Most Americans believe that it’s a “problem” that Republicans are transphobic.
A new YouGov poll asked Americans whether they thought that certain issues were a “problem” for either party. 44% said that transphobia was “a major problem” among Republicans, and another 24% said they thought it was “a minor problem.” Only 32% of respondents said it wasn’t a problem.
Transphobia was the second most likely issue to be labeled a problem by respondents, after “hostility toward immigrants.” “Tolerance of political violence,” “conspiracy thinking,” “white supremacy,” “homophobia,” and “fascism” followed closely behind.
Oddly, 40% of respondents said that “transgender ideology” was “a major problem” for Republicans, and another 20% said it was “a minor problem.” 41% said that they didn’t think it was a problem at all for Republicans.
There just aren’t that many trans people compared to how often conservatives make a big issue of them. And the number of times that a trans person has actually caused a tangible problem for other people in a way that is related to their being trans is even more rare. Not that it doesn’t happen, but it might as well be a unicorn.
That’s an easy way to tell for sure that they are using the issue as a distraction.
It’s not really a distraction, IMO. The enforcement of gender norms is kind of essential for conservative ideology. The idea that someone can transgress or opt-out from the enforcement of their rules is anathema to them.
If people assigned female at birth can become male and vice-versa, then all of the biological essentialism they believe in, that women are one way and men another due to their inherent characteristics, is proven false. It’s an important part of their ideology and without it a lot of other enforced heirarchies they care about inherently fall apart.
Sadly, a lot of the left is really naive to just how fucking evil these kinds of people are.
They worked hard to craft the narrative around trans people as the new sub-human scourge trying to destroy our nation etc. It was deliberate from the start, they picked a group that has low representation and low population, whom average people don’t understand or connect with.
You don’t fix this kind of thing with education, outreach and lecturing. You fix this with regime change. All of the transphobic chuds and all of the terfs have the attention-spans and emotional consistency of toddlers, that’s why they were vulnerable to the narrative to begin with. If we had new leadership who, no matter what ideology they represented, said “trans people ain’t a big deal and we ain’t going after them” you would see vast waves of people lose interest and start looking for the next target to hate and scapegoat.
I dunno. Personally, I think both can be true. Project 2025, for example, was published in 2023 and went largely under the radar for months, likely making the rounds at CPAC. It wasn’t until discovered a year later that the GOP was forced to go into damage control. It’s obvious no one was supposed to know about it. So, yeah, all that transphobic hate they spew is no doubt genuine but it’s probably hiding something more sinister as well.
The sinister part is control. They discovered long ago that giving people something to hate can bind them. The people pushing this agenda could give a shit either way about the people they designate as the enemy. It’s why they so easily jump from one to the next. As soon as the current boogeyman isn’t boosting their numbers enough, move on to the next boogeyman. They did this for years while slowly degrading education until people were too stupid they were being handled. It’s structured evil controlling the cultivated stupid.
Thank you for saying this. I’ve come to the same conclusion and try to spread the word here and elsewhere.
Not distraction, scapegoat. Fascism needs an “others” demographic to blame for citizens’ hardships, and they have realized that it’s more effective to have multiple of them so voters can cherry-pick whichever they feel more strongly about.
Straight, cis men cause a hell of a lot more problems statistically than any trans person, yet we don’t see Republicans calling for them to be banned.
I’ve known three trans people in my lifetime. All FTM. All were wonderful men.
I mean, true, but, going by pornhub numbers from Republican areas… oh they see trans people all the time.
That’s a very good point.
Gotta hate someone if you’re a conservative.
Black people. Hispanic people. Immigrants in general (unless they’re white). Gays. Trans. Furries. Doesn’t matter. And they’ll cycle through them too. Come back around a few years later to one they haven’t focused on in a while.
Because they lead pathetic lives that aren’t interesting enough, so they have to force themselves on other’s lives.
Truly, they are wastes of oxygen.
Conservative mindset is that everything is in a hierarchy, the hierarchy is a Good and Natural thing to exist, and therefore even if you’re not at the top, there Must be someone beneath you. And then trying to make their lives better puts the wrong people in the hierarchy, so they must be stopped. It’s miserably sad I assume.
You don’t need to assume. It’s pretty obvious how pathetic it is even from the outside.
I have a trans younger sister and one of my brothers is dating a trans woman. My dad is pretty MAGA and I have to hear about my sister “deciding they were trans” after going to therapy at every family get together. Yes, they are definitely way too obsessed.
Ask him when he decided to be cis/straight.
just curious, what’s that going to do?
Puts him on the defensive about his own life. Seems rude but could be worse.
