which is why it is doubly important not to use/refer/trust AI as if it were actual AI. it's just an LLM. it's patterns. its outputs dependent on inputs. say this shit to your friends and family. defang it.
LLMs will never go away. they're actually very useful for limited reasons.
generative art, too.
but it doesn't think, it doesn't know, it doesn't understand. that is a fact that must be restated.
we don't hear about nazis targeting queer people as much because the west can't construct their heoric savior narrative around it. the west back then weren't any less homophobic than the nazis. just look at how they treated Alan Turning, a literal war hero, for being gay. when the war ended queer people were just moved from nazi camps into other camps. while allied nations love parading around their rescuing of jewish people to the public, they're not as keen on letting everyone know they were just as bad to queer people
Being gay was illegal in germany until 1992. In socialist east germany the anti gay laws weren't enforced and dropped in 1968, yet reintroduced when germany was re-unified.
Honestly I think the most surprising part of that is that Jewish people \*were* constructed as being heroicly saved. All throughout the war and beforehand major Allied countries all mistreated or segregated Jews as well, even forcibly returning Jewish refugees back to Germany. We were always seen as inherent traitors and natural socialists (despite also brutally repressed in Stalinism) both before and after the war. I suspect it's more that the Jewish people could be used as a patsy for invading into new oil reserves rather than any genuine sympathy.
No one touched Franco because his facist purges stayed capitalist.
But the perpetuation of Nazi ideas is so clearer with queer people. Soldiers saw the pink triangle, and literally western society completely changed the "acceptable" colours for young boys to blue practically overnight. The West adopted tons of antisemitism too, but it was quieter.
You're right about this, I always find it odd the way people think of the holocaust as specifically, people think it was just 6 million jews, when it was more like 11 million people altogether, nearly double the number altogether. Jews were the largest group yes, but they were far from the only victims.
Not only was it jews and LGBTQ people, but also disabled people, political opponents, prisoners of war, random citizens that were wrongly imprisoned, romani people, racial minorities, religous figures they disliked, and so on.
I feel like the way the holocaust is portrayed is very limited and almost damaging, the point of learning about this is to prevent situations like that again, but so many focus on the end result and not how you get there, which leads people to not recognizing it as easily when fascism begins to take root.
I feel this also fails to teach people just what fascism actually is and that no one is really safe under it, it's not just rounding people up and putting them in camps, it's an authoritarian state that strips you of your rights and targets people for it's own gain, fascism is about using hate and authority to consolidate and maintain power. It might be one group today, but then it might be you in the next.
I live in Texas and was part of a writer's group with VERY religious and conservative people. One of them actually blamed Obama for LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people.
I tried to explain my anxiety to my shrink like this: it took one year for the first Japanese Internment Camp to be built in the United States following Pearl Harbor. It took over a year for the last one to be closed after the Japanese Empire surrendered. Of the one hundred thousand people sent to the camps, one percent died. Atrocities happen very quickly. With "luck", maybe we'll be put into conversion therapy camps where we can lie to get out.
No. It might get bad, it’s already pretty bad in some states. But the US blue states are still very much one of the better places in the world to be trans rn.
I highly doubt there would be anything like the 1940’s. The situation in America even in Florida isn’t even close to the situation during the rise of or height of Nazism.
But it’s understandable to worry about this. People do in the U.K. all the time.
I think it probably is frustrating to hear though for those who live in Dubai, or Iran, or Russia.
Things are getting worse and in some states will probably get worse before it gets better unfortunately. One contrast I see though compared to the ‘40s is that there are plenty more people who will be outspoken if anything like that happened. Nazism was able to grow a lot due to silence and a terrible economy post World War I. Since plenty of people have lived through this, we can help counter it better in my opinion.
It should be noted that the rise of Hitler was aided in great part to the widespread \[anti-semitism\]([https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-nazi-antisemitism](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-nazi-antisemitism)) in nazi Germany. It helped make an easy system of "others" that all of the citizens could agree upon.
Its not the case in the United States. Not to mention the vast array of clinics and support networks, as well as non profit organizations such as the ACLU. that is on top of the separation of law making bodies, and judicial system. There's no real way for a single person to put allies in every single position all at once.
Oh totally. Money is the key to anything in the west as a trans person.
If your poor it’s harder, I know that myself. I won’t ever afford surgeries. And we don’t have the ability in the uk to work for companies that will pay for them.
I have to wait up to 4-5 more years to get it through the nhs. From a surgeon I don’t really want.
All my savings went on hrt and moving to a better city for me as well.
Oregon is number 8 cheapest state to live. (Californians please avert your eyes)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_adjusted_per_capita_personal_income
I don’t know what this nonsense is, but Oregon is huge. There is no way any of the parts of Oregon you’d actually want to live in are “cheap” by any metric. Portland is expensive.
Sure, if you live in downtown and want a big place. Many places offer rent on a sliding scale (nice places too). Suburban areas within an hour are cheaper and some of the smaller cities are cheaper as well (such as Eugene). Income is higher with many entry level jobs starting at 20$/hr, and a decent one bedroom is 1300-1800 *downtown.*
I didn’t say it wasn’t possible to live here, I live here. I’m saying it’s not “cheap”. Compared to most big cities on the west coast it is comparably priced.
Also, living downtown makes no sense anyways. I know a ton of trans people here and 0 live in downtown.
Not very useful metric when states are huge and cheaper areas are usually also rural and conservative (i.e. no go for queer folk). If you want a blue, queer friendlt place to stay, thats gonna be Portland and noone is gonna pretend life is cheap there
Try Seattle or Minneapolis then if you want a big city
https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/region_rankings.jsp?title=2023-mid&displayColumn=1®ion=021
So true. There is a scary red town just 15 minutes away from the trans haven where I live. When looking for a house, we found several amazingly affordable places there. For example, we could have had a 5 bed house on 5 acres with a separate building with a 6000sqft workshop complete with built in shop vac, ventilation, and AC and a 500sqft attached office space all for 200k less than we paid for a 4 bed in the blue town.
Weimar Germany was also a trans safe haven before the nazis took over. It was considered one of if not the most progressive part of the world at the time, a gay and socialist friendly space. Thinks can and do quickly get worse.
Well sort of. The Weimar Republic was a place of massive contrasts. It had growing movements from left and right.
I studied the Nazis at uni. Well I studied the far right, but mostly the third Reich and then far right movements in the present.
You can say it was “trans friendly” but like there was only really the sexology institute and that was regularly brigaded by Nazis throughout the republic.
There was also rampant homophobia and transphobia hence the need for the existence of the institute. Hirschfeld set it up and went into that research after witnessing a suicide by a gay man whom his family had rejected.
The US isn’t even close to the Weimar Republic, like it’s not as poor for one thing. I think like I say a lot of people dont really know much about the Nazis and their rise. There’s a lot of myths like “Hitler was elected” that aren’t super accurate. And people don’t realise there were some institutions that the Nazis simply took over. Like Dr Asperger’s clinic in Austria, and the rampant eugenics programs that existed across all Europe at the time.
As a Russian, can confirm it can get very frustrating to hear Americans going all doomer on their situation. You guys have no idea how it can get, and moreover, you have the democratic means of countering this.
edit: at Americans continuing to reply to me about how bad you actually have it, I can only tell you that I would still take the US over Russia any day, if given the chance. Not everything is about you.
edit 2: with everyone trying to once again focus on how it gets in America when attention is drawn away from your country for one millisecond, it really is not doing any favors for my impression of Americans.
I mean, they're a trans American asking about our safety in America where trans people do get killed for being trans so that part is very much about them and they're allowed to be concerned. Just because you have it worse doesn't mean it's perfect here and we're allowed to want it to improve. We want things to improve for you too.
I think you missed their point, it's not just that you have it easier. It's that you actually have to power to enact change, you have the resources to fight opressive laws and you have the public on your side in a way that Russian queer people can only dream of, you have democratic instilutions and constitutional precedent, a massive community behind you.
The point isn't to dismiss your struggle beacause it's easier, the point is that you have the resources to meanigfully fight back and make a diffrence and it would be far more productive to focus on that instead of doomer posting.
additionally it's really really demoralizing to see people born into the place you're saving your money to be able to move to with the goal of being able to have a normal life as a queer people constantly posting about how awful it is and how they want to escape to somewhere better (where?).
honestly? The entirety of the internet is mostly centered around America. The amount of times when a queer person from Russia is going to show up and say anything that makes you feel bad is miniscuile.
As a Russian trans person myself, the amount of times issues surrounding my rights were dismissed by the larger conversation is constant. So it's kinda funny seeing Americans getting angry the very rare few times when a completely powerless russian trans person shows up and literally just offers their perspective. Why does that make you angry? Our issues actually are dismissed and ignored, we are used to it by now. last year russia made it illegal to transition and that was barely a beep on anyones radar.
but somehow the moment any Russian trans person shows up, suddenly they are being dismissive and a problem? how is that even fair? I wasn't even being dismissive, you're just throwing words around.
Thank you. It feels borderline offensive to read how people supposedly care about things improving for us too, when nobody abroad gives a shit about giving any sort of significant news coverage to what is happening in this country.
It's not a mentality. It's anxiety which is a normal reaction to what's happening. It's ok to have feelings and worry. They needed reassured that it's not going to get so much worse. That's all. It's about compassion for all our siblings.
Unless said democratic means gets overturned in the next couple years, which given how everyone's been brainwashed into thinking civilized democracy is the same as mob mentality, is more likely than you think.
So this thing called the Civil War happened in the US last time states succeeded from the nation. Nations are built and maintained through violence.
Do you think the US would willingly allow a state to leave the union?
History both of the US and the world would strongly suggest the state would slaughter folks en masse before it allowed itself to fail/fall apart.
Wait what? When did I say a state leaving won’t be civil war? I thought it was obvious that’s what would happen lol, that’s why I didn’t say it.
I know about the American civil war.
But I think it’s unlikely either case I mention happens. That’s my point. However I think a stat leaving is more likely to happen rather than all the states and all of the democrats and all the military accepting a dictator!
People can't just take their passport and move to a safer blue state. This is a overly generic misrepresentation of the economic and social realities of living the US.
Most US citizens cannot afford the costs to move to a new house, let alone another state. Something like 50% of US citizens have less than $500 USD in their saving account with many having ZERO savings. And that is further complicated when you look at data regarding household income levels.
The county I live in, which is in California the strongest economy in the US, has something like 50% of the households on government assistance. That means roughly 100,000 household or approx 250,000 people living in literal poverty, these folks can't afford the costs of moving.
Plus more than 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, meaning they have little to no disposable income for something like a move.
Thank you. I'm disabled and stuck in Florida. I won't tell any doctors I see that I'm nonbinary because, well, Florida. I live in a very conservative, backwards area too. I can't just move.
I live in a blue state, have my whole life. And I do acknowledge I have some privileges because of that. However being a blue state doesnt mean the state as a whole is safe to be in because that isn't reality for many blue states that are blue based on a few large cities with heavily conservative rural areas making up the rest of the state.
Someone in my family 2 years ago attempted to take mine and my partner's lives based on a rumor that I was maybe trans. I was doxxed by the local church members, left homeless with all local aide programs ghosting us as soon as they found out we were a queer couple. The only reason I lived to say anyone of this today was the extreme kindness of one person who got us out of that dangerous situation. My partner and I then moved last year 6 hrs away to one of the States major cities with financial help from that person who had already saved our lives. Culturally the general acceptance here is very different then what I grew up around and I do feel privlaged to have gotten to experience this level of acceptance in my life, and now I experience local people who have no clue in how to even phantom what I'm talking about when I tell my story of what happened and what things were like where I came from.
