I think the historical context on this is really important to understand and promote because the reality is that there's no inherent aversion to trans people in our culture, it's one that's been cultivated by explicit right wing propaganda as another way to divide the working class against itself - ThreadSky

mtsw.bsky.social • 383 days ago

I think the historical context on this is really important to understand and promote because the reality is that there's no inherent aversion to trans people in our culture, it's one that's been cultivated by explicit right wing propaganda as another way to divide the working class against itself

Reposted from grimm 🙈🙉🙊

This wasn't unheard of at the time, the first public trans surgery in America was done as "Former GI now smoking hot!"

Comments

uncannykyle.bsky.social•382 days ago

It’s kinda funny that in the far-flung era of the fifties, someone at the Daily News heard a man became a woman and apparently asked if they’re hot.

skottkle.be•383 days ago

within the last two years or so!
Earlier in Britain.

anaire.bsky.social•383 days ago

No, that's just when you started noticing it.

skottkle.be•383 days ago

That's when Chris Rufo proposed to make that the divisive issue that Republicans should advance after critical race theory stalled out.
It's only been a hot-button issue for me for around seven years, but I certainly noticed this new wave of hate when it began in the US.

anaire.bsky.social•383 days ago

And that's not when it began. See for instance this report from 2021, recording *big* shifts in opinion among Republicans over the preceding years, and of course those didn't come from nowhere.

https://www.prri.org/research/most-americans-support-pro-lgbtq-policies-but-are-more-divided-over-transgender-sports-and-bathroom-policies/

anaire.bsky.social•383 days ago

As for where the strategic push actually started, people who know a lot more than me have pointed to moves from Christian Right groups in the wake of their defeat over marriage equality, of the sort discussed here:

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/10/23/christian-right-tips-fight-transgender-rights-separate-t-lgb

technicallyowen.bsky.social•382 days ago

It can be directly traced to Texas in 2014 where religious groups decided they had lost on marriage equality and pivoted to bathroom bills right wing media followed globally especially in the UK where a small incestuous media executive class mainstreamed TERFism

lawsonwest.bsky.social•382 days ago

📌

cityatlas.bsky.social•382 days ago

Hey, tax cuts don't write themselves.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/06/magazine/billionaire-politics.html

mtsw.bsky.social•383 days ago

The "bash gays" play started not working and backfiring in the early 00s and conservatives had to look around for their next target to other and demonize and settled on trans people as a group that was still vulnerable enough to run effective attacks on.

ravenmcampbell.bsky.social•383 days ago

You think that started turning after Matthew Shepard?

ironcurtainyc.bsky.social•383 days ago

I think it started turning when people started knowing LGBT people as their relatives instead of abstractions.

mtsw.bsky.social•383 days ago

if you look at conservative propaganda they also conflate it to like, people with lots of piercings, or women who dye their hair unnatural colors. ultimately it's just trying to find people who are different in their community and other them https://bsky.app/profile/insavga.bsky.social/post/3kl5wwpul6p2a

angryallosaurus.bsky.social•381 days ago

Conservatives are authoritarians, and authoritarians lose their goddamn minds every time they encounter someone different than them. Just insecure, terrified, and full of hate for anyone not exactly like them.

mtsw.bsky.social•383 days ago

Ya I meant to type "10's" the 90's and early-00's were very homophobic https://bsky.app/profile/nied.bsky.social/post/3kl5wlkfv3c2m

mtsw.bsky.social•383 days ago

Correct https://bsky.app/profile/mbhastings.bsky.social/post/3kl5xms4occ2e

marleywrites.bsky.social•383 days ago

This would be much less effective if not enabled by parts of the liberal media that always assume, in a culture war context, that urban = wealthy = privileged = elite = educated = unpopular = fair game for attacks.

braylesong.bsky.social•382 days ago

Meh. There is no liberal media.

