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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://popularresistance.org/to-fight-far-right-attacks-we-must-reclaim-the-radical-legacy-of-pride/">popularresistance.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">To Fight Far Right Attacks We Must Reclaim The Radical Legacy Of Pride<br></h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Olivia Wood, Left Voice. - June 14, 2022<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_l4fq7u1l0" alt="image.png" width="392" height="221"><br><p>Above Photo: Lucas Jackson / Reuters.</p>
<h2>This Pride Month, many are worried about the escalating attacks on
queer people, and especially trans people, coming from the far right.</h2>
<p><strong>Instead of staying home, we need to take Pride back to its roots as a protest against oppression, not a party.</strong></p>
<p>Attacks on trans people are continuing to become more prevalent and more vicious. Not only are there currently <a href="https://www.tracktranslegislation.com/">more than 150</a> bills
making their way through state legislatures that specifically target
trans people, but the far right, aligned with certain sectors of the
feminist movement, are also becoming more and more explicit in their
calls for a eugenics campaign against trans people, with the end goal of
as few trans people in existence as possible. One Twitter user, echoing
language <a href="https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1534551999718359047?s=20&t=AZ4Gae8ENH0CZcRyFV1rHw">used by Tucker Carlson</a>, even called for a <a href="https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1534557053296906240?s=20&t=AZ4Gae8ENH0CZcRyFV1rHw">“post-Weimar cleanup”</a> of “degenerates.”</p>
<p>The most common types of anti-trans legislation currently being
proposed at the state level are bills that restrict trans youth’s access
to gender-affirming healthcare and those that restrict trans youth’s
ability to participate in sports. The other three main types are bills
that restrict teachers’ ability to talk about gender in public schools,
bills that restrict trans people’s access to bathrooms and other
gender-segregated public facilities, and bills that restrict the ability
to update one’s name and gender marker on IDs and other documentation.</p>
<p>One of the most horrifying examples is Ohio’s Sub HB 151, which House
Republicans passed last minute on the first night of Pride Month. If
the bill becomes law, any girl on a school athletics team who is
“suspected” of being trans will be forced to undergo a genital
examination, hormone level check, and genetic analysis. According to <a href="https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/politics/ohio-politics/ohio-gop-passes-bill-aiming-to-root-out-suspected-transgender-female-athletes-through-genital-inspection">ABC Cleveland</a>, the language of the law has no additional provisions: <em>anyone</em> can
invoke this law on a student athlete for any reason. In the name of
“protecting girls,” Republicans are trying to pass a law that will
enable <em>anyone</em> to force a girl to choose between quitting her sport and undergoing a series of <a href="https://twitter.com/polevaultpower/status/1533263120788926464?s=20&t=yrG6UxaIj6Pa4Pfvwclosg">invasive — and expensive — procedures</a>. Additionally, there are <em>already</em> several
layers of restrictions on trans girls’ ability to play school sports in
Ohio, and according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association, there
is currently only one trans girl playing school sports in the entire
state. The only thing this law accomplishes, outside of bullying a
specific child, is further demonizing and fearmongering about trans
girls and women while opening up new avenues for all girls in Ohio to be
terrorized.</p>
<p>In addition to the ongoing legal attacks against trans people,
eugenicist rhetoric is becoming increasingly mainstream, as we saw last
week when a <a href="https://twitter.com/joss_prior/status/1532431478461804544?s=20&t=07PjVPyGr0HwxVqVQk89Lg">clip</a> from a YouTube livestream circulated online of prominent UK transphobe Helen Joyce <a href="https://twitter.com/setoacnna/status/1533204551251132417?s=20&t=nYOZf3U960jWPKL7Cqrk8Q">explicitly calling for</a> “reducing
or keeping down the number of people who transition” because “the fewer
of those people there are, the better.” What’s significant about this
statement is the fact that she said what many on the right believe so
directly. In the remainder of the clip, she goes on to regurgitate
eugenicist talking points that have been directed at disabled people and
people of color since the word “eugenics” was first coined in 1883,
such as the ideas that trans people are a burden on society, that “every
one is a difficulty.” She also states that the time for “consciousness
raising” for transphobic ideas is over, and now it’s time to focus on
influencing politicians to use the power of the state to repress trans
people in order to create a “sane world.” Using the power of the state
to repress trans people, just as the right wing in the United States is
enthusiastically doing now.</p>
<p>This instance of “saying the quiet part out loud” was paralleled last week by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who <a href="https://jemartisby.substack.com/p/marjorie-taylor-greene-said-christian?r=dfab0&utm_medium=ios&s=r">posted a video</a> saying
Christian nationalism is the movement that will solve the country’s
biggest problems, among which queerness is one. “This is the movement,”
she says, “that stops the sexual immorality and teaches children and
brings them up in traditional families…This will be the movement that
protects kids’ innocence.” She also dismisses allegations of rightwing
domestic terrorism as media lies and says that “if anybody is a domestic
terrorists, it’s the radical Left…we could even say the Democrats are
domestic terrorists.” Meanwhile, a day later, a group of self-described
“Christian Fascists” invaded a family-friendly drag event in Dallas. <a href="https://twitter.com/EFJBGC/status/1533575273840623617?s=20&t=Rz_cmQdwx0QNUJBqq_phvQ">Clips shared online</a> show
the fascist group shouting at children and their parents, making a wide
variety of homophobic and transphobic statements, and threatening
various forms of violence, including encouraging the police to begin
shooting people because “that’s what the badge is for.” Conservative
commentator Matt Walsh, who in recent years has been making a name for
himself on the right by pedaling transphobia, recently added “theocratic
fascist” to his Twitter bio — meant as an ironic joke, much as he also
describes himself as a “women’s studies scholar,” but sincere bigotry
disguised as irony has been a powerful vector for the transmission of
far-right ideologies for decades.</p>
<p>Taken together, these examples of different forms of transphobia illustrate what is called <em>stochastic terrorism</em>.
