Nina-Bytes: A Gateway to Eliminationism

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Using the Whole Cow

As a trans woman, I often find myself struggling to properly articulate the real purpose of modern Pig Empire fascism’s eliminationist campaign against trans people – and anyone else who doesn’t fit into the heteronormative binary on which their fragile, but wholly malevolent and dominance based conception of masculinity rests. This is because while obviously I have no desire to take the focus off the rapidly accelerating anti-trans pogroms emerging all over the Pig Empire, I am also fully aware that the fascists have their eyes on a much larger prize than purging the (demographically speaking) microscopic number of trans people in our society. Without being trite, in my studied opinion this situation is a classic example of “two things can be true at once.”

On one hand it would be a gross misrepresentation to say that fascists and the political actors driving their movements and the rich people paying for modern nazism don’t really hate trans people, or wish to eradicate the public existence of trans identities, because they absolutely do. On the other hand it would also be a grave mistake to forget that these people foundationally “use the whole cow”, and their pogrom against the existence of trans people is also being purposefully used as a type of skeleton key to justify and facilitate a larger eliminationist agenda that revolves around purging their political enemies, removing civil rights and buttressing support for important ideological planks in the fascist platform – like violent nationalism, colonial extraction, white supremacy, eugenicist ableism, patriarchal dominance, and so forth.

Indeed, while the fascists certainly do hate trans people and any sort of gender nonconformity, their decision to make anti-trans hate the tip of the fascist spear in a war for control pretty much comes down to the fact that trans people aren’t particular numerous, visible, or empowered in our society, which itself has been mainlining normalized transphobic ideology for decades. It’s much easier to convince people to hate folks they don’t know in everyday life, and pre-existing marginalization of trans people ensures that these pogroms can be abstract and ideological in a way that more easily greases the path to violent eliminationism. We are, to put it succinctly, an easy “gateway target” for fascist repression that in turn can be used to expand the sphere of fascist influence and allow for the elimination of much larger portions of the population down the line by repurposing the justifications for repressions of trans people in a very “first they came for” sort of way.

While all of this is difficult to explain to folks not directly in the fascist crosshairs at any given moment, it’s not all that hard to see this principle in action when empowered fascists are able to exercise control over our laws and state structures. This is why I was utterly unsurprised to learn that American fascists in governments all over the United States are now using their actualized anti-trans pogrom to push a eugenicist agenda designed to target the rights, protections, and threadbare support programs for disabled Americans pretty much anywhere they control the government. For more details, let’s turn to this October 15th, 2024 post by Sarah Szilagy writing for Mother Jones:

Suit Over Gender Dysphoria Could Dismantle New Disability Rules

“But gender dysphoria is just part of the 130-page federal rule. It also protects disabled parents’ rights in child welfare cases and prevents hospitals from using disability as a factor in determining who gets care in crisis situations, such as equipment shortages during a pandemic. It adds Long Covid to the list of conditions that may constitute a disability and strengthens protections against unnecessary institutionalization, requiring that care be offered in the least restrictive setting and, ideally, in a patient’s community.

Striking down the entire rule would have wide-reaching implications for all disabled Americans and other marginalized groups who rely on federal agencies’ interpretations of decades-old laws to enforce their rights, says Mia Ives-Rublee, senior director of the Center for American Progress’ Disability Justice Initiative. “They’re utilizing LGBTQ issues as a wedge,” Ives-Rublee says. “The attack is really about the regulatory process of the federal government, and this will impact almost every interaction that a disabled person has with the services and supports that they receive.”

The short story here is that, lead by noted transphobic crook fascist Ken Paxton, seventeen GOP-controlled states (fifteen of which have recently passed anti-trans legislation) are asking federal courts to strike down a recent US Department of Health and Human Services rules update that helps to protect trans people from government discrimination, arguing that gender dysphoria shouldn’t be covered by disability rights legislation. The kicker however is that these states are asking for the entire rule to be removed, even though the majority of the 130 page federal rule has nothing to do with trans care or gender dysphoria, including provisions to prevent discrimination against disabled medical patients, the rights of disabled parents in child welfare cases, and folks who’ve become disabled as a result of contracting Long Covid. In other words, fascist lawmakers are now using the anti-trans moral panic they’ve spent years drumming up, to prosecute a eugenicist agenda against the rights of disabled Americans in real time.

As I’ve written many times in the past, fascism isn’t ultimately a violent chud rush similar to what we saw during the January 6th 2021 coup (or autogolpe if you prefer) attempt by Trump supporters, so much as a legalist doctrine enforced by empowered nazis and the state at their disposal; a sort of violent game of “Simon Says” with prison camps and pogroms. The use of politically activated anti-trans sentiment to eliminate protections for disabled people isn’t a bug in the fascist program but rather an intended feature, and it certainly won’t be the last legalist application of fascist ideology if this movement continues to accumulate power in our society. Cis people should of course oppose the fascist anti-trans pogrom in action because it’s the right thing to do, but also because you can bet your bottom dollar that it absolutely will not stop after they drive trans people out of public life – you and yours may well be next.

 

– Nina Illingworth

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.

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