BlitzoTheOisSilent @ BlitzoTheOisSilent @lemmy.world

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1 yr. ago

I got out in 2017 partially because I'm trans and Trump was coming into the oval office. He had made it clear that trans people would not be welcome in his military, and I wasn't going to risk being discharged because of President Bone Spurs.

The military held him off last time, but I'm not as hopeful this time. And I just wanted to throw out there: I personally believe the GOP is going to use federal funding to essentially strip LGBTQ+ people of their rights and healthcare access. It's going to be the Minimum Federal Drinking Age Act of 1984 again, where the fed is gonna say, "Sure, you can offer gender affirming care in your state... If you do, you won't have access to XYZ federal funding anymore."

And the states will let it happen.

Arm yourself, surround yourself with those you love and can trust, and just hope I'm wrong. Pray if that's your thing.

But we have to face the reality that we are a representatively small, marginalized group within a marginalized group (each LGBTQ+ letter is when they're all on their own) that neither political party has an active interest in protecting. We will be the first "others" after the "illegal" immigrants (or simultaneously, who knows). When the quality of life of our fellow citizens begins to be threatened, we will absolutely be thrown to the wolves. "Preferring a negative peace with the absence of tension to a positive peace with the presence of justice", white moderate, that whole thing.

And even within the LGBTQ+ community, there are letters of it that do not support the other letters (LGBdroptheT, TERFs, Bi-erasure, etc). So be aware that even amongst the LGBTQ+ community, there will be those who look to scapegoat the T just buy a bit more time from the leopards.

I'm pessimistically hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the DNC will be able to recover a bit politically at the federal level during the midterms and stave off the worst of it. But I'm also not naive in the idea that laws, customs, and norms are going to stop the GOP from trying to enact things. And even should that happen, the work isn't done: we need to be a core tenet of the DNC's platform, or they don't deserve our votes or support.

I should also point out, I am not saying January 20th Trump is sworn in, and January 21st Congresswoman McBride is the first trans person marched into an oven. That's why I said they're going to budget us out via healthcare services, they're not going to outright make trans people illegal on day 1. It's going to take time, but I do believe it's going to happen, or at least that's how they're going to try to do it.

We can hopefully get around to the other things eventually

I've heard this every election cycle my entire life, particularly from the DNC. "We can't have that because of some arbitrary norm that we have to respect and adhere to that we could totally change, but, oopsies, would ya look at that, we lost the majority, so give us money and elect us and we promise this time we'll get to it! Eventually, after we handle all this other stuff that came up since the last time we got absolutely nothing done to help you, but we promise, this time, for real."

but we can't do it all at the same time.

Says who? We make the rules, it's our government, where in the Constitution does it say "You may only enact legislation that incrementally changes things for the better over the course of decades, assuming none of it is undone?"

so just be happy that we've seen anything happen.

Why? When it doesn't change anything, and it's just going to be undone, why should we be happy about that? Why do we have to keep being "happy" that nothing is changing for the better? Why do we have to keep applauding and cheering and supporting this bullshit when it means absolutely nothing?

This is like someone telling you they're cold, and you light a match and hold it between you both. When they ask why you don't use the match to light some of the logs and paper littered around the room for more warmth, you let the match burn out and tell them they should be happy you did something.

Like, wow, they're still cold, the resources are still scattered around the room unused, the "fire" burnt out shortly after it was lit, and now they're not allowed to complain about it either.

Guess the gloves are coming off, god damn...

So is it fair to the family not to mourn?

How many families of Holocaust victims were given the privilege and closure of mourning and burying their loves ones?

I agree that no person is at fault for the actions of their family or their ancestors, but, their family's actions do no negate the consequences of those actions. Seeing what people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini did to their own people, nevermind what they did to those of other countries... Do their families have more right to mourn their loss than the people do who suffered at their authoritarian hands?

I would argue no, because life isn't fair, but also because the amount of suffering enacted should not be met with honor or remembrance or respect. The family of authoritarians can mourn in their heads, if they do choose, but I would argue they should choose not to. There's no "separating the art from the artist" when it comes to authoritarian genociders. Mourning their life isn't just mourning the loss of them, but the loss of everything they did in their life as well.

If you've lived the kind of life where people are debating the morality around whether or not you deserve a funeral, I'd say you don't deserve one.

This is why, despite me being on and off hormones over the last 7 years due to life/insurance/bullshit reasons, I haven't put much effort into trying to get on them again since Biden dropped out. (I currently don't have insurance, but I do have VA Healthcare access, which, we'll get to).

Our access to healthcare isn't protected, and at least for trans people, our rights and protections don't seem to be a platform priority for the DNC beyond lip service. The GOP has made it a defining part of their social platform, and made their intentions and goals clear. The majority of what we've gotten from Biden has been empty platitudes on various LGBTQ+ days of remembrance, pride, or visibility.

The day after the election, at least two Democratic congressional members felt comfortable enough to go on live today and basically parrot GOP talking points about trans people. They placed the blame for their loss at the feet of one of their most marginalized constituencies, and again, felt comfortable doing so. We are a token group to the DNC, they'll take our money and support but do little in the way of protecting us federally.

