WTF? I mean WTAF? For weeks now, my news feeds have been filled with DeSantis and his Anti-Woke Movement and competing governors and legislators proposing and passing Anti-Drag/Anti-Trans laws to prohibit performances and even, apparently, appearances of cross dressers anywhere in public where children might see them. This is complete nonsense. Is this a slow news week or what?
Drag has never been so despised nor under such threat and attack. Certainly it's never been legislated out of existence, has it? I don't think so. Not when Uncle Milty was on the TeeVee in a dress and heavy make up during my childhood -- as were any number of other performers on TeeVee and in the movies ("Some Like it Hot" anyone?). The fact that men dressed as women -- sometimes credibly -- was simply not an issue except when they were "really" doing it. A performance in drag was one thing. Dressing as a woman to try to "pass" was something else, and don't even start with women dressing as men for "real."
It confused the world and was discouraged, sometimes actively prohibited. Police raids of gay bars, for example. Stonewall comes to mind, where the queens went ballistic on the cops and achieved a kind of liberation for queers that they'd never had.
As for transsexuals, that was something hardly even whispered in the old days. Well, there was Christine Jorgensen, but her case was considered unique. Sex reassignment just didn't happen, or at least didn't happen often enough to matter. And always the few cases we heard about were men becoming women, usually by getting their dicks and balls cut off and taking estrogen to get their boobs to plump up.
But it hardly ever happened.
Since then, "trans" has become a cause celebre on the right and left, with competing demands to prohibit gender dysphoria treatment for minors or anyone under 21 or apparently to prohibit treatment for anyone at all vs. tolerance and freedom for transsexuals to be who they are and be medically treated appropriately as they and their doctors see fit.
I have a relative who is transsexual and an outspoken advocate for trans rights so I guess I have a dog in this fight, but it strikes me as an inorganic struggle between phantoms. Gender dysphoria is rare, and treatment is pretty standardized. Hormones and sometimes surgery. Psychological counseling. Lifestyle training. Because it affects relatively few people, it was not really an issue until the Movement Right made it one, first concentrating their wrath on "bathrooms" -- primarily focused on prohibiting "birth males" from using girls' bathrooms in public schools -- and then on sports, prohibiting "birth males" from competing against girls or being on girls teams in schools.
All of this was somehow about "parents' rights" but I don't see it. Somehow it's supposed to be about Protecting Our Daughters against something something "unfair." Perverted. Ugly.
Except Our Daughters will almost never encounter whatever it is they are supposed to be so afraid of and if somehow they do, they will mostly likely have the social skills to deal with it ... appropriately.
If there is an issue, it's one of social skills that limit fear of the unusual or unknown.
But there really isn't an issue except for those negatively affected, those who are demonized and scapegoated. They have an issue, and I'm actually surprised there's been so little fight back. I know there's almost no political interest in countering the Anti-Trans Movement Rightists, because there really hasn't been any. If the right wants to legislate against trans people, the attitude seems to be 'let them.' And so they do.
On the other hand, the Anti-Woke Movement is facing a growing backlash and push back. It's taken quite a while, but what passes for the Left **ha-ha** in this country appears to be fed up with the whole Anti-Woke bullshit, and they're starting to call it out. Cautiously, of course. But polling seems to indicate that Anti-Wokeness is not considered either a Good Thing or Popular. That's never stopped rightist authoritarians before, but in this case, the whole thing is just stupid. Woke is not Evil. Nor, in fact, is it considered a threat to any but those in complete denial of US history and social/governmental practice.
"Woke" is an honorable term for understanding social (and often legal) injustice, primarily but not exclusively racial injustice. Gee, who'd a thunk it, right? This country is notorious for all kinds of political, legal, economic, and racial divides and injustices, and people who are "woke" see them and combat them.
So what's the beef with "woke?" Those who scream the loudest have no answer. They can't define "woke"-- they just know they hate it and are fighting it. What is it? Anything they disagree with or feel threatened by.
They don't even know why.
DeSantis and his ilk have decided that being "Anti-Woke" is a ticket to the White House. Because a few willing fools will always be available to follow demagogues. The trouble, of course, is that those few can too easily snowball into the many.
So we'll see where these Movement Rightists wind up. They have a large media machine backing them -- for now. It can change in a heartbeat. Right now, though, it's not looking good for those who believe in tolerance, minority rights and social justice. The "Anti" squads are growing and they have been able to exercise considerable power without effective opposition. So long as they can, they will.
Not until their "movement" is stopped cold will it stop.
This is something I'm not sure US society is willing or able to do.
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