Specifically, they were caught openly admitting that their goal is to ban gender-affirming care for the entire population, and that their focus on minors is only a cynical baby step on the way to...
Specifically, they were caught openly admitting that their goal is to ban gender-affirming care for the entire population, and that their focus on minors is only a cynical baby step on the way to broader bans that apply across the population. This is also paired with attempts at writing trans people out of the law. When you try to make illegal medication and treatments that a minority group needs to stay alive, and doing so not out of medical concern, but out of a desire to destroy that group, then the only sane thing to call such actions is genocide. High-ranking Republican officials from Ohio and Michigan were caught on tape openly planning genocide against their own citizens.
Its definition in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is: Lemkin said that genocide includes: This is important because one of the most famous Nazi book...
Its definition in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is:
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Lemkin said that genocide includes:
criminal intent to destroy or to cripple permanently a human group. The acts are directed against groups as such, and individuals are selected for destruction only because they belong to these groups. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (1944)
This is important because one of the most famous Nazi book burning photos is from the is Institut für Sexualwissenschaft - they burned the research but kept the patient lists and rounded up those people and murdered them.
Attempting to deny this reality has been recognised by the German courts as a form of holocaust denialism.
This is a terrible plan. Sadly, Many of our leaders were at least teenagers before the first hormonal birth control was available. They don't believe there will be mass numbers of suicides if...
This is a terrible plan.
Sadly, Many of our leaders were at least teenagers before the first hormonal birth control was available. They don't believe there will be mass numbers of suicides if hormones are taken away. They remember and want to return to a time before they were available at all.
I think they don't care. They may sort of be dismissive in a "not gonna happen" sort of way, but I think they truly do not care how trans people are removed from the population.
I think they don't care. They may sort of be dismissive in a "not gonna happen" sort of way, but I think they truly do not care how trans people are removed from the population.
I agree. They also want to take hormonal birth control away from cis women. They also want to return to a time when any sexual practise other than missionary position piv coitus was outlawed. They...
I agree.
They also want to take hormonal birth control away from cis women. They also want to return to a time when any sexual practise other than missionary position piv coitus was outlawed. They want to take away no fault divorce laws. Their view of what is acceptable is as narrow as the Taleban, though there are some differences in what specifically they demand and expect.
Again, they are openly plotting the extermination of a minority group. They don't actually object to trans healthcare; they object to trans people existing at all. They can't just declare a...
Again, they are openly plotting the extermination of a minority group. They don't actually object to trans healthcare; they object to trans people existing at all. They can't just declare a minority group illegal, so instead they seek to destroy and criminalize things members of that minority group regularly do. This is literally the exact same thing genocidal governments have done for generations. Passing a law that says, "we'll arrest all of group X" is rarely allowed legally. So instead they will find ways of making the group itself illegal, they will write laws designed to turn that target minority group into criminals.
The Nazis themselves never actually passed laws outright declaring that gay and trans people were to be exterminated. They simply passed and enforced laws against "cross dressing," being caught in same-sex relations, etc.
Here are the laws Republicans have already passed or are planning to pass:
Make it illegal for trans people to use the bathroom of their identified gender.
Allow people to sue trans people for calling them transphobic, even if they are transphobic. (A trans person could, while following the law, be bullied or assaulted for using the restroom that corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, and then be sued by their assaulter for being called a transphobe or bigot.)
Outlaw trans medical care. (And likely severely criminalize trans people using DIY options to get around state bans.)
Take trans kids from affirming cis parents and take kids in general away from trans parents.
Repeal all legal protections against anti-trans discrimination.
Prevent trans people from getting name/gender changes, and reverse previous changes. (Literally revoke the "incorrect" drivers licenses and birth certificates of trans people who have changed their documents.)
Prohibit the mention of trans people in schools, K12 and university.
Declare being trans innately pornographic and being trans in public obscene. Outright arrest trans people simply for existing in public under anti-obscenity laws.
