All right, I'm giving this a go. The usual rules apply. If you feel like calling people haters and talking shit is the most effective use of your energy, go away. We're here to find out the why's in hopes a solution may present itself.
Main query:
Why is it that bans on trans care and drag performance have suddenly become a priority?
What's changed recently that have made them issues worth pursuing on the Right?
How did we get there and how might we get out of it?
REMEMBER: A given point doesn't have to be true to be effective. It just has to be BELIEVED.
No sources will be given, nor will opposing citations be entertained.
Nobody trusts anybody's sources anymore, we're just going to have to trust our own thoughts.
We are anyways, might as well admit it.
A few things to establish before we get into the history...
First off, most political bans have three distinct characteristics:
They are (directly) cost-neutral,
incite fear/anger/hatred in a portion of your base,
and anyone defending it probably isn't going to vote for you anyway.
As such, they're useful in proposing once you achieve power as a means to attract and/or placate the far wing of your party.
Secondly, humans have an instinctual urge to defend children. Humans are primates, and young primate is a tasty snack for every predator that lurks outside of the fire. It's why kids of several ages do not like being left alone in dark rooms. It's also why a political position framed as a threat to children is so common. Doesn't matter what it's trying to ban. An attempt to ban abortion and an attempt to ban guns will both scream about dead children at you because they're trying to hit that panic button in your primate brain. And if you haven't already debunked the story they're telling, it's highly effective.
Thirdly, the LGBT community has a longstanding tradition of found families.
This is unfortunately because said community is full of examples of blood family not being worth shit.
LGBT individuals have long been seen as a threat to monogamous nuclear families for a number of reasons.
Remember Don't Ask, Don't Tell?
Wanna know what one of the biggest oppositional voices to DADT's implementation AND repeal?
Along with the integration of women into combat arms?
Military. Wives.
Think about it.
Bad enough you marry your high school sweetheart and get dropped into some city you've never heard of with a support structure that can vary widely in its actual support.
Bad enough your husband spends more time out in the field with his battle buddy than in bed with you.
At least they're not fucking each other, right?
Then that suddenly becomes a possibility.
And what does that leave for you?
How humiliating is it to go through all that only to find out you're not a partner, but an alibi?
Bad as that is, at least that's between adults.
Find out you're LGBT in a family that has no place for such when you're a kid and your options are really damn limited?
It sucks. I saw it happen repeatedly when I was a teenager.
Conversion therapy.
The whole "hate the sin and love the sinner" bullshit.
Not to mention the ones who didn't even bother to hide the fact that they'd rather have a dead kid than an LGBT kid.
So found families form in an attempt to keep each other alive.
Which is what the queer agenda really is. Even if they had the inclination to turn straight kids queer, they don't have the time or the energy. They're too damn busy keeping queer kids alive.
Fourth, on the phrase "life has a liberal bias."
Every jackwagon I've ever heard espousing this is either a diehard leftist, a teacher, or both.
While administration leans somewhat right, teachers in general go far left.
Moreso in college than in K-12, more in urban vs rural districts, but the bias can be seen from orbit. And that's been the case since the 70's.
It's only grown more bold and pronounced ever since.
And while teachers don't have much in the way of personal power, they do have, for lack of a better term, captive audiences.
Put pins in all four of these, they're gonna come back up.
Now we're on to political history in America in this century.
Which kicked off with eight years of plenty and eight years of famine.
What order they came in depends on which side of the aisle you were on.
And while Dubya was treated like an ordinary president (albeit with shades of Regan, given that he was a New Englander Yaleie who convinced the world that he was a Texan hick), Obama was treated like the second coming. A messiah. He was young, he was hip, he was the first black president, he was leagues beyond the old hick fuddy-duddy he was replacing, let the good times roll.
This despite having a record on LGBT rights that couldn't get him elected to a city council as a Democrat these days. In the 2008 race, he and Clinton both refused to support gay marriage, with some blather about civil unions being as close as he'd come.
Despite this lack of enthusiasm, once in office, he got a lot established as far as LGBT rights came. By the end of his first term, he'd repealed DADT, got gender identity added as a protected class under the ACA, and expanded federal hate crime law in the same way. In his second inagural address, he became the first president to call for gay rights or even mention them in an inagural address. By the end of his term, he saw Obergefell v Hodges establish the rights of same-sex marriage. In his last year in office, the pentagon formally ended the ban on openly transgender service members.
While this was going on, the general attitude of the left had gone from "let the good times roll" to "we'll never have to hear the word 'no' again!"
With all of the insufferable arrogance that entails.
Dissension by conservatives was declared the feeble cries of out-of-touch flyover country Boomers who didn't know, didn't care, and didn't matter. They were all going to die soon anyway and their hatred would die with them.
