Sarah McBride’s “repealhb2” post goes viral
Of all the Republican’s ridiculous and needlessly cruel crap, is there anything more ridiculous and needlessly cruel that the Republican Jihad against transgender bathroom use? It is fucking nuts.
Bravo to Delaware’s own Sarah McBride for calling out this bullshit so elegantly, and so effectively (46,436 views on Buzzfeed and trending)
It’s always about sexual issues with Republicans. Speaks volumes about who they really are
The unfortunate thing is that Sarah’s post is also making her known to lots and lots of whackos out there who are very angry and have lots of other issues. I know Sarah is a grown person and an activist who understands the risks she takes, but I also have seen tonight just how many crazies there are out there that don’t want to stop at keeping trans gendered folks out of restrooms–they want them gone. As in dead. And tonight I’ve seen that in posts from Democrats, Republicans, even Libertarians (I am ashamed to admit). I don’t want Sarah to ever back down, but I do want to make sure that we all think about the necessity of standing behind her publicly in all the places that the creeps attack her and try to tear her down. (Sorry, still shaken by some of what I read tonight.)
Where are you experiencing all this vitriol Steve?
I troll (let’s be honest) a variety of FB, Instagram, Reddit and other fringe social media groups. Some are libertarian, some are conservative out to the fringe where Ted Cruz looks to them like a dangerous liberal, and others are even quasi academic economics or philosophy chat groups. This story and now Sarah’s post, is everywhere, and the response make that of birthers to Obama look tame.
I have in the last 24 seen posts wherein people described their fantasies about gang raping Sarah, or killing her, to the relatively mild idea of just hoping to see her near a public restroom so they could defend their daughters by beating the shit out of her
I’ve seen her described as mutant, vermin, and mentally ill enough to require confinement. In a triumph of anger (and fear for her and other trams folks) I spent way too much time last night calling out the jerks, only to discover that their number included a lot of well respected people willing to go on record that Sarah and “his kind” need to be purged from our society in order to save our daughters. They don’t just want her out of their restrooms, they want her gone.
Ironically what I have discovered is that for all our other political and social faults Delaware is a literal haven of toleration compared to what can be found elsewhere.
The most stunning comment was that, having given in to the fags it was time to draw the line here, with as much blood as necessary.
I know this thread obviously got eclipsed by Bernie today, but I have to admit a horrible thing. In continuing to troll social media threads where people were almost salivating over the idea of having the opportunity to maim or kill or–better yet–forcibly change with therapy all the transgender and gender non-conforming people, and then it happened.
I became jason.
Not jason with the hockey mask in the John Carpenter movies. Our jason, perhaps even channeling DelDem. I was not rational enough to be cassandra, pandora, or even liberalgeek. (And, I admit, I’m not witty enough to be the real jason.)
But in my hours online with the bigoted, dangerous trash who felt free to threaten Sarah and anyone else who is the slightest bit different, I called a fuckwad a fuckwad, a dickhead a dickhead, and didn’t relent. I know, there’s no trophy for winning the internet, but very late in the experience two very diffident individuals instant messaged me and said, “Thank you. We’re scared, and we thought they were the only ones out there.”
I do want Sarah to be careful, but never never never to give the fuck up.
Good for you, Steve! I’d love to read some of those smack downs.
No, you wouldn’t. What we have here is dialogue, sometimes a bit rough and tumble. What I experienced there included direct threats (“wouldn’t your employer like to know that you support tranny mutants?” and “I know how to hack facebook to look up your daughter’s name”) and a repulsive venality even I found difficult to credit.
I did a similar facebook warrior act this weekend, although I didn’t get frustrated to the point of the righteous name-calling (but there’s still some weekend left). This issue really brings out the idiots.