Trans Rights - Too much, too soon?

Great Debates
81

I’m guessing you didn’t read or chose to ignore my response to Ronald Raygun.

In that post, would you choose option 2?

Go ahead and indulge your moral outrage. I’m just trying to get people the rights they want and deserve as fast as possible.

I agree that shifting the Overton Window is critical. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is doing a fantastic job of that. But you know what she isn’t doing? Running for fucking president in 2020. I’m not saying the left stay quiet - I’m saying Presidential candidates should. Until they get elected.

You really think 2020 is the same as 2016? Progressive’s stayed home in 2016 because they never envisioned the nightmare to come. Any progressive that stays home in 2020 because they aren’t inspired by a centrist candidate and needs to be “fueled with idealism,” is not someone whose rights I care to put my energy into championing.

82

I wish people would stop pushing this crap.

Do you honestly think there is an entire army of people who would vote for Trump if you make them angry - that didn’t already vote for Trump?

Do you think Trans-rights is the single issue that is going to pull them out in the millions?

No, this is a foolish argument. One meant to stop people from supporting what is right out of fear. If you’re pushing this, you’re a Trumpie or a right winger trying to deter others from opposing you.

83

Missed it, sorry.

I think it’s a very silly dichotomy. For starters, democrats are hesitant to even talk about trans rights, and the party’s history with trans rights is mediocre at best. That said, these issues are ones where we’re winning, and winning pretty fast, at least on the public perception front.

It feels like you’re catering to a political demographic that doesn’t exist any more.

Moving to the suburbs, the supposed home of the swing voter, not to mention all kinds of micro-trendy constituents Democrats have been told to court, such as “Soccer Moms” and “Security Moms.” It turns out that suburbs are no longer particularly politically “independent.” They are now, in fact, mostly Democratic. Designing a strategy to appeal to voters who are maybe moderate, but honestly, mainly marginalized Republicans in areas that now have a plurality of Democrats, seems like a good way to depress Democratic turnout.

It goes without saying that political campaigns should attract as many votes as possible, and that there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with broad-based appeals. It also doesn’t make much tactical sense to go out of your way to alienate or insult certain groups of voters. But the fact is, many of the policy positions that are considered “left wing” by the chattering class—even the “socialist” Green New Deal—actually have majority support. In an environment in which 76 percent of the public wants to raise taxes on the rich, trying to pick off a few center-right votes with a handful of tax credits—the cornerstone of the “centrist” Democratic policy playbook from the 1990s and early 2000s—feels shortsighted, at best, and likely not the best way to mobilize Democratic voters. And mobilizing more Democratic voters is the key to the 2020 election.

In 2016, over 4 million Democrats who voted in 2012 for Barack Obama didn’t show up at the polls to pull the lever for Clinton. It’s not that they voted for someone else; they simply didn’t vote at all. And as a reminder, Trump won three states by a total of 76,000 votes. The reasons for this are many, but the lesson is clear. Rather than obsess about winning back the voters that switched from Obama to Trump, Democrats should instead focus on inspiring those Obama voters who stayed home, who are “mostly young and nonwhite” and “share the progressive policy priorities of Democrats,” argued Sean McElwee, Jesse H. Rhodes, Brian F. Schaffner, and Bernard L. Fraga in the New York Times. Based on their careful analysis of the data, they advise Democrats to forget about those swing voters and figure out “why a campaign [Hillary’s] that sought to energize young voters of color failed to do so.” Here’s hoping the 2020 Democratic nominee gets the message.

I think that to many of these people, the answer here hinges on whether the democratic candidate is willing to fight for what they believe, or whether the democratic candidate is Joe Biden. Yes, vote for anyone who isn’t Trump, obviously. But you need to inspire liberals. We know this by now. And ceding ground to the right is not inspiring. It doesn’t make people wanna get up and canvas for you. It makes them want to lie down and rot.

Who are these people who are so concerned about hating LGBT people that they would vote Trump if we stood up for trans rights, and aren’t already pulling the lever for him anyways? Do they actually exist? Seriously, inquiring minds wish to know.

84

Who’s dying on that hill?

A poll released Friday by the Public Religion Research Institute shows the majority of Americans oppose so-called “bathroom bills” that would require transgender people to use the bathrooms that correspond with their sex at birth rather than their gender identity, but there is a sharp divide between Republicans and Democrats.

Just over half (53%) of the roughly 2,000 people interviewed for the survey in February said they oppose such measures, including roughly two-thirds of Democrats (65%) but just over one-third of Republicans (36%). In total, about 40% said they support such measures, with about one-in-ten saying they had no opinion on the subject.

