Anti-trans hysteria is the 21st-century version of the Satanic panic

[Nevilledog]

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Amanda Marcotte
@AmandaMarcotte
More on the Loudoun County rape story, and how it had nothing to do with gender-inclusive bathrooms. The trans panic is a 21st century version of the Satanic panic of the 80s, right down to feminists who are willing to be useful idiots.

Anti-trans hysteria is the 21st-century version of the Satanic panic
The Loudoun County case was rape, but it wasn't the "men in dresses raping strangers" urban legend the right claims
salon.com
10:34 AM · Oct 27, 2021

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/27/conservatives-conjure-up-a-21st-century-satanic-panic-will-it-work/

Republicans thought they had a live one in Loudoun County, Virginia. But, as happens with most right-wing panics, things were not as they were made to seem.

Ever since same-sex marriage was legalized, the right has been casting for a new villain in their endless culture wars. They swiftly landed on an even smaller, and therefore less understood, minority than gay people to demonize: Trans people. Their main weapon for driving up fear and hate was a myth that trans women — or cis men pretending to be trans women — lurk in women's restrooms to rape unsuspecting cis women who enter these newly tolerant spaces.

The problem was that it was nonsense.

Research repeatedly shows that trans-inclusive bathroom policies have no link to sexual assault. It's trans people who are at higher risk of being assaulted if denied access to the facilities that match their gender identity. But after two girls in Loudoun County schools — which, in a remarkable coincidence, also happens to be ground zero for other astroturfed right-wing freakouts over "woke" school policies — were sexually assaulted, the right pounced. Rumors spread that this was a real, live example of a man pretending to be a woman in order to rape strangers in the bathroom.

This was also not true.

*snip*

[jimfields33]

1. I read the whole article

So it was a boy and his girlfriend in the bathroom? If so why didn’t the school say that? Why did the school let the media take over the narritive? What is the true story? That’s all that’s needed.

[obamanut2012]

2. Including on DU

Even now, after EarlG laid down the law last week.

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