I never like comparing anything I go through to something someone else is dealing with. I'm infinitely guilty of saying to myself, "Others have it worse."
In the same breath, I'm somewhat a student of history and can no longer deny what is right in front of us.
(Fan-girl warning) To quote Gandalf The White:
"The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great battle of our time."
Every generation has their great battle, their struggle between good and evil, right and wrong.
Christians will have you believe they are on the right side of history in the current war against the transgender community, using their holy texts as justification for the denial of basic human rights.
Do you know who else made that argument, basing their hate in religion?
In a flyer dating back to the second half of the 19th century, the Ku Klux Klan describes itself as "an Active Protestant organization with strong backing, insisting upon the unhampered maintenance of all American Institutions..."
Furthermore, the pamphlet states the Klan to be opposed to anything "contrary to pure Americanism."
On a separate flyer promoting a rally on Friday, July 29, 1966, the KKK urges the public to "Save America" and "Come here the truth" with "good preaching and country music."
If these things are beginning to sound familiar, they should. This is the same rhetoric and apparent mentality of the modern MAGA movement.
Phrases like "fake news" and "witch hunt" are coined and used repeatedly to discredit the word of literally everyone else, creating a "one truth mentality." And as the Klan did in the 20th century, modern MAGA supporters use religion as the as the basis for the hate they feel.
Now, I refuse to believe it's all outright hate. I believe, perhaps to the point of being naive, that most people are good people. However, as a species, we historical fear that which we do not understand. And if we fear something, we want it to go away or justify not wanting it around us.
The modern day Republican party have become experts at capitalizing on that fear. Whether it's the National Rifle Association (NRA) saying that all Democrats want to "come take your guns," or Donald Trump saying "illegals are eating your pets," the idea is to conjure up fear-driven images in your mind and, in turn, gain your support because they're the ones that will make the scary things or ideas go away.
In the wake of World War I, the German people were living miserably after having been on the losing side of that conflict. The Germans, a proud people, needed something to believe in.
It was in that void that Adolf Hitler rose to prominence, giving a beaten people something to believe in - most notably national pride.
Throughout Hitler's conquest of Europe, one facet of his reign remains the most dreadful, perhaps the worst in the history of humankind - The Holocaust.
Hitler's vengeful war against the Jewish people of Germany and Europe at large saw the extermination of six million Jewish people.
What did Hitler publicly use as his justification for that war? Religion.
On April 12, 1922, Hitler spoke about talked about how he was called to battle the Jews.
"As a human being it is my duty to see to it that humanity will not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did that old civilization two thousand years ago, a civilization which was driven to its ruin by the Jews. . . I am convinced that I am really a devil and not a Christian if I do not feel compassion and do not wage war, as Christ did two thousand years ago, against those who are steeling and exploiting these poverty-stricken people."
I assume by now you're drawing parallels to modern day America.
The MAGA movement is, by name, a movement to "restore America to former greatness."
Prior to 2008, while politics in the United States were divisive, an unstated pendulum swing left and right every four-to-eight years. While it prevented - or at least slowed - any measurable change because of inconsistent leadership, it provided a balance. However, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 drove such a dagger into the heart of white Americans who had lived through segregation and Jim Crow.
Those Americans, primarily from rural, predominantly segregated communities, used every imaginable thing they could do to discredit candidate and later President Obama. From creating conspiracy theories about his birth certificate to attacking the religious views of his birth father to whether or not his wife was transgender (she is not, by the way), Obama was attacked in every way possible.
To them, he was an affront to everything they held dear. He didn't deal in fear, instead built a campaign on hope for the future. But, as heard behind closed doors and whispered, he was not white.
Eight years of Obama led those Americans to feeling oppressed, feeling as if they had to endure their own version of the "dark ages."
So, when Donald Trump came to the forefront of the Republican party saying he was going to "Make American Great Again," echoing their hateful and vengeful rhetoric, it was just what they needed. Trump, to his credit, did it in a way that painted his political aspirations as a selfless desire to restore America. In his own way, he built his political fortune on national pride.
Listening to many of the staunchest Trump supporters, it's clear they believe he has been delivered to the American people from God himself. And while I cannot find any direct statement from Trump where he attributes that to himself, his rhetoric does little to nothing to dissuade this dangerous view.
Whether through fear, misinformation, or outright lies, Trump and his MAGA movement want to paint the transgender community as everything except for what they actually are.
"Mentally ill."
"Deranged."
"Delusional."
People don't understand it. They can't fathom it. And their leader(s) said there must be something wrong with them, so that has to be the truth. In reality, biological sex and DNA cannot be changed. However, gender is a social construct and a frame of mind. But, we don't talk about that, right, Mr. President?
In 1933, Germany passed the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service," limiting the Jewish people and "politically unreliable" from state service. It was the first "of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives."
Trump's day one executive order defining men and women based on his views was the first enacted against the transgender community. Since then, he has banned transgender service in the United States military, saying that the "adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
The parallels between the first German laws against Jewish people and the first laws against transgender people are uncanny. While, likewise, the constant barrage of using religion as the basis for this outright attack is almost identical.
While the imagery of the Civil Rights movement in the United States and The Holocaust in World War II Europe are painful to even think about, it draws scary parallels to the modern attacks on the transgender community. And I do not like to compare anything I may go through to such atrocities.
Instead, the point here is to point out that our species has had to battle religion-fueled hate before and we will again. How bad will it get? That's to be determined. I like to believe I don't think anything as atrocious as the events of the Holocaust or the Civil Rights Movement will repeat themselves. But, if we don't take a stand now, then it will inevitably go unchecked, leading to a dangerous outcome that will not stop with just the transgender community.
To stop this evil where it is now, to prevent it from becoming so much worse, is the great battle of our time.
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