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| “Stop killing us”. Yes, but who should that plea be directed to? [SEE Below] |
On the Left, the immediate go-to was that it was the Right, Republicans, Fox, etc, with all their “anti-trans rhetoric” that caused it. Not remembering that the same conclusion was jumped to for the Pulse nightclub slaughter in Florida in 2016. It turned out the killer was an ISIS-supporting Islamic terrorist just out to kill the foreigners. Didn’t even know it was a gay bar.
And so at the Club Q in Colorado Springs. Immediate jumping to conclusions on the Left: horrid right wingers and their “hateful anti-trans rhetoric" are responsible.
Until it turns out that the killer has identified as “non-binary” with “they/them” pronouns. Now this is a dilemma for the Left, as you’re not allowed to question someone and their sex identify. If women on the Right complain that men calling themselves women in order to enter women's prisons, are gaming the system, they're told they are bigots for questioning that self-identity. So now, how can the Left question this killer’s self-identity? Even as they show they’re itching to do so: the killer’s lawyer, they suggest, is doing it to “mitigate the hate crime element”. Right. Well, yeah, maybe. But then doesn’t this destroy that other part of their narrative? The one where you have to believe anyone and their self-identify?? Oh dear....
On the Left we have the very left Cenk Uygur on The Young Turks, with Ana Kasparian, going full on ballistic, over a tweet on the shooting, by a podcaster called Tim Poole. I’m not quite sure why he gets so bent out of shape, as the tweet doesn’t seem, to me, to be supporting the killing of LGBTQ+ folks, as Cenk claims (loudly and rather objectionably). As another tweeter said: “With these people, it’s, like, If you say ‘I like pancakes’ they will say ‘So why don’t you like waffles?!’”. I offer Cenk as an example of someone saying that all republicans, ALL, are “terrible, horrible people”, while clearly believing that The Young Turks and the Left generally are the embodiment of tolerance. Weird.
Here’s some of Tim Poole and his crew, on other issues, but to give a flavour of the guy and his team. (BTW, I don’t follow him).
And here’s the much derided Tucker Carlson talking the issues. Over time, I’ve seen quite a bit of Carlson. I’ve never seen anything he said that’s racist or homophobic. He does query surgical procedures on the underage for gender dysphoria. But that’s an issue that ought be discussed Right and Left, without name calling. After all we know that young kids don’t alway make the best decisions for themselves. Which is why adults are there. To guide. Anyway, I thought Tucker’s take was much more measured and fair than Cenk’s. Or indeed many others on CNN or NBC, some of which went bent out of shape, speechless even, when they learned of the “non-binary” nature of the killer. Didn’t fit the narrative!
Just to round it out on the conservative side, there’s this, from Ben Shapiro. I know, it’s a lot on the Right. But the Left is more than covered by the mainstream media. There’s plenty on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, the New York Times, et. al. (Which we’ll quickly see less of, exactly because the killing doesn’t fit the narrative of horrid right-wing rhetoric killing gay and trans people).
ADDED: I make a conscious effort to read and watch as much on the Right as on the Left. I can say this: I have never seen or read anyone on the Right saying horrid things about LGBTQ+ folks, let alone calls to kill them. TBF, I’ve never heard that from either side of the fence. Yet the Left is always going on about how much “hate” is “spewed” on the Right about the gay and trans communities. I’ve never seen it. It’s a nonsense to claim that one side or the other is spewing hate speech and a particular nonsense for the Left to say it of the Right. Because: (a) it’s not true as a generality and (b) to the extent that there is hate speech, it’s on both sides!
Related: I wonder about the tag under the photo above: “Stop killing us”. The narrative here is that LGBTQ+ people are being killed in higher numbers than the general community. (Whether by horrid Republicans, or their very own “non-binary” misfits).
The facts are the opposite. According to a June 2022 report by the Williams Institute, in the United States, 1.6 million people 13+ identify as transgender, 0.48% of the US population of 332 million. [*] The number of transgender people murdered in the United States was 57 in 2021 (Human Rights Campaign), with 22 so far in 2022 (AP).
Taking the higher figure of 57 transgender people murdered in a population of 1.6 million, that comes to 3.6 per 100,000. The murder rate for the United States as a whole in 2020 was 6.3 per 100,000.
- Murder rate in Trans community: 3.6 per 100,000 [*] (43% lower than the General community)
- Murder rate in the General community: 6.3 per 100,000 (75% higher than the Trans community)
Note: I don’t record this to minimise murders in any community. But to point out the actual facts. Which do not support the general narrative of a horrid society bent on killing Trans folks. The opposite is the truth. This is the same as the issue of police killings of young black men. Society believes it’s in the thousands. That police are out to hunt and kill young black men. The truth is that about a dozen unarmed black men are killed by the police each year. (and to be clear, that’s a dozen too many; but it’s not “thousands”, is my point).
I keep hoping that facts and figures might have some effect. Cool the rhetoric. Tone down the heat. The false idea that the police are out to hunt & kill young black men has done huge damage to society, many killed and huge property damage (sadly mostly to minority communities).
Similarly, the idea that LGBTQ+ people are being hunted, targeted and killed for their sexual orientation is both false and damaging. It is hugely harmful to society, it makes everyone hate each other. Bottom line is: the best place to be LGBTQ+ in the world today, is very likely the US. (Or maybe even Hong Kong, where the general murder rate is barely 0.3/100k...).
[*] It’s likely that many more people than 1.6 million now identify as Trans. That means the murder rate for Trans people would be even lower than the 3.6 above. I won’t hazard a guess, but I’ve seen some figures that the number of young people identifying as Trans has jumped no less than an incomprehensibly absurd 4,000% (!) in recent years.
