Hate crimes against transgender people are up 125% in LA
“We know that bad political actors have used trans people as scapegoats to further their wishes at the expense of people who are simply trying to live their lives,” said Bamby Salcedo, president of the TransLatin@ Coalition, an organization that provides services to transgender, gender nonconforming, and intersex people.
Is anyone really surprised? Stochastic terrorism is a thing people.
Will Democrats Let Republicans Gut Trans Health Care Under Trump?
Republicans in Washington have vowed to cut off medical treatment for most trans Americans — and may try to do so next year once Donald Trump takes over. Democrats in Congress can likely stop it from happening if they stand together and hold the line, but it’s unclear if they will.
Trump Picks Chloe Cole's Anti-Trans Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon To Lead DOJ Civil Rights Post
Highlighting is mine. This is really bad.
On Monday, Donald Trump announced his selection for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights: Harmeet Dhillon, a far-right California lawyer with a track record that could pose significant threats to transgender Americans.
[gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/voaheadlines/2024/Oct/13/https---www.voanews.com-a-online-hate-against-south-asian-americans-rises-steadily-report-says-7817086.html](gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/0/feeds/voaheadlines/2024/Oct/13/https---www.voanews.com-a-online-hate-against-south-asian-americans-rises-steadily-report-says-7817086.html)
Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.
by Reuters
WASHINGTON --
Online hate against Americans of South Asian ancestry has risen
steadily in 2023 and 2024 with the rise of politicians from that
community to prominence, according to a report released Wednesday by
nonprofit group Stop AAPI Hate.
Why it's important
Democratic presidential candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris is
of Indian descent, as are former Republican presidential candidates
Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. Republican vice presidential candidate
JD Vance's wife, Usha Vance, is also Indian American.
Harris faces Republican former President Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S.
elections.
There has been a steady rise in anti-Asian hate in extremist online
spaces from January 2023 to August 2024, the report said.
The nonprofit group blamed the rise on a "toxic political climate in
which a growing number of leaders and far-right extremist voices
continue to spew bigoted political rhetoric and disinformation."
Key quotes
"Online threats of violence towards Asian communities reached their
highest levels in August 2024, after Usha Vance appeared at the
Republican National Convention and Kamala Harris was declared a
presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention," Stop AAPI
Hate said.
"The growing prevalence of anti-South Asian online hate ... in 2023 and
2024 tracks with the rise in South Asian political representation this
election cycle," it added.
By the numbers
Among Asian American subgroups, South Asian communities were targeted
with the highest volume of anti-Asian online hostility, with 60% of
slurs directed at them in that period, according to the report.
Anti-South Asian slurs in extremist online spaces doubled last year,
from about 23,000 to more than 46,000, and peaked in August 2024.
There are nearly 5.4 million people of South Asian descent living in
the United States, comprising of individuals with ancestry from nations
including India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson
Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's
largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as
international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000
newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.
#racism #bigotry #south-asians #usa #online-hate #south-asian-americans #kamala-harris #nikkihaley #vivek-ramaswamy #usha-vance #stop-aapi-hate
https://www.propublica.org/article/tarrant-county-judge-tim-ohare-far-right
No Compromise: Tim O’Hare’s leadership in Tarrant County, Texas, gives a glimpse of far-right priorities: cutting programs for at-risk youth, targeting elections and stifling dissent.
The Last Battleground: Tarrant County, home to 2.2 million people and the city of Fort Worth, is the most significant political battleground between Republicans and Democrats in Texas.
Winning Elections: O’Hare has pushed to end free bus rides to the polls for poor residents and close polling locations on college campuses, which GOP leaders said would help the party.Over the past two decades, Tim O’Hare methodically amassed power in North Texas as he pushed incendiary policies such as banning undocumented immigrants from renting homes and vilifying school curriculum that encouraged students to embrace diversity.
#politics #texas #republican-party #republicans #right-wing #election #tim-ohare #far-right #radical #hate #bigotry
Windows in School Restrooms: A Controversial Decision
A school board in SW Pennsylvania spent money to cut windows into student bathrooms so that passersby could look into the so-called “gender-identity” bathrooms.
continued at the link
#Bigotry, #Politics, #Trans, #Transgender, #USPol, #ProtectTransKids
Drag queen Pattie Gonia may sue Trump over anti-trans ad
Pattie Gonia has used the moment to raise awareness and support for gender-affirming healthcare, encouraging donations through a link in her bio. “I’m going to do what queer people always do—turn our pain into something positive,” she said in her post.
Canada’s Conservatives Now Silent on Trans Issues | Prism & Pen
If you’re trans and Canadian, you should know your likely future leader aims to discriminate against you. If you’re Canadian, you should realize Poilievre is the sort of person who will use vulnerable minorities for a leg-up. If you’re trans, you should be aware another country once noted for its acceptance is primed to change.
