The Trans Genocide Part 2: Hit Them Where It Hurts

this Daily Wire content that is explicitly calling for genocide. Anyway, I think it is interesting what the Daily Wire is trying to do here because they obviously saw what is a Woman the documentary, the quote unquote documentary by Matt Walsh last year get incredible traction online and boost their subscription service. So now they're they're they're doubling dead on this because this is how they're gonna try to make content, and they are trying out as many rhetorical styles and

arguments as possible just to see what sticks. Like it really feels like they're just doing like the shotgun method of like throwing every single possible reason that trans people are ikey up against the wall and seeing which one like catches on like they're doing. They're doing a ban and transgenderism entirely, what is a woman? Groomers? They can't be genocided because they don't exist. Attacking transgenderism as a

cover for trans people. Right, So it's all these all these various various tactics, all these different rhetorical strategies, calling them demonic it's, it's, it's it's very much trying to be like if we, if we, if we throw up as much stuff as possible, attacking and demonizing trans people. Some of these trends will catch on online, right, some of these will will catch on, will be spread to legislators.

Eventually something will stick. And that that is that is very much the tactic that they are trying to use. And I think this is a point I wanted to make last episode, but I think it's still it's it's it's useful to hear now kind of in retrospect everything all of the like extremism that you heard in the last episode, all of these like very very fascist talking points. This is what conservatism is now, right, Like this is

the mainstream new right. Sure you can call it fascist because by definition it is but sometimes that term fascist or fascism, it carries with it this false sense of foreignness. It has like this, it has like this displacement in the time. Right most people view fascism as something that happens elsewhere or something that happened in the past. By by by just referring to this stuff as fascist, it creates a distance in people's minds. This this like um

exotic improbability. But this stuff is like the mainstream conservative platform that the up and coming leaders of the conservative movement are trying to normalize. That this was like the main talking point at Pack, which is like the biggest conservative convention in the entire country. It is this stuff is is what the conservative platform is now. Um, and I think it is. It is just as important to emphasize that this is what the modern conservative mainstream is,

and it is it is. It is just as important to say that as it is to tie it and tie this rhetoric to the history of fascism, because the Overton window is certainly accelerating. Right, Like, this thing can both be heavily steeped in the history of fascist rhetoric and also be like the new, up and coming version of the conservative right that the Daily Wire and its

allies are trying to normalize. And I just think that is that is something that I that I am trying to focus on a little bit more when I when I'm doing my writing and my research in these topics, is that we often will use terms like fascist because these things are are pretty fascist, and I want to make sure that doesn't like create this false distance in people's in people's minds when they when they think about

these bills, when they when they think about this rhetoric. Yeah, and I think I think the way in which this is simply what the modern right is demands a different kind of response than a lot of what we've been seeing so far. Yeah, you can't simply try to catch them in their contradictions. You can't simply catch them in their hypocrisy. Every every tactic that liberals tried to use against Trump in the lead up to his election, and even Republicans try to use those tactics aren't going to

be successful here because they weren't successful back then. Like, you can't you can't like outthink them in that in that in that way. Well, but the reason that you like when you when you call out say the governor of Tennessee or a lieutenant governor or whatever Tennessee for about his hypocrisy and how addressed dragon stuff. It's not that.

The thing that that does to defend it a little bit to that calling out is it doesn't make his supporters, It doesn't change his mind, It doesn't expose him as a hypocrite to his base, but it does expose him as a hypocrite to his enemies. And I think it is worth understanding that are the people who have declared us their enemies. It's worth understanding that they are not like um morally consistent actors. You know, it is worth understanding that they don't believe the things they are saying.

A lot of their base does. But so I actually do think that there is a point all of the shit talk on Trump or whatever. I think might be part of how Trump didn't get elected again is because he as he got more and more defensive, he looked more and more ridiculous, not to his base, but to the middle, which is basically the Democrats at this point. Yeah, it was able to recruit like a growing moderate oppositional force, which was what beat Trump. Trump was not beaten because

people liked Biden. He was beaten because he didn't like Trump, and I think you are you are right and having that that is a point to focus on. UM. I think it's it's important to mention that like fascists do not believe in the absurdity of what they say, UM, it is that that is not necessary to maintain fascism.

And I think I think so the position that we're at right now is a very very strange one for the left, which is that we are in a position where you know, when when when the Republicans tried to run on this ship in in in twenty twenty two, they got destroyed. Right, this is actually have mass popularity. This is what I wanted to talk about next. I have this is this is the very last section I

have written is on this topic. Because yeah, this off putting focus on like genocide and like the culture war stuff seemed to hurt conservatives in the last election cycle ly and yet again they are they are they are still doubling down on it. Um. Voters in some swing states were turned off by the focus on the regression of queer rights instead of like actually addressing material conditions. This strategy, though, is a core concept of the fascist

project right. Instead of addressing material conditions under capitalism to improve people's lives, right wing populists will conjure up this culture war bilgie Man to blame all of like society's problems on and to to talk about the social war that is contributing to degeneracy. I also think that they're winning, unfortunately not winning in a broader sense, but in terms of um Yes, this is a very unpopular issue that

they're doubling down on. But I think that you know, I've I've seen studies where like a higher percentage of the US population supports antitrans stuff than did two years ago. It's still a minority thing to hate trans people, but it is a growing minority, yes, which is why, like we're talking about how in a lot of ways it's easy to be trans in twenty fifteen than it is now. And kind of on that point, I'm going to play

the very final clip of Michael Knowles. We will never have to hear his voice again, fully, his annoying little voice, but I'm gonna play a bit of a longer clip from him, and this is from his initial like band Transgenderism Entirely Rant and I'm only going to play this because he actually makes a point that we ourselves have made before when discussing this topic. The conservative right is

desperately trying to play catch up. Right, Us who believe in like liberation and freedom have been winning historically, and the rights getting very scared and desperate. So in response, they're introducing all of these bills right, and they're they're accelerating these types of eliminationist rhetoric. But in this clip, Michael Knowles provides us with our pathway to victory. We

cannot simply hold our ground on these issues. We have to keep pushing forward because as long as we keep going forward and get on the offense, the right will be stuck playing a ketch up forever. And it reminds us of eight truth and politics that Republicans all too often forget. You're either on offense or you're on defense. You're either making gains in the culture or you're losing ground in the culture. There's no standing still, there's no

status quo, there's no neutrality. And what the Conservatives have screwed up on for at least fifty years now, probably more, is the Libs make some crazy aggressive play and then we try to dial it back by about five to ten percent, or worse, we try to slow it down by about five to ten percent. So the Libs attack the family through feminism, the fundamental political institution. They claim that men and women are basically the same. That takes

the culture pretty far to the left. And then conservatives try to try to inch it back a little bit. But by the time they're even thinking about inching it back, the Libs push forward with the normalization of other sexual practices. They agree with this possi And then by the time the Conservatives are trying to dial all that back, they've lurched much further to left. They're trying to redefine marriage.

