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When Transphobic Christians Sound Like KKK Fliers If you know someone who supports bathroom bills and transgender discrimination, then you know someone who sounds like a Klu Klux Klan flier. On July 3, homes on Pump House Road in Mountain Brook, Alabama woke up to find transphobic pamphlets scattered over their properties calling for a "boycott" on transgender people. Shortly before that, the KKK littered properties in Lithia Springs, Georgia with these same fliers. Their message reflects an overwhelming support of the prevalent attitudes among Americans towards transgender rights. According to the KKK, anyone who doesn’t conform to the gender & sex binaries should use the tree out back as a bathroom. Y’know, the same tree they've been using to lynch POC ever since the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement. As we bask in the afterglow of July 4th, it's important for the country to remember that not all of us are free. Some of us can't use public restrooms in peace. Or, at the very least, not without the KKK and other assorted bigots projecting their hatred onto us as we attempt to do something as basic as going to the bathroom. People love to think hate groups and religion have nothing to do with each other. But the fact is that the KKK is a Christian-based hate group that has been committing violence ever since black people began rising above oppression. And they’re far from the only organization to use a holy text to justify oppression and violence. Hence why this flier quotes Deuteronomy as biblical "evidence" that transgender people. The cherry-picked verse from Deuteronomy 22:5 reads, " A woman shall not wear that pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment. For all that do are an abomination unto the Lord thy God.” This flier contains the same kind of biblical cherry-picking that remains a favorite pastime of homophobes, transphobes, and anyone else looking for reasons to hate someone that they can't rationalize with science or social norms alone. Many people are content with projecting their hatred onto the world and filling in the gaps with religion According to the KKK, “These freaks are jeopardizing the safety of bathrooms all across the nation for our women and children. This needs to STOP." Despite the fact that trans people have been using public bathrooms for ages, our human need to use the bathroom is now a public safety issue in the eyes of bigots everywhere. The KKK and their allies seem to be missing out on something important: As humans, us transgender folk can't just turn off the bodily functions that make us need to go to the bathroom. Then again, that's science, something that's never enough of an explanation for people who have Klan-like opinions. Also, it's interesting how the bathroom bill supporters only seem to worry about the possibility of people with penises coming into the bathroom. I have a vagina and nobody seems to worry about me molesting their children in the bathroom. Bathroom bill supporters can't get over the fact that what's in my pants is nobody's business but my own. “If your [sic] confused and don’t know what sex you are today,” the flier poses, “USE A TREE OUT IN THE BACKYARD.” Bathroom bills put transgender people at risk of being victimized while portraying us as predators in the process. They also enforce false understandings of sex and gender as a heteronormative binary, completely erasing the array of genders and sexes that exist outside of that binary. But like every bathroom bill-supporting bigot I meet, the fact that intersexuality and non-binary sex are scientifically proven realities doesn't phase them. The flier states, “There is no confusion. If you have a PENIS – Use the MENS ROOM. If you have a VAGINA – Use the LADIES ROOM." Tell that to the 1 out of 2,000 people born intersexed. Those statistics alone reflect that intersexed people aren't the scientific anomaly people make them out to be. I know female-to-male transgender men who have full-beards and look indistinguishable from cisgender men. Yet according to the KKK and run-of-the-mill transphobes, these individuals using public bathrooms according to their assigned sex would somehow make our nation a safer place. That’s the thing about bigotry: it mangles your judgment. You wind up doing awful things like conflating queer people’s right to use bathrooms with the assumption we’ll be committing sex offenses. Meanwhile, all we want is to use the bathroom in peace. After the passing of the KKK's 150th anniversary, the white supremacist organization is latching onto political trends in order to regain power and support. The KKK is trying to spread its particular brand of bigotry onto the country by appealing to views beyond immigration. When Donald Trump talks about making America "great" again with things like racist immigration policies and punishing women for having abortions, he endorses the KKK's vision of what they've always thought America should be. Like other people with racist/sexist/downright regressive attitudes, this hate group is vocal about supporting Trump due to their agreement with his racist rhetoric, especially the rhetoric surrounding his anti-immigrant policies. The KKK contributes to "bathroom violence" by voting for politicians who are statistically more likely to commit sexual misconduct in bathrooms than trans people are. This flier is another attempt at finding commonground on a political hot topic for purposes ranging from recruiting members and garnering support to expressing their opinions in an attempt to gain institutional power. Yet even Donald Trump has said transgender people should be allowed to use whichever restroom we like. Sure, Donald Trump's incoherent stances on transgender rights suggest fake sympathy at best for a transgender rights. Still, we should all be paying lots of attention to just how toxic our views on that group of people are when someone like Trump cares enough to lie about it. Transphobia is more than the reason why we can't piss in peace. It's also why violence against transgender people is so rampant yet so ignored not only by the media, but blatantly mistreated by hospitals, police departments, and so many other institutional forces that are supposed to protect us from harm. But let's face it: Donald Trump talks like a KKK flier, too. His words have no weight and he is not the friend of the LGBTQ+ community that he claims to be. David Duke, a former-KKK leader, loved Trump's anti-semitic tweet about Hillary Clinton because of the fact that the so-called "sheriff's badge" looked just like a Star of David. When your tweets provoke unsolicited responses from KKK members, you should be more than a little concerned about how you're coming off to the public. The current political trends are making it easier for people with Klan-like views to rise in power. If you know someone who rambles on about predators and unscientific gender/sex binaries, tell them to stop getting in touch with their inner-Klansmen. People love to think hate groups, religion, and the world of today have nothing to do with each other. But the fact is that the KKK is a Christian organization. And they’re far from the only organization to use a holy text to justify oppression and violence. Although Christianity has remained a formidable force in American life, America is not a Christian nation and it's not supposed to be dominated by any singular religion, either. If you care about stopping the rise institutionalized violence, you'll start caring about how the Klan's messages are all too similar to the ones you hear from non-members of the KKK, many of which turn to the Bible for sorry "support." If you don't like the fact that I associate your words with the KKK, then stop talking and thinking like a Klansmen. Pull the invisible hood off of your face and see your "beliefs" for the internalized transphobia that forged them. Your perspective is not valuable, progressive, or welcomed in my life. Take your transphobic nonsense somewhere else: Hell. Stop using your religion to justify your bigotry. #Real #KKKFliers #Transphobia #BathroomBillsKill #Bigotry #RightWingNutJobs #ReligiousNutJobs #TransLivesMatter Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. 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