mx0x20wednesday.bsky.social•383 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/mx0x20wednesday.bsky.social/post/3kl62vbck7k2o

docbenway.bsky.social•383 days ago

Any women who do not conform are the target of this kind of opprobrium. There are hordes of transvestigators pickling their brains trying to find evidence that women they don’t like are trans and, therefore, worthy of justified hate.

sockpuppetpundit.bsky.social•383 days ago

They keep targeting smaller and smaller groups hoping we don’t know someone in that group. Black people, Jewish people, single women, gay people, trans people… the out group will be small conservatives will blame everything on one person no one knows or can find because they aren’t on social media.

sockpuppetpundit.bsky.social•383 days ago

Then they’ll get online and post photos of everyone they think is this one bad person. Then they’ll boycott every product they think the one bad person uses. “What do you means they drink water?! Let’s boycott water!”

mtsw.bsky.social•383 days ago

Feel like they might be heading this direction but that person is bizarrely Taylor Swift

sockpuppetpundit.bsky.social•383 days ago

Maybe we can get Taylor to promote drinking water and breathing oxygen.

nied.bsky.social•383 days ago

My memory is it started more in the early teens following the rapid collapse of gay bashing as a political strategy after it was highly effective for them in '04.

tcbullfrog.bsky.social•383 days ago

Yeah I was gonna say, "early" is there wrong modifier there. It was still going strong in 04 and only started to wane later.

eean.dev•383 days ago

Prop 8 passing in 2008 felt so wrong and backwards at the time, and maybe it was the last victory of that cohort of homophobia.

wrongbottom.bsky.social•383 days ago

https://youtu.be/4AzLrn5JVIo?si=X2uBcuD1YUYOh2Cj

wrongbottom.bsky.social•383 days ago

https://youtu.be/PhaihBGD2tc?si=1BsTUXi1-is13lyN

paintaily.bsky.social•383 days ago

Ex-GI more like Ex-guy

shortblondeguy.bsky.social•383 days ago

Maintain fear = Maintain power

Very simple strategy.

technicalsquirrel.bsky.social•383 days ago

The big difference is that Jorgensen coded as "passing", i.e. "a blonde beauty". It was a novelty story, most people didn't "accept" it as much as shrugging and saying "wow that's something new."

Had it started a trend, spilling into everyday experience, it would've played out then like it has now.

technicalsquirrel.bsky.social•383 days ago

and the fact that it didn't become a widespread trend in the 50's tells you everything about how "tolerated" it really was. Almost nobody dared try it, they'd have been ostracized and probably assaulted.

puzzlemathstar.bsky.social•383 days ago

it's obvious that right wing politicians and pundits are attempting to use transphobia as a cynical political tool but I don't think we can conclude from the fact that the buzzwords, framing, and talking points weren't formed generations ago that there was no aversion to trans people before them

puzzlemathstar.bsky.social•383 days ago

I think we can recognize how much of it is manufactured while also accepting that xenophobia and such are basic human instincts that we can and should teach ourselves and society out of, and we have to fight bigotry and ignorance both internally and externally to get rid of it

thealice.bsky.social•383 days ago

I think for just your regular, apolitical normie it's a "who gives a fuck" attitude. Unless you're totally Fox News/terf brained, you're not worried about what other people are doing with their lives. Life's too complicated to imbed yourself with everyone else's business

joanmcalis.bsky.social•383 days ago

I straight up remember a Christian speaker on sex stating that he had advised someone that being a straight trans person was better for avoiding "sin" than a gay cis one. This was 10-15 years ago.

acinonnap.bsky.social•383 days ago

And as usual they start out with a disingenuous "think of the children" wedge.

ironcurtainyc.bsky.social•383 days ago

or the "Helen Lovejoy" argument, as written for the Simpsons by @thatbilloakley.bsky.social…

claiborne.bsky.social•383 days ago

It reminds me of my cousin who researched reconstruction talking about how wild it was to read newspaper articles about lawsuits in that era. How oddly modern they felt, knowing what was coming in the decades hence.