Which brings us to the VA: for anyone who doesn't know, the VA offers gender-affirming care to veterans. They actually offer more services beyond just medications than you'd initially assume (like voice training, certain surgeries, certain electrolysis/laser hair removal, etc). They do not cover SRS/GRS though, they legally aren't allowed do. SRS is explicitly excluded from their standard benefits package.

And with the Trump admin coming back in with Project 2025, I have no doubt the VA's gender affirming care services will be one of the first things on the chopping block. So I tabled those plans because I don't see me having access to my hormones after January next year. And since I've gotten gender affirming care there before, and it's documented I'm trans in my file, my heart is just filled with joy knowing the P25 shitstains will likely be pulling all of that info to use to deny myself and other veterans our other VA benefits (like disability, retirement, GI Bill, etc).

Groups are challenging this, but it's still illegal. Which, I guess, brings me to my final part (and the part that really scares me): they're (the GOP) going to use the budget to make us illegal, to make medically treating trans people illegal outside of conversion therapy or chemical castration or whatever. And our "allies" are going to stand by, watch, and let it happen.

In 1984, the US government passed the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act, legally mandating the drinking age in the US at 21 years old. At the time, states dictated their own drinking age, and it ranged from 18-21 at the time. A lot of states (and people) were against the act for plenty of reasons: military service at 18 but no drinking till 21, voting at 18 but no drinking, individual rights, etc.

But it passed, and y'know why? Because any state that refused to enforce the new drinking age would lose out on federal highway funding money. So the states rolled over and accepted the new act.

And they'll do the same thing to LGBTQ+ people to force states to bend the knee, and since money is all that matters to anyone in this world, the states will bend. The GOP has every branch of government now, the judiciary, and plenty of billionaire-owned media to push their narrative.

Idk what they'll tie it to, maybe they'll be lazy and just use highway funds again, but I guarantee that's their means to the end. And everyone around us, our "allies," are going to let it happen. Because our access to healthcare, or even just basic rights for LGBTQ+ people, that doesn't affect our allies. But all of a sudden XYZ funding they rely on could be pulled if LGBTQ+ people have rights, and they're going to turn their back on us, close their eyes, plug their ears, etc.

How do you think the average Fox viewer is going to feel when the shoes host tells them if John is allowed to be Jill, then they (the viewer) will lose their Medicare/Medicaid coverage? What politician, regardless of party, is going to say "We will protect trans people, even if it means we lose federal funding for school lunches, so we'll be cutting those or we'll raise taxes?" "Is letting little Johnny play on the girl's soccer team worth losing infrastructure funding? More at 11."

Some of you are gonna say, "But Blitzø, don't you think you're being a little alarmist?" No, I don't, because we've seen this happen before. Nazi Germany didn't start throwing Jews in ovens in 1933, it was the hundreds/thousands of small, incremental steps that led the victims to their graves. The Nazis started with plenty of other groups before they moved onto Jewish folks, and there's that whole "They came for the socialists and I said nothing because I'm not a socialist," thing.

I had a very close friend already do it, years ago, when North Carolina passed the first bathroom ban. His company was sending him to either TX, NC, or like ME for 6 months of training, and he had some say in where he could go. I told him TX because I'd lived there and thought he'd like it, and ME is too close to our home state. He asked why not NC, and I told him I personally wouldn't want to give a state that's hostile towards trans people my tax money. His response, verbatim, "Yeah, but, that doesn't affect me."

Hell, look at what just happened in Minneapolis: two trans women were physically assaulted by five guys at a train station while the crowd cheered the attackers on. No one intervened to break up the assault, and no one came to defend the two women who confronted the guys about their trans slur usage. Just think about that... Numerous people tried to intervene in the George Floyd murder, with many recording the assault and demanding the police back off.

And then in the same city, 4 years later, a crowd cheers and offers no assistance while two trans women are verbally, and then physically, assaulted and then left unconscious on the train platform.

Anyway, this comment is turning into a soap-box dissertation, but, I don't see things going well for the LGBTQ+ community over the next four years, and I don't see the states doing much to be a bulwark for our rights. Hopefully I'm wrong, but...

Hell, they'll probably make us pay back the economic impact payments we got during the last pandemic.

Did the Confederacy actually lose, though? Or did the Union just suffer a pyrrhic victory?

Edit: Just saying, the Confederacy lost but their flag is still flown on the state flag of Mississippi, Reconstruction didn't go far enough and failed, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, segregation, civil rights movement opposition, systemic and societal racism is still rampant and accepted (Trump), hell, the "state's rights" arguments is still one of the first reasons people give for the cause of the Civil War. Fuck, we still have legal slavery via our prison system.

So... Did the Confederacy actually lose? Cause they're ideology, beliefs, and the consequences of their hate is still rampant, and we're still dealing with their bullshit.

That's dismissing all the actions clothing choices that led up to being beaten raped.

See how ridiculous your argument sounds now?

But the idea that you ought to is.

But that's not the idea: self defense is not the same as a mass shooting, and you refusing to differentiate that gives me the vibe you aren't arguing in good faith.

