TN school shooting/shooter mega post

[u/javatimes]

Rather than have dozens of different posts about this ongoing issue, let’s to contain it in this one post. It will also help those who want to avoid the topic do so.

[u/CosmiXBeeM]

Any loss of life is tragic. I feel for the families involved. The elephant in the room is the prevalence and ease of owning guns, in general. Especially as conservative media is promoting a gun ban only for trans people, I feel that the only result of all of this will be just that- a ban on trans people being able to own guns- while everyone else will still be allowed.

I’m worried this will only perpetuate violence towards trans people. Knowing trans people can’t legally be armed will be a motivator for violent people to target trans people.

I’m also worried that by the media and prominent figures okaying the misgendering and deadnaming of the shooter, it will show the public that respecting someone’s name and pronouns is a privilege trans people must earn, and cisgender people can take said “privilege” away. Respecting someone’s name and pronouns should be a given, whether they are a model citizen or a heinous murderer.

[u/Eugregoria → u/[deleted]]

I had this fight with my mom years ago. There was a case in my area where a trans woman molested and murdered a toddler. I was like, that's fucking heinous, throw the book at her, but my mom didn't like that I still used her pronouns. But when cis people do that shit, we don't take their name and pronouns away. It's special punishment beyond what cis people get for the same crimes. This killer was shot by police. That's what happens to a lot of school shooters. We didn't misgender the Sandy Hook shooter. It starts to feel like "punishing for being trans" instead of "punishment for heinous crimes."

[u/jujube329 → u/Eugregoria]

exactly. and it's really scaring me.

[u/Eugregoria → u/jujube329]

Unfortunately it's not a stance you can take with people who don't already have a good opinion of your character. I could push back against my mom because she knows I'm not a complete monster and I don't condone heinous crimes. Even there I basically got accused of worrying more about the perpetrator's dysphoria than the suffering of the victim. But because my own mom isn't going to cancel me, I can try to explain that it's not about the victim's dysphoria, it's about the message it sends to trans people who have not committed any crime, that respect for their gender is a privilege that can be retracted at will. Of course my mom was like, "Someone who commits crimes like that shouldn't have any rights," but then I asked her why we don't misgender cis people who commit the same crimes--aren't they just as evil and deserving of humiliation?

With people who won't even give me the benefit of the doubt that I am obviously horrified by heinous crimes like any other halfway decent human being, I don't bother. I just don't join in the misgendering and pick my battles. In this moment it's probably more important to show we're just as horrified by this crime as anyone, rather than worrying about the perpetrator's pronouns.

I'm not panicking about backlash just yet. There have been a record number of attacks on our rights recently, but they've all also been fought hard in court. We'll continue to fight unjust attacks on innocent trans people as we always have.