Nina-Bytes: Call and Response

NinaIllingworth November 22, 2022 Amerikan Musik, analysis, anti-trans legislation, anti-trans pogrom, Anya Zoledziowski, Club Q, Club Q shooting, Colorado GOP, Colorado Springs, Domestic Terrorism, eliminationism, FA1, fascism, fascist politics, fascist terrorism, GOP, homophobia, Lauren Boebert, LGBTQ rights, liberal transphobia, mainstream transphobia, mass shooting, Media, Melissa Gira Grant, MP6, New York Times, Nina Illingworth, Nina-Bytes, Politics, Republicans, Social Justice, stochastic terrorism, the GOP is a fascist party, The New Republic, trans rights, transphobia, transphobia in media, Vice News, Weimar America

Editor’s note: Nina-Bytes is a weekday blogging series that features short analysis and commentary on articles from around the web. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today.

Call and Response

I’m not going to lie to you folks; this isn’t an article I’ve ever wanted to write. As someone who has written repeatedly about the consequences of normalizing eliminationist ideology, and the intimate connections between fascism and stochastic terrorism, the news that a mass shooter targeted an LGBTQ bar in Colorado Springs, killing five innocent people and wounding many more, did not surprise me; but it did hurt me, and that pain has not subsided. When I sat down to write about this horrifying stochastic terror attack yesterday morning, I found myself incapable of putting the event into a meaningful context. Ultimately I decided to focus on the mechanics of messaging and reaction, because that’s all I could bear.

In today’s edition of Nina-Bytes then, I’d like to stay inside that familiar wheelhouse; both for my own mental health, and because identifying the “call and response” nature of fascist politics, eliminationist propaganda, and stochastic terrorism is a vitally important skill during this political moment in the Pig Empire. The simple truth is, this is unlikely to be the last bloodbath. To help us cross that awful bridge, I’d like to share a couple of articles this time; starting with this November 21st, 2022 piece written by Melissa Gira Grant, and published on The New Republic:

The Massacre at Club Q Should Not Have Felt Inevitable

This was certainly not an easy one to read; but I will try to summarize. Grant opens this emotionally devastating article by correctly identifying the November 20th, 2022 attack as a “massacre” and placing it in the context of the larger LBGTQ community in Colorado Springs. As the author notes, this horrifying hate crime comes on the heels of the widespread mainstreaming of transphobic, eliminationist rhetoric from the reactionary American right; both locally, and in national Amerikkkan politics. To the surprise of precisely no one familiar with the adventures of noted Waffen-Karen Lauren Boebert, Colorado Republicans and prominent hatemongers like Chaya Raichik don’t appear to have any regrets.

Crucially however, Grant also takes the time to point out that this deadly act of political violence against LGBTQ people occurred in a climate of broadly-supported transphobic rhetoric in American life; and certainly not just from right wing extremists and quasi-anonymous harassment accounts on social media:

“The steadily spreading political violence against queer and trans communities was not coming from the fringes. It was stoked by prominent Republicans pushing anti-LGBTQ legislation, amplified by media outlets including Fox, and became fodder for campaign ads. Neither was this all coming from the explicitly right, with some Democrats regarding anti-LGBTQ propaganda largely as a Republican-manufactured distraction or divisive talking point undeserving of a response. As the ACLU’s Chase Strangio noted recently, “resistance to anti-trans narratives among progressives and liberals is limited and often altogether absent.” The message sent by this reluctance to engage and defend trans people in particular, as Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote for the Washington Post, has been that trans people should “stand aside,” or else be “blamed for the ascension of conservatism.”

Finally, Grant concludes by addressing the horrifying elephant in the room that I spoke about here on NIDC last week; the fact that liberals seem to think the fight against violent, transphobic fascism in politics is over, even as some of the most anti-LGBTQ fascist politicians in the GOP easily dominated their own elections. In the face of already escalating anti-LGBTQ violence, and the political right’s unfolding plans to make depersoning LBGTQ folks a fundamental plank in the ongoing fascist project, it would be utterly naïve to assume a less-bad-than-expected showing for Democrats at the ballot box, or even the political fallout from a mass shooting, will stop the ongoing pogrom on trans and queer people.

Of course, and speaking of naivety, all of this does vaguely presume the mainstream political right in America isn’t just trying to suppress, terrorize, and murder LGBTQ people in America. To briefly talk about why that’s a bad presumption, let’s turn to this November 21st, 2022 article written by Anya Zoledziowski for Vice News:

“This Is the Point”: Colorado Shooting Follows Rise in Anti-LGBTQ Vitriol

Primarily built around commentary by activist and researcher Erin Reed, this piece more or less puts anti-LGBTQ terrorism in the context of the right’s war on trans and queer identities and states the obvious; the violence is unquestionably the point. Eliminationist rhetoric and fascist conspiracy theories targeting the LGBTQ community have become a persistent feature of reactionary politics in America; with completely predictable consequences:

“For several years, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, including incendiary anti-trans and anti-drag disinformation, has been making the rounds on social media and in state legislatures, pushed by far-right personalities, including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, and LibsofTikTok founder Chaya Raichik.

In 2022 alone, more than 300 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the U.S., according to Human Rights Campaign. Republicans like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio collectively spent at least $50 million on anti-trans ads during the midterms. Meanwhile, far-right pundits and politicians falsely accused transgender folks of being “groomers” and referred to drag queens as “pedophiles.”

Look folks, whether a seemingly indifferent liberal media wants to acknowledge it or not, we are talking about cause and effect here. Pretending this was an unpredictable tragedy, or the inevitable result of human bigotry is myopic to the point of open collaboration with fascists. These monsters know what they’re doing, and they’re doing it on purpose This is confirmed by the open relationships between virulent anti-trans bigots on the fringes of the media, fascist billionaires who support the cause, and Republican politicians in government; relationships that are getting more difficult to ignore all the time.

Speaking frankly, I am simply tired; and I know I’m not alone. I’m tired of reading eulogies for innocent marginalized people who’ve been murdered by fascists. I’m tired of being told I need to vote for Democrats to stop fascism while the fascist murders continue and rich centrists argue about whether or not something can even be transphobic if it’s printed in the New York Times. Most of all however, I’m tired of playing footsie with collaborators who give fascist politicians every benefit of the doubt, while those same people organize against my very existence in the open. I can only speak for myself as one single trans woman, but I’d ask that you please save your prayers liberals; I can already tell we’re not in your thoughts.

My message to the fascists riding transphobia to power over the dead bodies of my community, is simpler; please choke.