#the focus on murders instead of economic and social death. it feels propagandistic.

[kaiasky]

the coda to this is that this doesn't just prey on terfs and white nationalists. we ought to be careful not to fall into this ourselves.

for instance, you can find many instances where trans people are hurt by individuals and society. These are real, and it is also true that, demographically, it is more dangerous to be trans than not trans. (and depending on where you live, who you live with, your race, economic status, etc it may be extremely dangerous to be trans. intersectionality etc y'all know the deal).

But consuming all the news articles does NOT give you an accurate perception of the risks where you are. It is easy to gorge yourself on these stories of harm towards trans people, and come to believe that being trans is *more* dangerous than reality, that every cis person is a threat, and that the safest thing is to never go outside/never come out/etc.

obviously it's a different tragedy if you're not in a position to discriminate against and harm in the name of 'self defense', the way terfs/white nationalists/zionists are. trans people are not driving the down with cis bus; i dont wanna draw a false equivalence there. but the underlying function, of getting trapped in a cyclic loop of outrage bait and fear? that can happen regardless of who the outgroup is.

In the worst case that comes out as aggression against also-vulnerable people on the periphery of the ingroup. (one might point out how TERFs are legitimately subject to the horrors of patriarchy, but that has coalesced into anger against trans women, who also experience all of those things!) And in the 'best' case, it just makes you sad, angry, and miserable all the time.

Everybody does the exact same stupid shit. That white nationalist anon I was getting a while ago would send me story after story of some random black guy or immigrant committing a violent crime against a white person. Well, yeah, people are violent, you're gonna find those if you go looking for them. And there's a lot of racial animosity in the world, so you'll even find racially charged ones if you go looking! No shit, Sherlock. We could play this game all day. You find me a news story of a black guy killing a white guy, I find you a news story of white guy killing a black guy. This does no one any good.

TERFs are identical. News story after news story of a trans woman raping somebody. Yeah, the world is an awful place and people rape each other. I can find you a news story of a cis woman raping a teenage boy and getting three months in jail. I can find you a news story of a cis mom killing her disabled kid cause they're too much work. But I don't want to. The world sucks shit, why gorge yourself on the tragedy?

Zionists come up with news story after news story of pro-Palestinian/BDS/whatever protestors being antisemitic. Yep. A lot of people out there hate Jews. And there has been a genuine rise in antisemitism since the Oct. 7th attack, and that's awful. There are no excuses for that. Do you know what else has happened since then? The Israeli military has slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinians, including huge numbers of innocent civilians—men, women and children.

People are often terrible to each other. Welcome to Earth. If you go looking for bad actors in a big enough group, you are guaranteed to find them. How about this. What about all the black people who didn't kill a white little girl? What about the black little girls? What about their hopes and dreams? What about their chance at life? What about all the trans women who didn't rape anybody in a bathroom? What if they just want to go about their lives, without constant public scrutiny of what genitals they have (as a cis woman, can you empathize with that? Constant public scrutiny of what you're doing with your genitals?). What about the 30,000 Palestinians who have been killed, and the 70,000 who have been displaced from their homes?

Fear has made you a monster. Fear has driven you to demand slaughter and oppression of innocent people because they look like guilty people you read about on the news, and since they look the same to you, you feel fearful—how can you tell whether these are the innocent ones or the guilty ones? Best to oppress and slaughter them preemptively just to be safe. I am here to tell you that this twisted logic of self-defense does not hold. I do not care if you feel safe—I do not care if you are safe—if the cost of your safety is innocent life. The world is a risky place. I am not going to deny that. Horrible things could happen to any of us. If we go around preemptively attacking other over it, we do not make it a bit better. And, needless to say, danger comes from everywhere, from every group of human beings, and oppressing the people who make you nervous will not, in fact, deliver you from danger. It just makes you a monster.