Transgender Day of Visibility was no threat to Easter or Christians
TDoV has ALWAYS been on March 31st; it's EASTER that moves on the calendar
Good lord, but people can be SERIOUSLY fucking stupid sometimes. As much as I hate to put it in such stark and profane terms, neither can I deny the gawdawful reality of the times we live in. Some folks are just the fucking WORST…and the majority of them can be found at the WAY Far-Right end of the political/ideological/theological spectrum.
This was a subject I was hoping to avoid (I naïvely hoped things would improve), but transgender rights are something I’ve come to feel strongly about, and not because I know a sizeable number of transgender people. I don’t; I can think of perhaps three or four off the top of my head, but that’s unimportant. What upsets me is that so many feel free to bully the transgender community…and why? That transgender people exist has no material impact on the quality of anyone’s life. It doesn’t impact my life, yours, or anyone’s…except the person whose sole “transgression” is trying to become the person they believe themselves to be.
That’s it. That’s all. It’s not your business, my business, or anyone’s but the person whose body is in play. And yet, so many on the Far-Right end of the political spectrum feel justified in bullying a community that doesn’t comprise even 1% of the population. That’s a pretty sad commentary on the quality of people who believe it’s their right to make life miserable for those whose life decisions have no impact on their sorry, wretched, and distinctly pitiful existence.
at Law Dork did a masterful job profiling some of the genuinely miserable personalities who lost their shit on Sunday because Transgender Day of Visibility happened to fall on the same day as Easter this year. Never mind that TDoV falls on March 31st EVERY year; it’s Easter that moves around.(Holier-than-thou Conservatives NEVER let facts stand in the way of losing their shit.)
So, despite this reality, some of the dumbest knuckledraggers on the planet didn’t get the memo that TDoV and Easter falling on the same day was purely coincidental, not an evil plot concocted by Joe Biden to sell golden buttplugs to America’s children.
This, as Geidner tells us, is what happens when a slow news weekend on the Internet combines with the perfect opportunity for hair-on-fire conspiracy theories.
Good Christ, but these people are fucking morons….
This weekend’s gaslighting from the right around Easter falling on the same day as Transgender Day of Visibility is a stark sign of how empty the Republican Party has gotten — and how dangerous Donald Trump is, not only to transgender people, but to America.
If you, blessedly, have no idea what I am talking about, congratulations, you live a life free from what I think is best thought of as “No-News Weekend Internet.” In short, when nothing is happening, something must happen. It will always be stupid, but, in the past, sometimes that meant stupid-fun. Now, it means stupid-dangerous.
This time, it was two things. Easter moves around because it falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21. Transgender Day of Visibility, which was founded in 2009, takes place on March 31.
This year, again, BECAUSE OF THE MOON, Easter is on March 31.
“Stupid-dangerous.” Yes, when nothing is happening, something must happen, and “stupid-dangerous” is increasingly the outcome because when stupid people in the grip of the Dunning-Kruger Effect begin to think, the “dangerous” part is inevitable.
For a group of Republicans looking to demonize Joe Biden and transgender people, this was all that they needed to start a weekend of hate. Then, for kicks I guess, they added in an attack on the “new rules” for the White House children’s egg decorating contest — specifically, that submissions can’t be overtly religious — as a second anti-Christian thing that Biden has done despite the fact that the Biden administration didn’t change the rules.
It’s disgusting and done in extremely bad faith — but also dangerous.
The White House headed into what they likely presumed would be a reasonably quiet Easter weekend. Sure, there were the ongoing problems- Ukraine, Gaza, the southern border, the upcoming NFL draft- but nothing that looked like it would go to DEFCON 5.
And then it began:
On Friday morning, the Biden White House Press Office sent out this year’s Transgender Day of Visibility proclamation, as they have done in the other years of his presidency. In fact, in 2022 and 2023, the White House Press Office also sent out a related “Fact Sheet” to highlight related administration accomplishments. Biden issues many similar, and temporally overlapping, proclamations. He issued 11 on Friday — addressing celebrations or commemorations for the days, week, and month ahead.
