Dem
51
GOP
49
As we pointed out last week, there is no shortage of news related to trans hate. This weekend, for example, NPR published a piece by Jim Urquhart, who embedded himself with a group of Neo-Nazis in Jacksonville, FL, in order to see what they are all about. What they are all about, of course, is hate. And these days, they are focused in particular on trans people and drag shows. Keep in mind that, to the Neo-Nazis, those things are one and the same.
The particular group that Urquhart joined is pretty small, and is also pretty uninterested in getting arrested or getting beaten up. And so, the focus is on PR stunts. In particular, these Neo-Nazis have an impressive collection of lasers, which they use to display Neo-Nazi messaging on public buildings at night. Sometimes it's an image of a swastika intertwined with a cross. Sometimes it's "Kanye is right about the Jews!" Sometimes it's "Why are child friendly drag shows legal? @ Ron DeSantis." The group's leader explains: "What we have seen is certain types of activism definitely gets interest and recruitment up. And that's where like the drag queen sh**—like everybody wants to be a part of the team shutting that down."
There are a couple of takeaways from this report. The first is that trans/drag queen hate is clearly very compelling to those on the far right, and is being used for recruitment purposes. Oh, and these folks think they have an ally in Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). They think that for good reason, of course.
The second takeaway is that if Neo-Nazis respond to drag queens/trans people in the same way that they respond to Jewish people, it certainly suggests that the various hatreds have the same basic sources. Jews were scapegoated for a number of reasons by the original Nazis:
Switch the religious views in those lines to "gender roles," and "Jews" to "trans people," and you have a pretty good list of reasons that the Neo-Nazis hate trans people and have refocused their bigotry with such ease. (Z)