If there’s one upside to the recent clusterfuck of the battle for bathrooms (see my previous post) it’s the response it has provoked in mainstream America. Ten years ago it would have been a fringe issue. Not anymore.
When artists like Pearl Jam, Boston and Bruce Springsteen cancel concerts then it’s easy for conservatives to dismiss them as part of the liberal elite. When Deutsche Bank and PayPal start cancelling investments then it’s harder to make that claim. And when major employers in the area like Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Target start speaking out in favor of transgender rights, then it’s pretty clear where the mood of the mainstream is. Of course that doesn’t help individuals caught in the current crossfire of discrimination, but it at least suggests that the world is trending in the right direction. One can only hope the trend is an accelerating one.
In the meantime let’s support people using the bathroom in whatever manner is most appropriate. If that means peeing on a naked consenting man, then so much the better.
I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this image.
The increasing “acceptance” (what a euphemism to say you RESPECT someone) of homosexuality in culture and jurisprudence is one of the greatest justices in civil rights of our times. Things have changed so much for the better for them in just 20 years. I remember, as a kid, adults throwing fits because there was a chaste lesbian kiss on a TV sitcom (I think it was Ellen or Rosanne; might be wrong). I don’t have any close gay friends, but I am really really happy for them.
Hopefully, the bigotry and paranoid fear of trans people will turn out the same way. They aren’t hurting anyone. And what happened to human empathy? Can you imagine the anguish, personal contemplation, fear of familial and social rejection, and considerable, if not prohibitive, financial cost (not to mention the pain of the medical treatments) a trans person endures to finally go through with it and live how they feel they were meant to be all along?
As far as I’m concerned, being trans is a courageous act of self-love in the face of adversity. I hope our society starts recognizing that as soon as possible.
I wholeheartedly agree with Miss Margo.
The inhumane, vile and vicious behaviour of the republicans makes ones skin crawl, even here in Europe. Yet there are also some hopeful signs in the western world:
The Brits are finally acknowledging they treated men like Alan Turing very inhumanely, and that’s a start. The Central Bureau of Statistics mentioned the other day most Dutch are becoming more and more accepting of LGBTQ people. And the Germans are taking it even one step further:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/world/europe/germany-says-it-will-rescind-convictions-for-homosexuality.html
There’s still implicit shame attached to my German ancestry, but this legal initiative makes me hopeful for the future.
The fate of Alan Turing really pisses me off. What did he ever do to anyone, besides being a genius and majorly helping the War effort (and advancing computer science)? He didn;t hurt people. Chemical castration in those days was so crude and unscientifically unsound, I can’t bare to think of what it must have done to his precious brain and body. I’m sure he killed himself. What traitors the local government were, to do this to him for such a “crime”, and what cowards the Lords/Commons/Parties were for not protecting him. God, what a waste.
These are….lovely!! š sara