Here comes a🧵historically contextualizing American fascism

Posting it to Twitter since I suspect this platform would benefit from hearing it.
1/ When most people think about fascism relative to other political firms I think this is probably the standard or basic model:
A left-right spectrum with fascism on the right, communism on the left, and democracy in the middle.
2/

"Stand close enough that they can't throw rocks at us without hitting you"

I recently posted briefly about what meaningful signaling of allyship towards trans folx needs to look like; now I want to do a thread about it.
1/
1. Flagging is for us, not for you.

"Flagging" is a way for people in marginalized community (in this case queer people) to signal membership to own another without alerting the majority to our identities.

This is necessary for safety and for building/finding community.
2/

Trump is a fascist.
I have been asked several times to justify the claim that Trump is a fascist. Those convos never seem to get past the "how are you defining fascism tho" stage so here is my thread demonstrating the claim using Jason Stanley's criteria for fascism.
1/11 1.The Mythic Past:
The MAGA movement is built around nostalgia for a mythic past that has been "taken" by the "woke left".
2/11

"Look it in the face".

I am going be voting Democrat because I believe that will do the most to prevent harm to marginalized people within and without my own community.

And

I am not going to pretend that Dems have come close to earning my vote this election.
1/ Honestly the Democrats (with far too few exceptions) have spent the last 4-5 months refusing to stand up to trans people. Their whole approach has been to ignore us while the GOP makes attacking us central to their platform & message.

2/

Hey y'all, I want to put some perspective on this development—which I VERY MUCH do not love.

It doesn't surprise me and it also doesn't tell me much (if anything) about Harris' values and policy leanings because *fascism distorts the political map*.

Let me explain.
1/

https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1844836136729940093

A lot of my leftist and liberal friends are super dismayed by this and other traditional conservative concessions Harris has made in the last few months. I get it; it's super frustrating and will be bad for our country and especially for marginalized folx.
2/

OK. Let's do this.
In his latest (released today) @PrestonSprinkle interviews someone who identifies as AGP (autogynephilic) and Sprinkle uses this interview to push discredited AGP psuedoscience.

Let's talk about it. 🧵
1/

https://twitter.com/Billieiswriting/status/1833103227820101704

And I have absolutely no interest in reinventing the wheel, AGP has already been thoroughly discredited by multiple professionals, most well known of whom is probably Julia Serano (search for the essay on the image for all the relevant citations and arguments).
2/

OK I want to talk about "the 'wierd' charge" and I want to do that as a scholar of disgust and as a trans woman who often experienced the stigmatization of being labeled "disgusting". Also I have a whole theory about @Tim_Walz .
1/

https://twitter.com/MissBeaE/status/1829321880882250202

First let's just recognize that the weird charge is sticking and is effective. It has clearly gotten under Trump and Vance's skin and it is resonating with the Democratic base and "the center" MAGA politicians and white Christian Nationalists are just...weird.
2/

Can I just talk for a second about how infuriatingly ironic it is that the churches who ran endless youth programming on the dangers of postmodernism and subjectivism have now embraced profoundly postmodern epistemologies of narrative?
1/ Like, Christian Nationalists today cheerfully cherry pick any and all traditional sources of shared reality in order to construct and maintain their own horrible power/dominance based worldview (there’s that word again).
2/

Your reminder that Ryan Walters is the Secretary of Education under whom Nex died.
But beyond that don't forget that "fascism tries to turn politics into aesthetics". In non-scholar language, fascism cares about vibes, not about facts.
1/ For the last week or so (since the Louisiana law mandating the Ten Commandments in classrooms) a lot of my progressive Christian friends have been kinda scratching their heads about the move.
2/

I think I need to make a thing clear.
If you are trans then it is *not* selfish to transition. It may cost you (or those you love) a lot; it may even cost you what feels like everything. There is no moral obligation to transition but it is *not* selfish.
Let me elaborate.
1/ The cost that may be incurred by your choice to transition exists because we live in a transphobic society. We live in a world where you didn't feel able to come out and love as who you are until after you and others were already invested in the false gender persona you use(d)
2/

So Evangelicals it looks like I have something to say to you again.

I don't understand your God.

And of course that is poorly said. On the one hand who can "understand" God anyway and on the other, I am a monotheist, so I believe there is only the one God.
1/ So let me try to say it again. I find the way you seem to understand God utterly baffling.

And I was raised among you.

I know I have changed, but I think you have as well.

