Don’t Be Patty

In an email to subscribers, LOOKOUT News reports receiving anti-trans hate mail from LGB subscribers responding to their reporting. One subscriber with the display name “Patty” has inspired a fundraiser that I want to signal boost.

First, her little tirade needs to be exposed to its full shame. Content warning for transphobia (click for full images):

These were sent in reply to an email from LOOKOUT about our community being stronger together. This made Patty mad because she has fallen in with a hate movement called LGB without the T.

LOOKOUT delivers fearless journalism and community events with the unified purpose to improve and expand LGBTQ+ representation on the local news stage, while strengthening and engaging LGBTQ+ communities (and their allies) in the queer experience. – LOOKOUT News, About US

LGB without the T is a wedge campaign being astroturfed by right wing dark money to trick low information gay and bisexual cis people into blaming trans people for the wave of anti-LGBT legislation in federal and many state governments.

The narrative picks up familiar talking points about groomers, sex predators, and gender segregated sports & restrooms to frame trans rights as an attempt to hijack progress that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have made. Of course, this ignores literally all of queer history, where discrimination against gender and sexuality have always gone hand in hand because they are driven by the same system: patriarchy.

Patriarchal violence does not distinguish between its targets, and in fact many of the laws on the books that we defeated in making progress were about gender variance, for example laws which made it illegal to wear items of the other gender’s clothing which were used against drag queens, masculine women, and trans people alike.

A worldview built on patriarchal family structures must always view both gender and sexual diversity as threats because any variance from the “traditional” family (which can’t be very natural if it requires so much violence to enforce) is in effect an affront to the social order.

A social order where wealth and power are held only by men, passing from father to son, cannot function without compulsory heterosexuality and gender controls.

Which brings me to the pitch: Inspired by Patty’s hateful response, LOOKOUT has announced a special fundraiser. For a minimum $25 donation, you can get your very own “Don’t Be Petty Patty” tshirt, with $5 of your donation going to local trans rights organizations.

I find everything about this absolutely delightful, so I am enthusiastically inviting you now to add your gift to this campaign and together let’s tell the Patties of the world that they don’t get to talk over us.