It Could Happen Here - The New Wave of Queer Exterminationist Rhetoric

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

We talk Jordan Peterson's anti-trans supervillain monologue and the past month of increasing rhetoric around queer exterminationism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

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This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iheart.com slash podcast awards. That's iheart.com slash podcast welcome to it could happen here the podcast that's increasingly about things that are actually kind of already happening um and today it's going to be it's going to be one of those

we're talking about in the kind of the uptick in rhetoric around queer exterminationism that's happened most of the stuff is what this is is discussions and legislative proposal and rhetoric that was really kicked off last month during Pride Month, specifically because of the Roe v. Wade ruling that really opened the door on a few not good possibilities. But because we're gonna be talking about some more grim stuff today, we're going to open with something slightly more funny. And that's friend of the pod, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. Now, with me today is Chris and James. Greetings.

Hi. hi so peterson he got he got really mad at elliot page um and now does not really have a twitter account and it's pretty funny uh and a few days after he was banned for continuing to misgender elliot page he released a video that can only be described as a supervillain monologue, um, as, as a part of his new partnership with daily wire plus the hit new streaming service. Um, and just because I think it's funny,

we're just gonna, we're just gonna play a few clips of, of this, of this evil supervillain monologue because it's really funny. And then it'll circle back to kind of our topic towards the end. So speaking of Friend of the Pod Peterson, here's our... One of the clips that you've probably already heard if you're terminally online, but it's incredibly funny.

If I'm required to acknowledge that my tweet violated the Twitter rules. What rules, you sons of bitches? Ah, good old Peterson. You know, the thing I've always been sort of like, that clip in particular. I don't know if I was trying. I don't know if I could emulate just's sounding like you've edited together 16 clips i know right my tweet violated the twitter rules it's like it's his speech pattern is so bizarre and also like in the in the video was like nine minutes long like preceding that line he explained what rule he broke around misgendering and harassment

so like he he explained the exact rule oh but we always get more peterson if you ask for it up yours woke moralists we'll see who cancels who? Oh, extremely funny. He's actually sneering as well, if you watch the video. Like, his whole face just... Yeah, he is going all in on the bit. He's doing, like, Ozymandias, but hammed up. It's frankly impressive. This one's also a decent one.

I am employing this awkward and impossible naming style because it is now apparently mandatory and I'm probably doing it wrong nonetheless as you're doing it wrong is the whole point of what has been made mandatory but also I'm trying to make a point. I've essentially been banned from Twitter as a consequence. I say banned, although technically I have been suspended. But the suspension will not be lifted unless I delete the hateful tweet in question, and I would rather die than do that. They would rather die. That means that you have a healthy relationship to the platform of twitter um there's also this this great clip of him talking about like i'm actually happy how my

twitter account is gone now twitter is insignificant in the final analysis and you're like what the fuck does that mean what what what final analysis are you talking about what do you what do you mean the final analysis analysis of what like what is oh uh it's it's pretty funny there's there's two more clips from this rant that i want to do which kind of are going to get more to the heart of our issue today. Great. They're not great. They actually are kind of, they kind of suck. So without further ado, here's our good doctor friend. And finally, with regard to the final phrase, criminal physician, I must say that I've had some post-coital, so to speak, regrets about that phrase.

It is clearly the case that the surgical operation performed by the butchers who butchered Elliot slash Ellen was legal. So was it criminal or not? Were the operations undertaken by the fascist physicians who carried out the Nazi medical experiments legal? Yes, under the laws of the time. But were they criminal? I'll leave that question up to you to answer. So that's pretty gross for a lot of reasons. One, the kind of historical context of using nazis to compare to your own uh transphobia is a little dicey when you consider how what the nazis did to trans people and to like queer books like yeah he's advocating for the nazi position here yeah was yeah great stuff there's been so many bans on queer books this like just in the past two years

uh the the library association tracked almost 1600 books that were challenged in 2021 the highest number since the organization began tracking book bans in the past 20 years so talk talking about like the nazi scientists they're like you like you have his his historical context of obviously is incredibly lacking or he's just a or he's just a grifter i think honestly he's just kind of i think he's just kind of lost it i i think i don't even think he's fully a grifter i think he's just kind of not understanding what's going on anymore um because you can watch like interviews and stuff where people can try to use reasoning and logic with him and you can watch his brain start to process it but it's just like otherwise he just doesn't think in any sort of logical manner or put his words or his like stream of consciousness

