As the actual parent of an actual trans kid, the lunacy of conservatives with their faux moral panic about trans people is, what's the word I'm looking for, exhausting. Though not surprising. For the past 40 years, faux moral panic has been how conservatives get votes. Black people are scary! Feminists are scary! Gay men are scary! Muslims are scary! Immigrants are scary!
They don't have issues to run on -- most Americans don't support the actual goals of the current conservative party, which is to abandon infrastructure and the public good while destroying the planet in order to increase the wealth of corporations. So they have to whip up their base by pretending black people, or gay people, or immigrants, will destroy America (tm). Hence Trump's success in being elected by pretending "those people" had made American not-Great.
Conservatives know nothing about actual trans people and -- here's the hilarious part -- don't actually care about trans people or their existence. Remember a couple years ago when the moral panic was that trans women would destroy women's sports? Like conservatives care about women's sports. Please.
Or when they were pretending they care about the safety of women in bathrooms and gyms. As if conservatives care about women's safety. The pro-rape party cares about women's safety. The party that wants to force raped ten-year-olds to carry their fetuses to term cares about women's safety. Please.
Or when they pretended to care that trans men were "erasing" women. How can you say pregnant person! That ERASES women, since as we know women aren't people. Like conservatives care about women or their rights.
The problem, obviously, is they have to keep ramping up the fake panic in order to keep the base engaged. So we go from "feminists exist" to "feminists are Satanists who want to drink teh blood of babies!"
That's the road we're currently on with trans people. DeSantis, whose entire bid for the White House is based on his ability to keep his base outraged, has to keep outdoing himself. Trans kids shouldn't get surgery! Trans kids shouldn't have gender-affirming care! Trans kids don't exist -- Teachers are grooming kids to make them think they're trans! Trans adults aren't competent to make decisions about their own bodies! The government should ban gender-deviance!
DeSantis doesn't care about any of this. Conservatives do not care about any of this. They care about whipping up outrage among their ignorant, bigoted base, in order to keep their guys in power, so that they can continue destroying the planet, public good, and American infrastructure while making a few people just a tiny bit richer. That's it. That's the whole goal.
And what's ten or twenty or fifty dead trans people, or the misery of thousands of others, if they can accomplish that goal? So we abrogate the civil rights of some Americans? So we're hurting some of our fellow citizens? So some kids end up committing suicide? I mean, it's not like they're real Americans, right? Or even real people. Small price to pay!
Ron DeSantis requested the information of trans students who sought care at Florida's public universities. Now students are planning a statewide walkout. https://t.co/mCLVvzrTKk
— Barbara Smith (@nanaslugdiva) February 16, 2023
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