Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
I think many see comparisons of this moment for trans Americans to genocide as a hyperbolic attempt to reach ppl emotionally, and what I want to describe in this thread is that yes, we're trying you reach you emotionally, but it's also as clear a description as we can give.
In TX, authorities are going after trans children's medical records. Based on that, families are trying to decide whether they should flee because they're worried the state might put them in jail.
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
People in this country are making the decision, daily, to flee for their lives from state-sponsored persecution.
Others are discussing it in hushed, worried tones. Deciding what the last straw will be. Decided how long to push their luck.
What words are we supposed to use to convince the public that this isn't an appeal to people's emotions, it's what's literally happening. Right now.
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
What do you think is going to stop things from getting worse? The courts?
Would you gamble your life on that? A judge is a human being. Would you gamble your freedom, your children's ability to live with you outside of foster care, on a judge you don't know making a decision under who-knows-what political pressure or corruption or indegestion or not liking the looks of you or whatever the heck?
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
How likely is it that the state will succeed in accessing these private records? If they do, how likely is it that they'll persecute families.
People don't know.
But if they get it wrong, if they assume it'll be okay, and they're wrong? That would mean the end of their lives.
You can never know how bad a situation will get in advance. All you can do is look at how bad things are and how much worse they are and how quickly they've gotten worse.
Things have gotten SO bad, SO fast.
lee :Fire_Trans:
@hadilq for young children especially, transition is a matter of using a different name and pronouns and making cosmetic changes such as haircuts and different clothes. None of this is permanent. When they start to hit puberty, they may start puberty blockers, which delay puberty to allow them more time to make decisions and actually *prevent* irreversible things from happening (puberty is often extremely emotionally damaging to trans folks as our bodies are further changed in a direction that feels fundamentally wrong).
Your understanding of what transition looks like for trans children is pulled from what right wing voices want you to think, and it's not accurate to our actual experiences.
Hadi
@e_urq you reached me emotionally, but on the other side! Before explaining, let's make it clear that I think laws should be gender neutral, so in current society that we have bias against trans people, I'm on their side. But it doesn't mean "trans children" makes any sense to me! We don't allow children to be accountable to decide for a car, so we issue car licenses after a certain ages, but children can decide for permanent changes on their bodies?! \
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
Give up your belief that someone will stop this. No one has stopped this. You need to act. You need to impress upon everyone you know to act.
If this isn't the America you know, insist upon that being true. Don't just assume it can't get that bad. It is. It has.
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
The refusal to take it seriously, the religious faith that the mainstream has that it can't be that bad and something will stop it?
That's what makes the genocide comparison so apt.
If people cared, if they were paying attention, these states couldn't get away with this.
synlogic
@e_urq translate that as "not being allowed to be 100% myself or allowed live my daily life exactly as *I* wish, or not allowed to be 100% happy, because Others preventing it"
which is a constraint for everybody, though prob more of a pain for some than others, and varies by individual
Evan Urquhart 🏳️⚧️
@synlogic Isn't allowed to do what they wish to do?
Is that what you think being trans is? A thing I wish(ed) to do?
synlogic
@e_urq I assoc the word genocide with perhaps the most canonical example of it: the Jewish Holocaust by Nazis in WW2
think we have to be careful to make distinctions about situations where someone simply isnt allowed to do some thing X they wish to do, vs, like a Holocaust with gas chambers & death camps etc. are lots of things that I'd love to do in life but I'm not allowed or would be otherwise "oppressed" by others. I dont call it genocide
There has been a rise in hate & cruelty, certainly!
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