into any historical context he just says what he wants, and he's used to people just taking that as a fact. He's used to regurgitating bad Joseph Campbell and people being like, oh, yeah, you sound smart, when no, he's actually not. But man, it's, yeah, the whole Germany-Ni scientist experimentation thing is incredibly

incredibly frustrating um i i don't even know what else to like say about a say about that because i mean even that that line you could focus on for a while be like compare how like the history of medical documentation of like transness and the nazis how that's like such a big thing is that the nazis destroyed so much medical research on gender transitions losing like like decades and decades of research that we're only now starting to regain incredibly incredibly gross but there's this one one one last one last clip i wanted to play of of our of our good doctor and are we degenerate in a profoundly threatening manner i think the answer to that may well be yes so that's not great he really is like just advocating for the nazi position every turn like yes he's just continuing to advocate for fascistic reasoning,

fascistic views of decadence and degeneracy, in so much as it is a threat to civilization and a threat to Western society. And then he goes on in this clip to justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine, because the US is helping ukraine which makes ukraine degenerate by proxy so russia is doing a war on degeneracy and that's like that's his argument it's like that's his level of logical reasoning yeah which is funny because it's like if you ever heard any of the like radio because every once in a while there'll be radio clips of just like ukrainian russian soldiers yelling at each other and it's just both of them calling each other gay over and

over again it's just like really like is this oh uh we should one side is woke bring back that level of discourse to america well um we're to take a quick break, and then we will come back to talk about our other really close friend of the pod, Matthew Walsh. So stay tuned for that. Oh, God. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience

the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough, so join me every week to understand

what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else

you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast,

Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's the one with the green guy on it. you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Okay, I have one question for everyone here. What? How woman? What is that? Featherless biped.

Okay, great. Behold! A woman! So, we'll be talking about matt walsh um obviously last month he released uh a pretty poorly made transphobic documentary that was basically just clips of him getting owned by like actual doctors uh for not understanding like basic ontology and medical reasoning. The documentary was just a other friend of the pod, JK Rowling, just expressed support for the documentary. So if that's,

if that's not an indicator that like turfism is just like a direct preamble to open fascism, I don't know what is. Cause I mean, Matt, Matt Walsh jokingly describes himself as a fascist, but that's because his beliefs actually are fascistic. It's one of those jokes that only

is funny because everyone agrees on the central premise. It's that type of humor. So like, J.K. Rowling just endorsing an open fascist. I'm not going to talk about the documentary in depth here because it's not that good and it doesn't really make any points that need to be refuted. It talks about how like, it talks about how like, uh, how, uh, puberty blockers are, um,

sterilization, uh, uh, drugs, which is, is, is not the case case long term when you're on them yes you cannot you cannot do that because it's obviously inhibiting your your uh hormones but once you go off puberty blockers you can procreate again um which which also i i just i just want to take a second here to look at this position which is that okay so puberty blockers are sterilization things right or like okay so this is their argument is sterilization right who are you giving puberty blockers are sterilization things, right? Okay, so this is their argument. It's sterilization, right? Who are you giving puberty blockers to? Children. Why the fuck do you care?

That children... It's like, well, yeah, they're arguing. The argument is that it'll make them permanently sterilized. It's basically like, you're castrating these kids by giving them puberty blockers, which, no, that's not how that works. You're just arguing in bad faith. It doesn't doesn't matter but anyway i don't want to talk about the documentary in in length because it's not interesting enough to talk about uh but i will is this a documentary real quick is this the one where he like goes to like quote unquote the

country of africa and like asks people yeah and then poorly translates extremely racist um yeah yeah great to see jk rowling like known uh non-racist lining up yeah like behind these essentialist tropes of africa creator the creator of kingsley shacklebolt and joe chang joe chang yeah just the most cringe. Yeah. That's what we call a rich white woman moment. Yes. All right. So, but we are going to talk about some other things Matt Welch has been doing, specifically how he has increased exterminationist rhetoric into his discussions around trans people. So we're going to open by talking about detransitioners.