Now they're saying, redefine marriage. Well, I don't know, I guess we could come to some kind of terms with a civil union. And by the time you say that, who they lurched even further to the left. Now they're saying, actually, we've got transgenderism. Actually, now a man can become a woman, a man can become a woman, okay, but but maybe

we shouldn't do it till mine. By the time we say that, whop, oh my gosh, we're now we're all the way off the screen because now they're trying to trains the kids, and there are many conservatives never were saying, look, if you want, if you're a man and you want to put on address, that's fine, but just don't do it to children. Just don't make me pay for it. No,

that is such an interesting little cliff. No, I mean it's funny because this is like kind of this is what I've been saying for a long time, since about twenty fifteen or so, like looking at the rise all this shit and you know, Trump and all that, is that we were winning culturally. I hate the word culture war and now I means something different. It means arguing

about guns or whatever. But like we were winning on a cultural front very dramatically, and like I would point to Stephen Universe as the evidence that we are winning, right, you know, And then they basically had to play to their strengths, and he's talking about He's like, look, it's funny that so much of this is happening on a cultural front because it is not a conservative strength. They have some cards in their hand when it comes to

cultural stuff, you know, the antimidarity stuff. When it does weird anti semitic, you know, almost anti capitalism or whatever. That's like a strong card they like pulling out all the time. But conservatives overall are not very good at the cultural thing. But they're good at is politics and violence. And so they're playing to their immediate strengths as hard and fast as they can because they're on their back foot. Yeah, no,

they are. They're they're defaulting to advocating physical violence and enforcing their worldview with violence and advocate and doing stuff on like the political legislative front, because they've realized just

screaming about transpeople isn't enough. They have to actually start dedicating millions and millions and millions of dollars to pushing these through state legislative cycles, which is why The Daily Wire has spent the past month and a half harping on this so hard as the legislative cycle for twenty

twenty three is starting to like ramp up. Yeah, and I think there's another thing here, which is the sort of fundamental disparity, you know, the fact that they've chosen this front, right, there's a fundamental disparity in what they have to do versus what we have to do, right, And and this this, this is a giant sort of shift in a way that I don't think has we don't I don't think the left really has much experience with, right, which is, like, the thing that is happening in the

US right now is that we are the cylent majority, Like this is this is true when when like consistently over and over again, when you when you look at polling on these issues, right, like just regular people are like,

what the fuck are you guys doing? Right? The problem is that you know, we haven't those people haven't been mobilized, and you know, it doesn't matter if you're a majority as long as these sort of like you know, because because again like who the actual majority is in the US or like who actually what what what actual regular people believe has very very little impact on the kinds of policies that are that are that are sort of enacted.

But you know, but there's a second sort of issue here, right, which is the conservatives have like, because of the fact that we are right now of the sort of silent majority, that we have a kind of I guess you know, the gram syn thing would be like hegemony, right, but like we have we have an advantage in just how average people behave. Right, they have to kill us. They have to fucking kill us. They have to make it

legal for us to exist. And they could do this right there, there is a there is a real there is a real possibility that they can win. Right. They are winning on this rent right now. This is this is what they are, you know, in the places where they have power. This is what they are doing. All we really have to do is survive. Because if if we revive and we're able to stop them, you know, I mean, even if we don't get sort of like Argentina style, like we're gonna have like like hiring mandates

for trans people. Like even if we just hold the ground that we already have, we will win inevitably. Right Like the sort of march of where of where the culture has been going will favor us. Trans people will be able to sort of exist in public. Trans people will be able to survive unless they kill us right now.

And that's that's that's sort of that's the sort of the key thing that that Knowles has realized, right is that this is the critical moments where either we win and we in trans people get to continue our lives, or they kill us I would argue that it's not just kill us. I think that even though we're listening to all this exterminationist rhetoric, I think that the odds are that most of these people don't actually envision a future where they're like rounding us up and putting us

in camps and gassing us. I think that overall, it's a drive back into the closet. I actually I actually take them at their word that they want to destroy transgenderism, and if transgender people have to die along the way, that's on us. But if we, you know, put on appropriate clothing and shut the fuck up, like, I actually think that that would suit them just fine. So I actually think they have to kill transgenderism. I think that's true now, but I don't know how true that is

as they keep actually having to implement. But there they don't think being trans actually exists though, right like they they think it just is people doing these things. So as long as trans people are able to, for one, maybe even not even realize their trans to like repress that and just live their lives as if they were as this person, that that that is all that that that's what conservatives think trans people already are and I

think that that is a large part. That is a large, large part of it is making us just not able to be trans in public life at all in any capacity. I think that's true. But I don't I don't think they can. I don't think their political path allows them

to maintain that position. Like I don't. I don't think they can, like I like, you know what, one of the things that's happening with with right right now is they're they're they're they're doing this feedback loop right where they get you know, like like where where they're they're sort of media people right or are continuously radicalized by

their base, and their base radicalizes them back. And I don't I don't think they can maintain an equilibrium position that doesn't involve like we have to hunt all these people down to make sure they don't go after our kids, like I know, I don't don't think they're gonna I don't think they're doing that now. I don't think they're planning that now. But it's it's I don't know how they can keep up this cycle without eventually getting to

something like that. Well, it's worth it's worth being prepared for that type of possibility, But The kind of thing that I feel like, really strongly about with all of this is to like really not like the sky is falling, but it's not falling the way that we sometimes say

it is. And and when we say this guy is falling in a way that people look around, they're like, oh, just know how this guy is falling to me, then people get like, well, actually, I think you all are being hyperbolic, right, And so I think that we do need to be really clear that they are open to the possibility of mass murdering us, and they are actively discussing individual acts of violence being very justified against us.