This one was handled differently. At 9:50 a.m. Saturday, Owen Shroyer, a conservative talk show host with 1776 in his username, appears to have been one of the first people to take advantage of No-News Weekend Internet.
So, Shroyer’s post was borderline dishonest, but, considering the source, it’s not exactly a five-alarm blaze and certainly nothing worth anyone getting their magic underwear in a bunch over.
But it wasn’t long before one of the dumbest people on the Internet (next to Ben Shapiro) decided to weigh in. And it was every bit as overwrought and brain-dead as you might expect, considering who it came from.
Self-identified “[t]heocratic fascist” Matt Walsh followed up with a quote retweet of Shroyer a little past noon literally calling Biden a “demon.”
Hey, guess what? I have as low an opinion of Matt Walsh as you can possibly have, and yet his post is so idiotic and pointless that I had to check to make sure it was real. It is. Someone reacted instead of engaging in even the barest shred of fact-checking…and now he looks like an idiot.
Wait…that would be because he IS an idiot.
Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor, decided to send out his take on it for reasons no one should care about.
Jennings: I should really keep my ignorant, ill-informed opinions to myself until I manage to spend a couple of minutes on Google, knowhutimean? Besides, no one knows who the fuck I am, so why would they care about my opinion…about anything?
And it gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective):
None of these intellectual and moral powerhouses could bother themselves to discover why TDoV and Easter were on the same day this year. Again, if they had, they would’ve learned that Easter was the day that moved, not TDoV. Of course, it’s far easier to righteously vent your spleen than traffic in facts and truth.
“OMG…Biden shat upon Easter! How DARE he!!!”
It’s been a while since I’ve been in a religion class, but, if memory serves, I think it’s pretty clear that Jesus would be more likely to overturn the tables in Mike Johnson’s House than be upset about Trans Day of Visibility.
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker behind much of the legislative hate of the 1990s, was eager to jump in once he figured out what was going on, with an Easter Sunday tweet declaring that the calendar being the calendar was an “obscene insult to every Christian.”
‘Course, I’m no law dork (or even one who believes in God), but I’ll have to agree with Chris Geidner on this one. As an atheist, Easter is just another day to me, though I do understand its significance to Christians. That said, those who spent yesterday venting their righteous indignation over Joe Biden’s BLASPHEMY!!! are Christians like I’m a Premier League goalkeeper. The hypocrisy and self-righteousness are hip-deep and rising rapidly.
It’s people like those hypocrites who confirm why I’m good without God.
Call me silly, but this seems like a monumental lack of self-awareness. If anyone’s out of touch with reality, it sure as Hell isn’t President Biden. The Cryptkeeper Newt Gingrich has no right to question anyone’s grip on reality, having lost his somewhere around 2015.
But the most ridiculous assault on our sensibilities was this from Planet Mar-a-Lago and its spokesgoon:
Of course, the Right-wing Echo Chamber covered the OLD MAN SHOUTS AT MOON! story as if it were an actual thing. The New York Post managed to weave together a story, and (shockingly, I know) Fox News leaped into the fray with their own condemnation.
Even the Egg Board got involved:
Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board, a group that supports the White House Egg Roll, said in a statement, "The American Egg Board has been a supporter of the White House Easter Egg Roll for over 45 years and the guideline language referenced in recent news reports has consistently applied to the board since its founding, across administrations."
It’s one thing to lament the stupidity behind all of this, which is considerable and seemingly never-ending. But this is all happening in the context of a continuing series of legislative attacks upon transgender rights in red states nationwide.
A minority population that is less than 1% of the total population of the US is being bullied by Right-wingers, Social Conservatives, and “Christians” who believe they have the right to make the lives of transgender people miserable.
Precisely what Jesus would do, eh?
Transgender people mean no harm to anyone. They’re barely a threat to themselves, much less good, God-fearing, White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals…and if you see them as a threat, that says more about you than the trans community.
Way to prove your Christian bona fides, y’all. Mama must be SO proud….
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