As I mentioned in the post above, the Trump regime's war on the existence of trans people is clearly important enough to them ideologically and politically, to enact a series of punishments on the entire state of Maine, to cow their governor Janet Mills into submission. That's not just my interpretation as a trans woman, we literally just caught the acting Social Security Administration Commissioner admitting as much in writing:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/leland-dudek-resign

"The top Democrat on the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Wednesday led calls for the resignation of acting Social Security Administration Commissioner Leland Dudek following the revelation of internal emails confirming that the SSA canceled contracts with the state of Maine as political payback after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills publicly defied President Donald Trump in support of transgender student athletes.

The emails—which were obtained by House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)—show that Dudek ordered the cancellation of enumeration at birth and electronic death registration contracts with Maine, even though SSAd subordinates warned that such action "would result in improper payments and potential for identity theft."

Dudek—who is leading the SSA while the Senate considers Trump's nomination of financial services executive Frank Bisignano—replied to the staffer: "Please cancel the contracts. While our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child."

He was referring to Mills, who stood up to Trump in February after the president threatened to suspend federal funding for Maine unless the state banned transgender girls and women from participating on female scholastic sports teams."

I mean good on Connolly to call for Dudek's resignation, but are centrist party strategists even paying attention to what's going on here? I can't stress how degrading it is to keep having to remind powerful cis people who were happy to promote supporting trans rights as a brand eight years ago, that the fascist Trump regime's anti-trans pogrom is going to affect everyone who isn't a fascist negatively, not just trans people. But also, that's exactly what's happening, and even as we speak these same people point to opinion polling as an excuse for leaving trans people and their civil rights to the tender mercies of guys like Stephen fucking Miller.

@Tooden Not gonna dispute that, but simply augment it. "Reversibility" is only a factor if one chooses to stop. The vast majority of our tiny minority know that something is profoundly wrong, from an early age, i'm not talking teens, but say 5 - 7. Back in my childhood nothing was publicly known about this, there was no language for it, no way to have conversations, no references, no support etc. I knew "something" was very wrong, but unfortunately it took me many decades to discover what, why, & how to ameliorate it [albeit too late wrt all the major external physiological changes caused by that despised wrong hormone]. That's all ancient history & now largely irrelevant, coz today much is known of & about #GenderDysphoria, so kids & their parents are easily able to identify & grasp not only what is going on, but what they can do about it. For the parents, & especially the kids, i can think of little that is more existentially devastating than to know they have safe effective options to stave off the evil wrong puberty until they are able to acquire their vital life-affirming surgeries later, with bodies not ruined by that otherwise flood of hated wrong hormones... but be prevented from doing so, by ignorant hating RWNJs & ChristoFascists. It's beyond revolting, & cruel beyond measure.

#LGBTQIA+ #GenderDysphoria #Transmisia #Transphobia #Trans #TransRightsAreHumanRights #FsckThePatriarchy #fsckALLreligion #RWNJs #FsckRWNJs #FsckChristoFacists #ChangeTheSystem #FuckAroundAndFindOut #Misanthropy #TransRepresentation #transwoman #transwomen #transkids

I'm often leery of sharing stories like this because the point isn't, and cannot be, that anti-trans policies and the dehumanization of trans people in our society is bad, because it also affects cis people, particularly women, in horrifyingly negative ways. One of the primary reasons we've facing down a politically empowered fascist Trump regime, is that Americans as a society have already accepted the idea that some people don't matter, and aren't human enough for the full spectrum of human rights; even if the folks making those arguments rarely admit what they're actually arguing for in a big picture sense. As in the case of Muslims, migrants, student protestors and women who want to control their own bodies, our society's casual disregard for the human and civil rights of trans people has acted as a permission gate for the Trump regime's larger project to strip the rights of anyone they don't like, or who dares to speak out in dissent.

Despite my reservations about centering cis experiences when talking about the anti-trans pogrom however, the fact is that cis women *are* negatively affected by the war on trans existences in both a micro and macro sense; whether it's hate-fueled transinvestigators invading women's bathrooms to "protect women," or the way anti-trans propaganda serves as a stepping stone for larger patriarchal efforts to possess women's bodies, this is a very real consequence of a normalized anti-trans pogrom that dehumanizes, otherizes, and criminalizes trans people (particularly trans women.) Furthermore, as the story of Dani Davis, a Florida woman fired by Walmart for being tall enough to trigger abusive behavior from a raging transphobe, demonstrates - the reality is that a society that isn't prepared to stand up for the human rights of trans people, isn't likely to stand up for the human rights of women, or workers, either.

For more on that, let's turn to this short (14 minute) video by Mike Figueredo from THR:

The Humanist Report: Walmart Fires Cis Employee *BECAUSE* She Was Harassed by Transphobic Customer in Bathroom

"A Walmart employee named Dani Davis was accosted and threatened by a transphobic customer during her shift, and she was subsequently fired because of it. The customer followed her into the bathroom and accused her of being a man and yelled transphobic slurs at her. Days after she reported the incident to her supervisor, she was fired because she supposedly posed a “security risk” to others in the store. In this video we’ll talk about this disturbing story and discuss how transphobia harms ALL women; both trans and cis alike."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nauz7001Q0U