But currently I believe the thing that they are trying to do is eradicate the concept of being trans as a thing you can do in American society. And of course, like there's a lot of people who believe in death before detransition, and all fucking power to I don't even know where I fall in all this shit. I'm not trying to. I literally don't want to opine about it because I don't want to give anyone. I don't want

to tell anyone to do about that shit. Right, Everyone makes their own decisions about closeting, not closeting based on their own positions, you know, But I think we do have to be like careful about it. And I think one of the reasons because from my point of view, they have picked trans people not because they care so much about us, but because we're a wedge issue. You know.

We saw this in like, um, actually I don't want to name them because I don't want to get or whatever, like different large coalitions of LGBT people were perfectly willing to drop the T twenty years ago if in order to get certain like equal rights ship passed. They just like straight up like trans people did all this fucking work organizing for this ship. As soon as it got to like higher up level in the government, they were like, oh,

trans people, that's gonna be a problem. Well it, We're gonna take them off of there, right And you know, and because we are a wedge issue, and we always have been, and I think the Nazis used us in a very similar way. But even within US there's transit sory, there's wedge issues within that, and so sports was the first wedge issue. I actually believe I was reading this earlier, but I wasn't reading it for this, So I didn't

take notes. I believe that the majority already of Americans do not believe that trans people should be able to compete in high school sports based on their preferred gender. I'm under the impression that is a minority position to be trans supportive of trans athletes in school, and so that is the wedge issue that they used to open up this divide in order to then come at us.

But we're still just a wedge issue. And one of the reasons I think it's so important for people to understand us as a wedge issue is so that people understand, like really clearly that they are not fucking stopping with us. You know, this is like absolutely about like you can hear it and that guy talking because one of the other things he's talking about is he's talking about like women need to get back in the kitchen and be

obedient to their husbands and shit. And one of the reasons that trans people scare them so much is because we like, like it's so funny because like largely, by and large, like trans men are left out of this discussion and trans women are seeing these like evil monsters or whatever, right, but trans men are absolutely part of it because massive massive threat, absolutely, because it's stealing women from them. It is stealing their fucking wives that they

want to have. They want to fucking own women, and like so they can't handle the idea of anyway whatever.

I know a lot of a lot of the things they get so mad about is when they see a young transgai on TikTok and they're like, look, sorry, this is going to be like gross, but like, look at this potentially beautiful woman who's now been ruined, Like just horrible, horrible, horrible, right, But that is we have so many grown men, like thirsting over fourteen year old like a fab people who are who are deciding that hey, maybe I want to start HRT, maybe I want to use different pronouns, maybe

I want to have a binder and this they get so so mad at that. And I think a big part of not not simply I think I think it is truly not enough just to hold our ground. We have to keep going forward, and a big part of that is having more intersectionality with transmasculine people. A big part of that is having a much much more of a focus on gender nonconforming people and non binary people. Um because we have we have to keep pushing it forward.

We cannot simply hold our ground on this because if if we simply hold our ground, they can pull out the rug from from under us. UM. So I think that is that is that is a massive part of this, and I think I do believe that we will win.

I fundamentally do because if you look at if you look at like the rights of which young people Zoomers and even the generation younger than Zoomers, I do not know what they're called, um, but if you look at the aunt amount of amount of us who are who who self identify us non binary, trans or gender nonconforming, it is so much bigger than any previous generation people. Once people experience a form of freedom, it is hard

to take that freedom away. There are so many people who are entering their teens and are realizing they can be so much more free and they don't need to be limited to these weird, draconian like dualistic notions of gender. And that's a If you look at a whole new wave of like actors and actresses and people in the entertainment industry, almost all of our non binary, like the person who plays Ellie in the in the Last of us is trans. Um. I believe they identify TRANSU, non

binary or some sort of of gender queer. But this doesn't play Ellie like that too anyway. I just like absolutely, but this is something that that keeps happening. We are going to win this because there's so many of us and we know that it rules to exist like this and we're not going to let them take it away. And I think that that is a big part of not only standing our ground, but continuing to move forward with the confidence that we will win in the long run. Yeah,

And I think that we can. And I think that like a lot of the stuff, including myself, right um, I'm famously armed. I'm someone who you know, believes in self defense and um and all of these things, right um. But I think we always need to like focus on our strengths when it comes to being especially on the offense. Right. And so when I think about like strategizing how do we win the stuff that you're talking about about staying

on the offensive makes so much sense. And I think that, to misquote the art of war, you attack your enemy where they are weak and you are strong, you know, and so like, and they are weak at cultural creation and I don't mean culture wars and culture war issues really like art, like creativity. Yeah, and so like we win because we say because our ideas are good, and when we express them, people are like, oh that sounds sick.

I want to be free right yeah. Um. Now, at the same time, we need to shore up our weaknesses. And I think our weaknesses at the moment are in the political sphere, which we're at on a back We're on the back foot right now because of all the I guess I don't track this stuff as much, but like all the judges and shit that got put in under Trump, and we are also not at our strongest.

I'm not trying to call us week here, but like far few of us, fewer of us are like weird gun nuts and like no you know, militant strategy protect e type people. And I we've seen us shoring up that weakness and that rules. But I think it's always important. Maybe not always, maybe there would be a time when this would shift, but overall, I don't think that's our strength.

That's not where we go on the offense. That is where we stay, like protecting ourselves, yes, and no defense like drag defense, square defense that has defense in the name exactly, it is crucially important. Exactly. It also terrifies the fascist rights. The fact that the fact that like like that, on one hundred and forty pounds, Twink can carry an aar and defend a drag show terrifies fascists. It utterly destroys their brains. You know. For sequalizations a

hell of a thing, Sorry, buddy. The trigger pole is two and a half pounds. Yeah, you know what else is a forkey force, equalizer swords, for the force of advertising, and pole arms. As long as we don't have an ad for Rabbit Air, who has an office in Pasadena, California, I'm fine. So I think if you've listened to the show a lot, they're They're one of the sort of sub themes of a lot of the writing that I

do is thinking about what we owe the dead. And on the face of it, it's a sort of nonsensical question, right, you can't have any kind of reciprocal relationship with someone who's dead, because well, you know they're dead. And this this question, this question of what we owe the dead, is a question board of grief, of a kind of sort of raw and immaculate anguish that comes to the memory of people who are like you in every way except that you're here and they're not. And this was written,

you know, this has written seven weeks ago. The people this is written for aren't even the same people that you know that that that like that that is for now right, The question in some sense becomes, what do we owe the people who have died and were thus denied to live, denied the chance to live the lives that we do. You know what, what do we owe them? What do we owe these people that we failed to keep alive? And this has an answer, this has this

has a very very definite political answer. We owe them the destruction of the world that killed them. We owe them a future that we owe them the future that they should have had. And we owe them, we owe them a world where they never take another one of this, another one of us. Again. The world is already fucking burning.

