Mastodawn

Dave Slusher - Tech Stuff

RE: https://wandering.shop/@cstross/116030091259678118

So many things about right wing ideology that seemed inexplicable to me become understandable as the #EpsteinFiles get released.

15 years ago, no one cared about #trans people. They were free to lead their boring lives. Then kind of all at once, demagogues around the world became actively anti-trans, spouting rhetoric and pushing legislation. "Why now?" I wondered then and to this day.

Because Jeffrey Epstein was anti-trans. He asked his friends to take up the mantle and of course they did. The wave of anti-trans sentiment we suffer through today is because people wanted to suck up to a rich pedophile. No deeper conviction than that, no coherent philosophy. Epstein said so and thus it was.

He is no longer around to ask but I can only assume his motivation was because while sexually abusing teenaged girls Epstein did not want to be surprised by a penis. This whole moral panic is because of the sexual abuse preferences of one billionaire influencer. Good job, everyone, carrying the torch of a pedophile.

@geniodiabolico
you also have to remember that evangelical Christians built up a huge political apparatus for minority rule, that required a political wedge issue. They used abortion for decades, but then they basically won when the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. The laws were already friendly to harming immigrants, so they turned their focus to trans people

Dave Slusher - SFFH Feb 8

@kaipeacock @geniodiabolico

I have a similar post to write about reproductive issues. What you say is all true but that doesn't mean that the assault on reproductive rights is finished. It continues full speed even today as right wing US legislatures look to outlaw birth control.

tldr; why would you want more children born but then not want them cared for after birth? To increase the pool of desperate, trafficable children perhaps.

@geniodiabolico
oh definitely! That's just less compelling to the politically involved and religious person. "they're trying to destroy the family" is still salient for some reason, even though most people have come to accept gay marriage as fine, actually.

the government will continue to restrict reproductive rights, and try to compel women to be mothers and subservient to men. But that's mostly a goal of the elite and powerful, not something that will immediately grab the typical religious person (including women) to get behind
@geniodiabolico

Skookumchick Feb 8

@geniodiabolico @kaipeacock @geniodiabolico See also: pool of people desperate for jobs, even shitty ones.

Dave Slusher - Tech Stuff Feb 8

@kaipeacock I'm sure you are correct and somewhere in some dickhead think-tank a group of awful people picked this off of a short list of wedge issues. That is extremely easy to believe. I have no direct evidence but my supposition is the reason it was on that short list bubbles up to Epstein ultimately.

@geniodiabolico
I interned at a law firm in college that is still actively involved in this kind of advocacy before I deprogrammed myself. Maybe their money comes from the rapist elites, but they had their own religious motivations about the mind of world they wanted to create.

It's easy to ascribe so much evil to one man, because that's narratively easy. But there are many people who have more mediocre motives, who still line up and invest extreme effort into the agenda that elites like Epstein were also in favor of. People who are smarter and more dedicated than he ever was. People like him are like CEOs, taking credit for work that other people did or simply observing the cultural current and deciding what they wanted to encourage because it would make them money or make trafficking the vulnerable easier

@kaipeacock @geniodiabolico the Religious Right have been targeting LGBT+ people as well as abortion rights from way back. The Family Research Council identified trans rights as the wedge issue to begin breaking apart LGBT+ rights as a whole and made it a centerpiece of their anti-LGBT+ campaign. The anti-hate group the Southern Poverty Law Centre has been reporting this since at least 2017:

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/christian-right-tips-fight-transgender-rights-separate-t-lgb/

Christian Right tips to fight transgender rights: separate the T from the LGB

Last week, from Thursday, October 13 through Saturday, October 15 the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council put on its annual Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC., A prime networking event for the Christian right where anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim rhetoric is rife, this year’s summit welcomed its first sitting president as a speaker, Donald Trump.

Southern Poverty Law Center

@Mschatelaine
definitely agree!

I'm speaking from first-hand knowledge about this as someone who worked for a SPLC-identified hate group for a summer back in 2012 before I deprogrammed from evangelical hate and eventually came out.
@geniodiabolico

Large Format Projectionist Feb 8

@kaipeacock @geniodiabolico

Where is Phyllis Schlafly in your history?

@BenHM3
she predates my political awareness but yes, the anti LGBT movement and anti abortion go back together a very long way!
@geniodiabolico

Large Format Projectionist Feb 8

@kaipeacock @geniodiabolico

She (almost single handedly) packaged anti-abortion as a minoritarian issue. #InBedWithTheRightPodcast did an excellent episode on her. Also #KnowYourEnemyPodcast

It’s one of those “we need a Time Machine” events in history.

DressToKILT Feb 8

@kaipeacock @geniodiabolico Oh they have an entire roster of wedge issues. It wasn't like they had to pivot from one to another. Trans people were already in the pipeline and had been for years. Just like same-sex marriage. It's Dungeons & Dragons. It's rock music. It's long hair. It's marijuana. It's immigrants. It's anything that doesn't explicitly conform to their misogynist, white supremacist, Christofascist worldview. It's the green M&M dressing less sexy.

@geniodiabolico

Surprised by a penis. Ah hah hah, my new response to anti-Trans bigotry. ( cis-het white male here)

Szymon Sokół 🇵🇱🇪🇺🇺🇦Feb 8

@geniodiabolico you may be on to something, but there's a simpler explanation: conservatives are defenders of the status quo. And that means that if you were born poor, you must remain poor; if you were born Black, you must remain Black; and if you were born a woman, you must remain a woman. They could tolerate exceptions as long as they were scarce. But in this century trans people become visible, because it become more socially safe to come out and more medically safe to transition. There were high-profile trans people like Wachowski Brothers Sisters. And the conservatives become afraid of an avalanche of transitions, and that would be very much against their status quo…

Jeremy le fou Feb 8

@geniodiabolico Other people have offered some additional context, but I would also add that anti-trans work is part and parcel with misogyny and sociopathic control that depends upon robbing people of bodily autonomy. Denying people access to abortion/birth control, forcing others to dress/present as you prefer or expect, demanding deference and silence in the face of abuse, even enslavement—these are all points along the spectrum of fascist/conservative claims for power over others.

Jörg Baranczek Feb 8

@geniodiabolico Desinformation ? Dwakins Trans Hater ? I think Biologist. And Militant Atheist.

ChloChloaca Feb 8

@geniodiabolico

It's important to call out that some of the communications in the latest batch of files also fully fetishizes trans people. Epstein did actually help facilitate people who wanted to hook up with trans teens as a fetish and wanted to encourage young boys to go on estrogen for sexual purposes.

So while Epstein may have hated trans people, he certainly didn't have any qualms treating us like sex objects for his friends' satisfaction.

And that also perpetuates transphobia, as that means those same people ONLY saw us as fetishes. Which aligns perfectly with the belief that trans kids can't/don't exist, bc to them, that would be sexualization of children. Since, again, they see no purpose for trans people to exist outside of fetish and porn.

robloblaw Feb 8

@geniodiabolico
"Epstein said so and thus it was."

A powerful as the oligarchs have become, with wealth concentration exploding and disinformation networks becoming more sophisticated; broader reactionary christofascist movements play their role. They have been energised by the progress feminist and LBTQ+ movements have made.

Sarah Marshall's amazing podcast series "The devil you know" lays this out beautifully.

Lily Star Feb 9

@geniodiabolico Edit this again for an unboost.