https://www.vox.com/scotus/202...sutton-sixth-circuit

It pisses me off.

A philosopher (Hobbes?) stated that the best way to unify a people is to give them something to hate. That gives them something in common.
The Republicans have been using that to advantage for a long time.

I think Chas is correct. Trans people are having their turn in the spotlight of hate because they have fought for and earned a tiny bit of cultural visibility. This makes them a target that bigots get some mileage out of striking.

Layer that on top of a long history among bigots in our culture of finding trans people simultaneously entertaining, disgusting, and frightening (and they're especially frightening for those who are suppressing any idea that they might not be 100% cis-het), and you've got a powder keg that is very dangerous for anybody who doesn't present in an exaggeratedly cis-het way.

I have a friend who is a groundbreaking queer studies scholar in my tiny corner of literary criticism. He has written some interesting stuff about the ways that cis-het people get "dragged up" in an ostentatiously gendered way.

Faux cowboy gear on a guy driving his humongous pickup truck into the parking lot at Trader Joe, perhaps?

Daniel, I agree. All of the concentrated efforts at oppression are beyond infuriating.

MA,

quote:

ways that cis-het people get "dragged up" in an ostentatiously gendered way.

Faux cowboy gear on a guy driving his humongous pickup truck into the parking lot at Trader Joe, perhaps?

Am I understanding correctly that "dragged up" means ways that cis-het people perform stereotypical, and exaggerated, masculinity?

When put that way, maybe all of gender-performance (whether high heels or cowboy boots) is drag ...

I mean, who wants to wear such uncomfortable shoes anyway?!

/threaddrifft

people feel threatened by things they don't understand. unfortunately it's very hard to get them to understand.

i was very upset recently when a fb friend posted an incredibly hateful anti-lgbtq meme on her page.

i called her on it, publicly, to the point of shaming her. so did plenty of her other friends, including telling her it was not very christian of her.

she private messaged me that she had taken it down, that she loved me, and hoped we could agree to disagree.

i wrote back to explain that she was attacking my family, that one of my uncles had gone to jail for being gay when he was a teenager and how it had traumatized him, and that i know for a fact that a number of people she knows and loves are trans, they just don't feel safe revealing it.

she shut me down by simply replying we would have to agree to disagree.

i don't know how you reach someone like that. her mind has been infected by some church she goes to.

When my friend uses "dragged up," it's in the sense of performing gender to the exaggerated degree you describe, even when you're performing the gender you were assigned at birth.

He particularly writes about a character in several of Agatha Christie's books, Countess Vera Rossakoff. Christie never makes it clear that she is really a Countess fleeing the Russian Revolution, as she claims to be, or even that she is really Russian.

She makes her entrances and exits in a swirl of sables and maybe they're real. Poirot thinks so. She wears pearls that may be real. Poirot thinks they are. She is outrageously curvaceous and maybe the curves are real. Poirot obviously thinks so. She receives Poirot and Hastings while wearing an outrageous negligee for the day. She blows smoke rings. She steals jewels. She is a spy for whatever government will hire her.

Poirot, whom we never see in a relationship with anybody, is entranced by the "Countess." He says, "What a woman!" He stumbles when she's in the room. He buys her an extravagant bouquet of roses and tells his secretary that there are times when one doesn't economize.

However, pretty much everything she has said and done has been a lie, so on what basis would anybody presume that they know whether she is a cis or trans woman? All we know about her is what she wants us to know, and it is that she puts on an elaborate show of femininity. In other words, she is in drag.

Saw a huge pickup truck with a large sticker in the rear window.
It said, "COMPENSATING". I think that says a lot.

Hahahahahaha!

MA, the info about the Countess is really interesting, thanks for all the details!!

And yes, I like the expression dragged up too! Very useful.

Pique, I think your FB friend's definition of "agree to disagree" must mean "please don't think badly of me for my bigotry" or something.

“Burning down your neighbors house doesn’t make yours look any better”

But a lot of folks think it does.

It is amazing how far so many "Christian" religions have strayed from the teachings of Jesus.

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
It is amazing how far so many "Christian" religions have strayed from the teachings of Jesus.

+1

quote:

Originally posted by rontuner:
It is amazing how far so many "Christian" religions have strayed from the teachings of Jesus.

I know!

I have never seen anything in scripture that says a person has to remain their sex assigned at birth.

I also see nothing in scripture that says a person can't change anything else about their body that they want to change.

These alleged Christians ought to go after something that makes more sense. They should outlaw cosmetic plastic surgery. I mean, if God made you ugly, then it should be illegal to change your appearance.

After all, if everyone is smokin' hot, there will be more adultery. Am I right?

It's actually more clear than that....

Perhaps you remember the story of 'the adultress'. This was a person outside of the religion, but the Pharisees caught her and wanted to apply their religious rules to her - that she should be put to death by stoning.

Jesus's response was to challenge that the one without sin should cast the first stone. In other words, use religious teachings to judge only oneself - not others!

Why so many 'Christians' choose to emulate the Pharisees is another mystery...