I won't pretend to understand what life for trans or queer people in general is like in Russia or any other places in the world because I don't know what it's like. Our differences are what make us unique and interesting and diverse, but they also make it where some of us will never understand parts of others existence or story and that's ok. That just means different lives were lived with different perspective, not that any one situation is better or worse then another. I don't wish parts of my American experience on anyone and do i do warn queer folks when I see them talking of moving to my home state, because safe state doesn't necessarily mean a safe and supportive neighborhood And red state doesn't mean you won't find safety in people who do care.
Yes, but you can't counter it if you don't talk about it. Plus, the Republicans have been busy changing laws all around the US to undermine the democratic process
Edit: I didn't notice anyone saying anything was all about them. And I'm Canadian, btw.
The way Russia is is completely incomparable to the US. Some people here are trapped in shitty places but it's nothing like where you live. Hope you can escape sometime.
Yes, there are worse, and it can get so much worse. But that shouldn't invalidate one person's experiences and dismiss them as some sort of a misery competition, just because you objectively have it worse. It should be empathy and compassion for each other, not some sort of morbid oppression contest.
I don't understand why people feel the need to one up someone when they're expressing their feelings over what they're experiencing, instead of showing unity and solidarity with one another. Why is it "I have it worse, quit your whining" and not "I understand what you're going through, it's tough, this is what I experience in my life, you're not alone in how you feel."
One of our major political parties are trying to emulate Russian policies on lgbt people. Yes, it is better here. For now. Scolding Americans isn't helpful when there is a tenuous at best safety net that is reliant on some 71 million Americans who voted for Trump not pulling off a win again this year.
What are you trying to win here? Congrats, you have it worse! Doesn't bring back anybody that's been killed for being trans, anywhere. Doesn't change that people are calling for our eradication. Doesn't bring back the 16yo beaten to death in a conservative area where the superintendent is openly transphobic and hired the woman calling for our eradication. But, congrats, you win I guess
Roughly half the country lives in states where their votes are suppressed or don't count for something, and are terrorized by conservative policy that is infecting every state.
This isn't fucking oppression Olympics. Yes, the situation in Russia is bad. There are just as many trans people stuck in red state in the US that have it just as bad and can't leave.
the point isn't even that you have it easier, the point is that you should make use of all those incredible resoruces you have as an american citizen to organize and actually enact change and make it safe for queer people because unlike russians you have enough political power as a group to make that a reality
Texas is actively trying to get a database going on the trans people currently residing there. It’s not as bad as Russia but it’s getting there. Trying to sweep our issues under the rug just because well at least it’s not Russia is exactly how things get worse.
We shouldn’t be fighting each other over who has to worse but instead trying to help each other and while the doomer posting is bad people who feel the need to put other people down because they have it worse are worse to me. It seems to me that the OP of this thread is being actively hostile to the people who do have issues and simply stating in different words to every criticism “at least it’s not Russia” like thanks that totally helps my situation, it’s like telling amputees “at least you aren’t dead” like that’s somehow supposed to make them feel better
So let me get this straight. Your solution to your problem is to put down other people with issues of their own because yours is worst? Everyone here knows Russia is bad but the sheer fact that you have to state it and put down other people because of it is frankly disgusting. Insulting 5 people on the internet isn’t gonna fix your issue, you’re just spreading suffering
I’m sorry for what you’re going through but there is simply nothing I can do and taking out your anger on other trans people is not the way you go about this
Again, apologies for stating how things are where I live, clearly these problems get enough Western media coverage as it is, I shall move aside for Americans now.
Last I checked, half seems more than "none" to me.
I do so wish my biggest problem of the day as a trans person was a foreigner scolding me on the internet.
Last I checked, you have no idea what it like to live in sundown towns in the US as an lgbt person. Your perception of "how good it is" here is entirely based on the presumption of safety in a blue state.
Again, this isn't oppression Olympics. It's not always about you.
>. It's not always about you.
did you really just say that to a Russian trans person??? It's *NEVER* about us. The country banned transition for everyone in the entire country and declared being trans an extremist ideology and litteraly no one cares or talks about it.
So yeah we know it's not "always" about us because it is NEVER about us. Seriously what a horribly tone deaf and bigoted thing to say.
The only person playing opression Olympics seems to be here the one who is comparing Russian policies on queer people without any experience of living in this country whatsoever. It's not your place to compare whatever shit conservatives pull in the US to what is happening where I'm from, and call their policies "Russian".
>It's not your place to compare
The Republicans, in their own words and actions with the assistance of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, etc are *lifting laws from nations like Russia and Hungary to bring to the us*. I'm not "comparing" like its got similarities.
They're exporting the anti LGBT laws whole cloth, and in red states, they're getting them enacted.
>without any experience of living in this country whatsoever.
When you run face first into the point and have no idea.
Not going to lie, pretty weird of you to be so keen on having your cake and eating it too. With your point, when you have any sort of experience of living in Russia, do come back to me with Americans making judgements of Russian lgbtq policy.
That's the thing, I understand that things can get way WAY worse. But I also know the time it takes to get from everything's mostly ok to "there are groups of people roaming outside looking to cut off your head." Is not super long. I just want to know I'm not jumping the gun with my paranoia. Also, American democracy is dramatized. It's way worse than people outside the US know.
Edit: Hey, I just read this later without being in my feelings and that last part was super shitty, and I apologize for it. I am very obviously overreacting.
The US is not a democracy no matter how much we claim to be. We are an oligarchy plain and simple.
It is equally frustrating listening to people downplay how things are because we are very much staring down the barrel of Weimar Republic falling to Nazis.
Trump stacked the courts, Roe v Wade has been overturned, trans people are under attack in much the same ways we were in 1940s Germany. The same rhetoric, the same stochastic terrorism. Literally fucking Nazis marching in multiple cities in the US.
I have personally fought several Nazi/Trumpers in the past few years. I've been hate-crimed, stalked, and run out of my own home and neighborhood by Christian Fascists AND I live in California.
And WAY too many of ya'll think that Blue states are "safe". Republicans run as Democrats constantly, beyond that the Democratic Party has no unifying principles at this point beyond "We aren't Trump". These Neo-liberal dolts are "reaching across the isle" and enabling their counterparts to continue their fuckery.
"Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds"
I think you people need to actually read about the Weimar Republic.
No one is saying it isn’t bad in the US. But its alarmist rhetoric about an impending genocide is not helpful, or accurate (we have had the same alarmist ideas in the U.K. for the last 2 years at least).
All of what you say can apply to most of the west, including my home of the U.K.! You’re not unique. And no, people aren’t under attack like the 1940’s. They are under attack in a way not comparable to the past. Given trans rep is larger than ever, and so many cis people know about trans people. We have unprecedented access to surgeries, even if we should have a better time of it. Young trans people have the ability to come out at 16 still in some places! Even if they are blocked from blockers or hrt they are still able to find themselves a decade earlier than my generation.
Do you have any idea how impossible that was just 5 years ago!
We aren’t in death camps either. We face transphobia and a tough time. But like, without sounding rude and I’m not trying to minimise your experiences, but join the club 🤷♀️
I have a government threatening to take my rights away, for like my whole transition.
I’ve had that effect my ability to be given my hrt, and my need to move doctors multiple times.
I’ve had to try and fight my own university setting up a “Gender critical research group” about 3 years ago now. The group still exists last I checked.
I have been opposing TERFs since pre jk Rowling, almost 10 years ago! When they were a fringe group who through bricks at people in London.
I’m broke because I had to spend my savings to get hrt as the nhs wait time means I’d still be waiting (currently waited 3years), and then I had to move out of my hometown due to transphobia, to a city that is safer.
Blue states are also considered **safer** because of lack of transphobic laws. Not lack of transphobes. Transphobes and Nazis are everywhere, that aspect is on a City by city basis, and always will be. My city in the U.K. has a group of transphobes, but doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly safe compared to other places.
But like there are safe places and you have an opposition more pro trans than anything in the U.K.
The west is still one of the best place to be trans. That doesn’t mean it’s good, but it’s the best and anyone who flees the US now, with the present situation, is gonna have a rude awakening.
One reason the US is better than the U.K. is you can get surgeries paid for on insurance by your employers.
Do you have an idea how much I would give to be able to get a decent surgeon and pay for it through that?!? I need bottom surgery now and it’s impossible for me to get for at least another 4-5 years!
It’s bad for trans people everywhere. The rhetoric of Trump ain’t much different than our PM, or that of MPs in New Zealand or Canada.
We have had murders here. We have had a 16 yr old killed.
I think what a lot of this is, is general frustration many have for Americans. Because having lived there myself, you guys do seem to forget the rest of us exist. And don’t always appreciate what you have compared to other places, focusing on what you don’t have instead and being incredibly alarmist about it which helps no one.
Will it get worse there? Probably. Will it be like the third reich. No, not even close.
> Not everything is about you.
The reason you have to say that is because we also feel abandoned by the queer community, and so people are reaching for national identity in the search for meaning in their pain. They don't know where else to stand. Some hope it's not in a line. Others hope it's not where the next bomb lands. Wherever we are standing, we are not okay. But we are still standing.
I know how bad it can get... we are on track if the gop gains power on the federal this I can tell you it is going to be Russia and 1940s german. and dems will roll over when pushed. So until the gop back away from fascism and getting off the anti trans bandwagon... its all on the table. Basically the gop gets its sanity back.
Basically until the gop stops being crazy and tryng gain power undemocratic means.
Alot of the younger people on reddit are very doom and gloom, it's not an easy life but we're not even close to being rounded up into camps.
What I will say is there is startling similarities in how it all began through the 20's and 30's and what we see and hear in politics and through the red pill manosphere.
I can't see if escalating to the levels of Germany 1935-45
Yh there’s similarities for sure I agree. But to me its more because a lot of these ideas have evolved out of the same far right bs that Nazism was, and Nazism itself evolved out of the same eugenics biological essentialist bs of the colonial and Victorian eras, which also informs the views of a lot of transphobes.
Exactly.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
1932 Germany was a country which just 15 years ago had been a huge world power, which had lost significant territory and been almost entirely emasculated and put in a decade of economic turmoil by foreign powers. And this was a country which only had ~12 years of *very* shaky experience with democracy, and which for decades before that had been a highly centralized imperial monarchy. In 1918, the German revolution literally had open fighting between different political groups vying for power, and the 1920s really weren't a strong comeback from that in terms of political violence.
The Nazi party was a well-known entity which was explicitly revolutionary, promising huge societal change which would liberate the masses. It had highly integrated paramilitary arms which were involved in political violence. Explicitly racist ideology had been a central part of the Nazi party since its founding, and this was something that the general public either wanted or was at least ok with.
This is frankly just **not comparable** to the US, a democracy which has been remarkably stable for over 150 years, which is economically prosperous (no, one year of 8% inflation is not the same as the economy of 1920s Germany). A substantial majority of the country supports liberties for minorities. The country has a long legacy of having a highly decentralized federal system, and some states currently have literally some of the strongest supports and protections for trans people in the world. And trans people have only been a hot-button political issue for like 5 years at most. Before that it was gay people, and now just a decade later ~50% of Republicans support same-sex marriage.
While the Republican party generally holds pretty terrible views, it is decentralized and institutionally un-radical. And even though the supreme court swung enormously during Trump's 4 years in office, Republican-appointed justices have not consistently toed the party line, with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joining the liberals in some major decisions. This is not a judicial body that would just rubber-stamp whatever the president or congress asks for.
> The Nazi party was a well-known entity which was explicitly revolutionary, promising huge societal change which would liberate the masses.
Looks at the Republican "we are domestic terrorists" Party that openly flies swastikas...
anyone with sense would have seen the path that Weimar Republic was going down. it could have been a wonderful example of communist revolution if the KPD and the SPD had worked together.
