Is Defending Trans Rights "Making The Perfect The Enemy Of The Good?" No, You Fucking Imbecile
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Apparently, I’m the worst fucking writer in the world. I was under the impression that I had been writing in very clear and unambiguous terms about the threat facing the trans community and why you should care about it regardless of whether or not you care about the trans community itself.
I didn’t think it was particularly complicated nor were my articles. You know, the ones with the really subtle titles like:
The Next Step In Trans Genocide Was Just Taken. Are You Paying Attention Yet?
Holy Shit NYT, This Anti-Trans Hate Is Gross, Even For You Fucksticks
I dunno…maybe I wasn’t being obvious enough? Was I not explaining myself adequately?
I kind of assumed this title might do it since it’s less of a title and more of a summary of the entire piece:
As I mentioned. I am not subtle. I try, with varying degrees of success, to be funny, but I rarely try to be “clever.” I don’t try to lead my readers to an “AHA!” moment where they suddenly realize the point I was obliquely making. I don’t have the skill and even if I did, I don’t have the fucking patience. This is not the time for mental masturbation.
This is why my writing tends to be more of a cudgel. I’m not talking to you. I’m yelling. If you don’t like what I’m saying, if it makes you uncomfortable, that’s your fucking problem because the shit I’m saying is true whether you want it to be or not. I learned a long time ago that reality does what reality wants and it doesn’t give a fuck about my feelings or your feelings or ANYONE’S fucking feelings.
This is why I despise the alt-left who function almost exclusively on feelings and treat facts like a vampire treats holy water. They’re treading down the well-worn path of the fact-free far-right and that leads no place good. I’ve been railing against them for years over their purity politics completely detached from reality.
For example, here’s Cenk Uygur, the most progressive progressive who ever progessed, making common cause with literal Nazis because they were HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! going to cut defense spending:
How’s that going?
Just to be clear: This will in no way dampen Cenk’s enthusiasm for the right. He’ll just find some other excuse to cheerlead for fascism because he’s been Team Nazi for a very long time. He just doesn’t have to lie about it anymore. The gutter clown is crawling out of the sewer to show his true face. Who could have predicted such a thing?1
So, with literally year YEARS of shitting on the alt-left and purity politics, imagine my surprise these past couple of days when I was effectively accused of being…the alt-left and engaging in purity politics:
This was in response to a post I made about Gavin Newsome sitting down with the loathsome Charlie Kirk and agreeing with the little bigoted toad about trans girls playing sports.
Again, I thought I was REALLY clear in that post about the problem of siding with the right on trans rights. It’s not really about the trans community at all. I say it right there in the post: You cannot “meet in the middle” with people who peddle hate.
I am not arguing that trans rights are an inherent moral good (although they are). I am not arguing that we have to take the moral high road (although we should). I am not even arguing that we have to oppose Republicans because of rank partisanship (I mean, maybe?).
I am making a very practical argument grounded in real-world experience and history. When was the last time you heard Cenk Uygur or Ana “homeless people terrify me!” Kasparian do that?
Somehow, this was not enough.
This imbecile really went all in. The giveaway I was in for a Very Special Presentation was the line ‘And trying to make fetch happen on this issue by shouting “transphobe!”…’ When someone tries to preempt being labeled a bigot when saying ignorant shit, they know they’re being massively dishonest and I have no need whatsoever to be kind to them.
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I know Mutually Assured Dumbass here thinks he’s very intelligent but gay marriage wasn’t “right around the corner from majority acceptance” just a decade before it became the law of the land. George W. Bush ran one of the ugliest campaigns since his father’s racist Willie Horton ads and it was based on anti-LGBT rage. That was back in the ancient past of…2004. It took a lot of work to change people’s minds. This stupid fuckwad would throw it all away because he thinks trans people are icky and not worth the time to defend.
He wasn’t done.
“Anti-common sense.” Whenever bigots want to conceal their bigotry, they dress themselves up in “common sense.” Cool.
I caught the part where he started to construct the straw man image of me. I was on the “Defund the Police” bandwagon, apparently.2
He went on:
There it is: “moronic brigade of performative purists.”
I just kind of stared at that for a minute. This is like being called a pro-life misogynist because I said women should be given all the support they need so they never feel pressured to have an abortion.3 You could reach that conclusion but to do so you either have to be unbelievably fucking stupid or breathtakingly dishonest. I feel like Mutually Assured Dipshit is a combination of both.
OK, here’s the thing, when you have a conclusion, “Trans rights are not important,” you can work your way backward to justify that no matter how tortured the logic. In Mutally Assured Douchebag’s “opinion,” they don’t matter because not enough people support them so fuck them trans people.
I am wrong, in his view, because I am arguing that we have to support those rights on their face value and anything I am saying to justify that is a bullshit rationale. In other words, I’M the one working backwards to reach my preferred conclusion.
The problem with Mutually Assured Dickhead’s “logic” is that there is none. He’s basing his claims on “feelings.” Me? I just look at what Republicans are doing right fucking now, comparing it to the last 50 years of Republican behavior and how closely they’re modeling themselves on their greatest inspiration:
HAHAHAHA! Just kidding! Those were just jokes! They’re just trolling! Except for all the literal Nazis in Trump’s regime. And all the open Nazis celebrated by the right. And how they keep marching in the streets and not one Republican will condemn them.
But, you know, other than that and all of the other Nazi stuff, what connection does the Trump regime and the Republican Party have to Nazism?
Yeah, we all see what they’re doing. But unlike Mutually Assured Dickwad, I’m not pretending it’s not happening. If he wasn’t shoving his own head up his ass, he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to use the words “slippery slope” within 100 yards of me.
