They Thought They Were Free (1955)

You said:

>I think the reality of what has gone on has several faces which are all worth thinking about:

And then listed a bunch of innocuous stuff, as well as lies/tropes that bigots have used as an excuse to demonize minorities the world over, well, forever. Let's turn the clock back sixty years or so and change the focus from "transgender folks" to "African Americans." Perhaps then you'll see what got my dander up.

1. A group of people that want to be different without harming anyone and be left alone

(check!)

2. A group of people demanding certain specific and new legal rights with respect to how they are different

(yeah, those n*****s want to eat in our restaurants and swim in our public pools, have decent schools and even be allowed to buy houses near us! Why should they get special rights like that?)

3. A group of people advocating for new social and linguistic norms around said difference

(Yeah, we've called them darkies n****r for hundreds of years! What's wrong with these uppity pieces of shit? Black? African American? What a bunch of crap!)

3. A group of people socially shaming people who failed to respect said norms

(Yeah, what's wrong with these "language" police? I call a spade a spade -- or a n****r a n****r. What the hell is wrong with that? It's freedom of speech! Those fuckin' n*****s making demands? WTF?)

4. A group of people socially shaming those who opposed new specific legal rights

(Yeah! What's wrong with all those folks telling me I have to allow these n*****s into my store/restaurant and not beat them half to death for trying and that I'm a bad person to boot if I don't! What's with these new and "special" rights for them? Why should I be blamed for not wanting to allow them to live like us white people -- they certainly don't deserve it!)

5. A group of people vocally opposing said legal and social changes

(Breaking out of the historical context here: What legal changes are you talking about? Extending the idea that we should all be treated equally under the law? Which laws. Be specific here please.)

6. A group of people advocating legal restrictions to prevent or punish said different life choices

( Okay, back to 1965 -- Yeah! those n*****s choose to be poor and uneducated! Look at Dr. King! He can even read and write -- who allowed that to happen?)*

7. A group of people fighting said restrictions

(And a good thing too. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were good things, although they're under more threat now than they were sixty years ago)*

>Broadly I would like people to be able to live as they want and identify themselves as they like. I don't really understand your comment.

Perhaps, perhaps not. I don't know you.

I added (with the 8.) that the trans population is incredibly tiny -- yet folks spend an inordinate amount of time (including you making the assertion that trans folks are advocating for "new and special rights" that no one else gets -- what rights might those be? And be specific here) claiming they're trying to destroy our culture and corrupt our children with their Marxist beliefs.

Ridiculous tropes on their face. And you uncritically portrayed those tropes as truth, when in fact they're lies designed to demonize other folks.

As such, I have difficulty with your claim that you just want to live and let live.

Prove me wrong. At least as far as you and I are concerned, nothing would make me happier.

But it is also disingenuous to say it's just about a group of people who want to be left alone as in the original comment I responded to.

Your elaboration of the stages as I stated them has some pithy truth in it but really just confirms its accuracy. You can read all you want into how I describe the stages but description is not advocacy. I'm not advocating anything really.

The reasons that women and girls are provisioned with female-only spaces are entirely different from the reasons behind the racist exclusion and segregation of black people in a white oppressor society.

It seems that you made this analogy without really thinking about it in any depth.

Some parts of the country never really recovered from 2008. Obama took the smug liberal approach of telling people it was all over when it clearly was not all over. The country was primed for the Tea Party to step in and offer the promise of a remedy. You and I both know that the remedy was bunk, and it was just a rebranding of the same old far right, who saw that the Evangelical Christian movement that they were previously allied with had lost influence. And so into the propaganda brainwashing funnel went millions and millions of people.

Right wing media was already powerful and influential long before Trump started his own social media company and Zuckerberg switched sides. Blaming social media doesn't make sense either, because if it wasn't for social media, it would've been something else.