I'm sorry, but if this isn't a genocide, I don't know what is. We're talking about literally hundreds of laws being introduced to target the existence of the trans population from every angle they can think of. They're not just trying to regulate healthcare, they're trying to exterminate a population. They're trying to completely prevent a group of people from existing in public life. Their ultimate goal is to make trans people easy targets for vigilante violence, to get trans people to kill themselves, or to force them to flee.
Not all genocides are as blatant as cattle cars and death camps. Often it's done slowly and bureaucratically. But when a major political party has fully embraced genocidal language, is openly talking about "eliminating transgenderism," and is trying to write every law they can to criminalize the existence of a persecuted minority group, you would have to be blind to not see this as genocide.
I know it's hard to admit. People don't want to admit that not only can it happen here, but it is already happening here. But this is genocide, plain and simple. Read up on the genocide the Nazis perpetrated against their trans population, and tell me that the exact same thing isn't happening again. Hell, it's taken us a long time to truly realize the scale of the Nazis genocide against the German trans population. The Nazi government took pains to eliminate trans people from the law. So a trans woman wasn't recorded as a trans woman, but was recorded in prison records as just some guy in jail for violating morality and obscenity laws. In other words, the exact same thing Republicans are doing right now.
I thought that's exactly what genocide is. Methodical, bureaucratic, thorough persecution of a group is what is happening to trans people, for sure. If they had their way they would criminalize...
Not all genocides are as blatant as cattle cars and death camps. Often it's done slowly and bureaucratically.
I thought that's exactly what genocide is.
Methodical, bureaucratic, thorough persecution of a group is what is happening to trans people, for sure. If they had their way they would criminalize and make more trans people die of exposure and lack of employment, housing, nutrition etc.
But I thought genocide is about the killing of a group, hence the -cide suffix.
If the Nazis left off the murders and "only" did stuff like refuse refugees and allow them to die on the doorsteps or out at sea, it wouldn't have been genocide either.
They're trying to completely prevent a group of people from existing in public life. [...] Their ultimate goal is to make trans people easy targets for vigilante violence, to get trans people to kill themselves, or to force them to flee.
Think of it less as "killing" and more of "eliminating," as far as individuals go, but if you eliminate all the members of a group, do you not "kill" that group? Is an imposed sterilization of an...
Think of it less as "killing" and more of "eliminating," as far as individuals go, but if you eliminate all the members of a group, do you not "kill" that group?
Is an imposed sterilization of an entire group not genocide?
One definition listed these five components: Killing members of the group Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life...
One definition listed these five components:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Several of these apply to the laws and policies against trans people.
Mental harm: is there anything that isn't genocide then? Is it possible for one to be supportive of trans rights without agreeing that it is genocide? I feel like I'm just making people angry and...
Mental harm: is there anything that isn't genocide then?
Is it possible for one to be supportive of trans rights without agreeing that it is genocide?
I feel like I'm just making people angry and upset for no positive gain, when clearly everyone is already on board overall for safeguarding and expanding protection of trans rights. And no doubt many of my questions are not safe to ask, and my viewpoint not helpful to be aired because they sound indistinguishable from those who are actively seeking the elimination of all trans people from private and public space.
So, I thank OP for the link, thank you for the definition, and I'm going to exit this conversation, taking home with me a lot more things to consider.
Language can unite or divide, and that language has specific meanings is what makes communication work. Gentleman used to mean a specific kind of landowner: one can be a total bastard and a...
Language can unite or divide, and that language has specific meanings is what makes communication work.
Gentleman used to mean a specific kind of landowner: one can be a total bastard and a gentleman. Then we focused on what a gentleman should be like, and surely it's the qualities that matter and not the essence etc, until the word lost all meaning and just means "man" now, which we already had a bunch of synonyms for.
I personally find it very difficult to engage with trans rights when it's framed as a genocide. That probably makes me anathema to the current cultural doctrine, but the world is currently dealing with active, old-school genocide as well, and I want to retain the use of that language for things of that scale.
And, smaller scale battles win more allies than things so huge that they makes people feel numb or helpless.
