Hate in America is alive and well

January 4, 2017 9:35 AM

The LGBT movement, like every other battle for civil rights, is not a simple, straightforward march toward liberation. In the coming years, as being labeled a racist or bigot is falsely equated with acting out of racism or bigotry, as evidence of hate and its terrible outcomes is clouded by self-interested suspicion and denial — it’s worth remembering that in 2016, love did not trump hate. A Buzzfeed piece uses the 1998 Matthew Shepard murder as the focal point of a longform piece on how far we've come - or not.
posted by AFABulous (17 comments total)

Good article. Just one correction: When she tells New York friends about joggers in Wyoming who are sometimes presumed murdered because their bodies are so badly mutilated (most of the time, they’re just the victims of mountain lions) she does so with bubbly nonchalance.

Mountain lion attacks are extremely rare. As a matter of fact, according to Wikipedia, there has not been a single death by cougar (same thing) in Wyoming in approximately 50 years.
posted by kozad at 10:38 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is a critical issue and becoming good allies (for me a learning curve as I work to contain my white cis-gendered and basically non binary male privilege) is so important. There is so much work to be done, especially in identifying when and how to be active. My slight quibble with the idea that love did not trump hate is to remember and remind that Hillary won the popular vote by 2.8 million and thus a majority of voters did choose some kind of better love than the other side.
posted by Charles_Swan at 10:46 AM on January 4, 2017 [3 favorites]

Just came across this page today: LGBT legislation around the country (ACLU). Four states introduced bathroom bills (or are about to): KY, MO, VA, SC.
posted by AFABulous at 11:07 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

And related: Hate crime laws in the United States, with a handy map for reference (Wikipedia).
posted by filthy light thief at 11:11 AM on January 4, 2017

I've been involved in queer activism since the early 90s and I'll never get used to the vitriol. Within the past couple weeks, a gay trans male friend was punched in the face (he is routinely harassed on the street) and I just went through a protracted discussion with HR after someone complained about my presence in the men's room at work. Relevant sign.
posted by AFABulous at 11:22 AM on January 4, 2017 [12 favorites]

In regards to where we are in terms of the arc of history, Noam Chomsky & Harry Belafonte talked about this for a Democracy Now! 20 year celebration in December 2016. They don't talk about gender identity, but Noam Chomsky did say:

And there have been many advances and achievements: women’s rights, civil rights generally, rights of gays, opposition to aggressions way—environmental concerns didn’t even exist at that time. There’s been tremendous progress. That means that struggles today start from a much higher plane than they did not many years ago. At the time when Harry was marching in Selma, it was a much harsher world than it is today. The reason is that plenty of people did commit themselves to constant, dedicated struggle, and there were plenty of achievements.

Emphasis mine - if you look at PBS' Timeline: Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement, there are significant gaps in positive progress, with some even more significant steps backwards starting in the 1950s. For a much longer and broader look, the Wikipedia timeline of LGBT history might help further put our current day in a different perspective. I know articles like these are biased towards current events, as they are more readily documented online, and thus easier to verify and reference, but jump down to the 20th Century and see how much has happened in the last few decades. There are a number of "notable firsts" through the 1940s for lesbian and gay publications, including first gay and lesbian stories published with a happy ending.

Yet I agree that this is another dark period in history.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:28 AM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

Texas has a bathroom bill on the docket, too. I need to get in the habit of calling my state legislature to harass them about this, too. Oh, oh, oh, my heart.

I was born in 1990, and when Matthew Shepherd died I wasn't even allowed to know that gay people existed, let alone that the murder had happened. Until this summer, I felt... I felt almost safe, like there was a long battle ahead of us but that despite being visibly queer and perceived as gay by most people I meet... I felt more like it was my job to push back and guard for more protection as a trans ally than that I had to fight for these things for my own protection.

After this summer, I don't feel that way any more. I don't think it's sunk in to my family, though, so... thank you for sharing this. I will be demanding that people read it quite widely. I have already shared it in one place with the text "If you love me, read this." and I intend to make others.
posted by sciatrix at 11:29 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Mountain lion attacks are extremely rare.

It's poorly phrased, but, from what I have read, mountain lions actually eat a lot of carrion, so maybe that's what was meant. Badly mutilated corpses are generally the product of animals consuming bits of the body after death, if I remember right.
posted by maxsparber at 11:44 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

There’s been tremendous progress. That means that struggles today start from a much higher plane than they did not many years ago.

