Monday, April 12, 2021

The Big New Front in the Culture War

Those who follow right-wing pundits are familiar with the ramping up of the culture war against transpersons. The 'thought' leaders of Movement Conservatism march in lockstep, so this refrain has been loud lately. Brynn Tannehill has a good exploration of the new wave of anti-trans legislation, and it basically boils down to the fact that the Religious Right lost the culture war over same-sex marriage, so they had to find a more marginalized community to attack. 

Even some well-meaning liberals find gender nonconformity baffling, and the topic is not easy for many people to comprehend- much of what I know about trans-identity, I learned from Cerberus/Mazikeen of Sadly, No!... plus, I have studied enough biology to know that gender isn't strictly binary, and I listened to this in high school. My governing principle is maximizing human happiness and human potential for everyone whose desires don't limit the happiness and potential of others. If an individual needs to transition to another gender identity to live a full life, that person should be allowed to do so without hindrance. 

The kerfuffle about women's athletics is a bit of concern-trollery, right wingers have never had much use for women's sports to begin with. Personally, I think that a non-binary grouping of athletes according to muscle mass would be a better way to handle athletics going forward. The real truth of the current right-wing war against trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming individuals is that it's yet another 'holding action' being fought before a backlash... the right-wingers, if successful, won't be content with the status quo, and will try to roll back the gains made by gay and lesbian Americans:

The purported moral outrage is just so much blather, meant to obfuscate what these bigots really want to do. These people claim that they want to protect 'the children' by keeping Rachel Levine out of high school girls' bathrooms, but they are perfectly fine with Matt Gaetz being in there.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Best last sentence I've read in a long time! Bonnie

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Thanks, Bonnie, it was the first part I wrote.

Richard said...

Oh man do we have to do that Matt Gaetz lesson again?