One of the many rules that govern journalism is the idea of not plagiarizing oneself. Here, I will break that unspoken rule. However, I believe it to be a tolerable departure from journalistic conventions, as what I wrote about back in 2016 still sadly applies and highlights the continuing war on gender and sexual minorities in the U.S.

“For over a year now, various municipalities and states in the U.S. have been discreetly passing a sundry of bylaws and state-wide ordinances restricting access to public and private spaces by transgender men and women. These laws either create or enforce pre-existing laws, that allow private business, and government services, from being selective in whom they serve, or allow the use of their facilities.”

Sabrina Hill

In the eight years since I wrote my essay, “The Right to Hate: The New Wave of Transphobia Sweeping Across America’s South,” the culture war has only ratcheted up. Arkansas last year became the first state to pass a law prohibiting gender-confirming treatments for minors, and Tennessee approved a similar measure. While a judge has since blocked Arkansas’ law, the state is appealing.

In places like Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee, all states with an abhorrent track record of civil and human rights abuses have moved on from their campaigns of terror against the BIPOC community and have moved on to targeting a community that their intolerable base can get behind hating; the transgender and genderqueer community.

“District Judge Amy Clark Meachum issued a temporary order halting the investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services into the parents of the 16-year-old girl. Meachum wrote that the parents and the teen ‘face the imminent and ongoing deprivation of their constitutional rights, the potential loss of necessary medical care, and the stigma attached to being the subject of an unfounded child abuse investigation.’”

Associated Press

The culture war on gender and sexual minorities and equity-seeking communities are alive and well in the U.S. The GOP understands that riling up their scared, angry, and hateful base will get their indecisive or less motivated supporters out to the polling station. In the place of actual policies that will help elevate the poor and middle class out of crushing poverty and growing inequality, the Republicans, recognizing that they have nothing to offer, wage war on the last few communities that don’t have the means to fight back.

These state-wide laws either create, enhance or enforce pre-existing laws that allow private business, and government services, from being selective in whom they serve or will enable the use of their facilities. The range of these laws covers the denial of tenancy and refusal of service, among others, but what has been making the headlines recently is the bathroom usage, transgender athletes, and now, gender-affirming care.

The hypocrisy of a political party that congests the airways (and social media) at every opportunity to espouse the right for businesses to “conduct themselves in a manner consistent with their ‘deeply-held beliefs’” seems all too eager (in this case) to prevent companies and medical practitioners from exercising their practice of providing life-sustaining healthcare. It should be noted that politicians and lawyers without training in or consultation from medical practitioners authored this warped legal opinion.

Aside from this “war on children and families” by the GOP being a distraction from the fact that this party has nothing to offer their supporters or their broader constituents, much of this attack on gender minority groups is transparent as it is puerile. Neither science nor common sense is on their side. They recognize this shortcoming, but that hasn’t stopped them from propping up pseudo-intellectual gasbags like the widely-disgraced Jordan Peterson and the trans-obsessed Ben Shapiro who gish gallop their way through tough questions with blathering, nonsense answers. Predictably, much of this directed hate comes from loud, lonely cis-males in a creepy little corner of the web known as the “Intellectual Dark Web.” None of the idolized sociopaths in this vulgar all-boys club has ever been able to back up their fact-less claims supporting their transphobic opinions.

Again, to quote myself in my essay, The Right to Hate: “The hypocrisy of the right abounds when they criticize performers like Bruce Springsteen and Paypal for pulling out of North Carolina after the passage of these offensive laws, saying that boycotting a state is both ineffective and immoral, yet right-wing reactionary groups like The American Family Association called for a ban on companies like Target who have been supportive of the 2SLGBTQ movement. There’s a certain uneasy irony in that groups like the Family Research Council and AFA employ several people who have been accused of, charged with, or convicted of pedophilia, rape, incest, and possession of child pornography (Josh Duggar et al.). Statistically speaking, if conservatives want to ‘protect their sisters, wives, and daughters,’ they should do so from their own family, from college fraternity parties, and from those that often seem to protest the loudest.”

Let’s be clear about a few things, the Republicans are a political ideology built around: Hate, fear, anger, and predictably; hypocrisy. Denying businesses the right to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with their deeply held beliefs. Denying women and children access to education and medical services. Denying families access to child care.