If someone were to call for Judaism to be “eradicated from public life entirely,” would you doubt their genocidal intent?
Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire made an inflammatory speech at CPAC yesterday, calling outright for “transgenderism [to] be eradicated from public life entirely.” When appalled trans activists and others called his thinking genocidal, he denied it. When Rolling Stone ran a headline saying he had “Call[ed] for Transgender People to Be ‘Eradicated,’” he threatened to sue for libel–and the publication changed its headline to “CPAC Speaker Calls for Transgenderism to Be ‘Eradicated.’” See, because he didn’t say “transgender people,” he said “transgenderism.”
Is Knowles doing anything more than playing word games? He certainly has played with words in the past. When earlier this week, he declared on his podcast that we need a “ban [on] transgenderism entirely,” he told critics that this wasn’t a call for genocide because trans people “are not a legitimate category of being.” Of course, if trans people aren’t a thing, it’s not clear why one would need to “ban … transgenderism” in the first place.
Here’s what Knowles’ said at CPAC, in which he redefined “transgenderism” as an assault on “the rights and customs of many people” and portrayed the eradication of “transgenderism” as a defensive move. “There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It can be all or nothing,” he declared.
If transgenderism is true, if men really can become women, then it’s true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false — as it is — if men really can’t become women — as they cannot — then it’s false for everybody too. And if it’s false, then we should not indulge it, especially when that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of many people. It if is false, then for the good of society — and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion — then transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.
Now, Knowles may not have called explicitly for trans people to be rounded up and put in death camps, but his intent is clear: to make it impossible for trans people to live as trans people in public life.
Again, let’s look at the example of Judaism. If one were to eradicate Judaism from public life entirely (without rounding up and killing Jews), this would mean dismantling every Jewish institution or organization, banning the Torah, making Bar and Bat Mitzvahs illegal, converting every Jewish person to another religion (or no religion) against their will. This would be an enormous and barbaric act of cultural violence, a cultural genocide.
Similarly, to eradicate transgenderism from public life entirely (without rounding up and killing trans people) would mean dismantling every trans institution or organization, destroying every gender clinic, banning books and films, and TV shows, and forcibly “detransitioning” every trans person by denying them gender-affirming treatment, taking away their hormones, and forcing them to wear the clothes of the gender they were assigned at birth–except perhaps behind closed doors at home, with the blinds drawn so no one could see. Again, this would be an enormous and barbaric act of cultural violence, a cultural genocide.
It could also mean mass death if trans people committed suicide rather than be forced to live life as someone they’re not.
So even if Knowles hasn’t literally called for trans people to be put in death camps, his rhetoric certainly qualifies as genocidal.
It would be one thing if Knowles were an isolated example on the fringes of politics. But his rhetoric has been seconded by others on the right. And more to the point, trans eliminationism is rapidly becoming part of the Republican party’s unofficial platform, with hundreds of bills introduced in states nationwide limiting LGBTQ+ rights and, in many cases, making it more difficult for trans people to simply exist in public. There are bills banning gender-affirming treatment–for adults, not just for children. There are bills banning drag that are worded so loosely that they could make it illegal for a trans person to sing a song in a park. Bathroom bills are making it a sex offense for trans people to be in a public bathroom if a child is present–effectively making it impossible for trans people to use the correct bathrooms at all. Books so much as mentioning LGBTQ+ people, are being removed from school libraries. And so on and so on.
Michael Knowles has simply made the ultimate goal of all these bills more explicit.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
One of my exes a while back told me that she wanted to enjoy having boobs in the present, because she was sure that at some point, the state would take away her rights and cut them off. I remember being shocked by this, but she seemed to think it was almost inevitable.
She’s dead now. Suicide, early in the pandemic. Turned out it was easier for the state to just let her die.
This is the kind of cloud we’re all living under now. I keep running over the scenarios in my head – am I a traitor to even worse off trans people if I leave the country? Will I be allowed to leave the country, will the passport under my new name get held up? Will other countries accept me, will they fall to fascism too in a few years? If I stay here, will I be able to survive going stealth, or going boymode and wearing a binder – or will they dig through my records? Will they just force me to pretend I’m a man and go through menopause, or will they cut up my body too? Will my friends and loved ones be able to survive, or will the state get to them before me?