This term refers to a phenomenon in which one person/group/collection
of groups spreads a particular ideology, which then gets taken up by <em>different, unaffiliated</em> individuals or groups who transform violent <em>messaging</em> into violent <em>actions</em>.
The people who played a large role in spreading the ideas, such as
politicians and media figures, are then able to avoid blame for the
violence while still encouraging the attitudes that lead to massacres,
like the recent shooting in Buffalo, or the attacks on Pride events.
Anyone who participates in mainstreaming far-right rhetoric plays a role
in creating this violence.</p>
<p>In turn, the attention drawn to the drag event by the far right’s attack inspired Texas Republicans to <a href="https://twitter.com/BryanforHD2/status/1533820586048241669?s=20&t=WyNGKFZpAZEuXvmhaJklbw">propose</a> a
new law that would ban drag queens from performing in front of minors,
regardless of the content of their shows. Meanwhile, in Apex, North
Carolina, the Chair of the Apex Festival Commission received two phone
calls <a href="https://www.cbs17.com/news/violent-threats-prompt-apex-to-pull-drag-queen-story-hour-from-pride-festival/">threatening</a> him
and his family if he did not cancel the Drag Queen Story Hour planned
for the Apex Pride Festival last weekend. A town council member shared
in a Facebook comment that other Apex Pride organizers had also been
threatened. The event was reinstated after a statewide LGBTQ+ nonprofit
got involved, but during the same weekend, a <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/06/white-supremacists-pride-event-arrested-in-idaho">U-Haul of neo-Nazis</a> headed to Pride was stopped in Idaho, and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/men-disrupt-drag-queen-storytelling-at-san-lorenzo-library-shouting-homophobic-slurs/">Proud Boys</a> stormed another Drag Queen Story Hour, this one intended for preschoolers, in San Lorenzo, California.</p>
<p>In light of this trend toward violent escalation, some people are
expressing hesitancy over attending Pride events this month. But
gathering as a community in the face of threats like these is precisely
what Pride is all about. It always bears repeating that Stonewall, and
the Gay Liberation Movement that followed, was born in response to
police attacks on the patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a bar that primarily
served working class queer people of color. The people there that first
night were actively being beaten and arrested when first one, and then
another and then another, decided to fight back. Pride means showing up
for our community, particularly for trans people, <em>especially</em> when the state and its unofficial agents are trying to oppress us.</p>
<p>In most places, Pride has become a collection of festivals and
parades — celebratory, rather than combative. We need to return Pride to
its roots as a protest, and organize ourselves to fight the Right. In
New York City, the Reclaim Pride Coalition hosts an annual Queer
Liberation March as a politicized and fighting alternative to the parade
organized by the gay nonprofits. This year, the march is specifically
dedicated to “Trans and BIPOC freedom,” and “reproductive justice” in
response to the most pressing political issues of our time. Queer people
across the United States and the world should begin organizing events
like this one, free of Democratic politicians, corporations, and police.</p>
<p>The Christian fascists in Texas wanted that event to stop, and for
events like it to never exist again. If they can’t stop us from
existing, they at least want us to be <em>invisible</em> — but they do
want to stop us from existing. Pride is about saying “No” to people like
that. Pride is about saying “Fuck you” to everyone who wants us gone.
Pride is not just about <em>feeling</em> proud of who we are, but <em>standing up to</em> the
people who want us to feel ashamed. For every blow against us, for
every homophobic and transphobic law, every bigoted comment, every
threat from a far right mob, we must turn out in ever-greater numbers.
For our queer ancestors, for each other, and for the generations to
come.</p>
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