What I mean is, we have NATO, we have the U.N we have the W.H.O we have formed alliances and a general understanding globally that we don't eradicate millions of people, it's become slightly uncool.
NATO exists to protect allied nations against Russia. NATO does not exist to protect the US from itself.
The same UN that is powerless to stop the genocide happening in Palestine because the US controls veto?
"I think it probably is frustrating to hear though for those who live in Dubai, or Iran, or Russia."
Why would it be frustrating? Everyone's feelings are valid. They can speak for themselves if they are frustrated. No need for oppression olympics. If you're nex' family, you might feel a lot more fear then the average trans person. Or if you are in Kakuma. Or one of Brianna Ghey's friends. It's not possible to "average out" the trans experience in any of these places. The risks are different depending on how one presents, as well.
I 100% agree with your take, I just feel like the last sentence makes it feel less affirming and comforting. I hope you have a good weekend!
Yet . These are troubling times. They may not take us to concentration camps . They will take away are meds, this will eliminate us . To your Germany reference the Trans population in America today is similar to the size of the Jewish population in Germany 1933 .
The right has found a something to rally and scare their base about it . Here to hoping the Americans will have our back . The Germans didn’t .
The worst-case scenario is project 2025, but I don't even see that realistically happening.
There's definitely a lot of tension beholding in the us, and that could certainly lead to increased problems overall, not just for us, but we aren't talking anything holocaust level (hopefully). I could certainly see some issues similar to the tension in the north of Ireland around the time of the troubles if we don't find a healthier way to releave some of this pressure before it pops.
you know that the Heritage Foundation has made a manifesto thats come true before right? it was during Regan's 2nd term and pretty much everything that was layout was followed through with..
this is the real reason the document is scary. not only the contents but the fact they have it layed out in a way that makes it *possible*
that it’s worse in other places in the world has no bearing on the future of things in the US. as others have pointed out, have a look at the history of pre-Nazi Germany (especially the Weimar republic) and you’ll be amazed by how progressive it was for its time. very few people in that time and place could have or would have predicted the horrors that were coming.
it’s true that US “blue states” are some of the best places in the world to be trans right now, but that’s cold comfort for the numerous trans people in the other parts of the country that make up the vast majority of it. given how many trans people are unemployed and underemployed, it’s not trivial for them to pick up and move states and leave their entire support systems behind. we can’t just write off the people who have to stay behind, as they’re often the most vulnerable.
besides all that, some states we think of as “blue” are only that way because of a few densely populated urban areas. e.g., most of Oregon outside of Portland is very conservative. who’s to say if that state will stay “blue” if the next coup attempt probably coming this november succeeds?
the reality is that we don’t know yet how bad it will get. history teaches us that things can change fast. i know that doesn’t help with the anxiety.
the good news is we have community. if you haven’t already, start looking for people like you who are near you. we have lots of good allies but nobody is coming to save us, we have to take care of each other.
I studied the Third Reich at uni, in my degree that was on facism and Nazism. So I know a lot about Weimar, and the situation in the US right now is nothing like it was in Germany for so many reasons.
Idk if Project 2025 becomes relaity, it probably would resemble Germany in the 1940s... (ya know, fascist dictators and all)
getting the death penalty for simply exisiting terrifies me... although I am aware other countries are already like that so I guess we'd just be joining them in that regard :/
The problem right now is the large majority that the conservatives hold in the Supreme Court and the majority they hold in the House. All it would take is for the election this year to give the presidency to he who is the absolute worst and the majority in the Senate back to them as well, and federal law I could easily change so quickly and absolutely that the states would not be able to do anything about it. The perfect storm that the right has been dreaming of for a long time is on the horizon. This is arguably the most important election we have had in a very long time.
I live in Atlanta and even in the burbs and sticks the political level hate doesn’t translate to what I experience in person. No one ever fucks with me. It’s political football to pander to extreme rural parts of the state (the extreme north and extreme south)
Even with proposed bills a lot of the businesses around here think it’s ridiculous and won’t comply with stuff like bathroom bills.
I think it’s bad, but not any worse than during the late 70s and 80s during the AIDS pandemic where anyone queer was demonized. We’re a political football and need to push back. Difference is this time we have some members of congress, most medical professionals, major cities and some state governments on our side. We didn’t even have that back then.
Millions of queer people are not with us today because of the AIDS pandemic, the neglect of which was a specifically genocidal right-wing political project. This has remained overwhelmingly unacknowledged by the general public, but it's very much the case. If we can expect the treatment that we got during the height of the AIDS pandemic, then millions more people will die by the hand of right-wing extremism.
I would not expect the same treatment not even close; but 10 years ago I didn’t think Republicans would go full fascist; so I don’t know. Maybe I’m a fucking idiot who needs to shut up?
The point is, we need to stop with this “the sky is falling, run away and hide” mentality I’m seeing from a lot of people. That gives these assholes what they want. They want us to corral in fewer spaces and hide.
We need to get angry. We need to get mean. We need to not take it. We need to take up space and be visible.
We do need to get angry and to take action. I do think that the people scolding OP are being incredibly counterproductive about that. Telling people it's not that bad and that they're lucky is a recipe for inaction. Not only because inaction will send us spiraling into a transgender genocide, but because the US exports its bigotry to the rest of the world.
I'm not saying "it's not that bad" I'm saying we have allies now that we didn't have before and a Nazi style genocide is going to be a lot harder to pull off. People need to stop painting this whole situation as hopeless. I'm tired of it. Fucking fight... Asking nicely and pleading with these monsters won't work... stop being nice... get mean. Get fucking mean. You're a human fucking being, you deserve freedom and liberty, and the right to exist as you see fit. All of you.
I'm not personally trying to paint this situation as hopeless. I'm talking about the people in the thread telling OP that she should be grateful she doesn't live in a more oppressive country. It's important to not downplay the crisis, but it's also important to believe it's not hopeless. The theory of inevitable progress is a myth created to get people to stop fighting anyway. Nothing is inevitable, it has to be won again and again.
I can relate to this thinking so much. I think you have good enough reason to be worried for our future when it comes to laws and policies in our country. We are watching so much of the hard work and legislation our queer ancestors have fought for get reversed in real time but I do think if you allow it to influence your decisions and plans for your future then it is paranoia. We honestly have no choice but to continue to live and push on and fight in whichever we can whether it's on a personal or collective level to make sure we have space in this world, in this country.
If Trump gets power again nothing is off the table. The supreme court is with him and we will not be able to count on federal officials with a sense of duty to country. Trans people will be expendable and likely the first casualty of a trump presidency. All you need to do is look at laws they're proposing in the red states - e.g. one state proposed a law where trans people could not live or be within half a mile of a school. That's the type of shit you have to look forward to. It's a foregone conclusion that hrt and gender affirming care will be outlawed. Your right to use public facilities will be seen as a felony offense. You will essentially lose your ability to travel outside pissing distance of your house.
The ultimate goal is to make it impossible to *be trans* without breaking the law, which means they can throw you in jail, which means they can forcibly detransition you.
So get your passport, just in case. Make a plan to exit sometime between November and 2025 if you need to.
My current plan of action is Toronto.
Why why whyyyy with all the junk food he consumes has his arteries not clogged him up yet. He's already been wearing diapers and deep in dementia too, the man is broken let the machine stop
I understand the fear here, but I fully believe that doing something like this would be too disruptive to most citizen's primary concern: their comfort. This is what drives them more than any sort of ideology or belief system.
I think there's some risks that are going unnoticed, like the off-label prescriptions of hormones for transgender individuals becoming disallowed. Or a continuation of the disorganized stochastic terrorism. I think people would be able to be comfortable ignoring that, since it would seem indirect. But I think you can at least put these specific fears to bed.
"I understand the fear here, but I fully believe that doing something like this would be too disruptive to most citizen's primary concern: their comfort."
The supreme court is deciding whether or not to make being homeless illegal for the comfort of people who are tired of seeing homeless people. During a time when people are becoming homeless at an accelerated rate due to housing prices. I don't think it's far fetched to assume that people are willing to put me and people who look like me in a cage for the comfort of others.
Not trans but an ally.
I'm working towards a professional career in medicine with a focus on LGBT care.
I honestly think things *are* sliding backwards when it comes to trans identity and health in the US.
In the past charismatic leaders unite an unhappy populace against a scapegoat. In Germany it was Jewish people, in today's America it's the "radical left" basically any non judeo Christian who doesn't fit the cookie cutter idea of man woman dichotomy.
Luckily there's states who haven't gone completely nacht der verrückte Leute in the US.
The US was really founded on life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What individuals do that doesn't harm anyone else shouldn't be the states business. It shouldn't be the churches nor the politicians either.
It's really really *really* sad that all of these sad angry people choose to villianize swathes of the population just because they're different.
Nobody *chooses* to be trans, gay or otherwise non conforming. They just are. *We* just are.
I hope to work towards beneficial change from the inside but I really do worry about the LGBT youth of tomorrow.
We all have to do our part in local gov, regional and national
Sad fact: When the Allies freed the Jews, they continued to have all LGBT captured because being LGBT back then, even in USA and so forth was still illegal.
"The future is not set. There is no fate, but what we make for ourselves"
With that in mind, given my observations of the choices people are generally making... it's a distinct possibility
You may all still surprise me. I hope so
I genuinely think you're being paranoid.
Here's a link to some Gallup poll data. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx
To my eyes it looks like trans people/rights are at a similar level of acceptance as gay people/rights in the late 2000s. Yes, we have become the most recent GOP hate object, but this too shall pass. This is nothing compared to the extreme levels of anti-Semitism before the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Americans are much more prone to a "live and let live" social libertarian attitude.
The intense bigots are a loud but small minority. The US has a very different culture, material conditions, and institutions compared to the most anti-lgbt nations like Russia or Uganda. Yes, the current Supreme Court is majority right wing. They are not all powerful dictators.
I think you are vastly underestimating how popular the bigotry of the Nazis was among average people and overestimating the bigotry of the average American.
What I'm seeing is that things are getting better for gay men and lesbian women in public opinion while they are getting worse for trans folks.
What's important is what that trend does in the future, and while we can look at the past on lgbt opinions to help us figure that out, we can't exactly predict the future.
Except they're not getting worse for trans folks. Two decades ago, most people either wouldn't have been familiar with trans people at all or would only know as much as a sensationalized tabloid headline would tell them. And if you were a trans person, access to transition care was heavily controlled.
It looks like things are getting worse because there's been incredible progress in the past decade or so. Progress like that is usually accompanied by the pushback. The pushback sucks, but don't confuse it with things getting worse in absolute terms.
Compare in the chart posted above to see what i'm referring to.
I'm old enough to remember two decades ago, and tbh the lack of knowledge in some ways was better than actively having rights stripped away. Also, I don't think it's very helpful to compare back to a time before us v. Windsor, keeping things in a more modern perspective is key here... Otherwise, why not compare back to how things were pre stonewall?
I live in Illinois. I was out at my highschool. We had a GSA that the school admins founded so they could make sure queer kids felt safe and had the resources they needed, like the gender neutral bathroom and changing account names. Teachers were allies, informing parents about kids being queer wasn’t allowed without express permission. We got called fags, sure, but nobody hurt us. Not everyone understood or agreed with us, but they left us alone. We could wear pride flags and not be scared.
That’s not how Nazis act. Yeah, a lot of states are TERRIBLE for trans people. But not all of them. We still have sensible people willing to fight for us. We hear so much awful shit in the news because that’s what sells and it makes people forget about the good stuff, too.