They have Trans Derangement Syndrome. Most of them have never actually interacted with a trans person in their lives, but they’re fucking obsessed.
They spend a lot of time thinking about transexuals having sex. Perhaps ashamed of their own predilections I suspect. Just like we have seen time and again with these preachers railing against gay people the most, come to find out many rail the gays in more ways than one.
My aunt has a weird obsession with trans people. She told me in graphic detail how the surgeries work, apparently trying to argue it’s gross and therefore morally wrong (even though all surgeries are gross) and I was just like “why do you know this?” Why did she go out of her way to research something she’s so disgusted by? I don’t even remember the details she told me.
And she is also distraught by the hypothetical idea of having to call her mother her father or call her father her mother. Neither of her parents have ever expressed any transgender tendencies and they never will because they’re long dead now.
I felt one huge let down when a parent told me that they voted for Trump because of trans athletes in school sports.
That was when I knew that they had another person in their life other than my other parent. They are still married. And this outside person is influencing one of them. I had suspected it, but now I see the influence this person has over my parent is scary.
Only 32% of respondents said it wasn’t a problem.
I’m getting so sick of seeing that same number in every “Do you hate thy neighbor?”-type of survey
That’s my go to response with anyone saying “you aren’t conservative/republican/christian/religious” to me. No, sorry, I have better things to do than hate people I don’t know.
I figure most of them will never cross paths with anyone LGBTQ+, and the rest are too dumb to realise that their best friend is.
their best friend isthey are
Its one of the smallest group of people they can demonize. They wouldn’t want a large group that might demonize them. They’ve got that now too but it wasn’t what they wanted.
Do Republicants spend any of their waking hours not fretting and obsessing over the genitalia of strangers?
I feel that conservatives catch so much flak about all the child fucking that they think we would judge them for their non-destructive sexual interests. And that drives them to act out against things the pique their interests. Like, it’s okay… no one cares. Except about the whole child fucking thing… stop doing that.
This is bad news for the Republicans, because all this hatred is intended to distract attention from how shamelessly the elite is enriching itself at the expense of the country - and also from other crimes, such as those documented in the Epstein files.
If their voters also realize that hatred of foreigners and the wars waged by the regime are one and the same thing, they will really have a lot to explain…
Well, “Americans” are right about that.
Fuck, I barely hear anything from Democrats or the left about trans except to A) acknowledge they exist and B) they have that right to exist.
Nearly every conversation about trans seems to be something initiated by the crazy, unhinged out of touch right wing. Same thing when it comes to things like furries and supposed litter boxes in schools…
It seems they moved on to feverishly thinking about trans nearly 24/7 now that gay marriage is no longer as politically divisive as it once appeared…they keep on trying to cast everyone else as being weird with dumb phrases like “what is a woman? can you define what a woman even is?” and other such tripe, trying to paint Democrats as being out of touch.
Fuck, I barely hear anything from Democrats or the left about trans except to A) acknowledge they exist and B) they have that right to exist.
I seem to recall a bunch of conservative Democrats insisting Transgender voters cost the party the 2024 election.
I got a violation on reddit, on a sub someone posted about how there were 50 genders and he only slept with one, and had symbols for all the genders.
I just posted he seemed to be spending a lot of time thinking about transexuals banging.
Who knew triggering conservatives was against the rules? The ones crying the loudest about being cancelled see themselves as victims and justified in flagging everything that triggers them, that they don’t like.
Just like vote theft. Convinced by their influencers the other guys are cheating they feel justified cheating to even the score. Unaware, or not caring that they were never the victims but the perpetrators, projecting on their victims.
Their politicians and media rail against moderation and put pressure on social media when their people get moderated against. Meanwhile the democrats are conservative and want the left cancelled as much as anyone. They have nothing but contempt and spite for the left, and crave the approval of the right. So social media ends up discriminating against the left.
Conservatives don’t cancel, in their minds, because being cancelled is inherently unjust according to them. It’s unjust because it pretty much only happens to them as they’re the ones doing heinous shit to people, and they don’t pay attention when someone who isn’t openly conservative gets cancelled for bad behaviour.
They live in the alternate relaity built for them by their media and they lack the ability to pause when they hear something a little crazy and check it out.
Who knew triggering conservatives was against the rules?
A. Mitchell Palmer, for starters.
They fear what they don’t understand.
Rightists need vulnerable minority groups to demonize to keep their base together. They are united only by fear and hate, so fabricating a common enemy out of a weak group of victims is the only way they can gain or hold power.
