Calls for violence against LGBTQ people intensify

[Fahran]

Some stats.

[Imperiul romanum]

When I had have 12 years old (now I will finish university), a kid from my class has followed me, 1 month because ,,you are beatiful''!
And after 8 years I have nightmares about this!

"And his name was James Blunt"

A reason why I am... The name is...''Ionuț,, and entire school has liked him when has follwed me and etc.

[Point Blob]

Sounds like the tribalistic gang-war between loud groups who want their opinions enshrined in law has escalated, and uninvolved people were caught in the crossfire... again.

Getting things made illegal for the sake of protecting feelings will generally lead to people who might do those things, for whatever reason, getting pissed off and antagonistic.
Authoritarians ruin everything for everyone.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

2023, where "treat us like human beings with equal rights to you" is "authoritarian"

[Fahran]

"And his name was James Blunt"

A reason why I am... The name is...''Ionuț,, and entire school has liked him when has follwed me and etc.

I feel like disliking all LGBT+ people because a single guy may have sexually harassed you, while understandable as a trauma response, is about as valid as an argument that I’m justified in disliking all straight men because I began getting cat-called by much older men beginning in middle school.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

2023, where "treat us like human beings with equal rights to you" is "authoritarian"

And at the same time, supporting a more capitalist version of fascism and similar ideologies are deemed "freedom-loving" and "libertarian."

[Fahran]

2023, where "treat us like human beings with equal rights to you" is "authoritarian"

And at the same time, supporting a more capitalist version of fascism and similar ideologies are deemed "freedom-loving" and "libertarian."

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It’s also off-topic.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

And at the same time, supporting a more capitalist version of fascism and similar ideologies are deemed "freedom-loving" and "libertarian."

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It’s also off-topic.

You ignored the part that said "and similar ideologies."

But go on I guess.

And since they're usually homophobic, transphobic, etc, and such movements are responsible for the increasing violence, no it isn't off-topic.

[Fahran]

You ignored the part that said "and similar ideologies."

But go on I guess.

I’m not taking the bait this time. If you would like to discuss or debate which ideologies are secretly fascist, you can create a thread on the topic. Otherwise, we can discuss increasing violence against LGBT+ persons.

And since they're usually homophobic, transphobic, etc, and such movements are responsible for the increasing violence, no it isn't off-topic.

I would suggest focusing on this last part then.

That said, heteronormativity and the policing of behaviors and identities perceived as transgressive has been a fixture of right-wing politics in the US since at least the 1990s when Gingrich was swept into power by his Moral Majority and we began seeing a more concerted effort to bring attention to the AIDS epidemic and the living conditions and rights of gay men and lesbian women. A lot of the early push came from non-government organs - media and entertainment in particular.

And that’s leaving aside those old 1950s propaganda reels about how kids should avoid the confirmed bachelor down the street. A lot of the basis for the violence we’re presently seeing isn’t particularly novel. Or even particularly fascist. The attitudes, assumptions, and stereotypes have largely existed for decades, perhaps even longer, and are finding new expression as the struggle over hegemony moves in a different direction and the changes and impositions are more keenly felt.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

There's no bait here. You just want to smugly go at me to defend the hard-right... for some reason.

Your condescending suggestion can piss right off, as what I brought up pertains to this. A bunch of motivated reactionaries who want to use violence against the LGBTQ to turn the clock back. Whilst pretending to be enlightened freedom-lovers.

[Fahran]

There's no bait here. You just want to smugly go at me to defend the hard-right... for some reason.

Your condescending suggestion can piss right off, as what I brought up pertains to this. A bunch of motivated reactionaries who want to use violence against the LGBTQ to turn the clock back. Whilst pretending to be enlightened freedom-lovers.

It’s a much more gentle reprimand than the ones I’ve encountered thus far. And, again, I’m merely asking you to actually discuss the topic instead of pontificating about how a vaguely defined group of people are fascist. “Ron DeSantis is a fascist” or “FOX News is the Daily Stormer” feel a lot more like slogans than anything worth actually discussing. It doesn’t even set us up to discuss anything and engaging with either claim in a serious way leads us off-topic. If you framed it as “FOX News contributes to transphobia”, we could probably pull up examples and discuss that.

I mention this because homophobia and transphobia are not intrinsically fascist attitudes and have existed under a multitude of different regimes. Heteronormativity being hegemonic means that we don’t actually need far-right reactionaries to perpetuate it. The violence we’re seeing at present is a function of shifting issue salience, the mobilizing and radicalizing effects of mass media, and the loss of power by right-wingers over relevant institutions such as hospitals.