Not for nothing, only a fucking imbecile would use the slippery slope argument in a country where we went from women having some restrictions on where and when they could get an abortion to facing the death penalty if they travel out of state to have one.
Only a fucking imbecile could look around and say, “Nah, there’s no slippery slope here” when the government is arresting people who lawfully exercised their First Amendment right to protect. Then disappeared and stripped them of their citizenship.
Do you disagree with the anti-Israel protesters? Cool! Me too! I think a lot of those protests were a ratfucking operation paid for by Republicans to help Trump steal the election. But guess what? How you feel about the protesters is irrelevant. Why? Because if you allow the arresting of peaceful protesters (there’s no indication Khalil was violent or broke the law), your protests will be the next to be “illegal.” If you allow permanent residents to be removed for political reasons, you will find that “citizenship” can be a very fluid term. And just like that, you’re not a “real” citizen anymore.
Can’t happen? Sure it can’t. And an unelected billionaire can’t seize control of entire government agencies and shut them down. Or take control of vast swaths of private economic and health data on every single American. Or grant himself multi-billion-dollar contracts. Or take control of the US Treasury where he can now cut off money to whatever and whomever he chooses.
Can’t happen. Until it does. Then it’s not a slippery slope. It just is. Mutually Assured Dumbfuck would surely have argued 6 months ago that I was being hysterical if I told him that trans women would be forced to detransition in Florida prisons. Or that they would be thrown into men’s prisons where they are almost certain to be raped repeatedly. Or that the military would force them out by calling them liars and dishonorable and dangerous. The language of hate that incites violence.
This is the thing people like Mutually Assured Dildo do not seem to grasp. It only starts with the trans community. It does not end with them.
Perhaps a picture will help the dumber among us?
Republicans did not stop with banning abortion in some states. They made it illegal. Then they made it a capital crime. Then they started to demand it be illegal in other states. Then they demanded it be illegal nationwide. When they get that, next will be the death penalty everywhere. While they’re working on that, they’re demanding an end to no-fault divorce. And a repeal of the 19th Amendment. And lowering the age of consent. An end to laws against rape and sexual assault.
They are not hiding this. They want women reduced to sex slaves. How does one “meet them in the middle?” Oh, but that’s crazy! We would never compromise on that!
But we can compromise on trans rights, yes? Just a few restrictions here and there? No trans kids in sports? Maybe no adults, either. And maybe no letting teens take hormone blockers. For their own good because Mutally Assured Dickwipe knows better. But then, you know, maybe stop adults from taking them because is it really healthy? After all, we have to find common ground if we want to win elections.
And now that the trans community is gone, is it really such a big ask if we get rid of gay marriage? How many gays get married anyway? And on and on and on and on but only in one direction.
This is the thing Gavin Newson and Mutually Assured Douchenozzle refuse to acknowledge: The right will never concede anything. There is no give and take. There is only take. The right does not move on. They only wait until they can try again. Roe was never settled law. Gay marriage is not settled law. Fucking Interracial marriage is not settled law. Brown v Board of Education Is. Not. Settled. Law.
These are people who are still mad the Nazis lost WWII. They are still burning with rage the Confederacy lost the Civil War. Nothing is ever settled for them. They will never ever in a million years agree that they are wrong and move on. They only believe in destroying everything they hate and that is you and me and even Mutually Assured Dimbulb and Gavin Newsome.
But don’t tell them that. They’ll think you’re just trying to scold them for being transphobes or something.
There are 21 days until the first Blue Wave starts in Wisconsin and 238 days until it hits Virginia and Pennsylvania. If I were a billionaire fascist, I’d think REALLY hard about getting out of the way.
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Me. I predicted it a decade ago. Eat shit, Uygur, you fucking bootlicker.
I was not. I get the concept and agree with the idea, the cops are asked to do too much and we should fund other groups to deal with stuff like mental health crises, but the slogan was pure dogshit.
The key word here is “pressured.” Millions of women have abortions they don’t really want to have but feel that they have no choice because we, as a “Christian country” filled with millions of loving “pro-life” Christians, have decided that poor and/or single pregnant women shouldn’t get a fucking penny of help.
Damn Ogre, you really give me a lot of hope. Like, yeah, I kinda hope people care enough about me as a transwoman to not shove me in a for-profit prison where I can look forward to slave labor, rapes, and eventual pentabarbitol to put me out of my misery, but for fucks sake, put my wellbeing aside for a second and pay attention to the clear end goal. This is about self-preservation, through and through. Either resist or assist. There's no middle ground left to stand on.
All of that, 100%.
If I hear one more "the Democrats lost because of pronouns" from an alleged fellow lefty liberal I'm gonna scream. The Democrats lost because of racism, misogyny, and a massive Russian disinformation campaign, full stop. They did not lose because they recognized the humanity of an oppressed group that constitutes less than 1% of the population.
These "this is why we lose elections" troglodytes are letting their transphobia hang out for everyone to see. Same as their homophobia was showing in 2004 when, as you say, they blamed Kerry's defeat on gay marriage. Somehow Kerry's total mismanagement of his response of the Swift Boat campaign and Darth Cheney's "you're all gonna die in terrorist attacks if you don't vote for us" (you know, the guys who were asleep at that the switch when the actual terrorist attack occurred!) didn't seem to register.
But God forbid you call these people out on their transphobia or homophobia (or racism or sexism or whatever the "it won't win" trope is animating them today) because they know they're pure of heart!
I don't know how many times we have trot out Niemoller but clearly we need to keep doing so. A gigantic number of Democrats need to sit their (no doubt) white asses down on the toilet and re-read the fucking poem.
Thanks for calling them out.