I am reminded of how, at least according to the dates on Wikipedia's Jewish emancipation article, equality in many places and in many respects had only just been achieved for Jews within living memory when the Nuremberg Laws and the Holocaust happened.
posted by XMLicious at 12:31 PM on January 4, 2017

I phoned Terry McAuliffe's office today to let him know that if Virginia's bathroom bill passes, I will not visit Virginia, spend money in Virginia, or even drive through Virginia if at all possible as long as the law remains in effect. McAuliffe is a Democrat and is unlikely to sign the bill anyway, but I don't want it to even get to his desk. The clerk I spoke to was on my side.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:30 PM on January 4, 2017

Four states introduced bathroom bills (or are about to): KY, MO, VA, SC.

Texas, too, along with O'Connor's ruling that discrimination in healthcare is totally A-okay and a few bills that would nullify both city-specific nondiscrimination protections and void same-sex marriages by just ignoring any federal laws the state finds distasteful. Missouri and Tennessee are also gearing up for anti-LGBT laws.

It's going to be a bad year.

Also, this is a nitpick in an otherwise good piece, but Julie Bindel is a TERF and citing the report of someone active in hate groups in an essay on hate feels weird even if the report is relevant.
posted by byanyothername at 2:02 PM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

People think of hate crimes as violent but I'd gladly take a boot stomping if these insidious bills would go away. Over the next week, count the number of times you had use a public bathroom, including where you work, and imagine none of that was possible, or that you were putting yourself at risk of attack or arrest if you did. A slightly different exercise: every time you have to go to the bathroom, ask a random stranger for permission. That's literally what I had to do with HR. I talked to FOUR people, three of whom I'd never met, before they decided it was fine for me to use the correct bathroom. And there is no law here (pro- or anti-). But bathroom bills somewhere raise the visibility of the issue everywhere.

I also spent a good part of the last week arguing with my insurance company whether they'll cover my surgery, therapy, endocrinologist visits and hormones. They can't deny coverage because you're a certain race or religion, and most people agree that that's wrong (or at least know it's illegal), but they think it's A-OK if you're trans.

It's fucking insidious. Just give me the boot stomping, thanks.
posted by AFABulous at 3:32 PM on January 4, 2017 [12 favorites]

I knew we still had a lot of work to do when "allies" condemned a trans woman activist for "heckling" Obama.
posted by Brocktoon at 5:42 PM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]

Expecting another fight in Georgia to add to the list. Last year's bill got vetoed because of the outcry over HB1 in North Carolina, and companies like Disney do a lot of business here.

Although one of the best comments regarding HB1 is that anyone who calls it a "bathroom bill" has clearly never read it.

My historical analysis is that it's the same bigotry with a different legal doctrine. Before Obergefell, discrimination could be justified via a rational basis for promoting heterosexual marriage. With the supreme court's rejection of that rational basis, conservatives are turning to gender panic and freedom of conscience as a legal doctrine for defending discrimination.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:03 PM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

As a Texan, I really, really hope the bill bouncing around Austin is really just for show and not something they intend to pass.

You see this, even when Republicans have control, because they're wed to the bigots for electoral power, but they also understand that letting the bigots drive legislation means a heavy cost from the non-bigot world. Georgia saw it coming, and their governor vetoed the bathroom bill there. NC passed theirs, and they're reaping the whirlwind.

In fact, if it weren't for the Trump thing, I'd be almost willing to BET that Gov. Abbott wouldn't sign such a bill, since the North Carolina situation could be used for cover, even though Abbott is a worthless shitheel of the first order.

But now, post-Trump? It's just a hope.

(And in states with little in the way of outside investment, like Mississippi? Yeah, expect those bills to pass and stay in force until and unless they're litigated away.)
posted by uberchet at 11:46 AM on January 5, 2017

@KoltenParker: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick opens press conference on so-called "bathroom bill" by quoting Martin Luther King Jr.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:57 AM on January 5, 2017

The thing that is really pissing me off about the framing and reporting is that republicans think they are fucking great magicians, "oh look at the bathrooms! Protect our children!" In the other hand is the rest of the bill, what the legislation also does: strip documentation, force misgendering, punish equality on the local level. It's not even fine print, it's there in reasonably plain English. And it is fucking amazing no-one seems to notice how bad they are at the short con they are pulling. They are anti trans, or anti LGBTQ bills using transphobia to get support.

Evidently Hidden Figures explains the cost of segregated restroom access. But that's not the only hateful part of this legislation.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 4:58 PM on January 6, 2017