It is time to start the counterfire. Now. One of one of the things that you that you will hear a lot, and this, this is this has been this has been one of the sort of dominant responses, for better or for worse, from how people are thinking about these laws, is that these laws you know these anti trans laws are unconstitutional and that does not matter. That does not matter for shit, right like oh oh, our old friend the constitution ha ha, Like I just, I just,

I need. I need everyone to understand that the ability of the Supreme Court to strike down a law is not in the Constitution. None of this ship matters. They're making all of it up. The only thing that actually matters is power. And to understand why the law is about power and you know, and why legality is not actually a tool that we can rely. I want to I want to tell the story. I'm not sure if I've told this story on this podcast before, but I want to tell the story of the worst mistake I

ever made as an activist. So the year is two thousand and seventeen. Donald Trump's Executive Order one three seven six nine huocally known as the Muslim Ban, has prevented people from Iran, Iraq before they drop a rock later, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the country. Now, almost immediately after the Muslim Ban is announced, um there is a spontaneous wave of airport occupations that sweeps the country. And these

protests have two goals. Their immediate goal is to free the people who have been taking captive by immigration authorities before they can be deported, and the second goal is to end the Muslim ban more broadly. This was this was actually this is my first Irrel direct action. Um I you know, I remember I was in this train car on the Blue Line to O'Hare, which is our

our airport in Chicago. And you know, I'm on this train and it's packed and everyone is completely silent, and you know, everyone thinks people are going to get off. And as we get to this airport, we realized that the entire train is completely full of protesters. Like everyone on there's a protester, and it goes on and on and on, and we get off the train right and

we're walking through the airport. And the way this airport is structured is there's like this overpass that you walk over where you can see the trains coming in and every single train is full of protesters and the trains keep coming and they keep coming in, they keep coming, and you know, every everyone and every time a train shows up, everyone starts cheering. It is like it is, you know, like one of the most amazing things I've ever been a part of and you know, and we

we start moving and there are just two. You know, this is a fucking this is an airport, right like, this is one of the most heavily policed places in the world. There are not not enough cops to stop us. And you know, they make this one token attempt to try to clear us, and they can't do it. And they pull back. And now we are holding the airport, and we do it. We beat them, We win. The airport releases the detainees. They've they've been negotiating with the

a CLU. The ASU have been trying to get me released. And the person from the person from the ALU, like God, comes on the mic and announced that they've they've released everyone, and everyone chairs and then and then the person on the ALU person on the mic says they're going to beat the Muslim band in court and everyone goes home. It takes a few hours, but by the end of it, everyone goes home. And here's the thing. The a CLU several years later lost that case at the Dream Court.

The Muslim band continued the entire fucking chump administration. Right, it wasn't repealed until Biden took office. We could have stopped it there, right, we held that fucking airport. Airports across the country, like dozens and dozens of states were being held by protesters, and we could have stopped them, but we didn't, and we didn't because we trusted the courts. Right we went home, We trusted the slu and they lost because again, the law is not about the law.

The law is about power, and millions of people suffer the consequences of that. And this is what's going to happen if we if we leave this fight to the courts, either either we actually sort of like stand up and actually fight not in the courtroom but in the streets, in schools, in salons and shop floors, in the places where we have power, or we are going to die.

That is my intro to this, which is that we cannot we literally like, if we try to leave this to the people who have been acting right now, right, if we leave this electorialists, if we leave this to sort of legal institutions, and if we purely fight self defense battles, we are going to lose. Yeah. So the question from there is how do we hit them back? And the thing that I specifically wanted to talk about first is I wanted to talk about this thing called

power mapping. Now, Okay, the moment you went you say the word map around leftists, people immediately start talking about how the map is not the terrain. And that's true, true, the map is not the terrain. They're different things. Nope, but both are useful. Yeah, like, yeah, you still want a map when your hiking, even though it's not. Actually the rains spash the maps, spash the maps. Walk situation is practice, walk around the city without a map, but

mess up the maps. It sabotaged the masks. Yeah, don't walk through the forest about a fucking map. The forest is dispassionate and cruel and will kill you. So all right, So what is power mapping? So there there is a

normal version. There is a version of this that gets you know, it's it's part of sort of like what I guess you would call like the liberal version of organizer training one oh one, which is this like pure NGO thing, which is you know, I guess you could you could argue it's from like a like like from Salo Lynsky or whatever the fuck um and and this this version about it is this this version is about finding and pressuring quote unquote stakeholders. This is almost completely

useless to us. It's largely politically bankrupt, and tactically it is simply not going to work, right, Like, there is some value in mapping out which specific like legislators and which specific governors are going to like sign bills, right yeah, but like, okay, NGO style pressure campaigns are not going

to stop this. This is simply not going to work. Um. And the strategies that people have been employing to sort of stop this, right which is you know, relying on our suffraget our pain and relying on medical expertise that that doesn't that doesn't work. It's weigh them. It lacks the diversity of tactics. Yeah, the only language people understand is power. So okay, having said all this, we can strategically use other groups like NGOs or sympathetic lawmakers to

do their own pressure campaigns. But that that that is not what I'm talking about here. We can leave. We can leave those people in their terrain. They're paid to do it. Don't get sucked up into it. But you know, and I will say, like, okay, sometimes very strategically right, like, you can you can show up to people's events and embarrass them because you know who they are and what they're doing, and then that that that can be useful sometimes, like I I you know, I sci shame can be

can be a useful tactic sometimes. Yeah, Like I know, I know people who've done union campaigns where like things have turned around when they like showed up to like some NGEO person's fund raiser and they're like, hey, you guys aren't paying us, and they're like everyone was like, oh my god, But you know, what what what what? What are we? What are we actually doing here? And what what? What? What? What? What I'm specifically talking about is powermapping in the context of direct action and in

the context a sort of offensive direct action. And when when you're thinking about power mapping here, there's two kinds of mappings that are useful. One is physical mapping, and this is something that people don't do enough. I don't know why they don't do this more. But first of one of one of the things that made the Hong Kong protest work is that Hong Kong had really really detailed maps right they were you know, they had apps for this that were very very detailed maps of Hong

