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Thread, and a needed reality check about what's going on in NC.

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From long experience in N.C., I like to remind folks of the following lessons from fighting our enemies: be relentless, be uncompromising, attack their money and put not your faith in politicians.

Again, the removal of three awful bigots is a good thing. But we've got a bad history of natl media declaring victory in NC, then turning elsewhere. It's cost us badly.

Amount of people against quisling Dems is promising — as a sign of pro-trans support that could be mobilized outside elections...

That brings us to the last warning sign. One reason I wrote the article linked above last year and re-emphasized the history of HB2 recently.

When the chips are down, NC Dems — including ones who run as vocal allies — have a long, long history of treating queer and trans rights as expendable.

Obviously, Josh Stein is in the governor's mansion for awhile. So there's a substantial faction of NC Dems who are fine with anti-trans laws, just rolled out a bit more slowly and with less fanfare. Historically the party as a whole's been fine with that too (e.g. the fake repeal of HB2)...

Colvin, Garland Pierce, Pittman and Quick didn't face any primary challenger. Frances Jackson won her primary handily.

So there's still a substantial anti-trans contingent among Dem legislators. Pierce even voted for HB2 back in 2016, Pittman supported HB805 last year until the last moment...

[Mention of rape, child abuse]

Those nine anti-trans Dems? Three lost big Tuesday (Majeed, Cunningham and Willingham). This is good. They were particularly awful quislings and bigots.

Brockman resigned in October, facing charges of horrific sexual abuse of a minor.

Then there's the rest...

Two anti-trans laws passed in NC last year. HB805 was a slew of anti-trans measures on everything from documents to state healthcare. Vetoed, but overriden due to Majeed's support.

But SB442, sanctioning abuse of trans kids, passed with *nine* Dems in support. Democratic Gov. Stein signed it...

Opinion | Old Betrayals and New as N.C. Dems Pass Anti-Trans Laws North Carolina Democrats had solid election results last year, amid promises to hold the line against the far-right. But two horrific anti-trans bills just became law thanks to Democratic support, wit...

Some background: I've lived in NC all my life. I've covered politics here for 20+ years. I was in the trenches during the fight against HB2.

I did a longform piece last year on NC Dem collaboration on anti-trans laws and the history of repression they're part of. Worth a read for more context:

When it comes to the South, national queer/trans media tends to veer between doomerism and exultation.

By now you've probably heard that several prominent anti-trans Democrats lost primaries on Tuesday. This is, of course, good. But it ain't the whole story.

A🧵, y'all, from @transnews.network

The biggest threats we face aren't from those who openly seek the destruction of trans lives — dangerous as they are — but from the many, many more who will readily carry out whatever they say.

Every cis person needs to ask themselves that question.

Would you do that? Will you?

U.S. Catholic Bishops Launch Attack on Trans Healthcare; It’s Time To Fight Back While headlines were giving the Catholic church hierarchy plaudits for symbolic gestures in support of immigrants and a papal lunch with trans people, American bishops passed a major ban on trans heal...

Before praising the current papacy, remember that late last year the Catholic Church imposed one of the most sweeping bans on trans healthcare yet, cutting off life-saving care throughout its sprawling U.S. hospital networks:

These issues impact all trans women, but they always hit trans women of color the hardest.

Liberation requires absolute solidarity across all lines of oppression.

"Absolute Terror”: Lawsuit Alleges Maryland Trans Prisoners Face Rape, Medical Detransition, Defied Court Orders, Retaliation, and Torture, Despite AG Brown’s Condemnation of Trump Prison Policy Gov. Moore's prisons defied a judge’s order to follow standards to keep a woman safe from rape, as AG Brown has mounted "vigorous" defense against her lawsuit and lawmakers sideline meaningful reform

Read some of the stories of incarcerated Black trans women in our articles covering Maryland prisons and Florida prisons, both of which disproportionately target Black trans women for abuse in inhumane conditions.

transnews.network/p/absolute-t...

transnews.network/p/i-cannot-i...

Many alleged suicides of Black trans women are in fact modern-day lynchings, report finds Jill Collen Jefferson, the founder of JULIAN, explains what happens when a transgender woman’s death is ruled a suicide and a community calls it something else.