In the past thirty years, the span of most of our lifetimes, we’ve gone from “homosexuality is a mental illness” being an actual position held by health-related organizations to “maybe we can and should perform gender-affirming surgery on children.” I don’t know why you’d believe that the neoliberals who held the former view up until 1990 simply vanished into the ether or became more radical in their opinions. A lot of what has actually changed has been other actions and strategies of such folks.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

There's no bait here. You just want to smugly go at me to defend the hard-right... for some reason.

Your condescending suggestion can piss right off, as what I brought up pertains to this. A bunch of motivated reactionaries who want to use violence against the LGBTQ to turn the clock back. Whilst pretending to be enlightened freedom-lovers.

It’s a much more gentle reprimand than the ones I’ve encountered thus far. And, again, I’m merely asking you to actually discuss the topic instead of pontificating about how a vaguely defined group of people are fascist. “Ron DeSantis is a fascist” or “FOX News is the Daily Stormer” feel a lot more like slogans than anything worth actually discussing. It doesn’t even set us up to discuss anything and engaging with either claim in a serious way leads us off-topic. If you framed it as “FOX News contributes to transphobia”, we could probably pull up examples and discuss that.

With all due respect, I never brought up any of those things right now.

"Fascism and related ideologies" was a reference to fascism and reactionaries. Not all ideological relatives of fascism would qualify as fascism. But they deserve comparison.

I'm attacking those who have an anti-LGBTQ agenda alongside other abhorrent ideas, many of them are anti-democratic with it being justified by the bs claim that trans people are "groomers," and you want to argue semantics.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

Also, they consider all their democratic opposition to be in favor of an LGBTQ "grooming agenda."

So much so that they embrace anti-democratic ideas. It ties into this significantly.

[Fahran]

I'm attacking those who have an anti-LGBTQ agenda alongside other abhorrent ideas, many of them are anti-democratic with it being justified by the bs claim that trans people are "groomers," and you want to argue semantics.

You’re attacking a vague group of people in an awkward way that’s unrelated to the topic. And threatening to expand it the minute someone actually engages. We’re not here to discuss fascism or democracy or January 6th. This is actually the first time you’ve offered a serious and concrete point (claims of grooming) related to the topic that can be discussed.

The source of the disingenuous groomer claim is largely related to efforts to educate children about gender identity and sexual orientation as well as to socialize them to accept queer persons as an innocuous and normal aspect of everyday life. It’s not consistently applied, to things like child beauty pageants or cheer squads, which suggests either a lack of sincerity or a hyper-fixation on the sexual nature of queerness and departures from heteronormativity as inherently transgressive, sexualized, and bad.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

No I'm not. It sounds like you just don't like the points I'm making, so you're going to label them as "off-topic."

If the state of American democracy pertains to the violence against the LGBTQ community, I can mention it. Your feelings on it are irrelevant to me.

It's violence from an anti-democratic group that wants to turn the clock back on these issues, and are willing to use violence to achieve it. A group of fascists and reactionaries.

I don't care if the 1950s were a homophobic time. There's a difference between living in such a society and believing it as a result, and trying to turn the clock back. Or getting so angry that the majority of people now support the LGBTQ community that they want to abolish democracy to enforce their will on the populace. This isn't the 1950s. It was a different time.

Stop being overly semantic and disingenuous.

[Fahran]

That’s the thing. We’re not talking about democracy or even an attempt to turn back the clock. We’re largely discussing violent attempts to maintain the status quo. You labeling everyone you dislike fascist obfuscates the point that is relevant, namely that the social conventions that compelled people to remain in the closet until fairly recently aren’t a new thing and originated under a wholly democratic system. With politicians you would have voted for at the time complicit in the hegemony of heteronormativity. Because that’s how hegemony works.

And, again, I’m avoiding engagement with your overarching point because the minute I critique one of your positions I suspect someone will interpret that very uncharitably and we’ll be discussing something off-topic again. If you want to talk about how the GOP is fascist take it somewhere else. I’ll explain to you in detail why they’re not there.

[Primitive Communism]

The increasing violence toward LGBT+ people is directly related to the resurgence of Fascist ideology in America. They two are very much related, and Fascism is therefor explicitly on topic.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

That’s the thing. We’re not talking about democracy or even an attempt to turn back the clock. We’re largely discussing violent attempts to maintain the status quo. You labeling everyone you dislike fascist obfuscates the point that is relevant, namely that the social conventions that compelled people to remain in the closet until fairly recently aren’t a new thing and originated under a wholly democratic system. With politicians you would have voted for at the time complicit in the hegemony of heteronormativity. Because that’s how hegemony works.

And, again, I’m avoiding engagement with your overarching point because the minute I critique one of your positions I suspect someone will interpret that very uncharitably and we’ll be discussing something off-topic again. If you want to talk about how the GOP is fascist take it somewhere else. I’ll explain to you in detail why they’re not there.