Well, that's disturbing. I was actually considering Canada as my escape valve should, Goddess forbid, Trump be elected.
Gift link.
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The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
September 16, 2024
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance are
continuing to repeat racist comments about Haitian immigrants living in
Springfield, Ohio, including false claims about immigrants eating cats
and dogs. During an interview on CNN, Vance admitted he was willing to
"create stories."
Sen. JD Vance: "The American media totally ignored this stuff until
Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to -"
Dana Bash: "But it wasn't just a meme, sir."
Sen. JD Vance: "If I have to create stories so that the American media
actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then
that's what I'm going to do, Dana."
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has vowed to mass deport Haitians in Springfield
even though many have TPS - temporary protected status. Over the past
week, bomb threats have forced the closure of several public schools and
city buildings in Springfield. Colleges in the city have moved to
virtual classes after receiving threats.
#lie #lies #racism #bigotry #prejudice #vance #j-d-vance #trump #ohio #springfield-ohio #hatians #haiti
Washington Post reported that an account seemingly belonging to Gray had threatened a mass shooting, posting an image of a family holding signs showing support for their trans daughter, and writing, “I need to put an end to that. … im on the edge of a lgbtq massacre.”
#ApalacheeHighSchoolShooting #AntiTransHatred #bigotry #RightWingLies
Moms For Liberty Founder "Thankful" For Trump's School Trans Surgery Lie
When asked about the claim, Moms For Liberty founder Tiffany Justice acknowledged that it was a lie, but said she was thankful to Trump for spreading it.
#Trump #bigotry #lies #antitrans #trans #transgender #ProtectTransKids
Trump Judge Rules Deadnaming Trans Students Teaches "Tolerance" In Bizarre Opinion
To support this ruling, the judge issued unusual legal opinions, including the assertion that using students' preferred names and pronouns was not "pursuant to her official duties." The judge further argued that students' names "convey a message” and that it was not the teacher's responsibility to convey that message.
Trans women competing in the 2024 Olympics?
There are no trans women competing in the Olympics this year, despite the vile nonsense you may have heard.
continues at the link
This is not a super-villain origin story
Although it sounds like it, its roots have to be much deeper. Elon Musk sees his children as props that he spends little time with, pumping gametes into his serial wives and throwing money at them, and it’s unsurprising that at least one of them wants nothing to do with him.
P. Z. Myers has an error in that first paragraph, where he refers to Vivian as Justine. Otherwise, an excellent piece on Musk and how he treats his transgender daughter.
The Biden administration cannot enforce new anti-discrimination rules in health care for #transgender Americans, a federal judge in Mississippi ruled Wednesday, citing a recent landmark Supreme Court ruling that weakened the power of federal agencies.
Of course the first target of the "Chevron" decision was #trans people. Is anyone really surprised?
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/official-jewish-blinders-to-genocide-are-a-danger-to-jews/
#Palestine #Israel #Gaza#Gaza #SaveGaza #StopIsrael #SaveTheChildren
#palestine #Israel #Politics #PeaceNow #StopTheWar #CeasefireNow
Germany’s much lauded ‘memory culture’ is pure, empty, self-congratulatory propaganda.
Published On 1 Mar 20241 Mar 2024
I am a #Jewish #pro-Palestine solidarity activist originally from the #NewYork area and now based in #Berlin. My #grandmother was a #Holocaust survivor from #Cologne who fled to the #UnitedStates during the Second World War at the age of 16. Her parents and much of her family were murdered during the Holocaust. I came “back” to #Germany about five years ago, a decision born largely out of the desire for intergenerational healing for me and for my grandmother, who was alive at the time. I learned German and was able to speak to her in her native language in the last few years of her life. I told her stories about living in Germany, she met some of my friends and she was grateful for the ways in which the country and its people had apparently evolved and atoned for their ugly history.
I am glad she died before I had the opportunity to recognise what a naive, idealistic delusion this was.
In the past few years as I have educated myself, become active in the movement for #Palestinian #liberation and extracted myself from the extreme #Zionist conditioning and #brainwashing baked into the fabric of my upbringing, my appreciation for German “Erinnerungskultur” (“memory culture”) has steeply devolved into the realisation that the entire concept is pure, empty, self-congratulatory propaganda. It is grounded in the intentional, racist displacement of anti-Semitism and responsibility for the Holocaust from the Germans who perpetuated it to the #Arabs, #Muslims and, above all, the #Palestinians, who they now demonise and scapegoat as a deflection and distraction.