But none of this would ultimately be the case. In 2008, the same day Obama was elected president, California passed proposition 8, defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Lemme emphasize that: CALIFORNIA did this.
Opposition was both deeper and wider than anyone expected. And a lot of gains came in eight short years. The opposition was told it this was how it was gonna be now. Pound sand if you don't like it.
Then Trump showed up.
In 2014 he was an NYC Democrat and consistent Clinton donor.
By 2016 he had mopped the floor with over a dozen Republican establishment candidates to win the nomination.
And all those flyover country folk clinging to their god and guns hadn't died off.
They voted instead.
Because he was at least pretending to listen. Which was more than anyone else was bothering to do.
And the left, convinced that they'd never hear "no' again, heard it anyway.
Thus began a four-year tantrum.
Trump himself has posed a conundrum for the Republicans ever since.
He didn't give a shit about the Republican donor class, but he mopped the floor with the entire slate of donor-approved, focus-grouped candidates. Then he was such an asshole that a lot of positions under him couldn't be effectively filled.
So every Republican following up had to win the support of Trump supporters without emulating his style or lack thereof.
Some (JD Vance) being better at it than others (Marjorie Taylor-Greene).
Then the pandemic hits.
Schools got hit HARD by the pandemic. A massive pandemic plus every room full of kids with wildly varying diligence for hygiene or personal space plus unfunded mandates by the score plus a teaching population that skewed hard into demographics that only made COVID deadlier. Teachers did a lot of unsung good work during the lockdowns.
But those lockdowns and the subsequent online learning led to two things:
One, a lot of parents suddenly had the time and energy to become much more involved in the school lives of their children.
Two, online learning provided said parents with open windows into how their kids had been learning all along.
Remember what I said earlier about left-wing biases and captive audiences?
Oh yeah.
In fact, reread those four points at the beginning. I'll wait.
So. For a leftist teacher, the 21st century was eight years of famine followed by eight years of plenty when the good times rolled to a nightmare dystopia. All of which you have a captive audience for. Teachers knew about lgbt and found families too. And while teachers are mandated reporters for potential abuse, they're not about to out queer kids to their families. They've heard the horror stories. Some of them saw those horror stories happen. Some of them lived those horror stories.
Ugliness ensued as parents and school boards began butting heads.
Some of them comical (remember the lady who loudly described a depiction of anal sex in a school library book and went on to declare just as loud that no such thing had ever happened to her? I've never seen such powerful "this is a Wendy's" energy.)
Some of them tragic (the NSBA comparing concerned parents to terrorists, with the FBI becoming involved.)
So all these concerned parents are out there. And they're seeing a left that has a significant number of teachers in it. Which for the last decade or so have been beating the drum that, while not all cishet white dudes are evil, all the evil in the world seems to stem from cishet white dudes.
And whether they realize it or not, they're now pointing out that there are... alternatives.
I know. I know.
A ridiculous premise to anyone who actually knows trans folk personally.
But remember, these parents spent eight years being told that they were wrong and didn't matter.
Eight years from seeing the LGBT community go from flamboyant urban wierdos but are now allowed to marry, to adopt, to serve openly in the military, to alter their bodies and have the government pick up the tab.
Then these parents spent another four years being told that they ruined the world.
By a group that doesn't give a single fuck about lying to parents about what's going on with their children.
Who have had those children as captive audiences since kindergarten.
That big ol primate brain "THREAT TO CHILDREN" button is being repeatedly mashed.
Then in comes this governor.
That mayor.
This city council.
That school board.
And they're backing the parents up.
Banning this book, that show, this procedure.
"Somebody tries that shit with your kids? They'll be punished."
"Who gives a shit about some gaggle of perverts having karaoke night with delusions of grandeur?
These guys actually give a shit what happens to me and mine."
THAT is the political maneuvering going on.
Biden's term is turning out mixed at best.
Trump may still be a fly in the jam.
But a lot of alternates are out there.
And banning drag shows? banning trans care?
It hits all three points for being effective politics.
Especially at the local level.
At the bar and grill you go to.
At the school you send your kids.
It's not a major national priority. It's not the war in Ukraine or conflict with China or inflation or the economy or any of the big picture issues.
It's local.
It's personal.
And unfortunately, I don't see many possible counters that haven't been burned.
Social media is a long line of dumpsters, all of which are on fire.
Nobody trusts the news.
Nobody trusts mainstream culture to do anything but chase four-quarter demographic dollars.
On top of that, one of the most prominent trans celebrities in America (Chief Chris Beck) has now detransitioned, become an evangelical Christian, and is vocally advocating against trans care for minors.
So that's where I am.
I've convinced myself how we got here.
I know why it's effective.
