We Hunted The Mammoth
The midterm elections showed that most Americans aren’t fans of the Republican anti-trans crusade. But that’s not stopping GOP politicians across the country from pushing legislation that will strip trans people of basic rights and vital health care.
The rhetoric of the anti-trans movement — and Republican politicians — is getting more apocalyptic and eliminationist by the day. And anti-trans violence is getting worse. Last week, a man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, firebombed a donut shop after it held a drag event.
Less than a week away from the midterm elections, and things are looking dire for the Democrats — who could lose both House and Senate in a possible “red wave.” And if the Dems lose on both a national and a state and local level, things could be even more dire for trans people and their allies, who face a plethora of bills that could curtail their rights to free speech and, some warn, possibly even their rights to live as trans in public.
When the Federalist teased its essay “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives” on Twitter on Thursday, some people, including myself, joked that the new word they were looking for was probably “fascists.” This turns out to be not much of a joke, as the essay, by Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson, preaches a revanchist authoritarianism that in many ways resembles classical fascism.
The “moral panic” over drag shows seems to have reached a disturbing inflection point. 33 GOP House members have just introduced a federal “Don’t Say Gay, Don’t Say Trans” bill that could ban institutions getting federal funding from hosting drag shows or making books featuring gay people available to children.
