The following was submitted by a collection of trans Pirate supporters using the collective pseudonym “Iris Sappho”, addressing the challenges facing the transgender community. This article is apart of the project “Message in a Bottle”, allowing supporters of the US Pirate Party to submit editorial articles to the United States Pirate Party website.
These past several months have been an intense period for LGBTQ rights in the United States.
We’ve seen rulings stripping away hard fought for rights, challenging rights we once thought secure. In many ways those of us in the community have been sleeping assuming that the folks above us both outside and within the government would have the spine to fight for those of us without a voice.
To speak on behalf of those of us who are not allowed to speak about issues that affect us.
Many of us remember the day Sarah McBride was elected as the first trans representative to congress. We were ecstatic to finally have our first representative in our government nationally who could fight for us.
Needless to say, many who we have spoken to were disappointed at the apparent lack of resistance McBride put up to her own dignity being treated as worthless by her fellow congressmen.
However, her dedication to working across the aisle in order to protect the trans community is in many ways very smart on her part by realizing that the Democratic Party can no longer be trusted to protect us, realizing just how “fair weather friends” the Democrats tend to be for all minorities.
Months ago, McBride worked to convince four separate Republican Representatives to cross the aisle and vote against a bill that would harm the trans community across the country. Work that would’ve been a strong show in the face of state terror against our community, had three Democrats not chosen to kowtow and once again treat trans people as political tools rather than as people.
The response online in many ways is emblematic of the times, of liberals treating us as though they can fight the good fight while using us as scapegoats to make their political lives easier, while making millions of our own suffer as a blood sacrifice to their own careers.
These “democratic” representatives and their ilk within both the Democratic and Republican Parties have been threatening trans folks with the power of the state for decades.
These threats have always been spoken in whispered tones among those on the far right, and it has now entered the mainstream.
The very concept that our very identity can be considered an act of terror is not only a farce, but a smear campaign to justify further attacks on the transgender community within the country and abroad.
Let us not forget that we still do not have many protections in our own home.
We live in a country where we have to be concerned about staying too long in certain parts of towns for fear of harassment in areas where your average person would be “safe.”
This attack on our community cannot be tolerated and must be stressed. It will be our collective responsibility to take charge with our own message campaign to our communities, our families, and our states, to protect us in our time of need.
We condemn the Heritage Foundation’s attempt to label all activism in favor of Transgender individuals an act of “terror” against the United States.
Rather we posit that the Heritage Foundation, since its founding in reaction to the Civil Rights Movement, itself is an organization seeking to perpetuate terror against others!
The trans community must work together, from across the globe, to oppose this attack on a minority in the world’s richest country on Earth. If they can classify us as “terrorists” in the United States, the far-right in other countries will have more ammunition to use against their own transgender communities.
We must draw the line here, both for ourselves, and the global transgender community.
We, the Trans Pirates, call not on just Sarah McBride, but all the trans folks in America to be brave and use their voices. Not just to petition the government, but to open conversation with our friends, family, and community.
To explain our concerns, our fears, and who we are as people.
To work together to create community plans to help the most vulnerable among us.
To protect them in our time of need, and to help them get out of dangerous situations if necessary.
And to advocate for our right to be true to ourselves, and our right to be free from oppression.
Let us all come together, queer folks, straight folks, committed to fighting with our voices, for the defense and continued acceptance of not just trans people, but of all queer people around the world!
uspirates.org/message-in-a-bot…
jan Ki | 奇
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •Marcel Geveler
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •Carlos Enrique
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •Patrick Georgi
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •diesUndDasMitTassen 🇺🇦
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •Andreas M. Heitmann
in reply to netzpolitik.org • • •Bei Computger- und Videospielen zensiert die Regierung seit Jahrzehnten. Bei jugendgefährdeten Schriften schlampt man und beim digitalen Jugendschutz versagt man und beruft sich auf einmal aufs Grundgesetz.
Ich würde das Staatsversagen nennen! ... 🇩🇪