Let us assume that our opponents are competent and have been studying our defenses for some time, looking for vulnerabilities to exploit. They put out little feints and test attacks, seeing who will defend who, who can be divided off from the group, and so on. We’ve seen this. All of these questions they need answers to: will Jews defend Muslims? Will Asians support Black struggle? Where can the wedges be put in? The Alt-Right 4Chan types are always talking about observing and infiltrating online anti-oppression communities for intel and laughs. All these little tests. What if they make up a pretend pedophilia orientation? Will people defend it? Will they tight and divide over it?
One vulnerability they’ve consistently turned up is transmisogyny. Lots of groups can be induced to vilify or wish away trans women. Useful! Remember a little while ago when Milo put out that petition? “Remove the T from LGBT”? They watched who signed and promoted that thing. It was couched in anti-oppression boilerplate. And look! Cis gay men promoted it. Some feminists and womanists promoted it. Useful intel. They learned helpful info there: many cis LGB people were raring to turn on trans people. They’d even say it was for their own protection. They counted up who signed on, who elaborated on it, who was excited about it. I’m looking at you, TERFs and enablers, in particular. (They even discovered that some fanatical anti-trans feminists would happily join forces with homophobic Christians, to hurt trans women.) Nobody thought that T-out-of-LGBT petition was going to DO anything. There’s nobody who DECIDES that. It was a solidarity test balloon. So these laughing nihilists went looking—along many lines–for cracks in solidarity, joints in the armor, people who could be attacked 1st.
Why do I point this out now? Because this week the rumor mill floated a general anti-LGBTQ EO or bill was coming, & they gauged opposition. Supposedly they decided that opposition to this anti-LGBTQ legislation would be too much for now, and put it in the not-yet column. And yet: Now the word is they’re paring down to a specifically anti-trans EO. One focused on legal documents, probably framed as for nat'l security. (After all, mismatched documents are fraud, right? Terrorists could be using fake ID. And there’s all that voter fraud to address. Right?)
Previous Intel operations (& polls) have told them that the majority of the country has turned to support LGB rights—but NOT trans rights. They know from watching our intra-movement arguments online that there’s a long history of cis LGB folks throwing trans folks under the bus. They have tested to see if cis LGB people will readily abandon trans people to save themselves. (Yes.) If they’ll outright attack us. (Yes.) They’ve tested if there are blocs w/in the cis LGB community so dedicated to hurting trans people that they’ll ally wtthe right wing. (Yes.) They’ve watched some of these anti-trans fanatics STILL obsessing over eradicating us, prioritizing that, even while the country is on fire. Lo and behold: the regime floats anti-LGBTQ legislation, withdraws it for now. Now they’re floating anti-trans legislation. Right on time.
Their research indicates that the general public will happily let trans people burn first as expendable. That cis LGB people will, too. The plan? To remove our ability to get legal ID documents. There goes voting, travel, med. care, having an answer to “your papers, please.” That and support for keeping us out of public bathrooms, away from schools, away from gendered spaces, out of jobs and housing. Public life.
I’m saying this because they have good reason to believe they’re right that they can come for us and no one will stop them. Their little intel operations indicate that not only will no one stop them hurting trans people, many will even help. Even cis LGB people. I’m saying this especially for everyone who gave them reason to believe this. Who looked the other way when trans lives were on the line.
When they come for us. (They will come for us. They are about to come for us.) Prove them wrong. Prove them wrong. Prove them wrong. Please.
Remember that the specter of trans women was already a useful wedge issue & get-out-the-vote driver in the 2016 campaign. There’s precedent. We will be used as a weapon and a vulnerability against the rest of you for as long as our opponents know we won’t be protected by the Left. One of our lessons from fighting the anti-Muslim E0s in the last week is this: we have to deny them every victory. Each one counts. Whatever we teach them about who we will leave behind will be used to hurt all of us. We have to show them we will abandon no one. not ever Now is a time when it is clear & stark: solidarity saves us. Together, we outnumber them. Together, we can win. Let us not be broken apart. All of you responding with pledges to have our backs: thank you. Bring your friends on board. As Octavia Butler said: So be it. See to it.
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