A documentary from 1985, Ma’loul Celebrates Its Destruction, provides an account of the destruction of entire villages during the 1948 #Nakba. In it, an interviewer says to a Palestinian man who was displaced: “But they killed six million Jews.” His rightful response is, “Did I kill them? Those who killed them must be held accountable. I haven’t hurt a fly.” The fact that a truth this fundamental has been so deeply buried in the language of “complexity” and “conflict” is a testament to the commitment and breadth of the imperialist narrative disseminated by Israel, the #US and #Germany (and the #West in general). Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of all anti-Semitic incidents in Germany are attributable to the #far-right despite the media’s rampant efforts to ignore statistics, skew the reality of the violence and racism directed at Palestinians, and disguise the true apathy towards the so-called “fight against anti-Semitism”.
While actual incidents of anti-Semitism go largely unpunished, those of us standing in solidarity with Palestine are accustomed to brutal, state-sanctioned violence, repression and surveillance from police and the German government in response to peaceful #protests and #boycotts. This has intensified massively since the #genocide in #Gaza began in October, regularly under the guise of accusations of anti-Semitism and “Judenhass” (“hatred of Jews”). We are accordingly committed to remaining loud and visible, including through our refusal to be excluded from the fight against rising fascism and the extreme-right Alternative for Germany party ( #AfD ).
On February 3, I attended an #anti-AfD demonstration in Berlin as part of the pro-Palestinian bloc with the revolutionary #Marxist group #Sozialismus #von #Unten (“Socialism from Below”), in which I am an active member. I had quite a bit of trepidation about going to this protest after the violent, racist and disturbing experiences of my Palestinian and pro-Palestinian comrades at anti-AfD protests over the past few weeks. Folks protesting the AfD while showing solidarity with Palestine have been ruthlessly harassed, attacked, reported to the police and violently removed by both demonstrators and cops all over Germany.
In general, the #mood was positive, and there seemed to be more of a tangible solidarity in comparison with the earlier demonstrations. I stood with a sign that read, “ #Juedin #gegen die #AfD und #Zionismus, #fuer ein #freies #Palaestina” (“ #Jew #against the #AfD and #Zionism, #for a #free #Palestine”). We handed out flyers encouraging a strategic and systematic mobilisation against the AfD. We spoke to demonstrators about the link between fighting fascism and fighting for Palestinian liberation. We explained that Palestinians in Palestine are currently suffering under the fascist policies we are demonstrating against in Germany, and in Germany, Palestinians and those standing in solidarity with them are already experiencing the concrete infringement and denial of #fundamental #human #rights ( #freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly). We emphasised the importance of unconditional, #international #solidarity.
Some were cautious about engaging, ostensibly out of concern for being viewed as anti-Semitic, but many were curious, interested and open to learning. As much as the mainstream media have tried to distort and mangle news of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a recent poll showed that among German voters, only 25 percent answered in the affirmative when asked if they believe Israel’s attacks on Gaza are justified; 61 percent believe they are not. The latter cohort was clearly represented at the demonstration.
After about an hour, I came into contact with a representative of the 25 percent of that poll. An older German man with an aggressive expression approached me, stopped in front of me and half-shouted, “So what do you think the #similarities are #between the #AfD and #Israel?” I could tell he had no intention of engaging in a reasonable conversation but nonetheless began trying to explain. After a few words, he rolled his eyes and spat at me.
It is hard to describe the particular shade of red I saw, the sourness of the blood pumping to my head, the bitterness of the fury on my tongue. It looked like the lifeless faces of my great-grandparents at the mercy of #Nazis, deported and murdered in the #Warsaw #Ghetto as they have appeared in my dreams since I was a child. It felt like the fierceness with which I will unconditionally defend the Palestinian resistance, the right of every people to resist their oppressor in any single form, until my last breath. It tasted like the rage and incredulity that have boiled in the corners of all of our mouths as we scream at the top of our lungs, watching the world passively observe the slaughter of Palestinian men, women and children for more than four and a half months – silent, complicit and accompanied by the relentless echo of more than #75 #years of #occupation, #apartheid, #theft, #ethnicCleansing, #lies, #dehumanisation and unforgivable #injustice.
I ran after the man, shouting at him that my family was murdered because of fascism during a genocide – in response to which he spat at me again.
He goaded me: “What do you know? The AfD is a fascist party. What does that have to do with Israel?” I began to state the obvious – “Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza as we speak …” – but didn’t finish my sentence before he spat in my face for a third time.
As I was shaking, incensed and disgusted, my final comment was, “You are clearly an anti-Semite.” Up to this point in the interaction, he had been condescending and full of contempt, but (as I knew it would) this final shot sent him into a blind rage. As I turned and walked away, he shrieked: “WHAT did you say to me?”
A friend of mine recently said to me, “The #Germans will #never #forgive the #Jews for the #Holocaust.” These words have rung in my ears and sat in my chest with nowhere in particular to go, a hard, ugly truth at the core of German society that precisely reflects my experience living in it. It is bewildering, it is comical, and it is accurate.