Kong City streets. They would map where the police were, they would map where the police were moving to, they would map where protesters were. And you know, obviously there are sort of security and tactical considerations to this, but if we know the terrain better than the police do, we can do a lot of things. This is this is something that people are successfully employing in the city

of Atlanta, yep, yep. And anyway, and this this, this, this is the thing where we have we actually do have an a legitimate advantage in in large cities, which is that like the cops who are in large cities are not from like those those cities, right, you know, And and I think I think we squander this advantage a lot by just like in fucking Chicago, there's this one plaza right like pretty close to Trump Tower where

every single protest starts. And that's like it's in the middle of fucking downtown, so I guess people sort of know the way around there, but like, I fuck, nobody, like nobody lives there who doesn't make like fucking seven hundred thousand dollars a year, right, Like you're you're you're kind of squandering whatever tactical advantage you haven't. Also, you know, and and another sort of another reason to do mapping and stuff is is so you know, you can you

can plan things out ahead of time. Right, you can plan out where your lines of retreat are. You can figure out where choke points are so you don't get kettled, a thing that like I swear to God, no one who arranges the protest in the US fucking ever does, Like I mean, I know some people do it, but like Jesus Christ, you can you can figure out on a map where you're gonna get kettled, Like you can do this, yeah, and you know, and you you can do other things too with maps, right, you can you

can figure out where the locations are of infrastructure that is particularly vulnerable. You can figure out what roads will will cause the maximum a matter of sort of economic damage if you shut them down. You can figure you know, you can figure out things like can you learn the police into places where they can't use their numbers very well? Right? Can you spread them out over one hundred different areas

and neutralize their effectiveness? And this is a kind of These are the kind of terms that we need to be thinking about in terms and when when we're physically mapping and physically trying to understand an area, which is that we need to be thinking in very direct, tactical terms. We need to figure out what kind of places you know?

And this also this also works defensively, right, we need to be figuring out you know, okay, so we have a drag show that's under attack, right, we need we need to figure out what kinds of places if people are attacking, we need to figure out how we can defend them. And we need to be thinking again not not just like showing up to a place and being like, okay, we're hearing these people across the street right like before that happens and be like before a protest stars, before

an actually starts. There needs to be like work put in to make sure that we that the actions that we're doing are effective, are as effective as possible. So that that's that Yeah, that that that that that that's

that's one part of this kind of mapping stuff. You know, if if if you if you want more sort of inspiration for this stuff, there's a bunch of oh my god, I'm not forgetting the name of every book, probably should have actually written the books in here, but they're they're some of the some of the Italian Autonomous will talk about this stuff, and they have all of these like really wild sort of tactical stuff about like things you could do in a city, like you can mess up

stop lights, you can like I don't know, like they they they they did a lot of stuff and like moving signs around there. There's a lot of very weird things in a city that you can do that we don't think about because we've limited our tactical arsenal to like people show up at a place and yell yes, stand stand outside of a building and yell at a building end of protests. Yeah, and that that doesn't work. Like we need to have tactics that are sort of

like that are beyond that. I guess, I guess part of the reason that I'm I'm starting here is that I want people to like literally go back very much to square one of thinking about what our response needs to be before we start moving, because you know, like, and I'm not this this is not a sort of criticism of the people who've been doing dract defense, Like they've been doing a great job, right, but our standard protest arsenal is not enough. It has not been working,

and we need to reevaluate what we're doing. It needs to expand, and we need to see a better understanding of what diversity of tactics means. I also think that on this particular issue, until fairly recently, our primary threat vector was non state actors threatening physical violence, and so the community defense model is actually a very effective response to that threat and has been incredibly effective on numerous times.

Now that we are looking at the threat coming from the state in terms of legislative at legislative action and all that stuff, it does open up a lot more tactical possibility. Like what you're talking about, um, and that's cool, and people should realize that. Yeah, No, I think you're right. We should go back and look from the ground up

and like come to new conclusions, new ideas. And I think I think the the the other thing of going back to sort of like basics rights, going going back to the kinds of going going going back to changing how we think about the world around us so that we can actually so that we can more effectively take action in the other kind of thing that we need to do is social mapping. It's figuring out the resources that we have the resources that they have, where they are,

how they function. And this is something that Margaret, you've you've talked about in your in your threat about this, which is very good. Yeah, but one of the things that we need to figure out very quickly is what skills do we have and what resources do we have?

And you know this this expands into a lot of into a lot of different sort of fields, right, Um, you know there's some of this is sort of territorial, right, Like it's about thinking about like what kinds like what's physically what spaces are safe for us and which ones aren't, and how can we sort of leverage the spaces that we have that are safe and you know, maneuver in the ones that are How is this changing? There's also something that I I want to sort of think about here,

which is this old this is old tradition. Do you do? You do you know what workers inquiry is? I don't know? Okay, So this is this is a very old Marxist tradition. Um, it means a lot of different things to a lot

of different people. Like Marx was attempting, So the origin of this is Marx was trying to like send out surveys to like workers to figure out what their conditions were, and people over time took this into more interesting directions of you know, but it turns into a kind of like like a worker's ethnography of you know, workers sitting down and writing or doing interviews about just literally like what what their work day is, like, what the sort

of like labor processes they're involved in are, How does how does that work? Like? Who? Like, how do their bosses work? How how are they being managed? How are they resisting them? And you know, and you you there there are other things you can sort of use this for that are very useful to us, which is, for example, figuring out things like what does the what does your

local economy depend on? What are the sort of important logistics lines in that local economy, you know, who is physically doing the labor that the economy depends on, who is doing the care labor, because that's another side of this that gets sort of brushed over a lot. But for example, this this this is a large part of why teachers are enormously powerful, because teachers are doing a shit ton of care labor that is is necessary for

the necessary for the entire economy to function. But isn't really seen that way, right, and you know, and and you you you can ask other questions like you know what what what like literally, what are the physical conditions under which you and the people around you are working?

