As someone who grew up in a conservative household in a deep red state, I think that part of it is that a lot of people are letting Lizard Brain dictate their response to transgender people.
Let me give you a personal example. A while back, I went to a social dance, and there was a trans woman there. Before the dance starts proper, the couple that runs it will teach a dance lesson, and we rotate partners while that’s going on. Eventually, I was rotated into being her partner. For some background, she was obviously early on in her transition; she still looked like a dude in a dress, she didn’t quite have the appearance down yet. But she gets huge props for not only having the bravery to go out as herself, but doing it in fucking Arkansas.
So I rotate over to her, and it dawns on me that she’s trans. In my head, Lizard Brain immediately starts screaming. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! THIS PERSON IS OBVIOUSLY A DUDE IN A DRESS, HE MUST BE UP TO SOMETHING IF HE’S DRESSING AS SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN WHAT HE IS! RABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLE”
Keep in mind, where I grew up, you just didn’t see trans people, and even now, it still tickles that primal part of my brain that was trained to be uncomfortable around people who aren’t white and straight.
The difference between me and many of the people I grew up around is that I recognize that it’s happening and try to tone Lizard Brain out when it starts screaming. A lot of other people listen to it and don’t care that the person that it’s screaming about is exactly that: a person.
ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Because stirring up hate against vulnerable minorities, by positioning them as a threat is a well tested and effective technique for power hungry politicians to gain and retain power. And it’s effective, because it works by pulling people in and making all of the conversation about whether or not it’s right to hate on the group they’re targeting.
Don_Dickle@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The more I read these comments it sound like the USA is entering its Hitler phase.
ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
They very much are…
Keeponstalin@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
We certainly are
scarabic@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Hell we used to genocide and enslave the people we looked down on. Talking ill of them on Fox News is a step up, my friend.
resin85@lemmy.ca 4 weeks ago
faena.com/…/umberto-eco-a-practical-list-for-iden…
The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.” Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.” Appeal to social frustration. “[…] one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.
The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
Machismo and Weaponry. “This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”
Selective Populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
Xanis@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It is also exceedingly important to note that plenty on the Right don’t explicitly hate Trans people. That’s a rhetoric. They may be worried about some of the news “reports” and “”“stories”“”, had to triple quote that one, and yes the radical Right and MAGA do buy in hard and hate due to racial and superiority bullshit. What so many on the Right who are on the fence about these things are truly scared of…
Is having an opinion that deviates from the people around them who they’ve known probably all their lives. Unlike us on the Left who hiss and spit at one another every time one of us has a family gathering, many on the Right fear alienating their social circles.
If you ever want to change the mind of someone on the Right you really just need to soothe their rabid, horrid, twisted by those around them, frothing soul of an angry jackass and make them feel as if they can actually believe something else could be the truth.
But by GOD can it be tiring.
Pacmanlives@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Spot on. The fucking bathroom issue I keep hearing kills me. They are in there to take a shit Karen not to pass you brownies though the stalls and play a game of peak a boo above the stalls
HawlSera@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I still don’t understand their claims that bathroom segregation makes anyone “safer”
Do they think there’s some kind of law on the books that says “Anyone who matches the gender on the sign can diddle anyone inside they want!” cause that’s how they act…
Personally I find it silly that bathrooms are segregated at all when stalls exist.