people so we're gonna open by talking about uh detransitioners so the the vast majority of real detransitions uh which are very rare like there's very few of them especially considering there's already very few numbers of trans people but isn't it like sub one percent or something yeah it's it's it's very very few um but the vast majority of people who do make the choice to detransition are usually due to experiencing aggressive transphobia and the idea of the detransitioner has been inflated and used as a straw man to attack the trans community just by and large with many documented cases of TERFs or far-right activists creating fake sock puppet accounts pretending to be detransitioners

to write horrifying but fictional stories. That happens a lot. There's a really famous case on Reddit of an alleged detransitioner who was found out to just be an alt-right troll. And this all really sucks, because the people who do detransition because they realize it's just not for them are generally pretty rad people who continue toransition because they realize it's just not for them are generally pretty rad people who continue to be very much pro-trans because they do understand the fluid nature of gender and gender expression

through this entire process. And anyways, when quote tweeting an alleged detransitioner expressing regret of medical decisions that they made, Matt Walsh said this, quote, We can't just oppose the transition of children. Yes, that's particularly evil, but it's also evil to do it to anyone of any age. This young woman was 19, a legal adult, when she was mutilated. Does that make it okay? Obviously not. Put it another way, it should be illegal for doctors to do this to anyone of any age. It should be illegal for anyone of any age to transition, period.

So, this demonstrates the jump from the rhetoric of no one should transition until they're an adult, to no one should be allowed to transition at all. And it came just as quickly as the trans community was telling you it would. This jump is not a big one. It is very easy to say no hormones until you're 18 to saying no hormones at all. And that's what we're entering into. Walsh's rhetoric is increasingly exterminationist and eliminationist, just saying that all of his preferred policies would result in the total prohibition of trans identity and the criminalization of any gender-affirming care. These people are fundamentally opposed to having any agency of your own body, whether that's hormones, whether that's abortion, right?

All of these people get mad just when they see someone with colored hair. Like, they don't like someone's ability to have bodily autonomy. That's one of their core politics. And you see this a lot, especially when it comes to, like, trans men, because there's this notion that their bodies exist in service of cis straight men, right? And anything that gets in the way of that is an attack on cis men in general and all of patriarchal society. It's very much like regular misogyny, but with an added bonus of transphobia. Conservative activist Christopher Ruffo made a tweet a few days ago with a picture of Elliot Page pre-transition with a caption that

says, this is what they took from you, right? It's like this notion that their bodies belong to you, a cis man, and by them choosing to change their bodies as they see fit, that's an attack on their body's access to you. It redoes a whole bunch of misogyny, it does a whole bunch of really bad transphobia. It's a really gross package, but it hits on a lot of points of this type of patriarchal conservative brain. And I think this even carries out

into hatred of trans women as, you know, as trans women are seen as predators, so they hate trans women to protect cis women, right? Like, it's all of this, like, possession, right? It's this possession of the body of a female, so you need to protect it against the creepy trans women, right? It's like, it's all of this idea of, like, owning women's bodies is essential to a lot of these ideas of transphobia. So, we're going to see a lot more stuff about how it's going to change from no hormones, no transition until you're 18, to no hormones, no transition until you're 25, to no hormones, and no transition at all. This past year, we've seen

many proposed felony health care bans for trans youth. Said bills have passed in multiple states like Alabama, which means that it's going to forcibly detransition teens across the state. In Missouri, there's a similar bill in the works titled the Save Adolescents from Experimentation Act, which currently applies to individuals younger than 18. But Missouri physicians and healthcare providers under the bill would be prevented from recommending gender-affirming care to patients who are under 18. And there has already been discussion in legislative sessions to extend the bill past the age of 18. While debating the bill seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care, some lawmakers suggested that the medical interventions like hormones be withheld

from transgender and non-binary individuals until they're 25 years old. And during a public hearing for the House Bill 2649, a psychologist, Lori Hayes, testified that she believes young adults under the age of 25 are unable to fully comprehend the dramatic and drastic and irreparable quote-unquote changes to their bodies that will they will undergo if they receive gender-affirming medical treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapies also while testifying hayes uh the psychologist said that she supported conversion therapy so that's surprising to nobody uh or it shouldn't be it also takes those people to the point where they're not necessarily eligible for their parents health care right so like i think 26 is the time when you can when you're two or you age out yeah so it's it's again like it's a backdoor like