A lot of this stuff's come to you, like person who works a job, right, Um, there there is an advantage that we have as people who do this stuff, which is that we we will understand the terrain of our own workplace is better than the people who are sitting at the at the top of the power structure, because we're on the bottom of it, right the people who are above us and and and this This is another thing that that's important about this kind of transphobia

is that it's it's very much an elite thing. This is I think especially noticeable in the UK, where like you can literally track who is going to be a turf by like what kind of like elite schools they're going to. But but like literally like if someone goes to eat, like you know, it's like who goes to eaton right, Like this is this is the thing. It tracks who the ruling classes and who and who is a turf and who's not going to be a terf?

Right and then, but this is this is also true in the US, where, like I mean again, if you look at the media people who are pushing this, it's a bunch of people sitting on like an unbelievable amount of trust fund money and getting a bunch of sort of writing billionaire money. Yes, my experience has been that since Trump's election, the random folks around me have become

substantially less favorable towards me. And I think antitrans stuff is is popular across class, but I don't know, I think that's I think that's true, but I don't think it matters that much because like, like the the the ordinary person in your neighborhood who has become transphobic isn't the person who has the capacity to get these laws passed. Okay, that's fair. And the things that they know are not the things that the actual people running these campaigns know. Yeah, okay.

And and that that that that I think is what is sort of important about this, is that like legislatures, right, or like you know, the people who are funding who are funding these campaigns, the people who donate to these who donate literally literally donate to sort of political campaigns, right, These people do not understand what our jobs are. They don't understand what we do, they don't understand how the

economy works very well. What the version of reality that they can see is a sort of bureaucratic image of it produced by their subordinates. And you know that there's a real problem with that, which is that a lot of the time, right, the more powerful person is, the more likely it is that the version of reality that they're getting is the version of reality that is just being told to them by the people by the people

below them. And you know, and this this means, like the more powerful the people we're dealing with, the less capacity they actually have to understand. Is this is true even with for organizations to have like an enormous amount of raw intelligence that you know, they're sort of spy and surveillance networks have assembled, right, they're you know, they have all this information, but they don't understand and they're sort of buried in trying to like trying and often

failing to sort through all of the information that they have. Yeah, and they try and map it to their worldview. It's how you always end up with like we found the like I have a friend who is investigated as the leader of international anarchism, and it took them a really really long time before they were like, I don't think that's a thing. Yeah, well, it's like they don't they don't understand how our networks work very well because yeaheah,

they have stuff like that. But but this is also true, especially like on the level of the workplace, right, Um, there is a bunch of stuff that we know that cannot be replicated by the people on the top of the org chart. And a lot of that stuff has to do with we know how to make things stop working in ways that they don't, okay, and and that that is that that that is very sort of useful information to have because if you know how something works,

you can make it stop working. And this is this is the sort of you know, this is a lot of what the Marxist tradition sort of was, right. It was an attempt to understand like what workers are doing. The distinction I would make is they were trying to figure out what workers are doing because they were trying to figure out how capitalism works. And I don't care about that enormously like that that's that's that's not a

thing that actually sort of like I don't know. Whatever I do, I don't I don't care about whatever esoteric value debates they were having. The decision I would make here is that, you know, the Marxist version of this has a tendency to collapse and develop production into just like incredibly bitter and minute debates about Marxism. We are not trying to do that. The thing we're trying to do with our version of this is stop agendicide. Right.

Our our version of inquiry means attack and when when? When? When I say when? When I'm talking about this kind of stuff, right, I'm talking about like you and finding the other people in your workplace who are supportive of this stuff. And you know, I mean literally just on

like a very very basic level. And this is something that you get in union organizing, right, It's like just figuring out what the fuck they do because like manage, it doesn't know what you do, right, Like I I I have I have worked in a lot of of of places. I have talked to managers a lot. They have no fucking idea what what anyone is actually doing. And if if you if you can build up and this is this is you know, this is all going,

This is all kind of abstract. But if if you can figure out how your workplace works, and you can figure out how the workplaces of the people around you work, and how how the workplace is that like actually genuinely matter to the people who are doing this stuff, you suddenly have. You suddenly have leverage that you normally that you know, a sort of like traditional like protest thing doesn't. And this means, for better or for worse, trying to

get unions involved. Um, there are upsides and downsides here. The downside is that there just aren't the many unions and there aren't the many people in unions as I just have like a middling faith in them. Yeah, working on it. I mean yeah, I mean some of them, I'm sure good and and I want to challenge all of them too, and if they do, I will eat my shoe whatever the saying is. Um, so yeah, I mean it's like they're not going to do unless they're forced to, right, Well, I depending on the I think

some unions do. Now I'm like suddenly one eighteen, I mean, like talk on unions like that whatever anyway continues, So okay, So the thing part of the the other reason that that I'm focusing specifically on unions, and I'm specifically I'm focusing a lot and workplace organizing stuff. Is that Okay?

One of the inherent problems of trans organizing is that trans people are not a large enough minority to enter the most sort of like cynical, like numerically determinist accounts of who matters enough to support right, like not not yet, not right, But as as if right now we're like maybe two percent of the population now will change it is it is grown. If the Zoober numbers continue, we're

gonna be We're gonna be quite quite the problem. I remember marching with my my first boyfriend, and this this bashback march where we're chanting one in ten is not enough. Yeah, And it's just funny because it's like there's more of us now. Yeah. Yeah, And this is trans are really good at recruiting at LGBT because and literally, you cannot think I'm cute and be heterosexual. There's no way of making that happen. True. No, this is like legit legitimately.

One of the reasons that I figured out that I wasn't like a sistet straight dude was I was dating an un binary person I was like, shit, Okay, it's um. There are places where trans people are like enormously overrepresented, right and and and there are places where we exist in numbers enough that we actually statistically matter. And unions are one of those places because the people to people who are organizing unions, like trans people are so unbelieved,

pably fucking overrepresented in all of that stuff. And this is this is as much true of I mean, okay, so this this is true really, especially of any kind of sort of new unionism, like particularly things like grad student unions. Right, but it's also true of like like all all of the fucking service sector unions that are getting organized, and this has been true for like twenty years.

