Weāre in this together, and we need to stick together.
Donāt abandon your comrades!
An injustice somewhere is an injustice everywhere.
āFreedom is merly privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and allā
- Internationale
no one of us can be free until everybody is free
Maya Angelou, from memory, so assume a paraphrase.
Iām often skeptical of the idea of intersectionality. Trying to lump people who are black, queer, atheist, immigrants, feminists, etc. in one big group and have them fight for each otherās rights isnāt going to work super well, and any division can just detail the whole effort.
But the T in LGBT has been there since the very early days of the gay rights movement. Trans people were not just there at Stonewall, they were the crux of the riots, for fuckās sake! I grew up when people were literally trying to erase gay people from existence - the whole āis it a choice vs. are you born gay?ā debate, which was both insulting and not important (oh, if itās a choice, then itās fine for you to oppress someone?) was erasure. Gay-erasure was a thing, everyone. Bi-erasure has been a thing for ages! Now I see the same thing happening to trans folks, and itās like a bunch of people are either forgetting it or willfully ignoring history.
Itās not even just about what this comic is saying, i.e., if you let them come for people who are trans, then soon theyāll come for you. Even if I knew 100% gay marriage was not under threat AT ALL, Iād still support the trans community, because itās not a tit-for-tat when someoneās existence is at stake! Sure, we need to convince the public, sure itās hard and sure, there are some small (VERY small in terms of numbers) issues like trans athletes and regretful transitioners that maybe need some working through or compromises, just as gay marriage had to start with civil unions before the public accepted āmarriage.ā But itās worth fighting for!
Okay, rant over, especially with me knowing Lemmy is fine with trans folks, yāall are good peeps, I just felt angry about this today.
and any division can just detail the whole effort.
that is their goal, thatās the reason we need intersectionality, divided we get the boot