I’m so tired. So fucking tired. All it would take to stop this would be cis people refusing to cooperate, even just a little bit – refusing to enforce these cruel laws, refusing to stop providing medical services, refusing to let cops into hospitals. As with abortion, which when you get down to it is the same fight – stop cooperating. Stop letting the authorities use you for evil things you don’t believe in. I know you feel powerless but trust me, you are way less powerless than we are, even if only in terms of numbers. There are like 100x more of you than of us.
But IDK. Maybe I am asking too much. I’m sorry – I’ve been off my DMARD for about a month now because of capitalist scam artistry, so dealing with constant pain and brain fog just in time for things to blow up for a bunch of my loved ones too. As I’ve said elsewhere, even in “safe” states, we feel the impact of this stuff as a kind of gradually increasing pressure, and I am so damn exhausted that I’m not even sure what’s reality anymore.
The Daily Wire is pure evil.
They’d rather exterminate human beings than expand Medicaid, house the homeless, provide rehab for addicts, or any number of other things they could do to help people in need. Yet they call themselves “Christians”.
I’m here for you, Cyborgette. Say what you need to say. Always.
He knows what he said and that he is lying when he pretends he didn’t say it. That’s part of the game fascists play.
As Sartre observed of anti-semites, “it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly since he believes in words.
…
They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.”
When I’m in a “try to be a worse person than Tucker Carlson” competition and my opponent is Michael Knowles: 😐 😲 🤯
There’s worse (and weirder) out there, trust me.
https://leftcoastrightwatch.org/articles/heres-the-gore-artist-turning-terrorgram-manuals-manifestos-into-audiobooks
Most fascists seem to come to it through hating death, and its lesser cousin change, and in the end hating life because of its annoying tendency towards mortality; but that one seems to have come to it through a perverse fascination with death, and may even have adopted white supremacism as a kind of fig-leaf excuse … this case is, quite frankly, bizarre, and perhaps even tragic, as there are more-than-hints of past abuse, self-hatred that led to seeking out abuse, and at least a faint hint that maybe they’re actually trans but never knew it, though I wouldn’t bet the farm on that last … but an early fascination with shotacon while identifying with the young, abused boys rather than their abusers is rather difficult to explain otherwise in an AFAB person. If so, we also have an example of this sort of thing perpetuating itself intergenerationally through internalized self-hatred. Regardless, some young psychology student could probably get three doctoral theses out of this person, if they were willing. (Neuter pronouns used out of respect for this possibility.)
Most disturbing of all is the self-awareness, same sort I previously noticed with Mencius Moldbug. We have a self-described stochastic terrorist here. Most people aren’t willing to cast themselves as the bad guys and will always, at the very least, rationalize their behavior as being for the greater good and therefore making them the heroes and the other side the real villains. That’s where all the DARVO and gaslighting come from, when not employed purely as a calculated manipulation tactic. But I guess that goes out the window if self-hatred is in the picture. It’s like “I’m evil, hurry up and stop me! Well if they aren’t going to I guess they’re evil too and the world deserves me. Oh well. So be it, then. <pushes big, ominous red button>” rather than the more usual “Can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs <pushes button>”.
@Cyborgette:
I wish I had some way to help, beyond advice or just verbally opposing the far right.
@Cyborgette: No one considers the Jews who were lucky enough to get out of Europe before 1939 as traitors. Sometime survival is the only victory that matters. Do what you need to do to be safe. Help others if you can, and take care of yourself first.
We need you.
Cyborgette
GiJoel is right, surviving by moving is not traitorous and the world needs articulate people of all minorities. Having said that I don’t know where you could go and be safe. The UK is probably safer on the ground than the FARTs noise makes it seem, but that isn’t saying much.
I wish there was something I could do that would actually help more than a few words.
Speaking of that…
My ex’s dad was born on a train leaving Nazi Germany. His mother had successfully gotten most of the family to Kenya (the UK wouldn’t let the filthy Jews emigrate to their island, but going to their colonies was fine) but went back for the family matriarch who was old and who originally thought she was too infirm to flee but later figured that she really better get the hell out.
The family was half jewish, but ex’s dad was raised without ever being told that. He found out as an adult and didn’t think it was important enough to tell my ex until she was an adult. Had the holocaust not happened, he probably would have been raised a secular/atheist jew, though it’s still possible that he would have been raised more Christian. We’ll just never know b/c the family was too desperately afraid of being murdered — even in Kenya — to ever hint at the Jewishness among them.
