The Next Step In Trans Genocide Was Just Taken. Are You Paying Attention Yet?

You. Are. Being. Conditioned. To. Accept. Atrocities.

This is it. This is Germany in the 1930s and what you do will be recorded in the history books. Your children and grandchildren will look back and ask what you did. Will you be able to look them in the face?

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I will start off every single article about the growing danger to the trans community the same way: I have no personal investment in trans rights. I do not personally know any trans men or women. No one I know in real life has transitioned or, as far as I know, is planning to. I have no, forgive the expression, skin in this fight.

Except I do. And so do you. It doesn’t matter what you think of trans people. Or if you think of them at all. What is being done to the trans community will affect you no matter how distant and unconnected you may think you are from them.

I explained this three weeks ago and I will continue to explain this: You are being conditioned to accept atrocity. Yes, you. It is a process that is very clear to see if you’re looking for it. Or if some idiot with a keyboard and a large chip on his shoulder points it out over and over again.

Now, I’m no expert on trans issues. This is not my wheelhouse. I look to other people to inform me and then I get on my little soapbox and scream at the top of my lungs, usually with a fair amount of cursing. So here’s Erin Reed, one of the people I pay very close attention to, telling us that we’ve moved into the next phase of genocide and how:

That all changed yesterday. President Trump, in justifying his transgender military ban, leaned on a new argument for why such an action restricting the rights of transgender people was necessary: that transgender people are lesser human beings, dishonorable liars, and worse.

See from the executive order:

Consistent with the military mission and longstanding DoD policy, expressing a false “gender identity” divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for military service. Beyond the hormonal and surgical medical interventions involved, adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.

Did you catch the not-at-all-subtle shift in language?

Up until yesterday, Republicans insisted that trans people were delusional or mentally ill or had been led astray somehow. You see, Republicans weren’t banning gender-affirming care because they were monstrous bigots and evil scumbags! No! They were doing it to “protect the children” from making a terrible mistake! They were the good guys! Republicans are always the heroes! Even when they’re stabbing you in the fucking face and smiling.

Oh, sure, they kept inventing hypothetical stories about trans women sexually assaulting girls in locker rooms and bathrooms but that was also to “protect the children (and women)!” It was all with the best of intentions! Not because they were soulless pigs looking to destroy lives!

But they’ve dropped the fig leaf. Now, they’re just straight-up calling trans people liars and degenerates and dishonorable. “A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood…” This is not a statement based in reality. This is a statement based on hateful ideology and nothing else.

Personally, I love this part the most: “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.” One wonders how Republicans can say that without bursting into flames after supporting Pete Hegseth, a lying alcoholic credibly accused of rape who was fired twice from nonprofits for misusing money that wasn’t his.

What, in Pete Hegseth’s resume, suggests he has “a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” to lead this nation’s armed forces? Nothing? Nothing at all? Then don’t fucking come at me about trans people serving in the military. Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit.

But aside from the hypocrisy, it’s really important to understand the language being used here. When we are openly talking about an entire group of people as being liars and dishonorable, we are a single step away from talking about them as being actively dangerous. Dangerous people are a threat. Threats require a solution. A Final Solution, if you will.

I want you to think very hard about this. When was the last time you read a news story about a trans person doing something illegal or dangerous or illicit? I’ve read plenty of stories of trans women being murdered but trans criminals? Maybe one in the last several years?

I promise you, that propaganda is coming because you can’t depict the entire trans community as dangerous without shining examples of how dangerous they are. Maybe a trans woman will rob a store. Maybe a trans man will be arrested for driving drunk. Maybe one will sexually assault someone. And that will be the “proof” that ALL trans people are dangerous.¹

And if Republicans can’t find any trans criminals, they’ll just invent them. Oh? That can’t happen? Really? Tell that to the Haitians of Springfield, Ohio. Are you fucking kidding me?

The legacy press, of course, will play along. The New York Times, in particular, has been quite the champion of anti-trans misinformation.² And that was before the legacy press went all in on licking the balls of fascism (yet again³).

This cannot be repeated loudly enough: Once you have been conditioned to accept the erasure of the trans community, you will be willing to allow the next group to be erased. And the next and the next. Gay men. Then lesbians. Then Muslims and Jews. Then the mentally ill. Political dissidents. Journalists. There’s always another “threat” to be removed. That’s how fascism works. Every step towards atrocity gets easier because you cannot face what you’ve already allowed, the lies you’ve already swallowed.

And then, one day, the atrocity will be all around you and at your door and in your home and taking you or your loved ones away. Then it will be too late because while you were so busy not speaking out, neither was anyone else and now they’re too afraid to speak out for you.

The trans community is the canary in the coal mine. You don’t have to love them to protect them. You don’t have to care about them in the slightest to protect them. But you have to protect them because once they’re gone, the rest of us are next.

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1. Curiously, it doesn’t seem to matter how many priests, youth pastors, or Republicans rape little kids. And there are a LOT of priests, youth pastors, and Republicans who rape little kids. That never gets held against the larger group. Funny how that works…

2. Whaaaaat?! The NYT spewing right-wing talking points?! No fucking way!

3. The legacy press lapped up the Bush regime’s lies. They loved them some Ronald Reagan. Hitler was just A-OK with the NYT until he invaded Poland. It’s weird how frequently the “liberal press” sides with the worst people in history.