this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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Can we please focus on the healthcare part of the equation and stop trying to force trans issues into the discussion? We are in a rare moment of agreement where everyone is talking about the fact that healthcare in this country sucks and this kind of thing is going to draw Republicans back into that culture war bullshit and waste the only real momentum I've seen on this issue since Obama's first term. Yes it is unfair that it needs to be framed that way but you also know how annoyingly focused on trans people conservatives are. Working to change the narrative around private insurance is the most impactful way to help trans people at this moment in history. There's too many fuckwads in this country to make that argument directly so take a page out of the Republican playbook and keep your intentions to yourself until the battle is won.
"all we have to do is abandon issue X, and the bigots will finally join forces with us!"
i get the temptation, but if progress on healthcare means throwing trans people under the bus, then it's not actually progress.
(and i do see "keep your intentions to yourself" which isn't the same as "throwing under the bus" -- but there's room for both clear advocacy and quiet agreement, and asking the open advocates to be quiet seems like friendly fire/counterproductive.)
I get that, but we can't let a perfect solution get in the way of a better one. First focus on universal physical healthcare, something that EVERYONE can relate to, then work on mental healthcare (which would include trans healthcare)
I didn't say abandon trans people, I said focus on the common ground you can find instead of insisting every part of every discussion cater to all of your beliefs at once. Healthcare reform helps us all but it has little chance of helping anyone if you insist on reminding the hateful among us that they have someone besides insurance executives to hate.
Hmm. Again, I hear what you're trying to say, but "OP posting a meme to Lemmy about supporting trans rights" isn't "insisting every part of every discussion cater to all of your beliefs at once."
You're tilting at a strawman that isn't happening here, which is part of what makes your comments come across as more than simple face value.
"Pick your battles in conversations" is potentially a valid point. But "don't post supportive memes because bigots don't like the association" is effectively an attempt to silence support for trans entirely. (And trans people need more support than just healthcare.)
This kind of thing has an impact. Most Republican voters cited trans issues as important to them in the last election and you can bet your ass it wasn't because they wanted to support trans people. This is despite the fact that Democrats hardly talked about trans people. It is an effective wedge issue whether you like that or not and they will use it against you as often as you give them the opportunity to do so.
The left loves purity tests and trans rights is one of the popular ones these days. You know we do this shit all the time. We let Republicans control the narrative by letting focused conversations about Healthcare devolve into a debate about testosterone levels in trans boxers as if that's a conversation worth having at the national level. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but grandma is never going to fully accept your trans friend. However, she might help you save your trans friend from a lifetime of crippling medical debt if you stop reminding her that Fox News told her she's supposed to be more mad about trans athletes than she is about her knee surgery costing $20k after insurance.
“This kind of thing (trans people supporting each other with memes) has an impact.”
You are the kind of person who didn’t support MLK and thought he should shut up because sit-ins and marches were “bad optics.” I hope you can mature in your empathy and grasp of historical context because right now you are waaaaay off base.
Have you considered that the issue of healthcare might be big enough to cause bigots to put their hate aside and come together with trans folk despite their disapproval? Why do you see the only way forward being for the marginalized groups to keep quiet?
As somebody else mentioned - what if the issue was abortion - would you say women who want reproductive rights should keep quiet because it just antagonizes the far right Christian base and we don't have time for that - let's get healthcare for them first and then we can have the discussion about abortion?
Nothing is important enough to those people to team up with trans folk and if you don't know that then you haven't been paying attention.
Any rationale for keeping the advocacy to DMs and maintaining an innocent public face of “what are trans people?, no we’re just trying to… erm… MAGA with better healthcare that’s all” until it’s too late and we’ve tricked them into basic decency
^a question that I suppose I should’ve asked privately
Yeah - when bigots are loud in their mockery and attacks, it hurts trans people to NOT hear anyone also vocally supporting them. That isn't too say that quiet support isn't valuable -- but so is loud support, in a different way, and squelching loud support is still a damaging trade.
Absolutely fucking not. I'm not here to build socialism that excludes minorities.
Healthcare reform is good for everyone, including trans people. There's nothing exclusionary about being strategic with the arguments you choose to make in support of your goals.
"shut up trans people, now's not the time. After we build this system that explicitly erases your issues we'll reform it. Trust me bro, just help us build this bigoted healthcare bro"
Then of course we need the evangelical vote. So let's maybe pipe down about abortion eh?
We don't progress by leaving people behind. You're simply deepening the deeply entrenched lines of inequality that already exist in society. Oh look, cis males ahead again big surprise.
That's exactly what progress entails in politics. It's called compromise. You fix the problems you can and save the rest for later.
Regardless, health care reform does help trans people you're just insisting that the people that hate them stop hating them before you'll work with them to fix a separate problem and that's your choice to make but it means you're going to be waiting a long time to get what you want. If some purity test is more important to you than a chance at actual progress then by all means, keep intentionally reminding bigots that they don't like trans folk. See how that works out for you.
What about abandoning abortion rights? Sure would get a lot Christian white nationalists on "your side".
Why have you been able to decide that transgender rights are able to be discarded in order to connect with the far right? What makes it possible for you to say "sorry maybe you can have rights next week" to trans people young and old across the country? How far are you willing to go? Would you support trans genocide? Would you support forced incarceration for trans people? Like what's the line here when do you reveal yourself as a "secret trans rights activist"?
