Mr. Horrible posted:

When it comes to identity politics, I think one of the problems is that we are accepting the terms set forth by moderates and right-wing extremists. As an example, here's how one group of allies responded to Ted Cruz's comments wrt bathroom bills:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6ddblwBpvA

I don't mean to single these guys out, they're just the first ones I found with a handy bite-size clip of their coverage. But what are we actually getting here? Some head-shaking, some righteous indignation. Sometimes there's a bit of hand-wringing about how the LGBT community is being attacked so heavily by regressives. But what's missing?




1) Context. Did you know that there's a single law firm that has been pushing these bathroom bills? That many of these bills have language that is almost word-for-word identical to the text put out by this anti-gay organization? I'm trans and even I didn't know about this until ChickenArise posted the following URL to the trans megathread:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/alliance-defending-freedom-lobbies-anti-lgbt-bathroom-bills

So in other words, these are not legislatures independently choosing to pursue this issue. This is a coordinated attack on transgender people, carried out by an organization working from the shadows. An organization headed by a man who wrote a book called The Homosexual Agenda. So let's call them what they are: a deep-pocketed hate group that's interfering in the personal lives of minorities. This is an opportunity to showcase how unelected but moneyed interests work behind the scenes to shape our national discourse. That should never be accepted, and should be called out at every opportunity.



2) A refutation of false claims. Transgender women are the victims of sexual assault, not the perpetrators. In fact I've been unable to find a single case of a transgender woman sexually assaulting anyone, much less in a bathroom. But so far, I've only seen a single news organization highlight this point:

http://abc11.com/politics/transgender-sexual-assault-victim-says-shell-defy-hb2/1296062/

Even then, they gave McCrory a pass when he said this was a "new issue." That is a boldfaced lie. The first transgender American to publicly discuss their transition fought in World War 2, and garnered a fair bit of attention and media coverage in the 1950s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jorgensen

This is not a new phenomenon, but once again by failing to provide that context the news and even advocates are inadvertently giving legitimacy to their opponents. This issue is not "some people think you have to use the bathroom that matches your birth certificate because they think it will cut down on sexual assault," it's "a hate group is secretly workshopping its discriminatory legislation around to local and state governments to use as a wedge issue in a cynical attempt to get votes by pretending this is a strange new phenomenon, when in reality this issue is over 50 years old and should have been addressed a long time ago." And you can take it further from there: if we knew transgender people were a thing in the 50's, why didn't we start working on it? Why didn't they teach kids about gender dysphoria, so that we could identify the problem and get treatment before they killed themselves (something over 40% of all trans people attempt)? Why was this reality hidden from children growing up before the 21st century, and why did we as a society do nothing to address this very real issue?


How bathroom discrimination is discussed is part of a larger pattern in our national discourse, which is to keep falling for the Golden Mean fallacy.

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Right now, both sides of the debate are usually a regressive social conservative and a moderate liberal. Neither party is interested in discussing the money angle, because they both want the status quo. This framing of the national discourse as a dialog between the socially left and right wings of social conservatives is, obviously, a false narrative. Which is why when we discuss identity politics issues, we have to keep hammering home how important the role of money is in all of our political issues. Off the top of my head, here are some ways in which money plays a part in bathroom bills:

1) Money in politics is not only about bribery. The organization pushing this legislation has a wide reach because they can buy the time and energy required to get it in everyone's hands. And unlike the other side - the HRC, UCLA, etc. - they're doing it while hiding from the public. Why isn't it mandatory for the origin of this legislation to be disclosed to the public? Well, because moneyed interests from out of state know it's bad PR to be caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And in a country where bribery is legal, it was bound to happen that parties other than industry lobbyists would start sneaking around with pre-written laws for power-hungry pols to crib from.

2) Trans people are already handicapped economically, making it hard to fight back. Trans people have some of the highest rates of unemployment and homelessness of any group in America. Given that there is no protection against discrimination for employment or housing in many parts of the country, that's to be expected. And since many health insurance companies won't pay for any of our approved treatments - we're talking thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars - we're on average poorer than even people with the same take-home pay that we get. Without the support of non-profits, we'd be hard-pressed to defend ourselves from a bunch of rich regressives.

3) The only pushback that has made a real difference so far is from the 1%. If it wasn't for large corporations and rich artists boycotting the state, North Carolina would only have a handful of protesters on their hands. McCrory and company have been blindsided because they assumed they'd be able to push trans folks around with impunity, but they weren't counting on the capital class to take a stand (they usually don't, after all). In a country where wealth is concentrated into the hands of a few, the concerns of those few are the only ones that are seriously considered. Whether you're for or against bathroom discrimination bills, that should give you pause.


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