EVERYONE is too obsessed with trans folks on both sides. There aren’t enough people in that bucket to have an ideology against OR build a political identity around. We got bigger fish to fry no matter what side of the aisle you’re on. It sounds crass even to say and it doesn’t feel like it’s the case on Lemmy, but it’s true. Less than 3 of 100 people.
Amen.
I hate how trans people have become a hate football for the left and the right to lob at each other. It is also utterly irrelevant to the broad issues in our society. It’s just moral grandstanding for the vast majority of people and used as a moral purity test for either side. YOU ARE EITHER FOR TRANS PEOPLE OR AGAINST THEM. No, I am not for or against them anymore than I’m for or against anyone else of any minority, gender, race, or sexuality.
If we really want to make their lives better… well shut up about them and let them get stable jobs and housing. Fix the massive economic problems affecting 90% of the population. Something literally everyone needs and that’s been hoovered up by the top 10% rich assholes who think nobody who isn’t already rich should ever get a chance at having.
Ironically it’s these same 10% who have made trans people the ‘social issue’ of our day. To distract us while they hoover up even more of the economy for themselves. Rich liberals and rich conservatives alike.
gray
You have a bad read here. It isn’t you are either for trans people or against them… rather, it’s you are either against trans people or against being against them.
No one is saying trans people need special treatment, just equal treatment. Sadly, the status quo isn’t trans people being treated equally. “Shutting up about it” means you aren’t against being against trans people. That people being treated as less than is fine in your eyes. It’s not a social issue of the day, it’s equality for human beings… I am sorry if that offends you.
I think your heart is in the right place but the practice isn’t. People award “stunning and brave” points just for being trans without further effort. Consider Elon’s daughter. She has done exactly nothing but people fawn over Vivian. It’s Caitlyn Jenner all over again except I feel like Bruce Jenner had negative karma that got erased instead of just getting benefit of the doubt.
I’m under no delusions about how difficult it is to be a trans person, I have ~5 friends who are trans and it doesn’t look easy. They are not in any context getting equal treatment though. They either get treated like something less than or something greater than just for the fact of being trans.
Functionally trans people are just people and that’s the whole point: they are a vast–and equivalent–minority being made a token group by everybody.
i live in boston area. you are totally correct, at least where i live… there is this movement and rich white liberal douchebags who want to turn every trans person into a martyr. every community group puts out calls to recruit trans folks because they want to prop them up and brag about how ‘inclusive’ they are, and what greater prize is there than a trans person, the most marginalized! It’s weird and fetishistic. Most of the people pushing this mindset are straight white college-educated people. A lot of trans people have their own groups, doing their own sports leagues, etc, and glad for it. They don’t wnat to be associated with the crazy fetishistic douches who want to fawn over them and ask them what their pronouns are every 5 minutes.
It’s just the new version of ‘i have a gay/black friend’ nonsense that went around a couple of decades ago.
I’ve known enough trans people in my life to know they are just people. I worked in theater and have been activity involved in community groups. Some of them are great, some of them are horrible human beings. Some of them are lovey dovey hippies, others are hate filled violent monsters and sexual predators. But in ignorant rich white liberal person land, trans people aren’t people, they are props to virtue signal to each other and lecture each other about ‘ignorance’.
I’m not offended. I just find it ironic that will I have supported LGBT right my entire life all the sudden I am anti-lgbt in the eyes of crazy extremists who have turned this into a grandstanding issue that has little to do with transpeople, and is all about egostical nutbags who think this is a battle of ‘good vs evil’.
I’m sick of being around people to revel in foaming at the mouth anger over these issues, who want to go around accusing everyone of being ‘evil’ or ‘good’ on an issue that the vast majority of people do not care about and has zero impact on their lives. Just like you trying to morally condemn me here, for not being on ‘your side’. When I am, but you are so blinded by your righteousness you fail to see that.
because you dont’ care about lgbt people, you just care about using them to faff your own moralizing ego off about. I have worked in theatre and other community orgs, and i’ve had a lot of experience with lgbt people.
and most of them want you to leave them the fuck alone and stop using them as a political prop. just like your average working-class latino person doesn’t give a shit about being ‘latinx’, and yet a bunch of self important rich douchebags insist that latino is ‘problematic’. but your average latino person would like better economic opportunities for themselves and their kids.
I remember being here before 20 years ago about gay marriage. I was fully in support of it, but because I didn’t take some crazy position about it being a constitutional amendment, many moralizing nutbags at my college told me I was a homophobic asshole. My position was that the states will sort it out over time, and I was 100% right.
Trans rights and issue will sort themselves out and you’ll move on to another issue to moralize about.