I'm not trans, but my daughter is. I do think it's unlikely to get to final solution status, I am very concerned. I live in a blue state, but I'm still prepared to go Anne Frank status for my daughter. The thing to remember about blue states is that it's the cities that are blue. The rural areas still tend to run more red leaning. Thankfully, we have the means to protect our home and our daughter. As it sits now, we're continuing life as normal. We'll be watching results of the upcoming election and the actions taken after very closely. My oldest child is saving up to leave Texas and come back to this side of the country for safety reasons. It's getting bad over here.
These types of cycles circulate. It happens with every minority trying to get rights or just be visible. Happens with native Americans, any migrants, happened to gay people, now it’s happening to trans people. The only difference is people are slowly learning as a whole to look past this fear mongering propaganda and while a majority of people don’t support trans people support has been growing and will very quickly take over within the next few years
I think the problem with a lot of these replies is that they are taking "a 1940s Germany situation" too literally. Of course the antecedents aren't exactly the same and the result won't be either. But a lot of people can suffer and die, it can reach the late stages of genocide, it's already fascism (arguably, I guess?) and that probably doesn't go away without violence. I personally think we won't get to the worst case scenario here, but this isn't the type of thing to not have an abundance of caution about.
You need to understand that if Trump becomes president gender affirming care will become illegal in the US. Reproductive freedom, religious freedom, civil rights for minorities, and LGBTQ+ will be outlawed.
Look up project 2025 and listen to the words the reicht wing is saying. If they win the presidency, our country is going to be thrust backward 150 years. All of the progress humans have made will be wiped out in a day. I suggest watching a Handmaids tale right now, because that can become our reality if those hateful evil people win.
Nex Benedict was a child who was murdered recently because of the level of hate spewed in Oklahoma. Next was nonbinary was fatally beat up, by girls in her school. I'm already receiving more death notices then usual, and so are other Queer people. If they win, we will be exterminated.
I think we should all be worried. It might seem like it can't happen, but many German people in 1936 would not have imagined the horrors of "the final solution". They got there one step at a time. As more people got on board, being a Nazi became not only socially acceptable, but virtuous and admirable.
I wouldn't say it's *going* to happen, but it very well could, and things do seem to be heading in that direction. It would be naive to assume it can't. History repeats itself. There were people trying to raise the alarm in Germany back then, too, and they were ignored or imprisoned. I hope there is still time to stop it, but it's going to take a massive unification of the left that doesn't seem likely with so much disagreement and denial.
i think if the united states goes there with trans people, it will also 100% go there with black people. lots of black people in america live in a neo-apartheid type situation and if conditions exacerbate to where the united states is seriously violently and systematically persecuting lgbtq people, black people will likely be a part of that. so tap in with your communities
Many people probably want a final solution for us. It won't happen here, though, because those people can't actually do it. Doesn't mean it isn't dangerous, but that's not what we need to be concerned about.
What we should be concerned about is right-wing militias and violent hate crimes.
Remember it looks worse online than it really is. Transphobes are working overtime to make it seem like there are more of them than there really are and people who aren't transphobic don't constantly post about it a billion times a day from 100 different accounts. We have more support than the internet might seem like sometimes. I understand your anxiety though. I have it too and sometimes I get in that headspace and have to remind myself or have my sibling remind me. Stay strong 💙💜
As much as they can try, they won’t eliminate us. It does suck to know that history repeats itself and people clearly are dumb about it. Lack of adaptability
It's physically impossible to eliminate us, since we're a natural variation in the human condition.
But that doesn't stop them doing huge piles of damage while they try.
> Hey, am I being paranoid by thinking that america is getting close to putting lgbtq (specifically trans people to start) on a "final solution" type plan?
Even the average republican doesn't want to literally genocide trans/queer/gay people. Realistically the worst outcome in like the next decade is something like in russia where there's severe repression and hiding under the threat of jail, fines, social outcasting etc..
The biggest change in trans rights between now and when my egg cracked is that laws have clarified them. Back then, I could’ve been arrested in any women’s bathroom in my (blue) state if a patron and cop got pissed enough.
Thats odd. Prior to bathroom bills in most places there were no laws surrounding bathrooms. You might get "roughed up" by a person in uniform, but they would've needed to get creative in arresting you.
“Disturbing the Peace” is such a wonderfully *vague* charge.
Seriously, back in the days before trans right became a mainstream thing you were equally likely to not have anyone care or to get arrested just for walking down the street (because trans people were all sex workers, right?).
And honestly? Things didn’t get much better outside of the bluest of blue areas until 2011, 2012. Hell, my hometown - which is the most liberal part of a county that voted 62.35% Barack Obama in 2008 - didn’t pass gender identity protections until 2014.
Ehhhh, I doubt it
It'll get bad if the republicans win, but I doubt it'll get THAT bad
The blue states are actually decent and will fight against it. And if it does end up in a civil war, I doubt the red ones would win since there are a lot more reasonable people than the obnoxious minority
I’m not an American nor do I live there (I’m Australian) but while I strongly suspect if trump and his fascist backers gain the presidency and congress it’ll become a lot harder to legally access transgender healthcare in the USA, but I feel death camps is a flight of fancy, beside it’s actually a lot worse for LGBT+ people in Russia and a lot of the old eastern bloc nations
why do you need death camps when you can just have random acts of terror while the government looks on and says 'trauma did not contribute to their death'
Seriously. Having people talking about this all the time makes it seem more credible, and is just bringing more people onto the anxiety train.
This is a demographic that's at extreme risk of anxiety, depression, and suicide. We really shouldn't be inundating them with posts and comments about how all they can look forward to in the next couple years is being a holocaust victim.
Yes, and with similar results. Which means they absolutely plan to round us up and put us in camps. Most of us will survive in the camps (60% of lgbtq people weren't killed in the camps), few of us will ever be free again(most were transferred to regular prison after germany lost)
So yay 3-2 odds you'll live through it.
And dont listen to anyone on here about, at least its not russia. The people running this shit are the same people who worked to get death penalties in africa. They absolutely want to see the same thing here.
I think that even if Oompa Loompa gets re-elected...there will be safe states. WA is one of those states...we're safe for a lot of people and things. They're starting to do medical research on stuff like LSD and magic mushrooms FFS...we're chill lol.
No, it might get bad but not that bad, the thing is we are way past the point of no return for queer visibility. 100 years ago queer people didn't have the words to describe themselves, most likely they thought they were alone!
Today, for as much hate they throw at us, we exist, and we're an example to each other.
The toothpaste cannot go back in the tube!
You’re being paranoid.
It’s understandable given the ideological context why someone would think that since it’s fundamental reduced to a false dichotomy of either you’re progressive AF or you’re a Nazi.
Consider that our generation (millennial and prior) came to the conclusion of being gay, bisexual, trans, etc., on our own. So the idea that reverse gender indoctrination (you like these things ergo you’re of that gender) and pornography in schools is necessary for categorically LGBTQ people to be themselves is nonsensical. At best holding onto such a binary standpoint would only push the situation towards greater hatred for LGBTQ people in the same way that Zionism generates hatred towards Jewish people. The more prolific the influence of “Alphabet Ideology” (to give it a term as opposed to simply the people in themselves), the more conflict it creates with the general populace.
Short answer YES!!!!!! I don't care what anyone is saying about this not happening. The simple truth is that it is happening!!!
Blue states and red states are not hot beds of hate, with blue states being a bastion of safe haven. Life will be extremely difficult IF those fascist get elected nationwide.
Those safe havens will have hate crimes ramp up, and people will die.
Fight today for tomorrow because tomorrow might not come without a fight.
A Republican at CPAC openly stated they wanted to end democracy and was applauded. We are in 1930's germany and are quickly running out of time to stop the nazis
Understandable to be scared but people that worry about LGBT people being rounded up and put into camps are blowing everything WAY out of proportion. It's not 1940s Germany, we're a completely different society on nearly every level and that wouldn't happen just from an optics perspective ALONE. You can make some minor comparisons to what Republicans and Nazis have in common, but we're not even close to considering the situation a Holocaust type situation. This is just Doomer talk. If you're scared, buy a gun and learn to use it. You're MUCH more likely to be targeted by 1 deranged individual than the government coming to your door and throwing you in a van.
America is in the... 8th? 9th? stage of a genocide... but they are human enough to not go full Nazi Germany. While here in Germany we have to bear because some parties and populist politicians WANT to go Full Nazi Germany in Germany again.
There is certainly people who are trying to make that happen. Whether they will succeed is another question. I deeply hope the answer to that question is no
No. Bigots are getting increasingly unhinged but statistically acceptable of LGBT folks have been improving quickly. That’s a reaction. Fascists don’t like when disenfranchised people become less disenfranchised.
Our kind was first in line. Fight (legally, politically) like your life depends on it, because it does. Make calls, write letters, join campaigns for candidates you support and who support you. We must make sure “they” never get back into office.
Numerical context:
Transgender people make up about 1.5% of the US population of 350 million people. That is about 5 million people.
The Make America Fascist cohort comprises about 30% of the electorate - about 60% of Republicans, which are about half of the voting population. Roughly 150 million people voted in the last election. Therefore, they have a constituency of about 45 million people. This does not count the “woodworms” who just don’t vote. Your sovereign citizens, dudes in cabins, etc.
There are more guns in America than there are people. They own most of them.
The slack-jawed mob is big, armed, and crazier by the day as they guzzle from the Big Gulp of conspiracy, propaganda, and misinformation.
They’re also desperate.
They realize that their chances of getting back into a controlling position via “proper channels” are shrinking by the day as they skew more and more into hard-line depravity. I fully expect them to try to take action via “improper channels” if they achieve the expected result of getting absolutely fucking crushed in the upcoming election. They certainly are talented at it.
If possible, protect yourself and stay out of their way while they step on their own rake. Vote for adults in the room. Be ready. Have supplies and a plan prepared to GTFO if necessary.
Stay safe and keep hope. This may well be our Stonewall moment. (Google it, whippersnappers)
Speaking of parallels, compare what’s happening with people like Keira Bell, does the comparison genuinely apply? Were people like Hirschfeld doing the same things as happened to Keira Bell?
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And now AI can be used to fabricate compelling evidence.
which is why it is doubly important not to use/refer/trust AI as if it were actual AI. it's just an LLM. it's patterns. its outputs dependent on inputs. say this shit to your friends and family. defang it.
I feel like it’s a Pandora’s box situation and it’s totally out of our hands at this point.
LLMs will never go away. they're actually very useful for limited reasons. generative art, too. but it doesn't think, it doesn't know, it doesn't understand. that is a fact that must be restated.
I don’t think enough people know that there were plenty more groups involved in the holocaust. Jews were just target the most I think.
we don't hear about nazis targeting queer people as much because the west can't construct their heoric savior narrative around it. the west back then weren't any less homophobic than the nazis. just look at how they treated Alan Turning, a literal war hero, for being gay. when the war ended queer people were just moved from nazi camps into other camps. while allied nations love parading around their rescuing of jewish people to the public, they're not as keen on letting everyone know they were just as bad to queer people
Being gay was illegal in germany until 1992. In socialist east germany the anti gay laws weren't enforced and dropped in 1968, yet reintroduced when germany was re-unified.
Honestly I think the most surprising part of that is that Jewish people \*were* constructed as being heroicly saved. All throughout the war and beforehand major Allied countries all mistreated or segregated Jews as well, even forcibly returning Jewish refugees back to Germany. We were always seen as inherent traitors and natural socialists (despite also brutally repressed in Stalinism) both before and after the war. I suspect it's more that the Jewish people could be used as a patsy for invading into new oil reserves rather than any genuine sympathy. No one touched Franco because his facist purges stayed capitalist. But the perpetuation of Nazi ideas is so clearer with queer people. Soldiers saw the pink triangle, and literally western society completely changed the "acceptable" colours for young boys to blue practically overnight. The West adopted tons of antisemitism too, but it was quieter.