prohibition on transitioning for a lot of people yeah yes it's it's just trying to stop it at all it's you can't you can't take their word for it they just yeah they just don't want you around that's it like they want you to to kill yourself they or they want you just to go away or not be trans like that's that's that's what they want it's obviously i going to do a few, just a journal of American medical associations found that gender affirming healthcare include including puberty blockers and hormones between the ages of 13 and 20. It was associated with 60% lower odds of moderate or severe depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality. Another study published last year by the Trevor Project found that among transgender non-binary minors, hormone therapy associated with nearly 40% lower odds of recent depression

and suicide attempts. So they just want to ban the things that make you more likely to live, right? They just don't want you around. That's the actual message. So back to just kind of... Speaking of just not wanting you around, we're going to do some updates on Protect Texas Kids, the extremely transphobic, openly Christian fascist, their words, not mine, group based in Texas who organized a lot of events to harass either drag shows or

harass Pride events last month. Its leader, Kelly Niedert, that's how I'm going to say it, tweeted a few weeks ago, quote, let's start rounding up people who participate in Pride events. Huh.

I wonder what she means by that. I wonder what that means by that i wonder i wonder what i wonder what that means surely doesn't mean she just wants to kill all gay people oh oh it does okay um and another tweet from the main protect texas kids account was today's protest went well no children seemed to be in the drag show but there were a bunch of adults wearing mouse ears and watching the men dressed up as Disney princesses dance around. Totally normal and not weird, right? That's not the focus of their tweet. That's not the focus of what they want, right? Protecting kids, quote-unquote, is a cheap excuse just to want to hate gay people and want gay people to go away. That's all it is. We've been, like, it's worth kind of retreading the same ground here.

But, man, it's so, it is still frustrating how many people, like, fall for the bit. It's not about protecting kids. It's not about saving kids from groomers. You can look at all of the sexual abuse in evangelical churches, Catholic churches, Christian summer camps, whatever. It's not about protecting kids. They don't give a single fuck. It's about wanting gay people to go away. Now, both Kelly Niedertz and Protect Texas Kids accounts, which they used to organize their Christian fascist events, both of those got banned in mid-June. Kelly

has got banned for saying, let's start rounding up people who participate in Pride events. But this extends beyond Texas. This extends beyond Twitter.com, right? Obviously, these people were just using Twitter to organize, so it already extended out into the real world. But it's not just Texas either.

See, I think it's a congressional candidate, Mark Burns, who is a pro-Trump pastor, was running for South Carolina House District. He called for the execution of LGBTQ and trans people by using grooming rhetoric. And then he laid out exactly how executions could legally be done. So this type of like state enforced genocide. Let's play this. Let's play a clip. The LGBT transgender grooming our children's minds is a national security threat because it is ultimately designed to destabilize the Republic. We call the United States of America. That's why when I'm elected, I don't want to just vote. I want to start holding people accountable for treason to the Constitution.

I am going to push to reenact WHOAC. WHOAC is the House of Un-American Activities Committee. It was a real committee that was formulated back in the 50s and is a committee that we should reenact that starts holding these people accountable for treason. We need to hold people for treason, start having some public hearings and start executing people who are found guilty for their treasonous acts against the Constitution of the United States of America, just like they did back in 1776. You know what, South Carolina? This is our guy.

No. That was amazing, the way he misspoke and called it the House of Un-American Activities. It just sounds like a fun place. So that's not ideal, is it? That kind of sucks. Yeah, that seems bad. Yeah, that was really out there.

He's genocide advocating. It's just they're trying to mainstream the political ability to advocate genocide, right? And some of them it's not fully catching on yet, right? We're on the on-r ramp to this. The South Carolina pastor was defeated by the incumbent representative, William Timmons, in the GOP primary for the state's fourth congressional district.