I'm stumped on how to fix it.
Here's hoping someone figures out that part.
Take care of yourselves out there.
Main query:
Why is it that bans on trans care and drag performance have suddenly become a priority?
What's changed recently that have made them issues worth pursuing on the Right?
How did we get there and how might we get out of it?
REMEMBER: A given point doesn't have to be true to be effective. It just has to be BELIEVED.
No sources will be given, nor will opposing citations be entertained.
Nobody trusts anybody's sources anymore, we're just going to have to trust our own thoughts.
We are anyways, might as well admit it.
A few things to establish before we get into the history...
First off, most political bans have three distinct characteristics:
They are (directly) cost-neutral,
incite fear/anger/hatred in a portion of your base,
and anyone defending it probably isn't going to vote for you anyway.
As such, they're useful in proposing once you achieve power as a means to attract and/or placate the far wing of your party.
Secondly, humans have an instinctual urge to defend children. Humans are primates, and young primate is a tasty snack for every predator that lurks outside of the fire. It's why kids of several ages do not like being left alone in dark rooms. It's also why a political position framed as a threat to children is so common. Doesn't matter what it's trying to ban. An attempt to ban abortion and an attempt to ban guns will both scream about dead children at you because they're trying to hit that panic button in your primate brain. And if you haven't already debunked the story they're telling, it's highly effective.
Thirdly, the LGBT community has a longstanding tradition of found families.
This is unfortunately because said community is full of examples of blood family not being worth shit.
LGBT individuals have long been seen as a threat to monogamous nuclear families for a number of reasons.
Remember Don't Ask, Don't Tell?
Wanna know what one of the biggest oppositional voices to DADT's implementation AND repeal?
Along with the integration of women into combat arms?
Military. Wives.
Think about it.
Bad enough you marry your high school sweetheart and get dropped into some city you've never heard of with a support structure that can vary widely in its actual support.
Bad enough your husband spends more time out in the field with his battle buddy than in bed with you.
At least they're not fucking each other, right?
Then that suddenly becomes a possibility.
And what does that leave for you?
How humiliating is it to go through all that only to find out you're not a partner, but an alibi?
Bad as that is, at least that's between adults.
Find out you're LGBT in a family that has no place for such when you're a kid and your options are really damn limited?
It sucks. I saw it happen repeatedly when I was a teenager.
Conversion therapy.
The whole "hate the sin and love the sinner" bullshit.
Not to mention the ones who didn't even bother to hide the fact that they'd rather have a dead kid than an LGBT kid.
So found families form in an attempt to keep each other alive.
Which is what the queer agenda really is. Even if they had the inclination to turn straight kids queer, they don't have the time or the energy. They're too damn busy keeping queer kids alive.
Fourth, on the phrase "life has a liberal bias."
Every jackwagon I've ever heard espousing this is either a diehard leftist, a teacher, or both.
While administration leans somewhat right, teachers in general go far left.
Moreso in college than in K-12, more in urban vs rural districts, but the bias can be seen from orbit. And that's been the case since the 70's.
It's only grown more bold and pronounced ever since.
And while teachers don't have much in the way of personal power, they do have, for lack of a better term, captive audiences.
Put pins in all four of these, they're gonna come back up.
Now we're on to political history in America in this century.
Which kicked off with eight years of plenty and eight years of famine.
What order they came in depends on which side of the aisle you were on.
And while Dubya was treated like an ordinary president (albeit with shades of Regan, given that he was a New Englander Yaleie who convinced the world that he was a Texan hick), Obama was treated like the second coming. A messiah. He was young, he was hip, he was the first black president, he was leagues beyond the old hick fuddy-duddy he was replacing, let the good times roll.
This despite having a record on LGBT rights that couldn't get him elected to a city council as a Democrat these days. In the 2008 race, he and Clinton both refused to support gay marriage, with some blather about civil unions being as close as he'd come.
Despite this lack of enthusiasm, once in office, he got a lot established as far as LGBT rights came. By the end of his first term, he'd repealed DADT, got gender identity added as a protected class under the ACA, and expanded federal hate crime law in the same way. In his second inagural address, he became the first president to call for gay rights or even mention them in an inagural address. By the end of his term, he saw Obergefell v Hodges establish the rights of same-sex marriage. In his last year in office, the pentagon formally ended the ban on openly transgender service members.
While this was going on, the general attitude of the left had gone from "let the good times roll" to "we'll never have to hear the word 'no' again!"
With all of the insufferable arrogance that entails.
Dissension by conservatives was declared the feeble cries of out-of-touch flyover country Boomers who didn't know, didn't care, and didn't matter. They were all going to die soon anyway and their hatred would die with them.