All of the people organizing that, whether they realize it or not, are trans. And you know, but this this means that we actually have leverage there, right, because this is this is a part of the economy where if we stop doing our job, shit will actually fall apart, right, Like you know, actual sort of large scale union campaigns like cannot work without us. And that means that we actually we have the ability to pressure them into doing

shit in a way that's not necessarily true. And I'm talking here, like specifically about like you the listener who is trans, which is like statistically statistically like you the listener is not trans. If you are, congratulations, Um, if you're not, I also suspect they are slightly overrepresented that

definitely still probably not a majority. Well, I guess I like, I also want to say that, like, um, I mean, it's funny because the way to define SIS allyship is literally just if you're willing to car yourself CIS, you know, because it's like not actually a slur, it's just a description. It's just a you know, like the not trans word, right, and it's not bad at all. Yeah, and now that that's a battleground word, it's like pronouns and profile or whatever.

You know, It's like it's actually fairly easy to make it clear where you stand on this kind of issue. Um, And I I will say, I mean, obviously trans people do a lot of this organizing, but I think that we have a lot, an awful lot of SIS people with us, And so you, the CIS listener, we also fucking love and respect you because if you've made it into an hour of us talking about how much this matters,

it clearly matters to you too. You know, this is probably our like three or whatever the fuck and both episodes and soon you won't be allowed to wear pants if you're a fab So you know this is gonna

hit everyone. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you know all of the stuff that I've been saying right about, you know, And like another part of this also is is literally just like a thing that you can do that is organizing that will help in this stuff is literally just talking to your friends, yeah, and being like, hey, here's my eight friends or whatever, here are things. How do

you feel about this? You know, and then and then and then try and then you know, using using this kind of stuff, using this kind of mapping stuff, and you know, using using what you can learn about how you know this this this this, this part of it has been kind of abstract, but I think intentionally so it's like we we we are, we are in a place where we need to very rapidly build up capacity for a kind of movements that can actually do things.

And I think this is this this is sort of like the planning phase for that is Yeah, but you know, like the these are things that are going down to be created very quickly. These we're we're going to have to very quickly figure out, you know what what what levers can be like pushed. Right. And one of the things about like the first bathroom bill in North Carolina, right, it didn't get repealed, but it got like amended to

be slightly less bad. Yeah, And it got amenaged to because to be slightly less bad because the state it very quickly ran into trouble with a bunch of corporations who were like, you know, because an initial push that they were like, We're like, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna pull out of events in this state. We're gonna pull out of like backing your giant Like we're gonna pull out of having our giant like fucking sports tournaments here. We're gonna pull out of like advertising for like retails

off and that. And that got them to sort of like run away very very quickly, right, And that's been the one big thing they've been actually scared of. And I think this is part of why they've been pushing this sort of like quote corporation like anti Disney stuff so hard. Is that like the kind of backlash that can very quickly get these people to flip is the

kind of backlash that starts actually hurting. If these kinds of bills start hurting their bottom line, these a lot of these people will flip because a lot of a lot of even the legislators who are voting for this art as hardline as the sort of like daily wire people, and if their campaign funders are like, hey, you gotta fucking turn this around so the economy can go back

to normal, like they they, they will flip on this stuff. Okay, That's all I was talking about is about things that you can do to begin to mount pressure campaigns and mountain direct actions. I also wanted to talk about sort of like just survival network stuff because that also was going to be a part of this. And yeah, Margaret, you had a lot of very very good stuff in

a thread that you wrote about this. Yeah. I wrote a threat a week or so ago about all this stuff as I woke up and doom squirrelled for a while, and you know, and I was just thinking a lot back on the organizing that I know people are doing and stuff like that and trying to put things together, and so some of it's just kind of like tips, right, And I want to say like again, well again to the threat not to something I've said here. I think that we need to focus on what unites us and

not what divides us. Right now, I think that this is not a time for public facing internal conflict. It is not a time for interpersonal conflict to be aired publicly. Not to say that interpersonal conflict doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. We need to you know, I believe mediation is actually one of the most important skills. Actually, frankly, literally, if you're listening and you have any mediation skills, I think it is the thing that the revolution needs more than

anything else. Off the top of my head, but overall, basically, there's something that mc soul said, I don't know if his own podcast might have been Twitter or a a long time ago, and it's really stuck in my head, which is that we need to focus on we need to de escalate all conflict that isn't with the enemy, Which isn't to say that the conflict doesn't happen, is that we need to look how to de escalate it and bring it down in pressure, except when it's with the enemy,

like with someone who's trying to murder all the trans people, or someone who's like a white nationalist or whatever right. We are not looking to de escalate that conflict. We are probably looking to escalate that conflict. We are looking to make it very clear the way in which we are not that person. But and I'm as guilty this as anyone else. I have a lot of pet peeves that people who listen to my show are very aware of. Also, this fight will happen on multiple fronts, using multiple tactics.

There's this magical phrase diversity of tactics, and we have to mean it. And diversity of tactics usually means like kind of like, no, it's just support my tactic. Like especially if you're like tactic is like riots or something. You know, you often say diversity of tactics, and what you really mean is like my shit rules and your shit sucks. We actually have to straight up mean it. We need to support the people who are focused in

legislative action. Even though it's not where we are strong, it is a place that needs to be shored up. We need to focus. We need to support the people who focus on community defense. We need to focus. We need to support the people who are doing illegal things. We need to support the people who are doing organizing in all kinds of different ways, and if we build organizations that accept diversity of tactics and don't expect to have a sort of hegemony over the movement, we can

create a very strong movement. Most of my personal infighting is with people who do want to have a geminy over a movement, and so you get I fall into

this like trap where I'm like, how do we fucking anyway? Whatever? Okay, other things that people can do if you are not visibility LGBT and you feel like it is safe to do so, or you feel like it is dangerous to do so, and you're willing to be a little bit fucking danger because we are in complicated fucking times, be publicly clear that you support lg LGTP, whatever us and like the day that I wrote the clear yeah, support the queers, Like the day that I wrote this. I

live in you know, I live in West Virginia. I go to Lows and you know, I'm having a bad day. I'm like fuck, I'm like, you know, at what point is it going to be a crime for me to go to Lows? Right? And the like guy, just the fucking metal head guy who seemed kind of like super masculine metal guy tattoos, and he had his fucking like