[…]

The PRRI poll also found that a strong majority of Americans — 70%, including 60% of Republicans — support nondiscrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in areas including public accommodations.

And fuck, that was in 2017, when this was still a hot-button issue. How’s it looking now?

KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

In 2017 and 2018, most of the focus on limiting trans and gender non-binary individuals’ rights has been in the form of “bathroom bills.” While many of these measures have been introduced, most have not progressed,
In 2019, only Indiana (IN HB 1525) has introduced a traditional ‘bathroom bill.’ Measures moving forward in 7 states primarily work to expand the rights of trans and gender non-binary individuals,
In 2019, discriminatory measures in Tennessee, Georgia, and Texas target the LGBTQIA community through criminalizing trans and gender non-binary body exposure in public facilities, and under the guise of religious liberty or exemption.

Far from being a “hill to die on”, this is a battle we are winning. Hell, even back in 2017, it was a huge PR victory, with NC’s bigotry costing the state billions of dollars:

Despite Republican assurances that North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” isn’t hurting the economy, the law limiting LGBT protections will cost the state more than $3.76 billion in lost business over a dozen years, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Over the past year, North Carolina has suffered financial hits ranging from scuttled plans for a PayPal facility that would have added an estimated $2.66 billion to the state’s economy to a canceled Ringo Starr concert that deprived a town’s amphitheater of about $33,000 in revenue. The blows have landed in the state’s biggest cities as well as towns surrounding its flagship university, and from the mountains to the coast.

I don’t think it’s the pro-trans people who are going to die on this hill.

You ask them. This isn’t about psychically knowing every person’s gender (do we still have to remind people that “did you assume my gender!?!1” is a bullshit right-wing meme, not what anyone actually thinks?), it’s about not being an asshole by intentionally misgendering them - y’know, the kind of behavior that will get you banned from this forum.

85

The TL;DR of the last two posts is that this is not just the right thing to do, most people know it’s the right thing to do and there are non-trivial majorities for laws protecting the rights of LGBT people. This is yet another place where an extremely vocal minority of reactionaries are wielding utterly outsized power. We should not fear them, we should not be afraid of “losing votes” because of this. Doing the right thing is politically expedient and will fire up the base. Just do the right thing, stop looking for excuses to not stand up for us.

86

No, but I fear there are a few percent - possibly THE critical vote - who, if aroused, may complement the vote of Trump base and swing the election in his favour.

I am sorry you believe my thoughts on this issue to be “crap”.

87

I just don’t find the argument in the article you quoted persuasive (and there are a lot more pollsters who would disagree with him than agree). In any other year (and for sure as hell in 2016), I’d probably agree that motivating the voter base is key. But not in 2020.

There is a huge segment of the white working class that can be recaptured from Trump. These are the fundamentally decent, hard working middle class, that basically voted for Trump because he talks plainly and, more importantly, about THEM. It’s not that these people are racist, or transphobic, or want to see Dreamers launched by giant slingshots back to Mexico. It’s that they want their politicians to be talking TO THEM about the issues that matter to them.

Quoting from a Democrat who voted for Trump (from a Time Mag article entitled “Democrats Who Voted for Trump Speak”):

“Clinton would go out of her way to appeal to minorities, immigrants, but she didn’t really for everyday Americans.”. (yes, I noticed the casual racism)

The subset of Americans who feel that way is huge. The book “White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America,” by Joan Williams is an excellent analysis of why Clinton lost and how we can win these voters back (don’t be put off by a blurb by Biden ;))

I don’t want Biden either. But if I’ve got a candidate who’s polling 60% vs Trump and another polling 55, I’m taking the former.

As someone who supports a more progressive position than Biden (I’d prob take Warren myself), I see a potential upside to a Biden win in 2020. We’re overdue for a recession. If a progressive wins, and the economy goes in the shitter, you can say bye bye to the progressive agenda for the next 12 years. If a centrist wins, there’s at least a chance the electorate will go for a progressive in 2024.

88

Do you really think the timorous wee beasties who are letting the transphobes set the agenda now will stop when it changes from ‘but I might not get the job’ to ‘but I might not get to keep the job’?

89

“We?” Pretty sure you mean “you” in this context. Or are you personally volunteering to sacrifice your rights here?

And Karl, if sacrificing core liberal principles is necessary to win this super important election, why focus on the very marginal issue of trans rights, which is swinging virtually nobody’s vote, and go for something big ticket like gun control, or abortion. That would get a whole lot of Trump supporters in our side! But that’s not going to happen, because the election isn’t important enough to sacrifice an issue you actually care about, is it? The important thing is someone else gets thrown under the bus.