24 of the vote so that's still a lot of people that's still a lot of people voting for that and that number i don't think it's going to shrink yeah and like it's also it's also worth noting that like everyone loses and like it is so unbelievably hard to beat an incumbent in primary like it just it's yeah so like like even even if he was just a normal guy with like regular politics he would have lost that election so still yeah yeah so it's not actually a referendum on his popularity like the popularity of what he's saying it's 24 of the vote yeah it's worth noting that like even here in southern california right where we's supposedly like very liberal we had a candidate for sheriff's office who is the was a deputy city attorney and was endorsed by the union tribune just openly spewing like transphobic groomer stuff uh yeah at public meetings and getting endorsed by the local newspaper they rescinded their endorsement later but this isn't just like a a red state thing

if people think that that is that no that's i's obviously that'd be a lot more common than people who run for sheriff who generally tend to be more conservative because they're running for sheriff um true all right well let's let's have an ad break and then we'll come back to talk about wait, talk about Roe v. Wade and the attack on future rights, including the ability to have same-sex relationships. Oh, wow. What a fun time we have today. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal tales from the shadows as part of my cultura podcast network available on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast hi i'm ed zitron host of the better offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into how texas elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people.

I swear to God, things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. All right. we are back. So after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, there was an immediate push for anti-gay and anti-trans legal challenges using

the same legal logic against the right to privacy based off of the traditions deeply rooted in our nation's history, quote unquote. So this was like undoubtedly going to happen, right? We've been proposing that this was a possibility for a while, but it was definitely made worse by Justice Clarence Thomas, friend of the pod, who argued in a concurring opinion that the Supreme Court should, quote, reconsider its past rulings codifying rights such as the right to use contraception, the right to have a same-sex relationship and same-sex marriage, invoking Griswold, Lawrence, and Oberfeld. Three cases having to do with Americans' fundamental

right to privacy, due process, and equal protection. Thomas wrote, quote, we have a duty to correct the error regarding these established in those precedents, which pretty grim, pretty grim framing there because that's a bad sign. And we are already seeing stuff like this in effect. Actually, we don't need to wait for the Supreme Court to make rulings. ruling, states are starting to do this exact thing. In an ongoing Alabama lawsuit that cites Dobbs overturning Roe v. Wade about medically detransitioning all trans teenagers, there is this deeply threatening turn of phrase, quote, no one adult or child has the right to transitioning treatments not deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition. Huh, huh, interesting how they put adult or child there.

Isn't that, isn't that intriguing? Yeah, and it's also fun how the deeply rooted in our nation's history thing is now just sort of like, here is the word that you say to let you do fascism. It's like, oh, hey, do you know what is deeply rooted in our nation's tradition and history? Shooting congressmen.

This is a thing that has been done many times like i mean again like like this it's like this is this is the whole like this whole thing it's just like it's it's so the whole thing is it's so incredibly sort of nakedly transparent and cynical and like this is you know it's it's the standard fascist thing right we're like we're going to create some sort of mythical past and then we're going to like resurrect whatever fucking things existed back then it's like oh, what actually existed back then? I don't know.

People tried to kill the government all the time. They're really playing from the lower-keyst traditionalist framework here. They're doing all the bits we thought they would do. It's not great. Late last month, during the end of Pride, Texas Republican Party unveiled its updated official position on LGBTQ issues, defining homosexuality as, quote, an abnormal lifestyle choice, unquote, and also opposing, quote, all efforts to validate transgender identity. The party's new official stance on LGBTQ issues was unveiled during Pride Month, and as advocates fight against a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in states across the country this year, more than 340 bills, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQial convention in Houston in mid-June to agree to the party's platform on a range of issues, including the rejection of the 2020 election results

and a call to repeal the 1965 Voting Rights Act. No! Which was enacted to prevent discrimination against black voters. Ah, this is... I would say this is a mask off moment but they've never had the mask on in the first place people people like that's that's like that specific one that is a thing like like half of the republican party's platform has been people suing about the voting rights act exactly exactly 50 years it's not actually mask off it's just that they're doing

it louder than they were doing it before. Yeah. The section titled homosexuality and gender issues, um, had the party stating that LGBTQ people should have no legal protection from discrimination. And in fact, suggested intent to ensure people's ability to do hate speech and hate crimes. Part of the 40 page resolution reads, homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.

We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. And we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. Ha. Hmm. Ha. Hmm.

Ouch. I just, I, I, I just want to put it on the record here that like the number of my, a number of my friends who have been attacked, like in the last three months is, it's a lot.

