(Прочти эту запись на русском: www.scre.ws/rus-article-149)
How cruel do you have to be to joke about 40%? I have the answer.
I sincerely don't understand how people have — neither the courage nor the nerve — but the savage cruelty to make jokes about 40%. I can understand right-wingers making jokes about black people: because they are joking about them being murderers. I can understand people making jokes about Muslims ("ha-ha, terrorists") and even gays ("ha-ha, pedophiles") — for all these jokes are based on making fun of the "enemy" (murderers, terrorists, pedophiles). But 40%?
For those who don’t know — the joke about "40%" (or "41%") is based on the fact that, according to a 2011 US survey, 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide [1][2] (the number may actually be much higher [3]). That's almost one in two. Almost one in two transgender people suffer or are bullied so severely that they kill themselves. Ha-ha?
And I am not even calling to cut the "intolerant jokes", for I, myself, sometimes make impersonal jokes about rape or "sick children". But how can you laugh at the fact that raped people are so crushed that they massively commit suicide? How can you put up stickers about how raped people should be bullied [4]? Start groups, communities, platforms to dehumanize sick children? Eventually even attacking and killing sick children — already on the verge of their death?
Needless to say that in addition to the blatant cruelty regarding those who kill themselves out of desperation, evil/abusive jokes and bullying support these very suicides (thus becoming a "self-reproducing prophecy"). Hence, according to one analysis, memes are a serious tool for bullying, as well as shaping the views of bystanders [5]. According to another study, cyberbullying has at least the same effect on the development of depression and suicidal thoughts (in any people) [6]. According to a third study, strong parental support for a transgender child reduces the number of suicides by ten times (!) [7] — needless to say if the whole society supported transgender people.
HOW EMPATHIC DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO DRAW THE ATTACHED PICTURES?
The answer is: none. You don't have any empathy in you. Even the very transgender people you're bullying wouldn't laugh at you with the same anger if they knew you bullied them out of great agony and killed yourself afterward. As much as they should.
A number of studies prove a link between homophobia and antisocial, aggressive, and anti-empathetic traits [8][9][10][11][12][13][14], and one more (indirectly) between transphobia and anti-empathy. I look forward to more evidence why transphobes shouldn't be held to be human*.
*I'm kidding, of course: no need to dehumanize non-empathic people (they can be great — and not transphobic — people!), and transphobes deserve enlightenment above all else, not reciprocal hatred (and if that doesn't work, well…). Education, by the way, has been shown to increase empathy for transgender people [16].
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- Sources -
NOSTR: www.w3.do/JpEc53IC
#russian #русский #transgender #trans #gender #person #genderequality #lgbt #glbt #equality
