Republicans are Pushing Trans Genocide

And they’re not even trying to hide it.

“Transgender Killer Targets Christian School,” read the headline of the March 28, 2023 New York Post, referring to the Tennessee school shooting that happened on March 27, 2023. Right-wing wackos are starting to draw lines between this event and a small handful of other mass shootings in recent years perpetrated by trans or nonbinary folx. Clearly, the trans “movement” is radicalizing people into killers.

The New York Post, of course, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the guy who owns the right-wing propaganda machine Fox News, so this is not at all surprising. Nor is the deflection away from fixing gun laws, which is probably the biggest problem related to mass shootings in America, and toward the queer community. Never mind that mass shooters tend to be cis males — that’s immaterial to this whole thing.

The right needs a villain, an “other,” to motivate their base in the culture wars, and trans folx are the villain these days. They describe trans folx in derisive terms, call them mentally ill, and create legislation to limit and ban their activities. My home state of Missouri is one of the leaders in this charge, pushing bill after bill to legislate trans folx out of existence, one way or the other.

And now that they have something concrete to point at, a headline of a major publication that screams their hatred in big, bold letters, they will likely escalate their efforts against the trans community. The right is pushing genocide, and they don’t seem to care who knows it.

You might think that I’m being hyperbolic or exaggerating when I say this. I am not. According to Genocide Watch, there are ten stages of genocide, and Republicans have pushed trans folx to stage eight.

If you don’t feel like clicking that link, let me lay them out for you here:

1. Classification — The differences between people are not respected. There’s a division of ‘us’ and ‘them’ which can be carried out using stereotypes, or excluding people who are perceived to be different.
2. Symbolisation — This is a visual manifestation of hatred. Jews in Nazi Europe were forced to wear yellow stars to show that they were ‘different’.
3. Discrimination — The dominant group denies civil rights or even citizenship to identified groups. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of their German citizenship, made it illegal for them to do many jobs or to marry German non-Jews.
4. Dehumanisation — Those perceived as ‘different’ are treated with no form of human rights or personal dignity. During the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Tutsis were referred to as ‘cockroaches’; the Nazis referred to Jews as ‘vermin’.
5. Organisation — Genocides are always planned. Regimes of hatred often train those who go on to carry out the destruction of a people.
6. Polarisation — Propaganda begins to be spread by hate groups. The Nazis used the newspaper Der Stürmer to spread and incite messages of hate about Jewish people.
7. Preparation — Perpetrators plan the genocide. They often use euphemisms such as the Nazis’ phrase ‘The Final Solution’ to cloak their intentions. They create fear of the victim group, building up armies and weapons.
8. Persecution — Victims are identified because of their ethnicity or religion and death lists are drawn up. People are sometimes segregated into ghettos, deported or starved and property is often expropriated. Genocidal massacres begin.
9. Extermination — The hate group murders their identified victims in a deliberate and systematic campaign of violence. Millions of lives have been destroyed or changed beyond recognition through genocide.
10. Denial — The perpetrators or later generations deny the existence of any crime.

Genocide Watch clarifies that the process is not linear, stating:

“Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Stages occur simultaneously. Each stage is itself a process. Their logic is similar to a nested Russian matryoshka doll. Classification is at the center. Without it the processes around it could not occur. As societies develop more and more genocidal processes, they get nearer to genocide. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.”

So, just because Republicans haven’t mandated that trans folx must wear something that identifies them as an “other” (stage 2) does not mean that the genocide is not to stage 8 yet. Things can happen simultaneously and not in a particular order, and the number of stages that have been met by Republicans is, quite frankly, terrifying.

Classification (stage 1). Discrimination (stage 3). Dehumanization (stage 4). Polarization (stage 6). Persecution (stage 8). This is where we are on the ten steps toward the genocide of trans Americans. This cannot be denied, as all of these things are crystal clear in the narratives. That New York Post headline is pretty polarizing, don’t you think?

They will deny it, of course. They’ll wrap it up in a much more palatable coating to get their followers to swallow it and give it an air of seeming reasonable on the surface so more balanced media outlets report on “both sides” of the issue. Sure, one side is basic human rights for all and the other side is literally othering an entire group of people, but the New York Times has a reputation to maintain that the Post doesn’t care about.

“We’re protecting kids!” they say, although from what is anyone’s guess. “We’re making sure that perverts don’t creep on women in bathrooms! That was already illegal anyway since trans folx just want to pee in peace. “It’s unnatural,” they say, ignoring science and expert scientists to rely on high school biology textbooks from the 50s.

Unfortunately, a lie can make it around the world before the truth has got its pants on, so their snappy arguments catch more attention than the dry, reasoned responses that thoroughly debunk their idiocy. They’ve already legislated away trans rights by the time their points have been debunked, riding a wave of public sentiment that demands action against the trans “menace.”

Make no mistake, Republicans want to do away with trans folx no matter the method. Legislating their rights away is but one step of many, and I do not doubt that they would round up and execute anyone identifying as trans if given an opportunity. There is already an inexcusable level of violence against trans and nonbinary folx, particularly trans women, and this will only fan the flames.

We cannot let this happen in America. We are a bastion of freedom and democracy, and we have fought fascism in the world for decades. We simply cannot allow Republicans and the far right to commandeer our country and turn it into a white patriarchal theocracy where anyone who is non-white, non-cis, and non-male is a second-class citizen. This is unacceptable.

I have so many friends who are trans and nonbinary, and I will not stand by and let Republicans take away their rights and humanity. These are people, dammit — friends, partners, parents, human fucking beings, and the idea that you would strip away their fundamental rights as humans simply enrages me. The American right will not be viewed well through the lens of history for these crimes against humanity, I guarantee that.

Get mad. Get angry. Get pissed off beyond all recognition. Lobby your senators and representatives, for whatever good it might do. The fact that the Republican Party is perpetrating genocide at all should tell you all that you need to know about politics in this country.

Voting for a Republican is voting in favor of hatred and genocide, and if you can live with that choice then I don’t know that I will have any sympathy when history judges you harshly. If you do believe in god, may your god show you mercy for the choices you have made.

Be well and fight hate.

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