The UK doesn't have gun violence, they have knife violence. So are you going to tell someone not to carry a knife for self defense because it's a potentially deadly weapon?

that the solution is a gun.

Sometimes it is, bud, welcome to the real world. If you're being attacked, especially if you're outnumbered, your argument is basically "you should have talked your way out if it, or just taken the assault, rather than use a tool you may legally be allowed to use to protect yourself." Do you ask rape victims what they were wearing before the assault too?

They clearly couldn't rely on bystanders to intervene, like people attempted to for George Floyd, and the victims were outnumbered and clearly overpowered. Had one of them been carrying a firearm, the assholes who just assaulted two people for existing may have been deterred.

they'll just turn those services over to private companies that receive tax dollars for providing pretending to provide that service to the public.

Ftfy

It's some people's heritage to wear nazi swastikas. Doesn't mean it's acceptable.

Wow...

Comparing a high school student who wanted to wear the flag of their ancestral homeland on their graduation day to...

Nazi Germany. Do you know where the swastika comes from? It's actually an ancient Hindu symbol that's been used throughout India for thousands of years.

So are you going to tell the world's Hindu population they're not allowed to celebrate their religious heritage because white supremacists on the other side of the world decided to steal a symbol from it?

I don't think wearing a symbol started by the guy who invented airplane hijacking and suicide vests for children is a good one.

Wow...

First, the first use of a suicide vest was in 1881, and it was in Russia. The first airplane hijacking (or skyjacking) was in Peru in 1931. So idk where you pulled "invented airplane hijacking and suicide vests for children" from other than out your ass.

Second, since this was a school function, how many country's flags were flown in that auditorium? Because the British, and by extension the Australian, flag I'm sure is symbolic of a plethora of cruelty and inhumane actions throughout their colonizing history.

And last time I checked, the Australian government didn't have a phenomenal history of treating their indigenous population with the utmost respect and humanity.

So maybe worry less about a kid wearing a scarf with the flag of their heritage on it and the "sYmBoLiSm" of it all, and just let a kid be a kid. Or, if you're going to bar one symbol for being "unacceptable" due to individual interpretation, then they all need to be taken down. You don't get to say a Palestinian flag is controversial and upsetting, but an Australian one isn't, or any country's flag for that matter.

Is this prevalent in Korea too? I had always heard it was more of a Japanese cultural issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was present in other countries in the region/world.

But Hamas settled in Israeli land, robbing it from Israeli families who held it for generations!

Wait, that was Israel settling Palestinian land...

But Hamas has spent decades walling off Israeli neighborhoods, essentially creating ghettos where residents may be restricted from leaving their own homes and are essentially isolated from the world and their communities!

Wait, that was Israel again...

But Hamas has been treating Israeli's as second class citizens, throwing their garbage onto their heads from the streets above, and forcing them to live under military-law with no protections since Israelis aren't citizens of Hamas!

Wait... That was Israel, again...

But Hamas killed over 43,000 Israelis over the course of the last year in response to Israel killing 1200 of their citizens and taking several hundred more hostage!

Fuck, that was Israel too... Shit.

They are NOT FISHY AT ALL!

Neither is chicken...

From the party that just rubbed elbows with every Cheney to try and shore up moderate-Republican votes for "I have a Glock" Harris?

freely offer anything of any value whatsoever to poor people without some strings attached or some sort of hidden agenda.

I agree, especially, as you said, from a state like TX.

I'm in the Northeast, my state offers tuition-free community college to all residents, but veterans can go to any state school tuition-free.

Tuition free, not just flat out free. Usually you're still required to pay any and all fees (like lab fees and what not), as well as books and supplies and all that, and then any taxes or whatever.

So yes, you can save a lot of money through programs like this, but they don't make college education completely free.

Whoo!! Better than Latvia!

I'm not sure what's local to you, but Aldi sells a goat cheese spread that's mixed with blueberries.

She's put it out for guests and people are drawn to it, it's pretty delicious, and goes well with just crackers.

I like how Jon Stewart put it this week:

"Republicans rely on loopholes, while Democrats rely on norms."

His whole thing this week was begging the Democrats to fight, to start getting dirty, throwing punches, to basically just not roll over.

But he kept reiterating the Dems need to get over the norms, they need to stop relying on the norms. He cited the hypocrisy of not approving Garland, but rushing through Amy Coney Barrett, and showed how the Dems brought McConnell's own words to the floor of the Senate.

"And thus, Amy Coney Barrett, head hung, was forced to return to her homestead in-- Wait, what's that? They didn't give a fuck?!"

Or the Parliamentarian not allowing something Biden proposed to move forward, and Biden just rolled over. "Oh, uh, we didn't know about that rule."

I'm incredibly disappointed too, they're supposed to fight for us, regardless of circumstances, and we get... The response we get. I completely agree the GOP and Trump were telling us they were going to steal it, and had precedent that clearly tried to last time, and the Dems just... Accepted it. The GOP launched dozens of lawsuits and recounts over handfuls of ballots, but the Dems have just moved on despite these statistical anomalies.

Not a great way to maintain your already waning support among your voting base: telling them they need to fight and support them in their fight, and then they just stop fighting.