He could have been raised, at least, to appreciate Jewish tradition, to know what a mitzvah is, to have a mezuzah on the door whether or not they also had a cross on the wall. He could have learned some prayers. My ex could have known Lekhah Dodi and been able to sing it with me. All that was cut off because of fear.
But when I talked about it with a rabbi from East Side Jews was there any blame for my ex’s family? Her grandmother? Her father for not telling her as soon as he knew?
Not a fucking word. There was grief for the complicated history and tradition that the family was denied the opportunity to freely choose. Part jew, all jew, in Germany, in Kenya, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t their fault that they were put in that position.
We don’t blame the Conversos, either.
If you can flee, if you need to flee, flee. The blame isn’t on you. The shonde does not lie with a person keeping herself or her family safe. The shonde entirely belongs to those issuing threats and initiating violence.
We all have to choose as best we can.
I think this is only going to get worse. It seems pretty clear the ultimate aim of Republicans is to outlaw being out trans and, if they can, to outlaw being out as any kind of LGBT. They might be able to just do that democratically, because they aren’t facing much opposition currently. In fact, hating trans people might be the only popular position Republicans have. But they are also masters of gerrymandering and gaming the courts, so they don’t even need a majority to succeed. And even if they don’t succeed, they will take as many trans people down as they can before they are stopped.
I agree with GiJoel. Think of it as escaping Hitler in the 1930s or as part of the Great Migration in the early 1900s. When dealing with state orchestrated violence, sometimes the only option is fleeing. You can’t change anything if you are dead. As you point out, it’s cis people who can easily fight against this. If they aren’t going to help, then you aren’t a traitor or coward by saving your own life.
Thanks, all who responded to me. Literally anything helps.
I hope I don’t have to flee, TBH. Getting out of here will be really hard what with the disabilities. I’m so fucking tired.
@Cyborgette: We are always here for you, sister. Can’t imagine being off the meds for my chronic pain for a month. Very gentle hugs. An activist friend who’s used a wheelchair for decades and I would sometimes hook pinky fingers together and chant “Little tiny crippled hugs” rather than risk the real thing on bad days.
I’m outraged and disgusted by this whole thing. And afraid for my trans friends, even here in a solid blue state.
I could offer a temporary refuge, in a one-story house, as long as you aren’t allergic to cats. Nothing permanent, though; I’m moving to a condo soon because I can’t keep the place up, because I’m exhausted and in pain too.
@LIAWN: Sadly true. There’s Actual Jesus (brown socialist Middle-Eastern Jew), and then there’s Republican Jesus. Actual Jesus looked at those kind of people and said “I never knew you: depart from me.”
I left a comment on another thread about the religious trends I see taking place these days.
@GSS ex-noob:
Sadly true. There’s Actual Jesus (brown socialist Middle-Eastern Jew), and then there’s Republican Jesus. Actual Jesus looked at those kind of people and said “I never knew you: depart from me.”
You realize that under current U.S. authority, Actual Jesus would never have been crucified.
He would’ve died of Excited Delirium, and churches would be adorned with cop boots.
@FM Ox: He wouldn’t have lasted the three years wandering around preaching to crowds. He’d be under surveillance right away, and “accidently” die in custody. Unless some gun nut with a white pointy or red baseball hat took him out first for being brown and preaching love thy neighbor.
Well, gee, looks like Matt Walsh (also of the Daily Wire) didn’t like being overshadowed in the transphobia department and couldn’t help but add his own over-the-top hot take. Basically he spun a what-if scenario where “his daughter” (not named, but he has three) came out as a boy, and how it would be a horrific attack on him personally, and how it would end with the “death cult” stealing her away so that he would never see her again. It was all about him, not even really acknowledging them as a person. This is why, he said, that he homeschooled his six(!) children, so that the “death cult” can’t coerce them into believing they’re actually something which isn’t even real. You know, like being gay.
Tell me you love an imaginary version of your children rather than your real children without telling me that you don’t really love your kids.
@GSS ex-noob:
Actually, he’d be shot on the orders of J. Edgar Hoover, after having preached to various crowds and become fairly well-known. His best-known sermon would be remembered by its opening words: “I have a dream…”
Meanwhile, some asshat has compared your kid turning out trans to your kid dying … don’t have a link handy, sorry. But I saw it mentioned somewhere.