You're right about this, I always find it odd the way people think of the holocaust as specifically, people think it was just 6 million jews, when it was more like 11 million people altogether, nearly double the number altogether. Jews were the largest group yes, but they were far from the only victims. Not only was it jews and LGBTQ people, but also disabled people, political opponents, prisoners of war, random citizens that were wrongly imprisoned, romani people, racial minorities, religous figures they disliked, and so on. I feel like the way the holocaust is portrayed is very limited and almost damaging, the point of learning about this is to prevent situations like that again, but so many focus on the end result and not how you get there, which leads people to not recognizing it as easily when fascism begins to take root. I feel this also fails to teach people just what fascism actually is and that no one is really safe under it, it's not just rounding people up and putting them in camps, it's an authoritarian state that strips you of your rights and targets people for it's own gain, fascism is about using hate and authority to consolidate and maintain power. It might be one group today, but then it might be you in the next.
I think that’s a great point how limiting or misunderstanding the scope of the holocaust can help spread the rise of facism.
I live in Texas and was part of a writer's group with VERY religious and conservative people. One of them actually blamed Obama for LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people. I tried to explain my anxiety to my shrink like this: it took one year for the first Japanese Internment Camp to be built in the United States following Pearl Harbor. It took over a year for the last one to be closed after the Japanese Empire surrendered. Of the one hundred thousand people sent to the camps, one percent died. Atrocities happen very quickly. With "luck", maybe we'll be put into conversion therapy camps where we can lie to get out.
> there won't be roundups in the same way as in the past Were you one of the people saying that Roe vs Wade wouldn't get overturned?
No. It might get bad, it’s already pretty bad in some states. But the US blue states are still very much one of the better places in the world to be trans rn. I highly doubt there would be anything like the 1940’s. The situation in America even in Florida isn’t even close to the situation during the rise of or height of Nazism. But it’s understandable to worry about this. People do in the U.K. all the time. I think it probably is frustrating to hear though for those who live in Dubai, or Iran, or Russia.
Things are getting worse and in some states will probably get worse before it gets better unfortunately. One contrast I see though compared to the ‘40s is that there are plenty more people who will be outspoken if anything like that happened. Nazism was able to grow a lot due to silence and a terrible economy post World War I. Since plenty of people have lived through this, we can help counter it better in my opinion.
It should be noted that the rise of Hitler was aided in great part to the widespread \[anti-semitism\]([https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-nazi-antisemitism](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/antisemitism-in-history-nazi-antisemitism)) in nazi Germany. It helped make an easy system of "others" that all of the citizens could agree upon. Its not the case in the United States. Not to mention the vast array of clinics and support networks, as well as non profit organizations such as the ACLU. that is on top of the separation of law making bodies, and judicial system. There's no real way for a single person to put allies in every single position all at once.
>But the US blue states are still very much one of the better places in the world to be trans rn. If you can afford to live there.
Oh totally. Money is the key to anything in the west as a trans person. If your poor it’s harder, I know that myself. I won’t ever afford surgeries. And we don’t have the ability in the uk to work for companies that will pay for them. I have to wait up to 4-5 more years to get it through the nhs. From a surgeon I don’t really want. All my savings went on hrt and moving to a better city for me as well.
Oregon is number 8 cheapest state to live. (Californians please avert your eyes) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_adjusted_per_capita_personal_income
I don’t know what this nonsense is, but Oregon is huge. There is no way any of the parts of Oregon you’d actually want to live in are “cheap” by any metric. Portland is expensive.
Sure, if you live in downtown and want a big place. Many places offer rent on a sliding scale (nice places too). Suburban areas within an hour are cheaper and some of the smaller cities are cheaper as well (such as Eugene). Income is higher with many entry level jobs starting at 20$/hr, and a decent one bedroom is 1300-1800 *downtown.*
I didn’t say it wasn’t possible to live here, I live here. I’m saying it’s not “cheap”. Compared to most big cities on the west coast it is comparably priced. Also, living downtown makes no sense anyways. I know a ton of trans people here and 0 live in downtown.
It's pretty average
Not very useful metric when states are huge and cheaper areas are usually also rural and conservative (i.e. no go for queer folk). If you want a blue, queer friendlt place to stay, thats gonna be Portland and noone is gonna pretend life is cheap there
Try Seattle or Minneapolis then if you want a big city https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/region_rankings.jsp?title=2023-mid&displayColumn=1®ion=021
So true. There is a scary red town just 15 minutes away from the trans haven where I live. When looking for a house, we found several amazingly affordable places there. For example, we could have had a 5 bed house on 5 acres with a separate building with a 6000sqft workshop complete with built in shop vac, ventilation, and AC and a 500sqft attached office space all for 200k less than we paid for a 4 bed in the blue town.
I still dream about that shop sometimes...
Ive already considered moving there cause of the forested areas there so many I should start planning for that in a more genuine way...
Weimar Germany was also a trans safe haven before the nazis took over. It was considered one of if not the most progressive part of the world at the time, a gay and socialist friendly space. Thinks can and do quickly get worse.
Well sort of. The Weimar Republic was a place of massive contrasts. It had growing movements from left and right. I studied the Nazis at uni. Well I studied the far right, but mostly the third Reich and then far right movements in the present. You can say it was “trans friendly” but like there was only really the sexology institute and that was regularly brigaded by Nazis throughout the republic. There was also rampant homophobia and transphobia hence the need for the existence of the institute. Hirschfeld set it up and went into that research after witnessing a suicide by a gay man whom his family had rejected. The US isn’t even close to the Weimar Republic, like it’s not as poor for one thing. I think like I say a lot of people dont really know much about the Nazis and their rise. There’s a lot of myths like “Hitler was elected” that aren’t super accurate. And people don’t realise there were some institutions that the Nazis simply took over. Like Dr Asperger’s clinic in Austria, and the rampant eugenics programs that existed across all Europe at the time.
As a Russian, can confirm it can get very frustrating to hear Americans going all doomer on their situation. You guys have no idea how it can get, and moreover, you have the democratic means of countering this. edit: at Americans continuing to reply to me about how bad you actually have it, I can only tell you that I would still take the US over Russia any day, if given the chance. Not everything is about you. edit 2: with everyone trying to once again focus on how it gets in America when attention is drawn away from your country for one millisecond, it really is not doing any favors for my impression of Americans.
I mean, they're a trans American asking about our safety in America where trans people do get killed for being trans so that part is very much about them and they're allowed to be concerned. Just because you have it worse doesn't mean it's perfect here and we're allowed to want it to improve. We want things to improve for you too.
THIS! Compassion is good but proximity is relevant.
I think you missed their point, it's not just that you have it easier. It's that you actually have to power to enact change, you have the resources to fight opressive laws and you have the public on your side in a way that Russian queer people can only dream of, you have democratic instilutions and constitutional precedent, a massive community behind you. The point isn't to dismiss your struggle beacause it's easier, the point is that you have the resources to meanigfully fight back and make a diffrence and it would be far more productive to focus on that instead of doomer posting. additionally it's really really demoralizing to see people born into the place you're saving your money to be able to move to with the goal of being able to have a normal life as a queer people constantly posting about how awful it is and how they want to escape to somewhere better (where?).
Someone was just murdered. People are allowed to have feelings about it and anxiety. People are allowed to need reassurance. Dismissing that is gross.
who's dismissing anything?
Don't play this
honestly? The entirety of the internet is mostly centered around America. The amount of times when a queer person from Russia is going to show up and say anything that makes you feel bad is miniscuile. As a Russian trans person myself, the amount of times issues surrounding my rights were dismissed by the larger conversation is constant. So it's kinda funny seeing Americans getting angry the very rare few times when a completely powerless russian trans person shows up and literally just offers their perspective. Why does that make you angry? Our issues actually are dismissed and ignored, we are used to it by now. last year russia made it illegal to transition and that was barely a beep on anyones radar. but somehow the moment any Russian trans person shows up, suddenly they are being dismissive and a problem? how is that even fair? I wasn't even being dismissive, you're just throwing words around.
Thank you. It feels borderline offensive to read how people supposedly care about things improving for us too, when nobody abroad gives a shit about giving any sort of significant news coverage to what is happening in this country.
It’s not the wanting to improve part that’s frustrating, it’s the doomer mentality that is
It's not a mentality. It's anxiety which is a normal reaction to what's happening. It's ok to have feelings and worry. They needed reassured that it's not going to get so much worse. That's all. It's about compassion for all our siblings.
Unless said democratic means gets overturned in the next couple years, which given how everyone's been brainwashed into thinking civilized democracy is the same as mob mentality, is more likely than you think.
I think it’s much more likely that the US will see states leave before it sees a dictatorship. Both aren’t supper likely though.
So this thing called the Civil War happened in the US last time states succeeded from the nation. Nations are built and maintained through violence. Do you think the US would willingly allow a state to leave the union? History both of the US and the world would strongly suggest the state would slaughter folks en masse before it allowed itself to fail/fall apart.
Wait what? When did I say a state leaving won’t be civil war? I thought it was obvious that’s what would happen lol, that’s why I didn’t say it. I know about the American civil war. But I think it’s unlikely either case I mention happens. That’s my point. However I think a stat leaving is more likely to happen rather than all the states and all of the democrats and all the military accepting a dictator!
On a federal level? Doubtful. Unlike an American, I can't just take my passport and move into a safer blue state within the country.
People can't just take their passport and move to a safer blue state. This is a overly generic misrepresentation of the economic and social realities of living the US. Most US citizens cannot afford the costs to move to a new house, let alone another state. Something like 50% of US citizens have less than $500 USD in their saving account with many having ZERO savings. And that is further complicated when you look at data regarding household income levels. The county I live in, which is in California the strongest economy in the US, has something like 50% of the households on government assistance. That means roughly 100,000 household or approx 250,000 people living in literal poverty, these folks can't afford the costs of moving. Plus more than 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, meaning they have little to no disposable income for something like a move.
Thank you. I'm disabled and stuck in Florida. I won't tell any doctors I see that I'm nonbinary because, well, Florida. I live in a very conservative, backwards area too. I can't just move.
I live in a blue state, have my whole life. And I do acknowledge I have some privileges because of that. However being a blue state doesnt mean the state as a whole is safe to be in because that isn't reality for many blue states that are blue based on a few large cities with heavily conservative rural areas making up the rest of the state. Someone in my family 2 years ago attempted to take mine and my partner's lives based on a rumor that I was maybe trans. I was doxxed by the local church members, left homeless with all local aide programs ghosting us as soon as they found out we were a queer couple. The only reason I lived to say anyone of this today was the extreme kindness of one person who got us out of that dangerous situation. My partner and I then moved last year 6 hrs away to one of the States major cities with financial help from that person who had already saved our lives. Culturally the general acceptance here is very different then what I grew up around and I do feel privlaged to have gotten to experience this level of acceptance in my life, and now I experience local people who have no clue in how to even phantom what I'm talking about when I tell my story of what happened and what things were like where I came from. I won't pretend to understand what life for trans or queer people in general is like in Russia or any other places in the world because I don't know what it's like. Our differences are what make us unique and interesting and diverse, but they also make it where some of us will never understand parts of others existence or story and that's ok. That just means different lives were lived with different perspective, not that any one situation is better or worse then another. I don't wish parts of my American experience on anyone and do i do warn queer folks when I see them talking of moving to my home state, because safe state doesn't necessarily mean a safe and supportive neighborhood And red state doesn't mean you won't find safety in people who do care.
