Sue the S.O.B.s!

I had planned to write a totally different article this month but in the last couple of days, a new idea has come to me.

It’s somewhat risky to write. A few of my friends have accused me of no longer being a true conservative. When they read this piece, they may conclude that I have completely flipped out and turned into just another hard lefty. They may not want to maintain our friendship. All I can say is that this is definitely not the case. I am still as politically conservative as I ever was. I certainly hope to keep all my friends. But I definitely believe in the actions I advocate herein.

Let us get back to our almost desperate situation. It is bad now and getting worse. These days I live in at least some fear that the politicians in the state of Tennessee will try to take my hormones or put me in jail just for being transgender. I do not want to leave my beloved home state, but how will I survive in this mess?

The places that would have me are places where I do not want to live. They are controlled by hard-left politicians. Some of their cities are falling apart into hellholes of homelessness and crime and crazily high taxes. The weather is often not as good as here. And above all, those places would not be home.

In my last article, I talked about the importance of planning. I still believe in it, even if our community does not seem to be doing much of it. I do know that some transgender people in this part of the world are looking at leaving. But what happens if public opinion turns against us everywhere in this country? It is not impossible. The hard Christian right would love to make that situation happen.

So what else can we do? I thought about it for a while.

I knew that advocating physical violence was not the way to go. It is completely unethical. I reacted very negatively when I heard a transgender activist advocating violence against TERFs. While violence may be necessary to protect yourself from violence, a person should almost never initiate violence.

Another practical factor is that advocating violence is usually considered a crime. This can lead to action by police agencies against the person advocating the violence.

Besides, it is not as if a single person is leading the move against transgender people. Taking out someone like DeSantis or Trump would not end the attack. Other haters would step up to take their places. We need to realize that a fair number of people hate us passionately and will try to take away all of our basic human rights.

Finally, I have never been a violent person. I have my fantasies, but that is where those urges stay. I can only remember a couple of times in my youth when I resorted to violence. I am not proud of those times, but they happened. In fact, I put up with a lot of bullying in my youth. Maybe I should have fought back more often.

Some people might try to start a petition drive. Yeah, right. These people will certainly listen to a petition. NOT! They are so sure of themselves that they would never listen to any transgender person or ally. Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has said, “Trans is a mental health epidemic….”. He has also asked for “genital mutilation” to be banned. Both of these messages are direct assaults on the transgender community.

These people want to make us detransition completely if we have not had gender reassignment surgery. I am not sure what they want to do to people who have already had that surgery. I suspect they would throw transgender people in jail or even execute us if they could get away with it.

So forget about petitions or other airings of grievances. They do not care and would not listen. It will take something else to get their attention.

So what is left? I pondered a while longer. And then it hit me.

Sue the sons of bitches. Personally. Sue them for violating the civil rights of every American transgender person.

They might claim that they are exercising their First Amendment rights. But the law is quite settled about violating the civil rights of people with speech, as far as I can tell.

Perhaps some lawyer would tell us that such an action would be thrown out of court five minutes after it was filed. But in today’s America, you can sue anybody for anything. It does not mean you will win, but not many suits are thrown out at first sight.

Even if we could not sue for civil rights violations, we could pursue other paths. We could sue for libel and slander against transgender persons. We could also sue for harassment against us. There may be other bad behaviors we could charge them with. So the judicial option is clearly available.

Think about what it would mean to see these anti-trans tyrants have to defend their behavior in a court of law. They could spout their hateful rhetoric for hours at a time. Some would believe them. But many other people would be repelled.

This would not be a criminal prosecution, so you could not put these people in jail as they deserve. But you could certainly take a large chunk of change out of their pockets. You could also stain their reputations forever and a day.

There would be a high degree of risk with this strategy. They could countersue. They have deep pockets and can raise funds from the Christian right. It could cost a lot of money to pursue this kind of action.

Clearly, I do not have the money to take our enemies to court. Not many people do. It would require a major fundraising effort to do properly. We would also need lawyers who were willing to take on such a case. Not all would want the notoriety or risk.

So far, we have seen people suing states to overturn individual laws. It has worked in some situations. But not always. Tennessee found a judge to endorse its anti-transgender behavior. This is good but it’s not enough.

We need to hit them where it hurts. And in this country at this time, the best way to do it is through the legal system. I believe there is a fair chance we would win. Even a loss might convince some people to leave us alone in the future.

Another question is whether we might persuade the current Federal government to use its prosecutorial authority to go after these people for civil rights violations. I doubt it. Even the current leadership would hesitate to go after a former President for a seemingly hazy crime. Then again, they indicted Trump on charges of mishandling classified documents. So anything is possible. Going after others might be harder to make happen, which is why I would recommend the private lawsuit option.

So how would we organize something like this? We would probably need the help of an outfit like the American Civil Liberties Union. If they would go along, it would be much easier. They have the lawyers already working with them.

This would also be easier if we had a national organization of transgender persons. I have advocated for this in previous articles. They could manage the fundraising and the publicity necessary to make this happen. Such an organization could also let the world know that we mean to defend ourselves and will not be pushed around.

Does this seem harsh or cruel? Maybe. But I am tired of being abused and treated like a nonperson with no rights for anyone to worry about. If we do not defend ourselves, our enemies will not stop until they have gotten rid of us one way or another.

It is past time for us to become more militant about protecting our basic right to live without harassment or interference. Very few other people will step in to protect us. We need to do it ourselves.

Do I believe this will actually happen? No. I do not see enough organizational ability or will in our community to do it. It feels like a lot of transgender persons want to ignore the growing threat until it hits them in the crotch. In the long run, they will probably regret that attitude.

Let’s hit them where it hurts. Sue the sons of bitches!

Take action:

The National Center for Transgender Equality

American Civil Liberties Union

Transgender Law Center

Editor’s Note: One way to thwart the trans haters in legislative bodies around the country is to always vote for the candidates who make it clear they will always support equal rights under the law for all people no matter their gender.

Tags: featured, opinion, Transgender

Category: Transgender Opinion