steffil.bsky.social•383 days ago

Part of the positive echo at that time was caused by the awe inspiring medical achievement (which was not new).
The negative side is that from then on the gender of a person was defined by sexual organs.

homelessrobot.bsky.social•383 days ago

American culture (at least) is trapped in the shadows of the "perfect" "Leave it to Beaver" reality, and we're just starting to push back. I'm sure better people have noted and said/written papers about it better than I.

misgivings.bsky.social•382 days ago

Very true.

luxalptraum.com•383 days ago

I mean yes but I think it’s also important to remember that a handful of trans people who could be talked about as novelties and aberrations is different from millions of trans people asking the world to reconsider the gender binary. That critical mass is the big threat that sparked backlash, IMO.

luxalptraum.com•383 days ago

Trans people were tolerated and somewhat accepted when they weren’t seen as a threat to norms and then violently rejected when they were

nocatsnomasters.bsky.social•382 days ago

I think this is a lot of it. One trans person who is obviously otherwise conforming to gendered expectations isn't a threat to anything. Millions of trans people nationwide demanding to live their lives without anybody's approval and challenging the entire idea of gender is something else entirely.

mbhastings.bsky.social•383 days ago

These forces also seek to reinforce a patriarchy that is increasingly under threat.

eschatonblog.com•383 days ago

It is perhaps a bit weird but while incredibly homophobic generally until recently, trans coverage was long more like "wow that is interesting"

sushiumbrella.bsky.social•383 days ago

I remember a Time or Newsweek story in the late 90s about a pregnant man, and the tone was very much, "wow that is interesting." It's really discouraging to be moving backwards on trans acceptance.

anna-orridge.bsky.social•383 days ago

I can remember seeing an interview between 2 trans women and Michael Barrymore (yeah, I know, I know). Although some of the framing language wasn't ideal, the tone of host and audience was one of curiosity and respect. And the trans women led the conversation too.

eschatonblog.com•383 days ago

Not going to claim coverage was perfect but it was notably more positive than coverage of homosexuality for a long time

mtsw.bsky.social•383 days ago

yes. more ignorance, less bigotry than today

gojira65.bsky.social•383 days ago

NYT and the Atlantic working overtime to turn up the ignorance dial all the way.

proptermalone.bsky.social•383 days ago

“Huh. okay then” is tolerance

andrewparker.bsky.social•383 days ago

It’s honestly kind of impressive that the right-wing managed to talk a bunch of straight dudes into being completely against more hot women existing.

supersaiga.bsky.social•383 days ago

i think the default is it's interesting! it causes you to think about the nature of Self in a way that white cishet neurotypical people aren't normally forced to. Like, what parts of Self are fundamental to who I am and what is trimmings?

mx0x20wednesday.bsky.social•383 days ago

you go back a little further past the southern strategy and it's the same thing with abortion

only trick they got is manufacturing wedge issues to divide is

ironcurtainyc.bsky.social•383 days ago

But as trans rights and abortion are the same issue–bodily autonomy–they're actually supported by US electoral majorities, even in red states. In fact, the GOP is suppressing pro-choice voters in the same way they did black voters, and I could imagine them suppressing pro-🏳️‍⚧️ voters as well.

bencoccio.bsky.social•383 days ago

I don’t know about this - according to this article from 2010, she suffered a lot of prejudice and the procedure she sought was illegal everywhere but Sweden.

https://www.wired.com/2010/12/1201first-sex-change-surgery/

bencoccio.bsky.social•383 days ago

Not to say I don’t agree that currently the right and ‘center’ is doing what you’re saying re trans rights. I just think that these articles we see from the past existed in a different context, and not one that was some kind of uncorrupted tolerance that only right wing propaganda could corrupt.

tammiez.bsky.social•382 days ago

idk I heard of plenty of cases of transphobia decades before the current trans panic

mrhectorthecrow.bsky.social•383 days ago

much like abortion

librarianstebbs.bsky.social•383 days ago

From the December 2, 1952 article on Jorgensen:

checkwithscience.com•383 days ago

they didn't even misgender her!

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