It's easier to gain awareness and allies for "let's pick up garbage and add a recycling can in the park" than "Save Us From Climate Annihilation!!!!" - are tens of millions going to die from the climate crisis? Absolutely certain that they will. But language helps bring people on board.
Most people can agree with "help Jane with bullying from Bigot High", but fewer people will join in on "Stop genocide!!!!!"
If imposed sterilization happens, then yes let's call it genocide.
If pedantry is what keeps you from engaging with a serious human rights issue... then I don't know what else to tell you. The right essentially wants to erase the existence of trans people- and...
If pedantry is what keeps you from engaging with a serious human rights issue... then I don't know what else to tell you.
The right essentially wants to erase the existence of trans people- and they want to do it culturally/socially (for now) but no doubt many of them would do it physically if they could get away with it.
Call it whatever the hell you want but I have NO qualms with that being called a genocide. Doing so doesn't take away from the physical genocide going on elsewhere, and to me it more accurately describes the DESIRES of the right, regardless of what they're able to accomplish.
One can use both small AND large scale language to describe these things, they aren't mutually exclusive.
I wish you wouldn't have. I made the original headline for a reason. It was accurate, and you made it less accurate. It is vital not to mince words on this. This is the targeted extermination of a...
I wish you wouldn't have. I made the original headline for a reason. It was accurate, and you made it less accurate.
It is vital not to mince words on this. This is the targeted extermination of a minority group. And the biggest reason we've gotten this far is that people have refused to believe that this kind of thing could actually happen here. We're so afraid to call things genocide, so afraid of being seen as extreme, that we are incapable of recognizing a genocide when it is happening right in front of us. It's this exact kind of attitude that allowed even the Nazis themselves to operate; no one could believe what was actually happening was actually happening, their normalcy bias was just too strong.
Inasmuch as genocide is defined as the extermination of a cultural or religious group, I agree with you. This is the attempt to exterminate a sexual or gender minority, which isn't explicitly...
Inasmuch as genocide is defined as the extermination of a cultural or religious group, I agree with you. This is the attempt to exterminate a sexual or gender minority, which isn't explicitly banned by the UN, but still heinous.
Are trans people not a cultural or religious group? Trans culture is absolutely a thing. Hell, Republicans are constantly talking about "trans ideology." Trans people have their own culture. And...
Are trans people not a cultural or religious group? Trans culture is absolutely a thing. Hell, Republicans are constantly talking about "trans ideology." Trans people have their own culture. And they certainly have their own beliefs or ideology. While trans people are a diverse group, the one commonality is a belief that sex assigned at birth does not need correspond to one's gender, and that living as your authentic self is a good and positive thing. And while this itself isn't a religious belief, trans people certainly tend to form their religious beliefs around this.
So you have a group of people that has a unique set of beliefs, has a unique culture, and is recognized by the wider culture as a distinct group. And some in that wider culture not only recognizes that group as a unique entity, but seeks to exterminate it.
In my book, that is unambiguous genocide. You can split hairs over the definition of culture or religion, but it is pretty clearly genocide, the deliberate extermination of a people.
Specifically, they were caught openly admitting that their goal is to ban gender-affirming care for the entire population, and that their focus on minors is only a cynical baby step on the way to broader bans that apply across the population. This is also paired with attempts at writing trans people out of the law. When you try to make illegal medication and treatments that a minority group needs to stay alive, and doing so not out of medical concern, but out of a desire to destroy that group, then the only sane thing to call such actions is genocide. High-ranking Republican officials from Ohio and Michigan were caught on tape openly planning genocide against their own citizens.
Genocide is usually considered to be an action that can only be undertaken against a specific ethnic or national group though?
Suffice to say, if your argument for why you aren't attempting genocide comes down to semantics, you're probably a shithead.
Its definition in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is:
Lemkin said that genocide includes:
This is important because one of the most famous Nazi book burning photos is from the is Institut für Sexualwissenschaft - they burned the research but kept the patient lists and rounded up those people and murdered them.
Attempting to deny this reality has been recognised by the German courts as a form of holocaust denialism.
This is a terrible plan.
