the weakest gazelle in the pack (or like a better metaphor that doesn't suggest that trans people or bisexual people are sick gazelles, but you know what I mean, hopefully)
oh no I am a sick gazelle! But yeah I don’t think people like it when people reject gender stereotypes and norms and while trans people are the bleeding edge of that, we’re all queer! they don’t like any of us
My octogenarian gay uncle has been completely taken in by the NYT’s concern-trolling and I’m like dude, it’s literally Anita Bryant’s playbook! They’re the same words! How do you not recognize them! You used to make jokes about her all the time!
You can literally go read back far enough on Mumsnet and find people specifically saying that their goal is to divide the queer community by using trans people as a wedge issue to weaken the queer coalition because queer acceptance has Gone Too Far!
I used to wind up over there a lot because my job requires me to keep an eye on the vocabulary and dogwhistles of a bunch of hate groups and ugh, so fucking unpleasant
They really, 100% believe they can find safety in their proximity to power. They tell themselves things like, “if they accept me I can make change happen from within” but at the end of the day it’s about getting personal access to the power over others, not dismantling the structures of power.
I read Bad Gays during February as part of my queer history binge and it was made so clear that this has ALWAYS been the case. Those who were on the inside didn't change anything, they just preserved their own safety if they could and often deliberately screwed over those on the outside.
"Change from within" might hold *some* water as an argument if it had ever worked. For *anything*. Miniscule and/or temporary change seems to be the best you can hope for from that particular fallacy.
Some queers will do mental-gymnastics to convince themselves the Leopards Eating People's Faces party won't eat *their* faces after they've thrown trans people under the bus.