I got, I got called. Yeah. I got, I got called a faggot for the first time in the streets of portland a few months ago yeah it's it's it's it's it's it's it's accelerating it's it's going it's it's it's going um but yeah i mean specifically i think a lot of the the this the last part of that resolution there about you know opposing any civil penalties against those who oppose

homosexuality out of faith i think that's definitely that's probably definitely referencing steadfast baptist church the church that just opens that openly advocates the genocide of queer people uh which we've talked about in our in our last uh city of hate episode yeah i think i think they're also trying to go back to like the whole like cake bullshit thing oh yeah obviously like stuff like that it's like it's we honestly we are so past the cake problem now because now they just want to just yeah now they just want to murder they just want to do like they just want to do mass genocide like i'm so over cakes like and in the trend of increasing the age barrier of gender-affirming healthcare into adulthood, the Texas Republicans called for the ban of gender-affirming healthcare, including the distribution of puberty blockers or hormone-suppressing therapies, and the performance of gender-affirming surgeries to anyone under the age of 21. so that is the new texas republican official position is that these things should be banned for under the age of 21 and that's not a that's not a hard cap they're gonna keep raising that

cap as often as they can and as proof i will offer up the past 35 minutes of episode like everything we've said in the past 35 minutes is supporting the opinion that that cap they want it to go up yeah i'm sure they also simultaneously advocate for like heterosexual relationships age of consent to just drop oh yeah like 12 12 years old yeah um speaking of speaking of texas near the end of june uh texas attorney general ken paxton uh who sent his office home in the celebration of theurning of Roe v. Wade, said that he will defend Texas's anti-sodomy law if the Supreme Court revisits Lawrence v. Texas. I'm going to play an extremely frustrating concurrence where he said that there were a number of other of these issues, Griswold, Lawrence and Oglethal, that he felt needs to be looked at again. Obviously, the Lawrence case came from Texas. That was what outlawed sodomy.

you as attorney general be comfortable defending a law that once again outlawed sodomy that questioned Lawrence again or Griswold or gay marriage that came from the state legislature to put to the test what Justice Thomas said? Yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of issues here, but certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don't think there was any constitutional provision dealing with. They were legislative issues. And this is one of those issues, and there may be more. So it would depend on the issue and depending on what state law says at the time and what was overruled. Just for the sake of time here, you wouldn't rule out

that if the state legislature passed the exact same law that Lawrence overturned on sodomy, you wouldn't have any problem then defending that and taking that case back to the Supreme Court? law that Lawrence overturned on sodomy, you wouldn't have any problem then defending that and taking that case back to the Supreme Court. Yeah, look, my job is to defend state law and I'll continue to do that. That is my job under the Constitution and I'm certainly willing and able. So first of all, in this clip of Ken Paxton, he looks like a zombie. clip of ken paxton he looks like a zombie yes yes i don't know what's going on with his face but his eye his eye keeps twitching in a way that looks really uncanny he looks like he like

look at look at this man's face look at what is on? That's an unfortunate pause. No! He looks like that in motion, too! It's not an unfortunate pause! He just looks... There is something going wrong with Ken Paxton. We need to get to the bottom of this. But also, all of that stuff about enforcing laws against sodomy,

making gay sex illegal. They don't want gay people to fuck, is what they're actually saying. And if you do, they want to send you to jail. So that's something that Ken Paxton wants to do. Wrapped in very flowery language about defending the laws on record, laws that you are enforcing, therefore you're making the laws in effect. So one aspect of this that I want to touch on again before we close out. In our City of Hate episodes about the Christian fascists in Dallas attacking drag shows and Steadfast Baptist Church, and even in some of the stuff that we've gone over

in this episode right there's a lot of talk about like government approved extermination whether that be like for treason for un-american acts executions based off biblical law rounding up people for degenerate or deviant behavior arresting doctors for performing gender-affirming surgeries. There's a lot of talk around the government's ability to legally genocide people. But the other aspect of this is the vigilante justice angle of people wanting to just do physical violence themselves. And there's a way that these two things can intersect in a really interesting way. I'm gonna play one last clip here. You know, some teachers pushing sex values on your third grader,

why don't you go in there thrash the teacher? You talk to normal person's kids about sex in kindergarten, you get beaten up, you should be beaten up, please. If I was a parent and my fifth grade daughter had had to sleep and shower in some kind of cabin at some summer camp that I paid money to send my child to, and there was a man calling himself a woman sleeping in her cabin, my husband would have beat him into the ground. Where are the men actually standing up against these men who think they are women that are trying to compete in these female sports. Shouldn't put up with it anymore. You need to intervene. You need to show up to the sporting event. This is not happening, actually. There is almost nothing that can be done

