I figure this is deserving of its own space, rather than being split across GOP Insanity and the Poor Media Outlet Choices thread. Also the media thread needs room for other bad media stuff beyond me spamming links of Chait’s daily transformation into a corn cob.
We’ll start off with some rare good news:
You’ve all probably heard this already but just in case:
The IBCK episode mentions this sort of thing a lot too, to where you’ll really start noticing that so much of the trans panic stuff you see from shitheads like Sullivan and Singal is not “here are things that have happened” but rather “think of all the stuff that could happen”.
It’s the same exact playbook used to vilify gay people (remember “the gay agenda” and how they wanted to turn all the kids gay?)
this reminds me a lot of the anti-gay hysteria circa early/mid 2000’s. they lost that one, and now it’s “mainstream” to be accepting of it, and trans people are the next hate battleground. in my opinion we have a rougher road there, because there are far fewer trans people than gay/lesbian people.
I don’t remember it well, makes me wonder what some of the big tipping points were that lead to large scale mainstream acceptance? Like wonder if it was a few isolated celebrities/shows/etc, just a general exponential growth phenomenona where more people were comfortable being out or what? I grew up with having several gay folks in extended family so always felt normal to me so didn’t really see the societal change as much
From what I remember as a 90’s kid, there really wasn’t any one big moment in particular. Ellen Degeneres coming out was sort of a big story for a few news cycles but really wasn’t that big of a deal.
To have that sort of “oh hey those people are just like us” moment for middle America wrt trans people, I think it would take a trans guy that super easily passes getting famous, and only then dropping the bomb that he was AFAB or whatever. I think a big part of the bigotry from the unwashed masses is the idea that all trans folks are just super obvious guy in a dress/girl in a suit types and it makes them feel weird and icky and uncomfortable.
Yeah I think gay pop stars like Elton John and all the glam rock stuff of the era changed attitudes a bit. Probably the needle on trans rights will move more when more celebs come out as trans.
I don’t really remember this at all. About the only thing I can think of that comes close in terms of your description of the timing and fervor was the rush of anti-gay-marriage referenda and bills following Massachusetts ruling same sex marriage bans unconstitutional in 2004. But by that point, Will and Grace had been on the air for years, we were a year away from Brokeback Mountain coming out, and it at least seemed to me that we were mostly past the point of letting gay people be gay. It was a question of legal recognition of gay relationships.
As I was looking into this, it seems, though, that @McTrollson’s recollection of Ellen coming out sells her short. A lot of advertisers pulled out, and the show was canceled the next year. She paid a pretty big cost, and it didn’t just blow over in a few weeks, even if it did in liberal circles.
Agreed, but also I think a lot of it is gonna depend on how the transition goes. Like it would help a lot if someone like Elliot Page did a movie playing a totally ordinary cis male part and average people see it, say “that guy is pretty good, never heard of him before” and then get their minds blown like “wait he used to be the girl in Juno/Inception/whatever?” when someone explains who he is.
If a celeb has a less than seamless transition (see Caitlyn Jenner or anybody older going MtF as an example), then it just perpetuates that shitty attitude that obviously all trans people are weirdos who will never fit in. Unfortunately so much bigotry just comes from visceral feelings about this stuff (like sure there are/were all sorts of religious and other pretexts to be against gay people, but in the end the reason for it with these idiots boils down to “it squicks me out”).
It seems quaint now but california had proposition 8 on gay marriage on the ballot as recently as 2008 (and it passed!)
attitudes have changed drastically since then. I live in a very conservative area so it was probably more noticeable but the rhetoric surrounding that was shocking by today’s standards. Even culturally, around that period, there was a glut of comedy surrounding characters where the punchline was literally “ha ha that character is gay” that you’d never see today.
One thing I feel like is part of the momentum of acceptance in more conservative areas is when people saw gay folks living “normal traditional lives”. Like you would hear people in conservative areas talk about the first gay wedding they went to or the gay lawyers down the street that they watch football with or whatever. And it’s readily obvious to anyone walking by on the street they were gay as it was two middle aged dudes living together.
But for trans folks this is also going on but it may not be readily apparent to the neighborhood the person is trans so it doesn’t as quickly normalize the situation in more conservative areas.
lol Singal
Daily Singal/Chait update:
And Chait is still all-in on it (he’s linking to the Singal article here everyone is dunking on for his source admitting to violating HIPAA):
It kinda just happened really suddenly. We went from laws outlawing civil unions to gay marriage nationwide in less than 20 years. It was weird how fast society shifted on that one. Most other civil rights movements took a lot longer.
And as Trolly posted in the poor media outlet thread, Singal deleted his Twitter today, but I refuse to think the universe is kind enough to let us actually be rid of him
The thing that pisses me off most about the so called trans debate is that it is all so clearly a smoke screen. What actual trans people I know want isn’t wildly unreasonable and isn’t controversial when explained in a sane way. They want to be called what they want to be called so call them that to be polite, if you get it wrong make a good faith effort to get it right the next time, don’t fucking hurt/kill them. They want basic politeness, safety, and bodily autonomy. This is somehow conflated as being them somehow imposing themselves on other people.
Meanwhile we have ~60% of the population whose lives are at least meaningfully worse economically than the generation before them, a lowering life expectancy, and we haven’t even gotten into the roaring dumpster fire that is the entire brown people situation.
Somehow these assholes have incinerated something entirely uncontroversial to smokescreen dozens of major problems that are currently festering in the background any one of which honestly matters vastly more than any trans issue because it affects 10x+ more people (many of whom also happen to be trans, that’s another thing the trans people I know want… fucking health insurance, a living wage, and an affordable apartment).
The whole thing is infuriating and when people try to talk about trans issues the whole conversation tilts me because I know we’re participating in the smoke screen even if we mean well.
you say that now, but just wait til they go into women’s restrooms and start rapin’!
(this post is satire and does not reflect this author’s actual beliefs)