They have now amped up their rhetoric to openly calling for genocide.CPAC Speaker Calls for Transgenderism [sic] to Be ‘Eradicated’
THE RIGHT’S WAR on queer and trans people took center stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference as Daily Wire host Michael Knowles openly called for the public eradication of transgenderism. During his speech on Saturday, Knowles told the crowd, “For the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”
A number of people on Twitter, including Media Matters’ John Knefel and Harvard Law Cyber Clinic’s Alejandra Caraballo, called his remarks genocidal. Tragically, Knowles’ ideology is right in line with Republican politicians who have enacted or introduced bans on drag performances, restrictions on transgender health care, bills that would ban trans people from using the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity, and laws like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” that bars teachers from teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity. The Movement Advancement Project (MAP), a group that tracks LGBTQ legislation, described these efforts as an ongoing “war against LGBTQ people in America and their very right and ability to openly exist.”
In his speech, Knowles used a convoluted line of thinking and false logic while trying to prove his horrifying point that trans people should not exist. “There can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism. It can be all or nothing,” he said. “If transgenderism is true, if men really can become women, then it’s true for everybody of all ages. If transgenderism is false — as it is — if men really can’t become women — as they cannot — then it’s false for everybody too. And if it’s false, then we should not indulge it, especially when that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of many people. It if is false, then for the good of society — and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion — then transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”
This is not Knowles’ first time calling for a ban on trans people appearing in public. He made similar comments last week, again drawing criticism that he was advocating for genocide. In response, Knowles said on his radio show that “there can’t be a genocide” of trans people because, he claimed, “Transgender people is not a real ontological category.”
People like Knowles may feel even more emboldened as top conservatives regularly spout virulently anti-trans rhetoric. In February, former Vice President Mike Pence decried “radical gender ideology” and claimed the left has “increasingly bizarre obsessions with race and sex and gender.” Former President Donald Trump has also turned up his anti-trans rhetoric recently. In a video posted in January, Trump decried “left-wing gender insanity” and promised to end gender affirming care for minors nationwide, likening normal health care to “child sex mutilation” and “child abuse.” It’s all a transparently fascistic effort to drive LGBTQ people back into the closet and eliminate them from public life while simultaneously firing up the conservative base with fear-mongering. Trump is scheduled to speak at CPAC on Saturday evening.
What did Maya Angelou say about believing people when they show you who they are...