Sadly, Many of our leaders were at least teenagers before the first hormonal birth control was available. They don't believe there will be mass numbers of suicides if hormones are taken away. They remember and want to return to a time before they were available at all.
I think they don't care. They may sort of be dismissive in a "not gonna happen" sort of way, but I think they truly do not care how trans people are removed from the population.
I agree.
They also want to take hormonal birth control away from cis women. They also want to return to a time when any sexual practise other than missionary position piv coitus was outlawed. They want to take away no fault divorce laws. Their view of what is acceptable is as narrow as the Taleban, though there are some differences in what specifically they demand and expect.
Again, they are openly plotting the extermination of a minority group. They don't actually object to trans healthcare; they object to trans people existing at all. They can't just declare a minority group illegal, so instead they seek to destroy and criminalize things members of that minority group regularly do. This is literally the exact same thing genocidal governments have done for generations. Passing a law that says, "we'll arrest all of group X" is rarely allowed legally. So instead they will find ways of making the group itself illegal, they will write laws designed to turn that target minority group into criminals.
The Nazis themselves never actually passed laws outright declaring that gay and trans people were to be exterminated. They simply passed and enforced laws against "cross dressing," being caught in same-sex relations, etc.
Here are the laws Republicans have already passed or are planning to pass:
Make it illegal for trans people to use the bathroom of their identified gender.
Allow people to sue trans people for calling them transphobic, even if they are transphobic. (A trans person could, while following the law, be bullied or assaulted for using the restroom that corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, and then be sued by their assaulter for being called a transphobe or bigot.)
Outlaw trans medical care. (And likely severely criminalize trans people using DIY options to get around state bans.)
Take trans kids from affirming cis parents and take kids in general away from trans parents.
Repeal all legal protections against anti-trans discrimination.
Prevent trans people from getting name/gender changes, and reverse previous changes. (Literally revoke the "incorrect" drivers licenses and birth certificates of trans people who have changed their documents.)
Prohibit the mention of trans people in schools, K12 and university.
Declare being trans innately pornographic and being trans in public obscene. Outright arrest trans people simply for existing in public under anti-obscenity laws.
I'm sorry, but if this isn't a genocide, I don't know what is. We're talking about literally hundreds of laws being introduced to target the existence of the trans population from every angle they can think of. They're not just trying to regulate healthcare, they're trying to exterminate a population. They're trying to completely prevent a group of people from existing in public life. Their ultimate goal is to make trans people easy targets for vigilante violence, to get trans people to kill themselves, or to force them to flee.
Not all genocides are as blatant as cattle cars and death camps. Often it's done slowly and bureaucratically. But when a major political party has fully embraced genocidal language, is openly talking about "eliminating transgenderism," and is trying to write every law they can to criminalize the existence of a persecuted minority group, you would have to be blind to not see this as genocide.
I know it's hard to admit. People don't want to admit that not only can it happen here, but it is already happening here. But this is genocide, plain and simple. Read up on the genocide the Nazis perpetrated against their trans population, and tell me that the exact same thing isn't happening again. Hell, it's taken us a long time to truly realize the scale of the Nazis genocide against the German trans population. The Nazi government took pains to eliminate trans people from the law. So a trans woman wasn't recorded as a trans woman, but was recorded in prison records as just some guy in jail for violating morality and obscenity laws. In other words, the exact same thing Republicans are doing right now.
https://theconversation.com/historians-are-learning-more-about-how-the-nazis-targeted-trans-people-205622
I thought that's exactly what genocide is.
Methodical, bureaucratic, thorough persecution of a group is what is happening to trans people, for sure. If they had their way they would criminalize and make more trans people die of exposure and lack of employment, housing, nutrition etc.
But I thought genocide is about the killing of a group, hence the -cide suffix.
If the Nazis left off the murders and "only" did stuff like refuse refugees and allow them to die on the doorsteps or out at sea, it wouldn't have been genocide either.
100% agree with you there.
But that's not genocide.
Think of it less as "killing" and more of "eliminating," as far as individuals go, but if you eliminate all the members of a group, do you not "kill" that group?
Is an imposed sterilization of an entire group not genocide?
