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Return of the Dark Ages in USA?
The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a government-wide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.
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11 Replies
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Yep; this is really scary, and shows just how far Trump will go to cater to the prejudices of his evangelical “base’ (more appropriate as an adjective than a noun). It’s part of a comprehensive strategy that rejects scientific evidence (in fact the term “evidence based”is banned) and promotes an authoritarian ideology that promotes emotion over reason, myth over history, an idealised past over a feasible future (beautiful clean coal) and rhetoric over argument (Build the Wall, Lock her up, Make America Great Again). Once evidence and truth are consigned to the trash bin, only the great leader can save us – sound familiar?
Veronica -
Aren’t we lucky to live in Australia!
DT sinks to new lows almost every day in things he says.
Lets hope the ultra right that do exist in Australia remain a minority
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One of my American TG friends refers to “DT” as President Chump and has a new slogan: Make America Decent Again! Hopefully, the mid-term elections will see a Democrat return to power in the House of Representatives and turn Chump into a lame-duck president unable to pass any of his obnoxious legislation. So there is some hope.
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The regime of Donald Trump is a case of history repeating. The last time a person like him was in power it took a world war and the loss of over 50 million people to remove him and his ilk. The sad thing with what we see today in the USA, is that there are so many parallels with Germany in the early 1930s. The persecution of minorities, perversion of religion to justify inhumane acts and a rise of violent, white supremacy are just a few.
I wonder what’s next? Trump has already demanded that Facebook provide information about Democrat supporters, Will we see trawling of FB and other web sites for those of us who are different? Will coloured triangles again begin to be required adornments on clothing?
As for the mid-term elections, there is already evidence that some states, including North Dakota, have enacted or changed regulations that will see a reduction in Democrat votes. Names have arbitrarily been removed from voter registration rolls and people are thus turned away from polling places when they turn up to vote.
The Wentworth by-election here should have sent a clear message to the Australian parliament that people are dissatisfied with our current governing processes. I fear though, that what it will really do is prompt the religious right, that holds significant power in the Coalition and minor parties (less so in the Labor party but still present), to ramp up their extremist agenda to begin rolling back protections here as is happening in the USA. ‘Religious Freedom’ is also being used as the justification for renewed persecution of LGBTQ people in Australia.
This is one of those times that I hope desperately that I am wrong, but I think the worst is yet to come.
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Well put Jane. The essence of the authoritarian mentality is division/segmentation. There have to be in-groups and out-groups. The alleged behaviour of the out-groups (transgender people, Mexicans, refugees, Democrats etc) is then used to justify the imposition of further and further constraints on everybody’s freedom. It is the interests of the groups you have identified to push ‘them’ and ‘us’ further and further apart.
Veronica -
Fake news I think.
I could not care less about Donald Trump, he is a clown and a buffoon, but every week there is an article like this popping up and not once have any come to pass.
I shall now return to reading this obviously 100% true article on the interweb about Kochie being a kiddie fiddler and Karl Stephanovic, or however you spell it, being a crossdressing alien and former arms dealer.
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I hope you are correct Emma. I know it’s of great concern to the LGBTQ community in the US, where transgender people in their military are already facing difficulties. They are not treating it as fake news.
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Another product of the fact American’s do not have compulsory voting. This guy is so out of touch with the real world and it’s issues of equality I wouldn’t be surprised if he signs Presidential decrees with a chisel on a stone tablet..
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People, especially minority groups such as transgender people, have a lot to fear from Republicans and the ideologies that drive them. Equality and freedom of the individual are incompatible concepts, as much as we would like to think otherwise. Conservative forces (eg Republican, Liberal) are happy to promote individual freedom at the expense of equality. Conversely, socialist forces (eg Democrats, Labor) aim to promote equality at the expense of individual freedom. Public sentiment wavers between the two, which is why we have periodic changes of government.
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Hi All, just a quick riposte on the claim that “none has happened”. Gender identity has been withdrawn as a criterion for decisions about whether felons will be incarcerated in male or female prisons, and this is being reinforced by several of the agencies involved. If you’re a transgender male in a male prison life is likely to be “nasty, brutish and short”. In addition the original story regarding official identity was sourced from official Dept. of Health and Human Services documents; to be specific “Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth, The sex listed on a person’s birth certificate, as originally issued, shall constitute definitive proof of a person’s sex unless rebutted by reliable genetic evidence.”
Veronica -
Apologies for misquote. The riposte is to the statement “not once have any come to pass”
Veronica