trans ally support pin on. And if we were in like a big major city, it might have almost seemed like cringey because it said like ally or whatever on it, right, And I'm fucking overworrying about what's cringe e. I'm like, no, thank you. I I went up and I thanked him right because it like fucking helped my day. And that kind of shit is going to matter because it is now actually a fairly dangerous in some places to be visibly in support of us. And I absolutely appreciate the

people who are doing it. And another thing that we need to support this is the kind of thing that you've talked a little bit about, is that, Okay, we need to have support networks. We need to have networks that are protecting trans people, families that are leaving environments. There's so many families that want to leave these states where their child is no longer safe, will be forced

to detransition, will not be allowed to transition. There are transparents in Florida who might be at risk of losing their children. All of these things, people are going to want to move. We need to support people materially who are trying to move, and there will be organizations that are doing this. If they don't exist yet, you can start them. And if you wait for them to start, that's also sometimes okay. If you're played is full, you can support those organizations in a lot of different ways.

We can also support and not shame people who choose to live in Red States as though, Like, as a state transperson, I think about this a lot about like because like I'm not planning on moving right. You know, it helps that I'm an adult. I'm like settled whatever, Like my mental health is strong, you know, but I'm not planning on going anywhere. And that's why we can't give up these spaces, right. I think that one of the things I kind of mentioned earlier but is that,

like we are not in normal times. We need to take this seriously. We also need to not assume that all this is a foregone conclusion. We need to not assume that this will go down like Nazi Germany. However, we need to be aware that it might, and we need everyone This is not a trans people thing, This isn't everyone thing. We need to think about what that actually means. You know, there's that cliche that is true

right now. That is like, if you want to know what you have been doing in Germany in nineteen thirty three, it's what you're doing right now. And like that's true. This is a time for to be the kind of person that we want to be. We are in dangerous and complicated times, and it is times that we need to be brave, and we need to be brave for each other. Bravery is not the absence of fear. Bravery is doing things despite fear. Bravery is the presence of courage,

not the lack of awareness that things are scary and bad. Yes, And that's kind of like my main thing is I want us to not panic, right, to not assume that we're going to lose, to realize that they are acting this way because they're on their back foot. This was always going to happen in the fact that in a way we kind of started this fight by like existing

and like coming out of the closet and shit. But we basically were like, no, we're allowed to be here, and most people were like, yeah, okay, I guess that tracks. I guess you're allowed to be here. And then some small portion we're like these are demons from hell sent to ripe tits off of the children I'd like to marry.

The freaks like Matt Walsh are the ones who declared quote unquote war on trans people, right because we were coming for their way of life, not their way of life in terms of like heterosexual marriage, that gets to still exist, that's fine, like, but compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory sis sexuality is the thing that we are coming for. And their way of life is hegemony. Their way of life is being the only force of power. And so yeah, I guess the other stuff is that we just Okay,

what would you do in Nazi Germany? That's what you're doing right now, and you should think about what skills you have and how they apply to different things. And then the kind of final point to a lot of this is as a specific issue and it's a pet issue of mind, and that could be completely wrong. I have a lot of bias about this, but I would fucking love it if liberals would shut the fuck up

about guns. Right now. It is very hard for me to find a state that is not either in the process of trying to tell me that I can't wear a dress, or to find a state that is trying to tell me that I can't carry the means to protect myself from the violent bigots who want to kill me because I wear a dress. It is incredibly hard to find states that are not pushing in one of

those directions or another, and it is embarrassing. It is embarrassing that this, of all times, is the time that liberals are focusing so hard on gun issues, which is a culture war bullshit thing for them. They don't fucking care, They didn't fucking care about abortion. They just want your fucking votes. And we are probably entering a very bad and hard time. However, we can do it. We have done it in the past, and my reading of history it basically is this cycle I kind of don't quite

believe in, like a forward progress. Everything gets better, things ebb and flow. And however, we will survive this, not necessarily all of us as individuals. Probably probably there won't be like large numbers of killings as a result of this, but it is possible, right, But they it is impossible to stamp out homosexuality, It is impossible to stamp out transsexuality. We have always been here, we will always be here, and so yeah to to quote my final quote in

that particular threat, I definitely went off threat. But we need to find each other. We need to stop fighting with each other about bullshit. We need to defend each other. We need to be brave. And then I will cite the anarchist's prayer, which is that I ask not to be safe from my enemies, but dangerous to them, because all right, this is what we're fucking doing, and like, we all want to be safe, but that's not something

that we're guaranteed. What we are guaranteed is that we can choose how to handle the situation that we're in. And then almost done, almost done. You talked to earlier about what we owe the owe the dead. I really liked your way phrasing that. I really liked a lot of what you were talking about about all of that.

And one thing that I think about we're talking about like the Catholic Church and shit, right, one thing that I owe the dead is I owe Sister Dominic, a Catholic nun, to not fucking go back into the closet because when my cousin came out as trans, this woman

who is literally married to God. She died a couple of years ago maybe ten years ago now before I came out, but my cousin came out before me, because it's a contagion now because we were always fucking trans and she was completely supportive, completely and immediately in my like, you know, and just this is a woman who dedicated her entire life too well to God and Saul literally

no problem, was the most immediately accepting person. Immediately said, you know, I bet she's always felt that way, and so I personally owe it to her to tell these Catholics to shut the fuck up, because fucking Jesus's wife says, it's fine. Fuck you, That's what I got. Thank you, Margaret. Yeah, that was fantastic. Where where can people find you and some of your other work across the across the web. Yeah.

I just finished a four part series on Stonewall and the stuff that came before Stonewall, the riots that kind of brought us this movement, and how it was all different types of queers and even some hat people working together to bring us as far as we've got. And you can find that on my podcast Cool People who

did cool stuff. It's with it could Happen here host Sharine as my guest and You can also find me talking about the end of the world on Live Like the World Is Dying as another podcast that I'm a co host of. And my most recent book is called Escape from Insel Island, and it is not non fiction. It is not something about how people should get better. It's literally about someone of the shot on new Lands, on an island full of insults and has to get

out alive. Fantastic. Well, thank you for listening through all the way. If you are still here, hopefully, hopefully you've learned something interesting across these these these two pretty pretty heavy episodes. We will we will see you on the other side. It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. Well more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemta dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.