Tell Me About It.

The one thing that we all know all the anti-trans laws coming out of the Republican party is having a negative impact on us.

Online vitriol against LGBTQIA community impacts real people, real policy
Register-Guard
By Ty Warren
September 18, 2022


On the first day of class each term, I out myself as a queer Jewish trans man. I do this for several reasons: 1) I teach about visual culture; representation in art and popular media critically impact our perceptions of social structure. 2) For many cis students, I humanize what may feel like an abstract concept. 3) There are LGBTQIA students in my class who have never seen an out queer trans person in a position of authority, had a teacher in whom they could see themselves, nor had a model for what success and happiness can look like for them. 

Being out as a trans educator (or trans at all) comes with real risk. Routinely, my inbox receives hate mail that ranges from explicit wishes of harm to myself and family to tedious willful ignorance. This correspondence, never from students, goes in a folder in case something happens to me. Recently, my name appeared on an online bulletin board calling for a bullet to my head. Not simply boorish trolls in the comments section (though such trolls play a role in perpetuating harmful rhetoric), these individuals actively encourage violence against the trans community. 

[…]

Anti-LGBTQ social media and online groups generate and amplify damaging rhetoric, spread misinformation and attack educators, librarians, health care workers and countless others with false “groomer” allegations and debunked anti-trans rhetoric. Threats of violence, many quite detailed and credible, accompany the onslaughts. When the Proud Boys show up armed at your local library hyped from social media outrage, things are getting real. 

In another article the right-wing snowflakes complain about LGBTQ+ people banging on the doors of at a University of New Mexico speech, Newsbreak reported,

A speech from right-wing commentator Tomi Lahren at the University of New Mexico ended in chaos on Thursday night, as a large crowd of student protestors prompted state and campus police to shut down the event and evacuate guests.

“They had a group of leftists acting like typical leftist antifa,” Ms Lahren said on Friday in an interview with Outkick. “And unfortunately the University of New Mexico doesn’t seem to care, not only about my safety, but about the safety of their own students, and left us all barricaded in a room with basically rabid banshee animals trying to bust down the doors to get to us.”

Oh wow! Compared armed Proud Boys showing up at a LGBTQ+ event? What a bunch of snowflakes!

The Register-Guard article goes on to say,

In the face of such vitriol, many LGBTQIA folk and allies go silent out of very real fears of personal harm or loss of employment. For those of us who can speak out, we must. We must humanize, educate and give voice to those who cannot. This pertains not only to online discourse, but engagement with our friends, families and community members. It means difficult and potentially unpleasant conversations. For trans people, it means sharing our stories when possible. 

That is what the right-wing want, us back in the closet.

It used to be that the conservatives limited their vitriol comments to anonymous comments online but now they are crawling out of their swamps.

Report: Online trolls are spreading offline hate against LGBTQ Americans
Tweets using the ‘grooming’ slur shot up by 406% in the month after Florida passed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill
Michigan Advance
By John L. Micek
September 18, 202


Baseless attacks against LGBTQ Americans by online trolls — whether anonymous or by well-known politicians and public figures — have created a “cascade of … hate, underpinned by dangerous misinformation and outright lies against the LGBTQ+ community,” according to recently released research.

That’s the top-line finding of a new report, jointly released by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Human Rights Campaign that calls on the social media giants Twitter and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to act on hate speech, even as they profited from LGBTQ users during Pride Month observances and at other times of the year.   

And that online hate has reinforced offline violence and hate, with, for instance, members of the far-right Proud Boys launching a verbal assault during a ‘drag queen story hour’ at a Bay Area library in June, employing many of the same slurs found online.

“After decades of hard-won progress, the recent surge in violence and anti-LGBTQ+ hate serve as a reminder of how fragile that progress might be, and that there remain determined and capable opponents,”Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, wrote in the report’s introduction.

[…]

Much of the hate focused on the baseless claim that LGBTQ individuals “groom” young children — a line of attack that’s also been used to undermine the teaching of sex education in schools across the country.

Much of the anti-LGBTQ+ comments are coming from politicians, including Trump, U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert.

U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., were among the top purveyors of hate speech online, according to the analysis.

The “groomer” smear also been wielded by Michigan Republicans, including Sen. Lana Theis (R-Brighton) falsely using it in a fundraising pitch this spring against her colleague, Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak), who supports LGBTQ+ rights. GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon has tweeted several attacks, including claims that schools are “grooming children” and vowed “we won’t let them secretly talk to kids under 8 about sex” without providing evidence.

There is only one way to shut them up… Vote them out of office!