that is over the line to stop this. It's disgusting. There was a time in this country of just a little more decency, where if someone even voiced the idea of taking your kid to a drag show, they'd be arrested. They are underqualified to have children. They should have their children taken away from them because it's child abuse. So that's a lot of stuff. But, you know, it fluctuates between talking about people taking this into their own hands in a very, like, obviously, like, misogynistic and transphobic way. Again, it's about, like, the like the access to you know protecting access to the feminine body um and then a lot of other stuff around you know the government arresting people

and such right it's about it's a mix between like doing stuff yourself you know in a form of like vigilantism um or you know eventually advocating for the for the government's ability to do this. Now, we've covered a number of incidents of violence or of things that were escalating to the point of that right before it stopped across the Dallas area. We talked about stuff in Boise, Idaho with Patriot Front. We talked about the Proud Boys who stormed the library outside of San Francisco. I think those are in our, I think I talked about most of those across a few of the City of Hate episodes.

Then we have, there is other incidents outside of just those cities. In Atlanta, a youth justice group was forced to cancel their rally in support of trans rights after an organizer received a specific quote vulgar death threat in calama washington a school was put on lockdown after an anti-trans student threatened a mass shooting uh following a broad student walkout in support of a trans classmate who had been assaulted. People graffitied Perv's work here on an elementary school in Ventura County, California, following a local right-wing paper's story about a third grade teacher who affirmed a trans student's name and pronouns. In the lead up to Pride Month, an anti-LGBTQ activist named Ethan Schmidt Crockett vowed to

hunt gay people and trans people and their allies at Target stores. Following the store's decision to celebrate Pride, he made the same threat a month before. In June, he attended the counter-protest of a pro-gun control March for Our Lives demonstration carrying an AR-15. In Keele, Wisconsin,

schools were forced to shut down and go virtual after bomb threats were made in response to the district's investigation of anti-trans harassment by three students. Something I've been thinking about a lot the past few weeks is that even before Roe v. Wade was overturned, multiple states enacted laws for like vigilante bounty hunters to do the work of the state that the state wasn't legally allowed to do yet, like directly, right? And they were getting just regular people to combat and intimidate providers into not doing abortion procedures. And we're already seeing an increase in physical

attacks targeting queer people. And I think many more regular people are waiting for the state government's permission to do the same thing. We don't need to wait for the Supreme Court to say gay sex can be made illegal, right? States can already start doing this stuff now, and there's already people waiting in the wings, and as soon as they get the go-ahead, they will jump at this opportunity. I'm going to play one final clip that is pretty, pretty grim. I just had a man tell me in public that he can't wait until he's legally able to hunt me down.

I just had a man in public. He just... I can't wait until he can legally hunt us down. This is not okay. This is not okay. So that was a queer person who lives in Oklahoma, talking about something that happened to them last month. And I try to, when I make these episodes, I try to not just lay out a whole bunch of bad things. Be like, here's a problem. All right. Bye, everybody. Like, because that sucks.

But also, I don't know what the right bye everybody like because that sucks but also i don't know what the solution here is because this sucks um the california house and senate just passed bill uh sb 107 this bill would provide many protections for families fleeing states like texas and alabama it would protect them extradition, from out-of-state investigations, and from out-of-state custody judgments based on providing gender-affirming health care. The bill is currently in review by the California Committee on Appropriations, and then it would need to be signed by the governor. If your state doesn't have a trans sanctuary law on the docket, maybe it's time to ask your representative about that. Preferably

maybe when they're out at dinner or at church. But also, even getting to the point where we're making plans to flee to other states, when trans people are forced to make plans to flee out of country, when you're investigating what kind of citizenship you can get based on your ancestral family history once we're at that point it's really hard like it's it's and in my in discussions with queer friends the past few like the past few weeks we've been having more and more conversations about that more and more plans about when things really do fully break down, where do we go? What do we do? Like, and it sucks because there's so many people who live in states like Oklahoma, like

Texas, right? Where that's people's homes. That's where these queer people are living. And they shouldn't be forced to leave. Like, that shouldn't happen. And we have great folks like the elm fork john brown gun club which i think are providing a really good example of how queer people can work together to start doing community defense in your own areas uh to say no this is our home too and we're gonna

fucking walk around with rifles to defend it if we have to um obviously not everyone mentally is able to do that, right? But there's, there's, there's other ways to get inter, to get more connected to your local community to strengthen like queer areas inside, you know, states where these things are happening. is that fighting the state, right? Fighting these types of big homophobic institutions who want to kill us, that's hard and scary. We feel so powerless. We want to feel like we have any agency. We want to feel like we have any power at all because there's so many people with power who are hurting us. And it's hard to actually fight back against those.