The same thing has been said by other chuds about kids turning out gay, and about kids turning out autistic. It’s like some parents can’t disentangle their progeny from their own expectations about those progeny, and of course that often leads to trying to forcibly make them fit whatever Procrustean mold Daddy Dearest had in mind for them. Which in turn guarantees tragic outcomes: suicide, lifelong psychological problems, or at minimum estrangement. Trying to hold onto the illusory kid of your expectations can mean you lose the actual child you had, winding up with neither.
@Surplus to Requirements:
“I think as a parent, it’s like a fate worse than death in a lot of ways. You’re losing your child. It’s like a death of a child while they’re still alive and — so that’s what makes it, I suppose, personal for me.”
— Matt Walsh, as part of the super transphobic take I just mentioned
So, yeah, very much that.
Dear Lord! That is horrifying.
@GSS ex-noob
Thank you. That won’t be necessary – I’m physically quite safe right now, pharmacy nonsense aside, and have resources I can lean on… but I really appreciate that you think that way.
At least one of Matt Walsh’s 6 (or more coming) kids will end up being somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. I’m willing to bet money on it. I mean, even just statistically it’s likely. 6 kids. Yeah at least one.
And when they do, he might well murder them. I’m scared.
Okay, what total bullshit. He’s just pulling vaguely menacing phrases out of his ass. I’d be surprised if he’s even thought about what actual, tangible “rights and customs” could possibly be damaged. Even if I only considered things selfishly, focusing on what would help or hurt me (a cis woman), I can’t think of ANYTHING in my life that’d be harmed by trans people being out and about. And as someone in the general LGBTQ category, I’d be worried for myself too if the place I lived was passing a bunch of anti-trans laws. (Not like here is an absolute safe haven, just that I’ve been hearing more about this stuff in the US recently).
…About David and Laura Jedeed’s points – what if this kind of rhetoric were directed against Judaism (or rather “Jews, er, I meant Judaism”) – to me that sounds more like the Christian imperialist anti-semitism than the Nazi kind. But it’s not like genocides/forced evacuations didn’t happen for Jewish people in Christian Europe…or for Indigenous people here in so-called Canada.
I guess I’m going off-topic, but there’s more than one historical parallel and yeah, this man’s rhetoric is scary in a lot of ways.
Re: the out-of-6 children odds – Based on our current knowledge, if you count people who are heteroflexible, straight but biromantic or homoromantic, or are straight but adventurous enough to have a same-sex fling once or twice just for the varied experience, and are self-aware enough to notice these things about themselves (and given a social environment permissable enough that they have no reason to engage in self-denial), then the number of people who are LGBTQIA+ are at least 1-in-5 and may be as high as 1-in-3.
However, even when open about it, most of those people do not and never will consider themselves anything other than “straight”, nor are they likely to be part of an LGBTQIA+ community as anything more than an ally, if at all. And in an environment where people have ample reason to engage in self-denial and may not even be aware of any such possibility, particularly something like Matt Walsh’s family, not likely to ever consciously know. That drops the odds of a family conflict over his kids being some form of non-cishet considerably. Hell, if any of his kids are bi/pan (the most common of the “core” LGBTQIA+ identities) or nonbinary or agender, they might end up being so deep in self-denial that it never comes up.
So what are the actual odds? While 1-in-5 of Gen-Z identifies as some form of LGBTQIA+, a lot of them appear to be one of those mostly-straight-but-not-quite types mentioned above or straight but gender non-conforming, the latter which would not be meaningful if we did away with gender-specific social performances entirely, so I’m not sure how much that should count (so for the purposes of this calculation, I’m not counting them). The “core” LGBTQIA+ identities seem to be somewhere from 1-in-8 to 1-in-10, and might be a little higher due to the existence of people still feeling unsafe enough to engage in self-denial. And given that the odds of such self-denial being far higher in that kind of environment, let’s say, I dunno, 1-in-20?
So given the odds of 6 children and each having 1-in-20 chance of eventually coming out as some form of LGBTQIA+, that results in… ~27% chance of Matt Walsh literally or figuratively murdering at least one of them. (Figuratively in the sense of declaring them dead.) Given, let’s say 1-in-8 odds of being LGBTQIA+ “enough” that it’s likely to cause considerable conflict with enforced cisheteronormativity, results in ~24% that at least one of his children will *never* come out but live lives of quiet misery and despair and maybe commit suicide at some point. That’s in addition to the previous odds of coming out at some point, so combined it’s 51%.
All that is speculation based on rough and somewhat questionable estimates, but it’s looking to be very roughly 1-in-4 or 1-in-2 based on which sort of thing you’re talking about.