Every single day, Black trans women across the world are suffering from acts of violent racism and transmisogyny.

From sex work on the streets to v-coding in prisons, marginalized trans women live in a society constructed to maime and kill people who don't fit the mold of white supremacy.

In case you needed any more proof that corporate media is built on a foundation of white supremacy...

Demands for more conservative voices ("echo chambers") are always nonsense. We have suffered reactionary bile our entire lives. They are not subtle. They do not improve with repetition.

Liberal gentry are indulgent of such evil, to the point of collaboration. They resent when others have more spine

I'll have a thread for @transnews.network later this week with some more analysis but Majeed was the decisive vote on the notoriously anti-trans HB805. Willingham and Cunningham voted for other transphobic legislation.

Their ouster's obviously good, but the rot is also very deep. So, we'll see.

You are not angry enough, you cannot be angry enough about the injustice trans women face every day and every issue is worse than more intersectional you are and there is no relief. This isn't opinion, it just is hard fact, ask me how I know.

These issues impact all trans women, but they always hit trans women of color the hardest.

Liberation requires absolute solidarity across all lines of oppression.

"Absolute Terror”: Lawsuit Alleges Maryland Trans Prisoners Face Rape, Medical Detransition, Defied Court Orders, Retaliation, and Torture, Despite AG Brown’s Condemnation of Trump Prison Policy Gov. Moore's prisons defied a judge’s order to follow standards to keep a woman safe from rape, as AG Brown has mounted "vigorous" defense against her lawsuit and lawmakers sideline meaningful reform

Read some of the stories of incarcerated Black trans women in our articles covering Maryland prisons and Florida prisons, both of which disproportionately target Black trans women for abuse in inhumane conditions.

transnews.network/p/absolute-t...

transnews.network/p/i-cannot-i...

Many alleged suicides of Black trans women are in fact modern-day lynchings, report finds Jill Collen Jefferson, the founder of JULIAN, explains what happens when a transgender woman’s death is ruled a suicide and a community calls it something else.

Every single day, Black trans women across the world are suffering from acts of violent racism and transmisogyny.

From sex work on the streets to v-coding in prisons, marginalized trans women live in a society constructed to maime and kill people who don't fit the mold of white supremacy.

Just a reminder: our health secretary, one Weasley... Sorry, Wesley Streeting MP, has hired Jonathan Haidt, named in the Epstein files, to help push a pseudoscience Social Media Ban for Under-16s. Probably because they might use it to speak out about his cabal of noncy, abuser friends.

The biggest threats we face aren't from those who openly seek the destruction of trans lives — dangerous as they are — but from the many, many more who will readily carry out whatever they say.

Every cis person needs to ask themselves that question.

Would you do that? Will you?

ava cordero is a latina trans woman and that's part of why she was targeted and not believed by anyone when she told the world of Epstein.

we had like 12 seconds in 2020 during Black Trans Lives Matter when cis people pretended to care about how POC trans people are killed by them, now it's silence

those Black trans women were killed in part by everyone working the NYT, every Democrat who doesn't call out transphobia and trans prisoner rape in blue states, and of course all the pedophile billionaire rapists who are sitting at the back cheering on as liberals do their work for them

i'll take "sentences cis people are not allowed to say" for 100, alex

also "trans liberty pac," who sent the PR he's rage farming w/, isn't a thing. it's one "intelligence analyst" who spent 7yrs in the marines & now seems to do tech founder/dem strategist bullshit. idk if she's even been to kansas

Richard Dawkins. Steven Pinker. Lawrence Krauss. Jonathan Haidt. Robert Trivers. Prominent atheists and scientists who have pushed anti-trans propaganda for years. They all had ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Some received huge research grants and island trips, and all of them benefited from their ties.

Consent to surgical or medical treatment for a minor child 12 who has not reached the age of eighteen shall be implied in cases of emergency, as 13 defined in R.S. 40:1159.5. there are lots of sarcastic congratulations emojis and text scribbled around it

so the GOP has been trying to gut our minor medical consent statute ever since they learned it exists during trans ban hearings.

it took them 3yrs, but they seem to have finally figured out how to avoid drafting variations of the Louisiana Just Stand Around Watching Kids Die In Car Wrecks Act