Taking Real Steps To Protect Transgender Kids: A Bridge Too Far For The LGB Com

[Shana A]

Taking Real Steps To Protect Transgender Kids: A Bridge Too Far For The LGB Community?

by Guest Author on August 25, 2013

Guest author Brynn Tannehill asks, "What happened when we threw a victory party and no one came?"

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/taking-real-steps-to-protect-transgender-kids-a-bridge-to-far-for-the-lgb-community/politics/2013/08/25/73766

Earlier this month, the transgender community achieved a seemingly improbable win. Governor Jerry Brown of California signed AB 1266 (The School Success and Opportunity Act) into law. The fact that this was a bill directly aimed at the transgender community only was remarkable in itself. Bills for transgender people, much less a subset of the transgender population, usually are DOA (see GENDA in NY for details). Facilitating its success was the fact that many different organizations actively worked to see its passage. Sponsors of the bill included the ACLU, NCLR, Equality California, Gender Spectrum, GSA Network, and the Transgender Law Center.

[...]

However, if getting the bill passed and signed into law was like taking out the Death Star, the aftermath was "The Empire Strikes Back." Fox News and CNN both trained their guns on the transgender community. Their satellite networks became platforms for an orbital bombardment of anti-transgender misinformation and animus. Adam Housely on Fox News. Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. Sean Hannity of Fox News. CNN legal analyst Paul Callan.  Fox host Martha MacCallum hosting Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council. Mike Huckabee on Fox. Fox and Friends piling on and opining that being transgender is so crazy it is unfathomable. Greg Gutfeld filling in on Bill O'Reily's show. CNN host Brooke Baldwin invited on certified hate group leader Randy Thomasson, and allowed him to openly insult her other guest, Masen Davis, the executive director of the Transgender Law Center. Steve Doocy on Fox promoted the baseless allegation that the law will lead to more sexual assaults. (h/t to Media Matters.)

It's almost as if the right wingers decided they can't beat up on lesbians and gays anymore (and get away with it), and they decided they needed a new straw man to vilify and blame for everything that they see as wrong with America. They need a group they can abuse all they want in perfect safety because they know no one would ever feel sympathetic towards them. If only the right wingers would let slip that this really is their plan.

Oh, wait. They did. Last week. Twice.

[suzifrommd]

It's going to be a long hard road. But I'm really pleased the debate has been started. We're not going to win by stealth. We're only going to win electoral victories after a debate that humanizes us and convinces people of our point of view. This is the first step.

But we need to take on the hatemongers. We can't let them define us.