From the neo-Nazis of the AfD to “anti-Deutsche” leftists who claim to be combatting German anti-Semitism by obsessively and unconditionally supporting Zionism, many of today’s Germans are brimming with repressed rage towards Jews. Whether they are aware of it or not, this is resoundingly apparent in the deep, hysterical hypocrisy of a reaction such as that of the man at the demonstration – spitting in a Jewish person’s face for standing against fascism and genocide on the basis of her personal, generational relationship to fascism and genocide and becoming enraged at being identified as an anti-Semite accordingly.
This fury is seemingly a reaction to the “injustice” of Germans having to repent for the actions of their ancestors, something they have been widely celebrated for on the global stage. The #resentment takes the form of #narrowmindedness and #bigotry: The only acceptable concepts of #Judaism, #Jewish people and “Jewish life” are those they themselves, #non-Jewish Germans, explicitly sign off on. (Refer to the “anti-Semitism commissioners” claiming to represent the interests of Jewish people in Germany – not a single one of whom is Jewish or an expert in any relevant or related field.) For many Germans, the only palatable Judaism is Zionism, which in fact is no kind of Judaism at all. When forced to contend with perspectives in conflict with this toxic narrative or with Jewishness that doesn’t align with their understanding of it, their anger surfaces violently, explosively. “Anti-Deutsche” weaponise the fetishisation of Jews through their obsessive Zionism to an extreme degree, spearheading aggressive hate and smear campaigns against those who do not share their views (including anti-Zionist Jewish people). How dare anyone, most of all Jews, call into question the authority of Germans in defining and relating to Judaism, anti-Semitism and genocide.
The sick, decades-long collaboration between Israel and Germany and the widespread assertion that Israel’s security is “Germany’s reason of state”(“Staatsraeson”), which upholds Zionist socialisation in the interests of political, racist ends, has created an atmosphere of fear, shame, guilt and ultimately self-righteousness that permeates much of German society. It punishes questions, dissuades education and quashes the necessary understanding of Judaism as a broad, differentiated and historically diasporic culture that existed long before Zionism – and will exist long after.
This designation of all Jews and all Judaism as a single uniform entity, necessarily speaking the same language (modern Hebrew), holding the same values (Zionism) and sharing an identical culture (which in Germany, must be determined by Germans), is, in fact, the precise definition of #anti-Semitic, #Nazistic #racial #segregation and the othering, dehumanising rhetoric they employed in its service. The rigid and inherently anti-Semitic conception of Jews as an undifferentiated people “native” to one land, characterised by the nationalist settler-colonial Zionist movement, has merely served as a #continuation of #Hitler’s #work. It has erased secular Judaism in Europe. It has #eradicated the #Yiddish, #Ladino, #Judeo-Arabic, #Judeo-Persian and #other #Hebraic #languages. Eighty years after the Holocaust, it has succeeded in upholding the view of Jews as a monolith, a foreign nuisance separate from German society, the attempted annihilation of whom can now be exploited to justify the annihilation of another group.
The #tradition of #policing #Jewishness has been passed down in Germany for generations now, which, as in the case of the man at the anti-AfD demonstration, revolves not just around an established, homogenous definition of Jews but, crucially, also the exclusive right and obligation of the Germans to dictate it.
So what are we left with? I believe we can see it in our aforementioned statistic. The majority of Germans know, despite what they have been raised and conditioned to believe, that at the very least, what is going on in Gaza is wrong. Many can see that there is something significant and conspicuous missing in the mainstream narrative around anti-Semitism, Israel and Palestine. I would venture that the majority of those in the streets marching against the AfD are doing it because they genuinely want to stand on the right side of history. Meanwhile, what is in reality a minority is simply louder, angrier and more visible in propagating their anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Semitism and pro-genocide views and, in being so, intimidate the rest into docile silence.
#No #one in the mainstream German #media has reported on my experience at the anti-AfD protest. Given the cultural context, this is not a surprise. But highlighting this hypocrisy and the prevailing, ever-more destructive narratives illustrated by such an incident represents a powerful opportunity for education and empowerment. Calling out the root causes and social backdrop of this moment make them available and necessary for all to grapple with. As so many are stepping into the streets, it is our responsibility to arm them with the facts as fuel, to enable every single person to raise their voice and know decisively what they speak for and what they speak against. We will continue – with more resolve than ever – in the fight for a free Palestine and in mobilising in this way against racism, Zionism, (actual) anti-Semitism, fascism and genocide. We will repeat it again and again until the rhythm of our words becomes the heartbeat of a society that attempts to snuff out our resistance but will ultimately fail at doing so: Never again means never again for anybody.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
