CREDIT: YouTube/Screenshot
It just never stops. There are always more willfully ignorant, evil-minded bigots out there, just salivating at the opportunity to cause harm.
The Conservative Republicans of Texas, which has already been named a hate group for its rhetoric, has launched what it’s calling “Campaign for USA” — modeled after their “Campaign for Houston.” It uses the same ad from the Houston campaign, which shows a little girl being stalked by a man in a bathroom, but the spot now targets Target for the retail giant’s inclusive bathroom policy.
[…]
The Campaign for USA website claims that by allowing guests to use restrooms and changing facilities that match their gender identity, “This means that any man can say he feels like a woman and use the women’s bathroom or dressing room at Target. Just because a man feels like and thinks he is a women [sic], does not make him a woman, any more than thinking he is a dog, would make him a dog, even if he walked on all fours and barked.” The site then links to an article about pup play, a kink found in the gay community that has nothing to do with gender identity.
“The whole concept of ‘transgender’ of course is absurd and irrational,” the site insists. “Those who practice this behavior or enable it have adopted perverted thinking.”
In case the Campaign’s perspective is not clear, the site continues to drive home the point:
The term transgender is a euphemism, a weaker alternative, for the term pervert, in order to make the behavior seem more acceptable. Men who dress up like women and want to use women’s bathrooms, showers and locker rooms are sexual deviants and perverts. The LGBT homosexual political movement wants to force society, under the penalty of law, to accept, affirm as normal, and celebrate the perverted homosexual lifestyle and the deviant behavior of men who claim to be women. The goal of the LGBT is to destroy all Biblical moral absolutes and create sexual anarchy in society. The LGBT political movement wants it mandated that this wicked lifestyle be taught to children in school, starting in Kindergarten, and that children be encouraged to experiment with homosexual and transvestite behavior. The goal is to break down the children’s consciences, so that they can more easily be recruited into the homosexual lifestyle.
It proceeds to start citing Bible verses, promising that rather than “affirm and celebrate homosexual behavior and other forms of sexual perversion,” they will “proclaim the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” to the LGBT community “so that they may be saved from the penalty of their sin and walk in the light of God’s word.”
[…]
The anti-Target ad will nevertheless run across Texas for three months, costing the Campaign $2 million. Jared Woodfill, president of the campaign, promised, “We’re not going to let this go. We’re going to continue to fight this battle until Target changes their policy or goes out of business.” That could be a very long time.
Wow, this post fills out several bigot bingo cards at once. That’s almost impressive.
Interesting. He starts the conversation off about gender variance and now it becomes a conversation about sexual desire. Projection? I think somebody is frustrated that a trans woman confoosed his fee fees.
Wow, yeah, BINGO.
Also, recruiting children into the homosexual lifestyle, how is that supposed to happen again? And since it seems to be happening at a frightening pace, when is the gay army finally going to take over the USofA? I’m kind of looking forward to that…
rq:
Phhhfffft. Siobhan and I haven’t even gotten our gay agendas yet. *taps foot* How can we have an army without our agendas?
Also, this:
I am really getting past tired of this -- it is still all about the Holy Penis™ regardless of what hormone therapy may have done to that particular member, or whether or not that member is now gone, and there is a *gasp* vagina there now, in spite of the fact that a transgender woman is a woman, no need to go poking about in the pants at all.
There’s rarely a word about transgender men, because there’s no need to worry about them, because women, and they never count anyway.
The same old sexism and misogyny rages along underneath this new narrative.
Shiv:
I have what Anne Elk would call a theory (so, a hypothesis): The more they conflate trans issues with gay and lesbian issues, the more they damage their own argument.
There is still lots of cleanup to do, and there will always be metaphorical people in caves on Pacific islands who keep fighting until they die, but in the big culture war over gays and lesbians, the good guys have won. The war may not be over, but the credits are rolling. The vast majority of USAians, even those who ten years ago were firmly against same sex marriage, now understand that gays and lesbians are not a threat. And that majority continues to grow. So go ahead, Conservative Republicans of Texas (a name that’s so on the nose I’m almost embarrassed to type it), keep bringing gays into the story when talking about how dangerous trans people are. Because every time you support bigotry against gays, a transgender bigot’s wings fall off.
Caine
It’s true, it’s hard to organize a good campaign without an actual agenda. Well, good luck with the planning! :)
Correction: “a transgender bigot’s [buffalo] wings fall off [the table and into the dirt and is stolen by seagulls]”.
“They” also attempt to conflate those issues with pedophilia, which doesn’t just damage the argument, it riddles it full of big holes below the waterline.
The argument might be damaged when it comes to people who are at least willing to think, but this seriously underestimates the depth of profound bigotry out there. Yesterday, I was reading an article about a judge in Georgia who refused to allow a name change for a transgender man, and made the mistake of reading the comments (click the ’78’ in the upper right of the page, on the top bar), and it’s truly disheartening to see so many people calling this person IT and things like ‘vaginavagrant’, and much more.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/georgia-judge-refuses-change-transgender-mans-name/nrdd4/
For these people, they are heartened by such awful campaigns, they are agreeing, nodding along, and cheering such efforts on. I know we all want to see such people go down in flames of shame, but that’s not really what’s happening. And even among those who aren’t already bigoted, there are way too many people who are completely ignorant when it comes to trans anything, and find such campaigns to be plausible, so they believe it. There are still a lot of people who think all gay men are pedophiles, or at least, a majority of them, and look how many years have been spent in efforts to debunk that one.
Johnny Vector:
The acronym is certainly appropriate: CROT. ConRot is even better.
And in the unlikely event that Target does go out of business, what about every other business that, like Target, allows transgender people to use the facilities with which they identify? The list of tolerant companies is extensive and growing.
See http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/corporate-equality-index
These bigots are not satisfied with simply boycotting; they feel the need to prevent other people from patronizing stores of their choice.