Do you know that you have changed.
2/

OK gonna talk about what enables this ridiculousness. Leaning heavily on Julia Serano's recent scholarship in Sexed Up.

It's a specific aspect of sexualization.
1/

https://twitter.com/JaneyGodley/status/1801636449890046050

To sexualize someone is to make it sexual when it wasn't before. Anti-queer folk work (and have been working) really hard to sexualized queerness and queer people. That is the foundation for their groomer libel.
2/

Hey trans allies, a quick word.

I know that a lot of y'all shifted to affirming trans people out of something like sympathy after finding out about how painful gender dysphoria is and that transition is the *only* effective documented and researched "treatment" for it.
1/ That's absolutely fine as far as it goes. It speaks really well of your heart & compassion.

And at the same time I hope that by now you have moved on from that as your justification for supporting/affirming trans people.

It's a good doorway in but don't stand in the door.
2/

The Way of Jesus is the Way of Peace.

And it is a Hard Way. Jesus called it narrow.

Many aren't even interested in it.

But many who claim to want to follow it end up trying to take shortcuts.
1/ You can't build peace on any foundation but Justice—it will not last and when it returns the new conflict will be worse than the first.

Miss me with both sides-ism Peacemaking.

Both sides may have done things wrong, that doesn't make them equally responsible.
2/

Three years ago for Lent I gave up...I wasn't sure at the time. I framed it to myself as a commitment to pray about what I should do about the fact that I knew I am a transgender woman, I was terrified to tell anyone that, and I knew keeping it secret was poisoning me.
1/

https://twitter.com/Billieiswriting/status/1757764526869512572

I decided to try to make a point of spending a significant period of time each day praying and asking God to show me a way forward. I wanted God to tell me what to do but God wouldn't do that. It was sort of infuriating.
2/

OK, let's talk about bounded set Christianity and Centered Set Christianity and maybe I'll throw in some reflections on the danger of disgust theology for a treat.
1/ Cantered, Bounded, (And Fuzzy but I am gonna ignore that one for this 🧵) Christianities are models for thinking about hwl different churches and traditions *do* their Christianity. The models were developed by Paul Hiebert out of @fullerseminary and that shows.
2/

It seems to me that there has been a rise in discourse on weird Christian Twitter about non-affirming Christians who are also not cruel or are even kind to queer Christians. And I have some thoughts on that subject so let me tell you a story about Ken Wilson and the Third Way.
1/ Back during the Obama presidency & before marriage equality, when it still looked like there was a real possibility that some Evangelical denominations might at allow for affirming churches, Ken Wilson was one of a group of Vineyard pastors moving in an affirming direction.
2/

Oh my gosh now I'm seeing queer—presumably gentile—people trying to do oppression olympics against Jewish people using the Holocaust.

Stop it! Stop it right now you are being anti-liberationist and embarrassing yourself.

Fascist hatred and violence work in particular ways
1/ First a reminder that oppression Olympics is a stupid game that everyone loses.

Second the role of anti-semitism in fascism (especially Nazism) is unique and abhorrent. Minimizing Nazi antisemitic violence is profoundly wrong.
2/

So recently Christian Nationalist Twitter has started railing against Mennonites (I think William W started it?). I think there are multiple reasons for this and those reasons do a lot to set off the stark differences in different strains of contemporary Christianity.
1/ First there are the massive theological differences between Christian Nationalism and Anabaptism. CN wants a state defined and run by Christians, Anabaptism is profoundly skeptical of the state generally as sees Church control of government as anathema. 2/

https://twitter.com/TimAAmor/status/1750312267168587809?t=n-F53_AkEOUMl3ihwCGLmA&s=19

OK y'all the Banner just published my story so I think it is time to talk about all of this. I am the trans teacher who has found (more) peace in Baltimore City.
I deeply appreciate the Banner's reporting and am gonna add some context, details, and perspective.
1/ I am a high school teacher (social studies mostly) and I came out publicly and at work as trans in late January of 2022.

I worked with our admin to craft a message that would be clear but not distracting. It ended up being a letter introducing myself to parents & staff.
2/

A LOT of Christians will try to get around Jesus' command to Love by suggesting that they can Love &be cruel and that their cruelty can be an expression of love.
And it is true that sometimes Love expresses itself in ways that induce pain in the beloved—think about doctors. 1/ BUT that sort of pain—the sort that can attend LOVE—is distinguished by ultimately leading to healing. And this is where so many Christians show themselves to be justifying cruelty rather than committed to difficult love: they don't stay around and acknowledge the outcome 2/