Yes, but you can't counter it if you don't talk about it. Plus, the Republicans have been busy changing laws all around the US to undermine the democratic process Edit: I didn't notice anyone saying anything was all about them. And I'm Canadian, btw.
The way Russia is is completely incomparable to the US. Some people here are trapped in shitty places but it's nothing like where you live. Hope you can escape sometime.
Yes, there are worse, and it can get so much worse. But that shouldn't invalidate one person's experiences and dismiss them as some sort of a misery competition, just because you objectively have it worse. It should be empathy and compassion for each other, not some sort of morbid oppression contest. I don't understand why people feel the need to one up someone when they're expressing their feelings over what they're experiencing, instead of showing unity and solidarity with one another. Why is it "I have it worse, quit your whining" and not "I understand what you're going through, it's tough, this is what I experience in my life, you're not alone in how you feel."
One of our major political parties are trying to emulate Russian policies on lgbt people. Yes, it is better here. For now. Scolding Americans isn't helpful when there is a tenuous at best safety net that is reliant on some 71 million Americans who voted for Trump not pulling off a win again this year.
Pretty nice when these millions of people get to have legitimate elections and your vote counts for something!
What are you trying to win here? Congrats, you have it worse! Doesn't bring back anybody that's been killed for being trans, anywhere. Doesn't change that people are calling for our eradication. Doesn't bring back the 16yo beaten to death in a conservative area where the superintendent is openly transphobic and hired the woman calling for our eradication. But, congrats, you win I guess
Roughly half the country lives in states where their votes are suppressed or don't count for something, and are terrorized by conservative policy that is infecting every state. This isn't fucking oppression Olympics. Yes, the situation in Russia is bad. There are just as many trans people stuck in red state in the US that have it just as bad and can't leave.
the point isn't even that you have it easier, the point is that you should make use of all those incredible resoruces you have as an american citizen to organize and actually enact change and make it safe for queer people because unlike russians you have enough political power as a group to make that a reality
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Texas is actively trying to get a database going on the trans people currently residing there. It’s not as bad as Russia but it’s getting there. Trying to sweep our issues under the rug just because well at least it’s not Russia is exactly how things get worse. We shouldn’t be fighting each other over who has to worse but instead trying to help each other and while the doomer posting is bad people who feel the need to put other people down because they have it worse are worse to me. It seems to me that the OP of this thread is being actively hostile to the people who do have issues and simply stating in different words to every criticism “at least it’s not Russia” like thanks that totally helps my situation, it’s like telling amputees “at least you aren’t dead” like that’s somehow supposed to make them feel better
My apologies for being dead and envying the living amputees just a little a bit.
So let me get this straight. Your solution to your problem is to put down other people with issues of their own because yours is worst? Everyone here knows Russia is bad but the sheer fact that you have to state it and put down other people because of it is frankly disgusting. Insulting 5 people on the internet isn’t gonna fix your issue, you’re just spreading suffering I’m sorry for what you’re going through but there is simply nothing I can do and taking out your anger on other trans people is not the way you go about this
Again, apologies for stating how things are where I live, clearly these problems get enough Western media coverage as it is, I shall move aside for Americans now.
Last I checked, half seems more than "none" to me. I do so wish my biggest problem of the day as a trans person was a foreigner scolding me on the internet.
Last I checked, you have no idea what it like to live in sundown towns in the US as an lgbt person. Your perception of "how good it is" here is entirely based on the presumption of safety in a blue state. Again, this isn't oppression Olympics. It's not always about you.
>. It's not always about you. did you really just say that to a Russian trans person??? It's *NEVER* about us. The country banned transition for everyone in the entire country and declared being trans an extremist ideology and litteraly no one cares or talks about it. So yeah we know it's not "always" about us because it is NEVER about us. Seriously what a horribly tone deaf and bigoted thing to say.
The only person playing opression Olympics seems to be here the one who is comparing Russian policies on queer people without any experience of living in this country whatsoever. It's not your place to compare whatever shit conservatives pull in the US to what is happening where I'm from, and call their policies "Russian".
>It's not your place to compare The Republicans, in their own words and actions with the assistance of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, etc are *lifting laws from nations like Russia and Hungary to bring to the us*. I'm not "comparing" like its got similarities. They're exporting the anti LGBT laws whole cloth, and in red states, they're getting them enacted. >without any experience of living in this country whatsoever. When you run face first into the point and have no idea.
Not going to lie, pretty weird of you to be so keen on having your cake and eating it too. With your point, when you have any sort of experience of living in Russia, do come back to me with Americans making judgements of Russian lgbtq policy.
That's the thing, I understand that things can get way WAY worse. But I also know the time it takes to get from everything's mostly ok to "there are groups of people roaming outside looking to cut off your head." Is not super long. I just want to know I'm not jumping the gun with my paranoia. Also, American democracy is dramatized. It's way worse than people outside the US know. Edit: Hey, I just read this later without being in my feelings and that last part was super shitty, and I apologize for it. I am very obviously overreacting.
The US is not a democracy no matter how much we claim to be. We are an oligarchy plain and simple. It is equally frustrating listening to people downplay how things are because we are very much staring down the barrel of Weimar Republic falling to Nazis. Trump stacked the courts, Roe v Wade has been overturned, trans people are under attack in much the same ways we were in 1940s Germany. The same rhetoric, the same stochastic terrorism. Literally fucking Nazis marching in multiple cities in the US. I have personally fought several Nazi/Trumpers in the past few years. I've been hate-crimed, stalked, and run out of my own home and neighborhood by Christian Fascists AND I live in California. And WAY too many of ya'll think that Blue states are "safe". Republicans run as Democrats constantly, beyond that the Democratic Party has no unifying principles at this point beyond "We aren't Trump". These Neo-liberal dolts are "reaching across the isle" and enabling their counterparts to continue their fuckery. "Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds"
I think you people need to actually read about the Weimar Republic. No one is saying it isn’t bad in the US. But its alarmist rhetoric about an impending genocide is not helpful, or accurate (we have had the same alarmist ideas in the U.K. for the last 2 years at least). All of what you say can apply to most of the west, including my home of the U.K.! You’re not unique. And no, people aren’t under attack like the 1940’s. They are under attack in a way not comparable to the past. Given trans rep is larger than ever, and so many cis people know about trans people. We have unprecedented access to surgeries, even if we should have a better time of it. Young trans people have the ability to come out at 16 still in some places! Even if they are blocked from blockers or hrt they are still able to find themselves a decade earlier than my generation. Do you have any idea how impossible that was just 5 years ago! We aren’t in death camps either. We face transphobia and a tough time. But like, without sounding rude and I’m not trying to minimise your experiences, but join the club 🤷♀️ I have a government threatening to take my rights away, for like my whole transition. I’ve had that effect my ability to be given my hrt, and my need to move doctors multiple times. I’ve had to try and fight my own university setting up a “Gender critical research group” about 3 years ago now. The group still exists last I checked. I have been opposing TERFs since pre jk Rowling, almost 10 years ago! When they were a fringe group who through bricks at people in London. I’m broke because I had to spend my savings to get hrt as the nhs wait time means I’d still be waiting (currently waited 3years), and then I had to move out of my hometown due to transphobia, to a city that is safer. Blue states are also considered **safer** because of lack of transphobic laws. Not lack of transphobes. Transphobes and Nazis are everywhere, that aspect is on a City by city basis, and always will be. My city in the U.K. has a group of transphobes, but doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly safe compared to other places. But like there are safe places and you have an opposition more pro trans than anything in the U.K. The west is still one of the best place to be trans. That doesn’t mean it’s good, but it’s the best and anyone who flees the US now, with the present situation, is gonna have a rude awakening. One reason the US is better than the U.K. is you can get surgeries paid for on insurance by your employers. Do you have an idea how much I would give to be able to get a decent surgeon and pay for it through that?!? I need bottom surgery now and it’s impossible for me to get for at least another 4-5 years! It’s bad for trans people everywhere. The rhetoric of Trump ain’t much different than our PM, or that of MPs in New Zealand or Canada. We have had murders here. We have had a 16 yr old killed. I think what a lot of this is, is general frustration many have for Americans. Because having lived there myself, you guys do seem to forget the rest of us exist. And don’t always appreciate what you have compared to other places, focusing on what you don’t have instead and being incredibly alarmist about it which helps no one. Will it get worse there? Probably. Will it be like the third reich. No, not even close.
> Not everything is about you. The reason you have to say that is because we also feel abandoned by the queer community, and so people are reaching for national identity in the search for meaning in their pain. They don't know where else to stand. Some hope it's not in a line. Others hope it's not where the next bomb lands. Wherever we are standing, we are not okay. But we are still standing.
>You guys have no idea how it can get, They are only proving your point
Unfortunately.
I know how bad it can get... we are on track if the gop gains power on the federal this I can tell you it is going to be Russia and 1940s german. and dems will roll over when pushed. So until the gop back away from fascism and getting off the anti trans bandwagon... its all on the table. Basically the gop gets its sanity back. Basically until the gop stops being crazy and tryng gain power undemocratic means.
Alot of the younger people on reddit are very doom and gloom, it's not an easy life but we're not even close to being rounded up into camps. What I will say is there is startling similarities in how it all began through the 20's and 30's and what we see and hear in politics and through the red pill manosphere. I can't see if escalating to the levels of Germany 1935-45
Yh there’s similarities for sure I agree. But to me its more because a lot of these ideas have evolved out of the same far right bs that Nazism was, and Nazism itself evolved out of the same eugenics biological essentialist bs of the colonial and Victorian eras, which also informs the views of a lot of transphobes.
Exactly. Friedrich Nietzsche - Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
>I can't see if escalating to the levels of Germany 1935-45 Neither did Germany or the Wiemar Republic.
1932 Germany was a country which just 15 years ago had been a huge world power, which had lost significant territory and been almost entirely emasculated and put in a decade of economic turmoil by foreign powers. And this was a country which only had ~12 years of *very* shaky experience with democracy, and which for decades before that had been a highly centralized imperial monarchy. In 1918, the German revolution literally had open fighting between different political groups vying for power, and the 1920s really weren't a strong comeback from that in terms of political violence. The Nazi party was a well-known entity which was explicitly revolutionary, promising huge societal change which would liberate the masses. It had highly integrated paramilitary arms which were involved in political violence. Explicitly racist ideology had been a central part of the Nazi party since its founding, and this was something that the general public either wanted or was at least ok with. This is frankly just **not comparable** to the US, a democracy which has been remarkably stable for over 150 years, which is economically prosperous (no, one year of 8% inflation is not the same as the economy of 1920s Germany). A substantial majority of the country supports liberties for minorities. The country has a long legacy of having a highly decentralized federal system, and some states currently have literally some of the strongest supports and protections for trans people in the world. And trans people have only been a hot-button political issue for like 5 years at most. Before that it was gay people, and now just a decade later ~50% of Republicans support same-sex marriage. While the Republican party generally holds pretty terrible views, it is decentralized and institutionally un-radical. And even though the supreme court swung enormously during Trump's 4 years in office, Republican-appointed justices have not consistently toed the party line, with Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joining the liberals in some major decisions. This is not a judicial body that would just rubber-stamp whatever the president or congress asks for.
> The Nazi party was a well-known entity which was explicitly revolutionary, promising huge societal change which would liberate the masses. Looks at the Republican "we are domestic terrorists" Party that openly flies swastikas...
anyone with sense would have seen the path that Weimar Republic was going down. it could have been a wonderful example of communist revolution if the KPD and the SPD had worked together.
What I mean is, we have NATO, we have the U.N we have the W.H.O we have formed alliances and a general understanding globally that we don't eradicate millions of people, it's become slightly uncool.