Stop being a fucking martyr, Jesus. If you can't understand that sometimes you need to shut your mouth to help yourself then you must be an insufferable prick to be around. Trans people need health care just like everyone else. In fact, one could argue they need it more than the rest of us. Work on that problem while there is momentum to be had. If you want everyone to be accepting of everyone else before you'll work with them to solve a major problem then you may as well resign yourself to death without any progress because that's never gonna fucking happen.
Universal health care is literally nothing if we are legally barred from accessing healthcare at all. Which they are absolutely trying to do. They are trying to legally mandate transgender people out of existence and force our assigned sex at birth upon us. Project 2025 includes proposed legislation that would literally make it illegal to be a transgender person. It would make it a sex offense on par with CSA to be a transgender person in public. If you don't understand what our community is facing right now, then STOP talking about trans rights activism like you're an authority on the subject.
You are just apathetic to trans rights. If you are willing to drop us like that in order to appease a right wing group then you don't give a shit about our rights. That's the truth. I'll ask again: Will you do the same for reproductive rights? Will you stop pushing reproductive rights to keep this momentum of class solidarity (among cis men) going?
No, I'm not going to shut up, and you are ultimately an enemy of my rights and the rights of my community, my friends and loved ones. I don't care if you think I'm the most annoying person in the world. I will NEVER leave minority rights behind to unite with bigotry. Screw that. I am fighting for a liberated world. No one is left behind in that. I am not going to accept violence against trans people to seek the approval of fascists.
Your opinion of me and my motivations is entirely irrelevant. It doesn't change the situation we're in at all. I'm practical enough to understand that playing to your audience is not the same thing as compromising your values. You can keep insisting that it is if it makes you feel better about losing but it's not going to help you win.
You have a very strange way of talking about transgender rights. We're talking about the lives of trans people. People will die as a consequence of the laws they're trying to pass, taking our rights away. You again seemingly have no idea what you're talking about. Playing to our audience in this case would be backing off and letting them take our rights away. How in God's name do you plan to secretly protect our rights while publicly appealing to people trying to take them away? You cannot do both if you protect our rights then fascists won't align with you, and if you don't protect our rights and allow others to attack us then you're functionally one of them.
Again you are an enemy of the trans community who is literally arguing about why it is entirely acceptable for our rights to be taken away. You're arguing about why cis people should befriend violent transphobes by passively tolerating their bigotry. You see our rights as a game, a tool, a nice win in the end but if trans people need to take the hit now then so be it. I will never tolerate that. You are also laughably incapable of making a coherent argument to trans people about this position.
Jesus Christ it's like talking to a brick wall. We're not talking about trans rights we're talking about healthcare. You keep insisting on conflating the two but no matter how many times you lose the thread they will never stop being separate issues. This conversation is supposed to be about 100% of the population but you just won't stop trying to make it about 1.5% instead even if it means things get worse for you. That's psychotic behavior. In this case helping the collective helps you too so for fucks sake get out of your own way.
This post wasn't even about the push for universal healthcare. This post was about trans rights to access gender affirming care that literally saves our lives. You came in and essentially asked us to shut up about our rights to healthcare.
The answer categorically is NO. Say we get Universal healthcare but gender affirming care is banned federally (legitimately a thing they could do, they own every level of the government including the Supreme court). We would not have access to healthcare. Trans people definitionally would have NO ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE. What about this are you somehow failing to understand??? You clearly think that gender affirming care is a fine thing to just give up on for the moment, so why are you even here? Why not go and appeal to fascists directly, say you don't care about trans rights and attempt to appeal directly to them about fighting for universal health care? You're essentially angry that people are advocating for trans rights. So go join all the other people also angry about that. I don't get what you're doing here, who you're trying to appeal to. You can't care about trans people but be willing to give away our rights in concession for recruiting the fascist right to a broader movement. Trans people aren't going to support that because we would still lose our rights this way, public healthcare wouldn't matter because we wouldn't be allowed to access healthcare at all.
If right wingers are suddenly capable of seeing they've been misled on the subject of private health insurance why are you not pointing out that they've been misled on trans rights issues? Why is conceding to their bigotry an option in your mind?
I love that you say that talking to me is like talking to a brick wall, but again you're completely incapable of making a rational argument as to how giving up trans rights is in the best interest of trans people. Some trans people will die in the event that our rights are taken away. That's not a joke it's not a game. I'm not going to accept any campaign for class solidarity that doesn't include trans solidarity. Categorically, no. It's bizarre that you think trans people would agree to this, like you could somehow convince me that I'd be better off without rights for the moment. The conversation can't be about 100% of people if trans rights aren't also a part of it, definitionally you're saying trans people don't count towards that 100% or else that our rights don't matter.
A bit more clear version of the same point:
It's Universal Healthcare. If anyone can't get care, then it's not Universal Healthcare!
“trans people need healthcare but they should shut their mouths about it” is oppressor language
i don’t like you
Forcing bigots to be reminded of their bigotry is a losing strategy and you know I'm right about that. If you want to shoot the messenger then be my guest.
“forcing racists to see Black people is a losing strategy” —you, during the successful civil rights movement that made use of sit ins and demonstrations
history shows that you are wrong :) i won’t shoot you but i will correct you
Some of you guys are legitimately incapable of seeing yourself as anything other than the righteous victim aren't you? Good luck with that. It's really endearing.
There are countries other than the USA