90

You’re right, we don’t win the election by backing trans rights. But we don’t lose it by backing trans rights, either.

We win the election by backing prosperity. We win the election with a candidate who spends 70% of their air time talking about jobs and growth and hope and fairness.

But the other 30%? I want them to support human rights. Trans rights, black rights, Arab rights, gay rights, women’s rights. And to oppose climate change, which is probably our greatest existential threat. Neither of those planks should preclude a candidate from talking about how to create jobs and bring prosperity back to the middle class. Nor about how to lift the unemployed, underemployed, and impoverished into the middle class.

91

I do wonder about timing. I hear the standard narrative about NAACP’s gradual efforts that culminated in Brown, with the understanding that it wouldn’t have gone so well if they’d attempted it earlier. But I couldn’t tell you if that narrative is correct.
I don’t know how well Obergefell would have gone in, say 2005. IIRC Obama wasn’t openly supportive of gay marriage when he campaigned. Would he have been elected if he had been? It’s not really a useful question for GD because you can’t prove it one way or another.

But I think public opinion swung because people were loud and because of exposure, and maybe throwing into the campaign could have moved it faster. Or maybe not. My gut says to not go slow when it comes to basic human decency, but I do also see how something like a poorly-timed court case could set things back.

92

Jesus Christ. Read my posts caaarreeefullly because you clearly didn’t. Or indulge your kneejerk moral out rage because it feels soooo good.

93

Please do understand that while you urge caution on some fairly flimsy premises, people are dying.

Like, you say this:

There’s also a huge segment of progressives who voted in 2012… and just did not vote in 2016. I can’t help but wonder if that may be easier to recapture than the people who voted for a serial liar because “he talks plainly” - read: people who fell down the right-wing propaganda rabbithole. You say yourself:

Yeah - your go-to example is someone who thinks that Clinton didn’t care about white people - a belief that makes about as much sense as the belief that Trump was going to stand up for “the little guy”. These are not beliefs people come to from actually listening to Clinton talk, they’re beliefs that are fairly difficult to come to if you aren’t taking right-wing propaganda at face value. And, like it or not, the moment any democratic candidate does any amount of outreach to anyone who isn’t a straight, cisgendered white person (which they will, because the democratic coalition is more than just cishet white people), they’re going to get that exact same propaganda fed to them again. It won’t matter if that involves outreach to trans issues or not.

In the least convenient possible universe, where we knew for a fact that you’re right, I’d agree with you. But we don’t - in fact, I’m fairly convinced that you’re just flat-out wrong about this one.

Again: so is the subset of Americans who stayed home in 2016 who previously voted Obama. And I think we’d be better off trying to reclaim them than the people who started drinking the FOX News kool-aid between 2012 and 2016.

94

That is a fair point - do we know the numbers in the two groups, or at least which is larger?

95

Temporarily muting one’s support for someone else’s rights with the intent of advocating for them in 20 months is hardly throwing them under the bus. Especially when there may be a risk of having their rights ignored for a generation if the strategy of overt support backfires.

96

…are you going to just magically become an ally in 20 months time? What is it, specifically, are you planning to do differently in 20 months?

And while trans people are crying out for support over the next 20 months and you refuse to support them: how can you not characterize that as “throwing them under the bus?”

Look at this timeline.

Look at what they’ve already done in the last couple of years. Imagine what they are going to do over the next 20 months. The very least you can do is let the LGBT community know that you are on their side. Muting your support sends a very clear message. Can you guess what that message is?

This sentence will look really fucking silly if Trump gets reelected in 2020. And if he does get reelected: how long do you think people should keep up the strategy of “refusing overt support?” What objective conditions need to exist before “overt support” should be allowed? What does that world look like?

97

Is it support for, or action on, trans rights that you seek?

98

Yes.

99

…I’m seeking answers to my questions.

100

Going back to the “passing the torch” idea, while it’s true old, recalcitrant folks die off, it’s a dangerous mistake to assume the backlash dies with them. There are plenty of homophobic youngsters out there, trust me. I’ve known them and lived among them. And it’s not the oldsters, by and large, who are committing violent crimes against the LGBTQ population.

The reason for changing attitudes is that the media, social and otherwise, has enabled more people to see past the stereotypes and get to know trans people. And why did media start doing so? Pressure from advocates, for one thing. Unfortunately, there are also media sources inciting hatred and reenforcing stereotypes. And this is why there can be no slowing down. The anti-LGBTQ forces are not going to mute themselves. Society doesn’t remain static.

Going about your life as a trans person or cross-dresser should not be an act of courage.