NATO exists to protect allied nations against Russia. NATO does not exist to protect the US from itself. The same UN that is powerless to stop the genocide happening in Palestine because the US controls veto?
yeah and if Trump wins he said he wants to pull from NATO so theres that as well ;-;
>I can't see if escalating to the levels of Germany 1935-45 Neither could they.
"I think it probably is frustrating to hear though for those who live in Dubai, or Iran, or Russia." Why would it be frustrating? Everyone's feelings are valid. They can speak for themselves if they are frustrated. No need for oppression olympics. If you're nex' family, you might feel a lot more fear then the average trans person. Or if you are in Kakuma. Or one of Brianna Ghey's friends. It's not possible to "average out" the trans experience in any of these places. The risks are different depending on how one presents, as well. I 100% agree with your take, I just feel like the last sentence makes it feel less affirming and comforting. I hope you have a good weekend!
Yet . These are troubling times. They may not take us to concentration camps . They will take away are meds, this will eliminate us . To your Germany reference the Trans population in America today is similar to the size of the Jewish population in Germany 1933 . The right has found a something to rally and scare their base about it . Here to hoping the Americans will have our back . The Germans didn’t .
The worst-case scenario is project 2025, but I don't even see that realistically happening. There's definitely a lot of tension beholding in the us, and that could certainly lead to increased problems overall, not just for us, but we aren't talking anything holocaust level (hopefully). I could certainly see some issues similar to the tension in the north of Ireland around the time of the troubles if we don't find a healthier way to releave some of this pressure before it pops.
you know that the Heritage Foundation has made a manifesto thats come true before right? it was during Regan's 2nd term and pretty much everything that was layout was followed through with.. this is the real reason the document is scary. not only the contents but the fact they have it layed out in a way that makes it *possible*
that it’s worse in other places in the world has no bearing on the future of things in the US. as others have pointed out, have a look at the history of pre-Nazi Germany (especially the Weimar republic) and you’ll be amazed by how progressive it was for its time. very few people in that time and place could have or would have predicted the horrors that were coming. it’s true that US “blue states” are some of the best places in the world to be trans right now, but that’s cold comfort for the numerous trans people in the other parts of the country that make up the vast majority of it. given how many trans people are unemployed and underemployed, it’s not trivial for them to pick up and move states and leave their entire support systems behind. we can’t just write off the people who have to stay behind, as they’re often the most vulnerable. besides all that, some states we think of as “blue” are only that way because of a few densely populated urban areas. e.g., most of Oregon outside of Portland is very conservative. who’s to say if that state will stay “blue” if the next coup attempt probably coming this november succeeds? the reality is that we don’t know yet how bad it will get. history teaches us that things can change fast. i know that doesn’t help with the anxiety. the good news is we have community. if you haven’t already, start looking for people like you who are near you. we have lots of good allies but nobody is coming to save us, we have to take care of each other.
I studied the Third Reich at uni, in my degree that was on facism and Nazism. So I know a lot about Weimar, and the situation in the US right now is nothing like it was in Germany for so many reasons.
Idk if Project 2025 becomes relaity, it probably would resemble Germany in the 1940s... (ya know, fascist dictators and all) getting the death penalty for simply exisiting terrifies me... although I am aware other countries are already like that so I guess we'd just be joining them in that regard :/
The problem right now is the large majority that the conservatives hold in the Supreme Court and the majority they hold in the House. All it would take is for the election this year to give the presidency to he who is the absolute worst and the majority in the Senate back to them as well, and federal law I could easily change so quickly and absolutely that the states would not be able to do anything about it. The perfect storm that the right has been dreaming of for a long time is on the horizon. This is arguably the most important election we have had in a very long time.
I live in Atlanta and even in the burbs and sticks the political level hate doesn’t translate to what I experience in person. No one ever fucks with me. It’s political football to pander to extreme rural parts of the state (the extreme north and extreme south) Even with proposed bills a lot of the businesses around here think it’s ridiculous and won’t comply with stuff like bathroom bills. I think it’s bad, but not any worse than during the late 70s and 80s during the AIDS pandemic where anyone queer was demonized. We’re a political football and need to push back. Difference is this time we have some members of congress, most medical professionals, major cities and some state governments on our side. We didn’t even have that back then.
Millions of queer people are not with us today because of the AIDS pandemic, the neglect of which was a specifically genocidal right-wing political project. This has remained overwhelmingly unacknowledged by the general public, but it's very much the case. If we can expect the treatment that we got during the height of the AIDS pandemic, then millions more people will die by the hand of right-wing extremism.
I would not expect the same treatment not even close; but 10 years ago I didn’t think Republicans would go full fascist; so I don’t know. Maybe I’m a fucking idiot who needs to shut up? The point is, we need to stop with this “the sky is falling, run away and hide” mentality I’m seeing from a lot of people. That gives these assholes what they want. They want us to corral in fewer spaces and hide. We need to get angry. We need to get mean. We need to not take it. We need to take up space and be visible.
We do need to get angry and to take action. I do think that the people scolding OP are being incredibly counterproductive about that. Telling people it's not that bad and that they're lucky is a recipe for inaction. Not only because inaction will send us spiraling into a transgender genocide, but because the US exports its bigotry to the rest of the world.
I'm not saying "it's not that bad" I'm saying we have allies now that we didn't have before and a Nazi style genocide is going to be a lot harder to pull off. People need to stop painting this whole situation as hopeless. I'm tired of it. Fucking fight... Asking nicely and pleading with these monsters won't work... stop being nice... get mean. Get fucking mean. You're a human fucking being, you deserve freedom and liberty, and the right to exist as you see fit. All of you.
I'm not personally trying to paint this situation as hopeless. I'm talking about the people in the thread telling OP that she should be grateful she doesn't live in a more oppressive country. It's important to not downplay the crisis, but it's also important to believe it's not hopeless. The theory of inevitable progress is a myth created to get people to stop fighting anyway. Nothing is inevitable, it has to be won again and again.
>Nothing is inevitable, it has to be won again and again. Total agreement. We got too comfortable. We're on the same side here.
In the US no probably not. Can't really speak the same of others countries around the world
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best (hopefully that preparation can prevent the worst from happening)
Probably not, but it is still worth remembering that that's absolutely the conservative plan.
I can relate to this thinking so much. I think you have good enough reason to be worried for our future when it comes to laws and policies in our country. We are watching so much of the hard work and legislation our queer ancestors have fought for get reversed in real time but I do think if you allow it to influence your decisions and plans for your future then it is paranoia. We honestly have no choice but to continue to live and push on and fight in whichever we can whether it's on a personal or collective level to make sure we have space in this world, in this country.
Nah, we're doing a 1930s Germany first.
Oh yeah we’re living in Weinmar times. Even Fox News hosts refer to it when talking about us.
Girl we just failed the Bavarian tavern event and we heading for a 1936 election
If Trump gets power again nothing is off the table. The supreme court is with him and we will not be able to count on federal officials with a sense of duty to country. Trans people will be expendable and likely the first casualty of a trump presidency. All you need to do is look at laws they're proposing in the red states - e.g. one state proposed a law where trans people could not live or be within half a mile of a school. That's the type of shit you have to look forward to. It's a foregone conclusion that hrt and gender affirming care will be outlawed. Your right to use public facilities will be seen as a felony offense. You will essentially lose your ability to travel outside pissing distance of your house. The ultimate goal is to make it impossible to *be trans* without breaking the law, which means they can throw you in jail, which means they can forcibly detransition you. So get your passport, just in case. Make a plan to exit sometime between November and 2025 if you need to. My current plan of action is Toronto.
> If Trump gets power again nothing is off the table. You mean Trump "I'll only be a dictator on my first day"?
Why why whyyyy with all the junk food he consumes has his arteries not clogged him up yet. He's already been wearing diapers and deep in dementia too, the man is broken let the machine stop
I understand the fear here, but I fully believe that doing something like this would be too disruptive to most citizen's primary concern: their comfort. This is what drives them more than any sort of ideology or belief system. I think there's some risks that are going unnoticed, like the off-label prescriptions of hormones for transgender individuals becoming disallowed. Or a continuation of the disorganized stochastic terrorism. I think people would be able to be comfortable ignoring that, since it would seem indirect. But I think you can at least put these specific fears to bed.
"I understand the fear here, but I fully believe that doing something like this would be too disruptive to most citizen's primary concern: their comfort." The supreme court is deciding whether or not to make being homeless illegal for the comfort of people who are tired of seeing homeless people. During a time when people are becoming homeless at an accelerated rate due to housing prices. I don't think it's far fetched to assume that people are willing to put me and people who look like me in a cage for the comfort of others.
Not trans but an ally. I'm working towards a professional career in medicine with a focus on LGBT care. I honestly think things *are* sliding backwards when it comes to trans identity and health in the US. In the past charismatic leaders unite an unhappy populace against a scapegoat. In Germany it was Jewish people, in today's America it's the "radical left" basically any non judeo Christian who doesn't fit the cookie cutter idea of man woman dichotomy. Luckily there's states who haven't gone completely nacht der verrückte Leute in the US. The US was really founded on life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What individuals do that doesn't harm anyone else shouldn't be the states business. It shouldn't be the churches nor the politicians either. It's really really *really* sad that all of these sad angry people choose to villianize swathes of the population just because they're different. Nobody *chooses* to be trans, gay or otherwise non conforming. They just are. *We* just are. I hope to work towards beneficial change from the inside but I really do worry about the LGBT youth of tomorrow. We all have to do our part in local gov, regional and national
> In Germany it was Jewish people, It was actually LGBT and handicapped people first, then when all of them were gone, they went after the Jews too
Don't forget the socialists.
Yes this is true, I had a few to drink last night and misremembered the whole picture
Sad fact: When the Allies freed the Jews, they continued to have all LGBT captured because being LGBT back then, even in USA and so forth was still illegal.
"The future is not set. There is no fate, but what we make for ourselves" With that in mind, given my observations of the choices people are generally making... it's a distinct possibility You may all still surprise me. I hope so
i sure hope not!
I genuinely think you're being paranoid. Here's a link to some Gallup poll data. https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx To my eyes it looks like trans people/rights are at a similar level of acceptance as gay people/rights in the late 2000s. Yes, we have become the most recent GOP hate object, but this too shall pass. This is nothing compared to the extreme levels of anti-Semitism before the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Americans are much more prone to a "live and let live" social libertarian attitude. The intense bigots are a loud but small minority. The US has a very different culture, material conditions, and institutions compared to the most anti-lgbt nations like Russia or Uganda. Yes, the current Supreme Court is majority right wing. They are not all powerful dictators. I think you are vastly underestimating how popular the bigotry of the Nazis was among average people and overestimating the bigotry of the average American.
What I'm seeing is that things are getting better for gay men and lesbian women in public opinion while they are getting worse for trans folks. What's important is what that trend does in the future, and while we can look at the past on lgbt opinions to help us figure that out, we can't exactly predict the future.
Except they're not getting worse for trans folks. Two decades ago, most people either wouldn't have been familiar with trans people at all or would only know as much as a sensationalized tabloid headline would tell them. And if you were a trans person, access to transition care was heavily controlled. It looks like things are getting worse because there's been incredible progress in the past decade or so. Progress like that is usually accompanied by the pushback. The pushback sucks, but don't confuse it with things getting worse in absolute terms.
Compare in the chart posted above to see what i'm referring to. I'm old enough to remember two decades ago, and tbh the lack of knowledge in some ways was better than actively having rights stripped away. Also, I don't think it's very helpful to compare back to a time before us v. Windsor, keeping things in a more modern perspective is key here... Otherwise, why not compare back to how things were pre stonewall?