But we feel powerless. We want to feel like we're able. So instead, we turn on other people who are within our own communities because it's easier to attack people who are like us it's it's easier to to do to do that right it still gives you a sense of having agency but they're trying to murder us all like personal like disagreements on politics or whatever aside like it would be really nice if we stop just doing nonsense fighting with each other and doing dumb like click drama dumb discourse like they're trying to they're trying to kill us can we not can we not do that

i know you want to find some way to push back on something so you feel like you have an ability to do anything and doing it against the police doing against your state government doing it against the supreme court that's much harder all right it's easier to do it against you know a friend of yours or someone who used to be friends with that's so much easier but that's not helping in their attempt to just do genocide. So I think making plans to get out of where you are, if you have to, making plans is necessary sometimes.

I've thought of this, even me in the Pacific Northwest have had many thoughts about that. It's also very important to start strengthening your relationships with other queer people in your communities and starting to put together ways to work with them, um, to make a show for us and say, Hey, we're here. We're not going to, we're here to stay right now. You can't, you can't scare us out right now Because there needs to be some way to combat it. Because these people, they're trying to be regressive, right?

We are already at a point that we progressed far enough that they are scared of how much progress has happened. So they're trying to turn the clock back. Our challenge is to keep the change coming and push back against these people who are trying to hold on to the dead 20th century, right? The fear of change and the fear of the future is driving their return to the past. We don't need to just run away because we should be winning this fight in some ways because we already hold the ground that they want to take away from us. we already hold the ground that they want to take away from us. So yeah, bad stuff is coming. But just because bad things happened in history doesn't mean they need to happen again.

There is ways to intervene to stop this. Should you keep your passports renewed? Yes, you obviously should. But we don't just need to run away because we actually have ground to stand on here so yeah and i i think i think one thing is also important to remember is that the people who got us here were facing way way worse odds than we are yeah the people who had to do this yeah and so like like the the job that we have is incredibly intimidating it is also easier than

the stuff that has already been done right and we already we already got to this point facing extremely harsh conditions and we already got there um i don't know it's just it's always struggling to try to find ways to think about this that gives you a little bit of like you know it's just like it's so easy to be a doomer it's so easy just to say we're all fucked we all need to move away that's the simple solution but there's most simple things are also usually incomplete and wrong so just trying to find other ways to think about this problem because we don't need to tell queer people to run away um and you don't need to tell them they have to fight either.

You know, queer people can make their own decisions and offer their own resources and start operating in a network that helps the survival of all of us in increasingly challenging times. and i should also say like non-queer people like look the the defining characteristics of this moment is that there is a silent majority that supports queer rights yeah and if if the the the the only way that we actually lose this is if is if that majority does nothing but if that if that majority moves if the cis people who actually believe in this stuff and if the non-queer people who actually believe that we should have rights and we should be able to live our lives do stuff we will fucking crush these people they will be remembered as a fucking grain

of dust in the sand that was crushed by the tide of history and we can do that we can destroy them we can we can we can we can make it for we can make this moment in history a incredibly brief blip where people are like oh hey that was wasn't it weird when homophobia came back for like three years and then it was just gone again

that that that that is in our power we just have to do it yep all right well strengthen community relations stop stop doing nonsense infighting for no good reason because you want to feel powerful. Put that effort into actually fighting the people that are trying to hurt you or put that effort into making friends. That does it for us today. That was my episode on the increase in queer exterminationism.

Yeah, see you on the increase in queer exterminationism. Yeah, see you on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right an anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of latin america listen to nocturnal on the i heart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast hi i'm ed zitron host of the better offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into tex elite and how Get your podcast. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast.

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