But none of this would ultimately be the case. In 2008, the same day Obama was elected president, California passed proposition 8, defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Lemme emphasize that: CALIFORNIA did this.
Opposition was both deeper and wider than anyone expected. And a lot of gains came in eight short years. The opposition was told it this was how it was gonna be now. Pound sand if you don't like it.
Then Trump showed up.
In 2014 he was an NYC Democrat and consistent Clinton donor.
By 2016 he had mopped the floor with over a dozen Republican establishment candidates to win the nomination.
And all those flyover country folk clinging to their god and guns hadn't died off.
They voted instead.
Because he was at least pretending to listen. Which was more than anyone else was bothering to do.
And the left, convinced that they'd never hear "no' again, heard it anyway.
Thus began a four-year tantrum.
Trump himself has posed a conundrum for the Republicans ever since.
He didn't give a shit about the Republican donor class, but he mopped the floor with the entire slate of donor-approved, focus-grouped candidates. Then he was such an asshole that a lot of positions under him couldn't be effectively filled.
So every Republican following up had to win the support of Trump supporters without emulating his style or lack thereof.
Some (JD Vance) being better at it than others (Marjorie Taylor-Greene).
Then the pandemic hits.
Schools got hit HARD by the pandemic. A massive pandemic plus every room full of kids with wildly varying diligence for hygiene or personal space plus unfunded mandates by the score plus a teaching population that skewed hard into demographics that only made COVID deadlier. Teachers did a lot of unsung good work during the lockdowns.
But those lockdowns and the subsequent online learning led to two things:
One, a lot of parents suddenly had the time and energy to become much more involved in the school lives of their children.
Two, online learning provided said parents with open windows into how their kids had been learning all along.
Remember what I said earlier about left-wing biases and captive audiences?
Oh yeah.
In fact, reread those four points at the beginning. I'll wait.
So. For a leftist teacher, the 21st century was eight years of famine followed by eight years of plenty when the good times rolled to a nightmare dystopia. All of which you have a captive audience for. Teachers knew about lgbt and found families too. And while teachers are mandated reporters for potential abuse, they're not about to out queer kids to their families. They've heard the horror stories. Some of them saw those horror stories happen. Some of them lived those horror stories.
Ugliness ensued as parents and school boards began butting heads.
Some of them comical (remember the lady who loudly described a depiction of anal sex in a school library book and went on to declare just as loud that no such thing had ever happened to her? I've never seen such powerful "this is a Wendy's" energy.)
Some of them tragic (the NSBA comparing concerned parents to terrorists, with the FBI becoming involved.)
So all these concerned parents are out there. And they're seeing a left that has a significant number of teachers in it. Which for the last decade or so have been beating the drum that, while not all cishet white dudes are evil, all the evil in the world seems to stem from cishet white dudes.
And whether they realize it or not, they're now pointing out that there are... alternatives.
I know. I know.
A ridiculous premise to anyone who actually knows trans folk personally.
But remember, these parents spent eight years being told that they were wrong and didn't matter.
Eight years from seeing the LGBT community go from flamboyant urban wierdos but are now allowed to marry, to adopt, to serve openly in the military, to alter their bodies and have the government pick up the tab.
Then these parents spent another four years being told that they ruined the world.
By a group that doesn't give a single fuck about lying to parents about what's going on with their children.
Who have had those children as captive audiences since kindergarten.
That big ol primate brain "THREAT TO CHILDREN" button is being repeatedly mashed.
Then in comes this governor.
That mayor.
This city council.
That school board.
And they're backing the parents up.
Banning this book, that show, this procedure.
"Somebody tries that shit with your kids? They'll be punished."
"Who gives a shit about some gaggle of perverts having karaoke night with delusions of grandeur?
These guys actually give a shit what happens to me and mine."
THAT is the political maneuvering going on.
Biden's term is turning out mixed at best.
Trump may still be a fly in the jam.
But a lot of alternates are out there.
And banning drag shows? banning trans care?
It hits all three points for being effective politics.
Especially at the local level.
At the bar and grill you go to.
At the school you send your kids.
It's not a major national priority. It's not the war in Ukraine or conflict with China or inflation or the economy or any of the big picture issues.
It's local.
It's personal.
And unfortunately, I don't see many possible counters that haven't been burned.
Social media is a long line of dumpsters, all of which are on fire.
Nobody trusts the news.
Nobody trusts mainstream culture to do anything but chase four-quarter demographic dollars.
On top of that, one of the most prominent trans celebrities in America (Chief Chris Beck) has now detransitioned, become an evangelical Christian, and is vocally advocating against trans care for minors.
So that's where I am.
I've convinced myself how we got here.
I know why it's effective.
I'm stumped on how to fix it.
Here's hoping someone figures out that part.
Take care of yourselves out there.
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