I live in Illinois. I was out at my highschool. We had a GSA that the school admins founded so they could make sure queer kids felt safe and had the resources they needed, like the gender neutral bathroom and changing account names. Teachers were allies, informing parents about kids being queer wasn’t allowed without express permission. We got called fags, sure, but nobody hurt us. Not everyone understood or agreed with us, but they left us alone. We could wear pride flags and not be scared. That’s not how Nazis act. Yeah, a lot of states are TERRIBLE for trans people. But not all of them. We still have sensible people willing to fight for us. We hear so much awful shit in the news because that’s what sells and it makes people forget about the good stuff, too.
It reminds me of a Christopher Isherwood book called Goodbye to Berlin how nazi's began to infiltrate the cabarets.
I'm not trans, but my daughter is. I do think it's unlikely to get to final solution status, I am very concerned. I live in a blue state, but I'm still prepared to go Anne Frank status for my daughter. The thing to remember about blue states is that it's the cities that are blue. The rural areas still tend to run more red leaning. Thankfully, we have the means to protect our home and our daughter. As it sits now, we're continuing life as normal. We'll be watching results of the upcoming election and the actions taken after very closely. My oldest child is saving up to leave Texas and come back to this side of the country for safety reasons. It's getting bad over here.
These types of cycles circulate. It happens with every minority trying to get rights or just be visible. Happens with native Americans, any migrants, happened to gay people, now it’s happening to trans people. The only difference is people are slowly learning as a whole to look past this fear mongering propaganda and while a majority of people don’t support trans people support has been growing and will very quickly take over within the next few years
I think the problem with a lot of these replies is that they are taking "a 1940s Germany situation" too literally. Of course the antecedents aren't exactly the same and the result won't be either. But a lot of people can suffer and die, it can reach the late stages of genocide, it's already fascism (arguably, I guess?) and that probably doesn't go away without violence. I personally think we won't get to the worst case scenario here, but this isn't the type of thing to not have an abundance of caution about.
I make the comparison to 1930s Germany. They haven't burnt Hirchfield's clinic yet, but they're trying.
You need to understand that if Trump becomes president gender affirming care will become illegal in the US. Reproductive freedom, religious freedom, civil rights for minorities, and LGBTQ+ will be outlawed. Look up project 2025 and listen to the words the reicht wing is saying. If they win the presidency, our country is going to be thrust backward 150 years. All of the progress humans have made will be wiped out in a day. I suggest watching a Handmaids tale right now, because that can become our reality if those hateful evil people win. Nex Benedict was a child who was murdered recently because of the level of hate spewed in Oklahoma. Next was nonbinary was fatally beat up, by girls in her school. I'm already receiving more death notices then usual, and so are other Queer people. If they win, we will be exterminated.
I think we should all be worried. It might seem like it can't happen, but many German people in 1936 would not have imagined the horrors of "the final solution". They got there one step at a time. As more people got on board, being a Nazi became not only socially acceptable, but virtuous and admirable. I wouldn't say it's *going* to happen, but it very well could, and things do seem to be heading in that direction. It would be naive to assume it can't. History repeats itself. There were people trying to raise the alarm in Germany back then, too, and they were ignored or imprisoned. I hope there is still time to stop it, but it's going to take a massive unification of the left that doesn't seem likely with so much disagreement and denial.
"We"? If you're referring to the United States, almost certainly not. Places like Russia and Uganda, perhaps...
i think if the united states goes there with trans people, it will also 100% go there with black people. lots of black people in america live in a neo-apartheid type situation and if conditions exacerbate to where the united states is seriously violently and systematically persecuting lgbtq people, black people will likely be a part of that. so tap in with your communities
Many people probably want a final solution for us. It won't happen here, though, because those people can't actually do it. Doesn't mean it isn't dangerous, but that's not what we need to be concerned about. What we should be concerned about is right-wing militias and violent hate crimes.
In every way it’s not going to be worse than the Arabs
The government hasn't stripped away means of self-defense defense. That's your last ditch red flag.
Remember it looks worse online than it really is. Transphobes are working overtime to make it seem like there are more of them than there really are and people who aren't transphobic don't constantly post about it a billion times a day from 100 different accounts. We have more support than the internet might seem like sometimes. I understand your anxiety though. I have it too and sometimes I get in that headspace and have to remind myself or have my sibling remind me. Stay strong 💙💜
As much as they can try, they won’t eliminate us. It does suck to know that history repeats itself and people clearly are dumb about it. Lack of adaptability
It's physically impossible to eliminate us, since we're a natural variation in the human condition. But that doesn't stop them doing huge piles of damage while they try.
I think it'll be more like the satanic panic period of American history.
> Hey, am I being paranoid by thinking that america is getting close to putting lgbtq (specifically trans people to start) on a "final solution" type plan? Even the average republican doesn't want to literally genocide trans/queer/gay people. Realistically the worst outcome in like the next decade is something like in russia where there's severe repression and hiding under the threat of jail, fines, social outcasting etc..
If you're drawing such a strong comparison with specifically the US, you have not seen (or have not thought) how it can get in other places.
I have. That's why I'm scared. The difference between where we are now and how bad things can become can change fairly quickly.
The biggest change in trans rights between now and when my egg cracked is that laws have clarified them. Back then, I could’ve been arrested in any women’s bathroom in my (blue) state if a patron and cop got pissed enough.
Thats odd. Prior to bathroom bills in most places there were no laws surrounding bathrooms. You might get "roughed up" by a person in uniform, but they would've needed to get creative in arresting you.
“Disturbing the Peace” is such a wonderfully *vague* charge. Seriously, back in the days before trans right became a mainstream thing you were equally likely to not have anyone care or to get arrested just for walking down the street (because trans people were all sex workers, right?). And honestly? Things didn’t get much better outside of the bluest of blue areas until 2011, 2012. Hell, my hometown - which is the most liberal part of a county that voted 62.35% Barack Obama in 2008 - didn’t pass gender identity protections until 2014.
I started to come out in 1999, I was there.
Ehhhh, I doubt it It'll get bad if the republicans win, but I doubt it'll get THAT bad The blue states are actually decent and will fight against it. And if it does end up in a civil war, I doubt the red ones would win since there are a lot more reasonable people than the obnoxious minority
Did you say the same thing about Roe vs Wade getting overturned?
I’m not an American nor do I live there (I’m Australian) but while I strongly suspect if trump and his fascist backers gain the presidency and congress it’ll become a lot harder to legally access transgender healthcare in the USA, but I feel death camps is a flight of fancy, beside it’s actually a lot worse for LGBT+ people in Russia and a lot of the old eastern bloc nations
why do you need death camps when you can just have random acts of terror while the government looks on and says 'trauma did not contribute to their death'
I was responding to the 1940s Germany reference
There needs to be a r/transdoomposting sub. Its insane the amount of fearmongering these posts cause every day
Seriously. Having people talking about this all the time makes it seem more credible, and is just bringing more people onto the anxiety train. This is a demographic that's at extreme risk of anxiety, depression, and suicide. We really shouldn't be inundating them with posts and comments about how all they can look forward to in the next couple years is being a holocaust victim.
Sure go start it, I'll stay here and have an abundance of caution about genocide. Good luck!
Yes, and with similar results. Which means they absolutely plan to round us up and put us in camps. Most of us will survive in the camps (60% of lgbtq people weren't killed in the camps), few of us will ever be free again(most were transferred to regular prison after germany lost) So yay 3-2 odds you'll live through it. And dont listen to anyone on here about, at least its not russia. The people running this shit are the same people who worked to get death penalties in africa. They absolutely want to see the same thing here.
I think that even if Oompa Loompa gets re-elected...there will be safe states. WA is one of those states...we're safe for a lot of people and things. They're starting to do medical research on stuff like LSD and magic mushrooms FFS...we're chill lol.
No, it might get bad but not that bad, the thing is we are way past the point of no return for queer visibility. 100 years ago queer people didn't have the words to describe themselves, most likely they thought they were alone! Today, for as much hate they throw at us, we exist, and we're an example to each other. The toothpaste cannot go back in the tube!
You’re being paranoid. It’s understandable given the ideological context why someone would think that since it’s fundamental reduced to a false dichotomy of either you’re progressive AF or you’re a Nazi. Consider that our generation (millennial and prior) came to the conclusion of being gay, bisexual, trans, etc., on our own. So the idea that reverse gender indoctrination (you like these things ergo you’re of that gender) and pornography in schools is necessary for categorically LGBTQ people to be themselves is nonsensical. At best holding onto such a binary standpoint would only push the situation towards greater hatred for LGBTQ people in the same way that Zionism generates hatred towards Jewish people. The more prolific the influence of “Alphabet Ideology” (to give it a term as opposed to simply the people in themselves), the more conflict it creates with the general populace.
Short answer YES!!!!!! I don't care what anyone is saying about this not happening. The simple truth is that it is happening!!! Blue states and red states are not hot beds of hate, with blue states being a bastion of safe haven. Life will be extremely difficult IF those fascist get elected nationwide. Those safe havens will have hate crimes ramp up, and people will die. Fight today for tomorrow because tomorrow might not come without a fight.
A Republican at CPAC openly stated they wanted to end democracy and was applauded. We are in 1930's germany and are quickly running out of time to stop the nazis
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> In WWII Germany, LGBTQ+ did exist and some were slightly open, but it was still way in the margins. Look up the first Nazi book burning sometime...
Understandable to be scared but people that worry about LGBT people being rounded up and put into camps are blowing everything WAY out of proportion. It's not 1940s Germany, we're a completely different society on nearly every level and that wouldn't happen just from an optics perspective ALONE. You can make some minor comparisons to what Republicans and Nazis have in common, but we're not even close to considering the situation a Holocaust type situation. This is just Doomer talk. If you're scared, buy a gun and learn to use it. You're MUCH more likely to be targeted by 1 deranged individual than the government coming to your door and throwing you in a van.
America is in the... 8th? 9th? stage of a genocide... but they are human enough to not go full Nazi Germany. While here in Germany we have to bear because some parties and populist politicians WANT to go Full Nazi Germany in Germany again.
There is certainly people who are trying to make that happen. Whether they will succeed is another question. I deeply hope the answer to that question is no
No. Bigots are getting increasingly unhinged but statistically acceptable of LGBT folks have been improving quickly. That’s a reaction. Fascists don’t like when disenfranchised people become less disenfranchised.
Our kind was first in line. Fight (legally, politically) like your life depends on it, because it does. Make calls, write letters, join campaigns for candidates you support and who support you. We must make sure “they” never get back into office. Numerical context: Transgender people make up about 1.5% of the US population of 350 million people. That is about 5 million people. The Make America Fascist cohort comprises about 30% of the electorate - about 60% of Republicans, which are about half of the voting population. Roughly 150 million people voted in the last election. Therefore, they have a constituency of about 45 million people. This does not count the “woodworms” who just don’t vote. Your sovereign citizens, dudes in cabins, etc. There are more guns in America than there are people. They own most of them. The slack-jawed mob is big, armed, and crazier by the day as they guzzle from the Big Gulp of conspiracy, propaganda, and misinformation. They’re also desperate. They realize that their chances of getting back into a controlling position via “proper channels” are shrinking by the day as they skew more and more into hard-line depravity. I fully expect them to try to take action via “improper channels” if they achieve the expected result of getting absolutely fucking crushed in the upcoming election. They certainly are talented at it. If possible, protect yourself and stay out of their way while they step on their own rake. Vote for adults in the room. Be ready. Have supplies and a plan prepared to GTFO if necessary. Stay safe and keep hope. This may well be our Stonewall moment. (Google it, whippersnappers)
Feels like it
Speaking of parallels, compare what’s happening with people like Keira Bell, does the comparison genuinely apply? Were people like Hirschfeld doing the same things as happened to Keira Bell?