They want a status quo ante on these issues, not the current status quo.

I have no doubts they want to overturn gay marriage and the prohibition of anti-sodomy laws. None of what they want is status quo, but a push in a more extreme backwards direction.

[Fahran]

The increasing violence toward LGBT+ people is directly related to the resurgence of Fascist ideology in America. They two are very much related, and Fascism is therefor explicitly on topic.

There’s no serious resurgence of fascist ideology in the United States and, even supposing there was, this explanation ignores that the institutions and conventions involved in suppressing queer people have existed almost continuously since the 1950s, with gains only beginning to occur in increments in the 1990s on the global and national stages.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

It's one thing to have a democracy that engages in discrimination due to the conditions of its respective time period.

It is different when there is a push to abolish democracy because the public now views such positions as extreme. Plus, continuous radicalization from the right to move further and further in a discriminatory direction.

You know there is a difference there.

[Fahran]

They want a status quo ante on these issues, not the current status quo.

I have no doubts they want to overturn gay marriage and the prohibition of anti-sodomy laws. None of what they want is status quo, but a push in a more extreme backwards direction.

There has been some suggestion of that based on SCOTUS rulings, but, even supposing the GOP or FOX on the whole followed Clarence Thomas on such issues - which is pretty unlikely given the expressed opinions of both the mainstream and alternative right in the US, we’d be talking about a return to the Clinton years. Hardly a benchmark of fascism in the US, though absolutely a time of legally enforced heteronormativity. And that would occur as a result of lawfare, with violence continuing as a social mechanism of enforcement. Neither of which is really new except in its scale.

[Dimetrodon Empire]

Just like abortion, when they get what they want, they will want more. They will proceed to push LGBTQ rights back further.

And you pretend that's the only criteria I'm judging on them on as well.

Honestly, you're being disingenuous. I see why no one would take your rebuttal with much charity. It deserves none.

[Fahran]

It's one thing to have a democracy that engages in discrimination due to the conditions of its respective time period.

It is different when there is a push to abolish democracy because the public now views such positions as extreme. Plus, continuous radicalization from the right to move further and further in a discriminatory direction.

You know there is a difference there.

There’s not actually a difference except in so far as LGBT+ rights have become salient as more concerted efforts to challenge heteronormativity have occurred. You’re interpreting violence purely as a function of increasing radicalization, but the problem with that is that a lot of these folks haven’t actually changed their views on anything. They’ve begun to emphasize opposition to LGBT+ rights more and have resorted to violence in instances where personal identity is threatened or where they lack institutional power. This can link into discourse about the far-right in the US, but discussing the far-right as a whole is probably beyond our scope. And discussing the right as a whole is even worse, unless we focus in on the role they playing in perpetuating or emphasizing homophobia and transphobia.

[Fahran]

Just like abortion, when they get what they want, they will want more. They will proceed to push LGBTQ rights back further.

And you pretend that's the only criteria I'm judging on them on as well.

Honestly, you're being disingenuous. I see why no one would take your rebuttal with much charity. It deserves none.

Overturning abortion has been the stated goal for years and was still well-supported in the GOP. Same-sex marriage is supported by over sixty percent of Republicans at the moment, and given the importance of socially permissive suburbs in bolstering the GOP in many states, same-sex marriage becoming a salient issue again would actively hurt the religious conservative elements of the party. Also, this is what I mean. You keep bringing up various unrelated issues in a thread on LGBT+ violence to the point that we need to be cautious to avoid debating unrelated topics.

[Nilokeras]

That’s the thing. We’re not talking about democracy or even an attempt to turn back the clock. We’re largely discussing violent attempts to maintain the status quo. You labeling everyone you dislike fascist obfuscates the point that is relevant, namely that the social conventions that compelled people to remain in the closet until fairly recently aren’t a new thing and originated under a wholly democratic system. With politicians you would have voted for at the time complicit in the hegemony of heteronormativity. Because that’s how hegemony works.

If you pay attention to the legislative agenda of the people pushing anti-trans and LGBT agendas we're well past the idea of 'maintaining the status quo'. Pride parades are getting banned Fahran. It's very clear that the anti-trans movement is using things like sports and drag queen story time as a wedge to roll back gains made ever since the 2000s. The Texas AG was literally musing re-litigating sodomy laws for crying out loud.

And, again, I’m avoiding engagement with your overarching point because the minute I critique one of your positions I suspect someone will interpret that very uncharitably and we’ll be discussing something off-topic again. If you want to talk about how the GOP is fascist take it somewhere else. I’ll explain to you in detail why they’re not there.

What, you mean directly quoting something you said and interpreting it literally?