One definition listed these five components:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Several of these apply to the laws and policies against trans people.
Mental harm: is there anything that isn't genocide then?
Is it possible for one to be supportive of trans rights without agreeing that it is genocide?
I feel like I'm just making people angry and upset for no positive gain, when clearly everyone is already on board overall for safeguarding and expanding protection of trans rights. And no doubt many of my questions are not safe to ask, and my viewpoint not helpful to be aired because they sound indistinguishable from those who are actively seeking the elimination of all trans people from private and public space.
So, I thank OP for the link, thank you for the definition, and I'm going to exit this conversation, taking home with me a lot more things to consider.
By that reasoning, genocide along religious lines is also not genocide, yet we know that to be implicitly untrue.
Language can unite or divide, and that language has specific meanings is what makes communication work.
Gentleman used to mean a specific kind of landowner: one can be a total bastard and a gentleman. Then we focused on what a gentleman should be like, and surely it's the qualities that matter and not the essence etc, until the word lost all meaning and just means "man" now, which we already had a bunch of synonyms for.
I personally find it very difficult to engage with trans rights when it's framed as a genocide. That probably makes me anathema to the current cultural doctrine, but the world is currently dealing with active, old-school genocide as well, and I want to retain the use of that language for things of that scale.
And, smaller scale battles win more allies than things so huge that they makes people feel numb or helpless.
It's easier to gain awareness and allies for "let's pick up garbage and add a recycling can in the park" than "Save Us From Climate Annihilation!!!!" - are tens of millions going to die from the climate crisis? Absolutely certain that they will. But language helps bring people on board.
Most people can agree with "help Jane with bullying from Bigot High", but fewer people will join in on "Stop genocide!!!!!"
If imposed sterilization happens, then yes let's call it genocide.
If pedantry is what keeps you from engaging with a serious human rights issue... then I don't know what else to tell you.
The right essentially wants to erase the existence of trans people- and they want to do it culturally/socially (for now) but no doubt many of them would do it physically if they could get away with it.
Call it whatever the hell you want but I have NO qualms with that being called a genocide. Doing so doesn't take away from the physical genocide going on elsewhere, and to me it more accurately describes the DESIRES of the right, regardless of what they're able to accomplish.
One can use both small AND large scale language to describe these things, they aren't mutually exclusive.
And the article makes no claim there either. This is a case where someone should retitle it to the original authors’ intent (unless OP is the author).
Changed.
I wish you wouldn't have. I made the original headline for a reason. It was accurate, and you made it less accurate.
It is vital not to mince words on this. This is the targeted extermination of a minority group. And the biggest reason we've gotten this far is that people have refused to believe that this kind of thing could actually happen here. We're so afraid to call things genocide, so afraid of being seen as extreme, that we are incapable of recognizing a genocide when it is happening right in front of us. It's this exact kind of attitude that allowed even the Nazis themselves to operate; no one could believe what was actually happening was actually happening, their normalcy bias was just too strong.
Inasmuch as genocide is defined as the extermination of a cultural or religious group, I agree with you. This is the attempt to exterminate a sexual or gender minority, which isn't explicitly banned by the UN, but still heinous.
Are trans people not a cultural or religious group? Trans culture is absolutely a thing. Hell, Republicans are constantly talking about "trans ideology." Trans people have their own culture. And they certainly have their own beliefs or ideology. While trans people are a diverse group, the one commonality is a belief that sex assigned at birth does not need correspond to one's gender, and that living as your authentic self is a good and positive thing. And while this itself isn't a religious belief, trans people certainly tend to form their religious beliefs around this.
So you have a group of people that has a unique set of beliefs, has a unique culture, and is recognized by the wider culture as a distinct group. And some in that wider culture not only recognizes that group as a unique entity, but seeks to exterminate it.
In my book, that is unambiguous genocide. You can split hairs over the definition of culture or religion, but it is pretty clearly genocide, the deliberate extermination of a people.
You're absolutely right. my apologies.
@deimos or @cfabbro maybe it would make sense to adopt the title of the original article?