Some people in the system understand, correctly, that othered people are vulnerable to promises of acceptance, whatever purpose that acceptance might be serving. There are then those whose pragmatism doesn’t survive their prejudice and hand the othered people to the others. There isn’t a clean cut line of that across political sides either.
Yeah i get that, and that’s a conversation worth having. I don’t want to come off as dismissing critiques of homonationalism, respectability politics, tokenism etc. and i hope it goes without saying that i stand firm in my stance against imperialism, western chauvinism, and militarism. I’m just arguing for putting all of that in a proper context and to not let pinkwashing do what it is intended to do, achieve an identification of imperialism with queer rights that does not hold up to reality.
If nothing else, the current US government and the general liberal establishment showed that none of that was sincere at any level, not only were the liberals quick to abandon trans people, they were quick to do so with few notable exceptions. It’s still then hard to distinguish and discern those whose care is genuine and whose pragmatism is stronger than their prejudice. It feels like whomever was writing the article in the OP was one of the true believers in the mandate of heaven, it has been lost.
Yeah the way trans rights are negotiated now has been a game for the political class and we’re not players on team lib, we’re the ball. I was planning my name change when my government contorted itself into a pretzel over a new self ID law, i applied for coverage of my bottom surgery when our courts ruled that there’s no actual legal obligation to cover it, i’m used to getting stabbed in the back by libs.
Exactly, that’s why I didn’t intend to push you into a corner of defending what’s going on with pinkwashing or homonationalism or whatever else, that’s not a side you are picking. Rather, it is still important to realize that there are people who are very aware of those same dynamics you have listed and they are utilizing that proactively to conscript people to their ideologies. It is most important to realize this for anyone who is vulnerable for acceptance so that their vulnerability isn’t a mechanism to draft them towards ends unwittingly. It wasn’t long ago that the line in the OP actually worked to a degree and was even adopted as an aesthetic by some circles in wide variety of topics from Middle-east to Ukraine to even electoral politics. One only benefits from concessions given my the establishment if they have leverage against any of those concessions being withdrawn once given. Opposite is true for especially trans people who rely on state to provide them health care, where disempowering is trivial and it is only, at its best, a feel good campaign for some parts of the electorate who have qualms about everything else. I say this as someone who puts primary importance to queer liberation in politics, possibly to a degree that could come off as callous.
Some people in the system understand, correctly, that othered people are vulnerable to promises of acceptance, whatever purpose that acceptance might be serving. There are then those whose pragmatism doesn’t survive their prejudice and hand the othered people to the others. There isn’t a clean cut line of that across political sides either.
Yeah i get that, and that’s a conversation worth having. I don’t want to come off as dismissing critiques of homonationalism, respectability politics, tokenism etc. and i hope it goes without saying that i stand firm in my stance against imperialism, western chauvinism, and militarism. I’m just arguing for putting all of that in a proper context and to not let pinkwashing do what it is intended to do, achieve an identification of imperialism with queer rights that does not hold up to reality.
If nothing else, the current US government and the general liberal establishment showed that none of that was sincere at any level, not only were the liberals quick to abandon trans people, they were quick to do so with few notable exceptions. It’s still then hard to distinguish and discern those whose care is genuine and whose pragmatism is stronger than their prejudice. It feels like whomever was writing the article in the OP was one of the true believers in the mandate of heaven, it has been lost.
Yeah the way trans rights are negotiated now has been a game for the political class and we’re not players on team lib, we’re the ball. I was planning my name change when my government contorted itself into a pretzel over a new self ID law, i applied for coverage of my bottom surgery when our courts ruled that there’s no actual legal obligation to cover it, i’m used to getting stabbed in the back by libs.
Exactly, that’s why I didn’t intend to push you into a corner of defending what’s going on with pinkwashing or homonationalism or whatever else, that’s not a side you are picking. Rather, it is still important to realize that there are people who are very aware of those same dynamics you have listed and they are utilizing that proactively to conscript people to their ideologies. It is most important to realize this for anyone who is vulnerable for acceptance so that their vulnerability isn’t a mechanism to draft them towards ends unwittingly. It wasn’t long ago that the line in the OP actually worked to a degree and was even adopted as an aesthetic by some circles in wide variety of topics from Middle-east to Ukraine to even electoral politics. One only benefits from concessions given my the establishment if they have leverage against any of those concessions being withdrawn once given. Opposite is true for especially trans people who rely on state to provide them health care, where disempowering is trivial and it is only, at its best, a feel good campaign for some parts of the electorate who have qualms about everything else. I say this as someone who puts primary importance to queer liberation in politics, possibly to a degree that could come off as callous.