Radical right sex derangement syndrome (RRSDS) continues to worsen and spread among red states. The targets of this dangerous disease are people in the LGBQT community. The Intercept writes:
GIVEN REPUBLICANS’ RELENTLESS legislative attempts to erase trans and gender nonconforming people, a new bill in Texas that LGBTQ+ advocates are describing as the “drag bounty hunter bill” may seem like a drop in the ocean. This fact alone is intolerable. There is, however, something particularly barbaric in the bill’s explicit encouragement of citizen harassment to drive gender variance out of public life.
The proposed legislation defines “drag” as any “performance in which a performer exhibits a gender that is different than the performer’s gender recorded at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers and sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs in a lascivious manner before an audience.”
The inclusion of “lascivious” might suggest that the bill is only aimed at performances in venues that already exclude minors, like nightclubs. But given that Texas Republicans are at this very moment attempting to pass a law defining any venue that hosts a drag performance as “a sexually oriented business” — including restaurants — it’s clear that “lascivious” provides no limit to the bounty hunter bill.
If passed, the law is certain to shut down family-friendly drag events and library story hours, but it threatens all gender-nonconforming performers, and even events like Pride.
The bill is a rehash of a strategy used against abortion in the state. When Texas lawmakers passed Senate Bill 8 in 2021, effectively banning abortion in the state, they introduced a novel legislative approach for running roughshod over constitutional protections: sanctioned vigilantism.
The abortion law deputized private citizens to sue anyone suspected of helping a person obtain an abortion, with the promise of a $10,000 reward for successful cases. Since its passing, copycat laws have abounded, given the legislation’s ability to evade federal court challenges by relying on civil lawsuits. Now, Texas Republicans are seeking to use the same legal mechanism in their all-out assault on gender variance.
The drag bounty bill likewise encourages citizens to sue anyone who hosts or performs in a drag performance in the presence of a minor — with the added allure of a monetary reward. Successful plaintiffs could receive as much as $5,000 in “damages,” up to 10 years after the event.
Across the country, even in New York City, far-right militias and other armed fascists have already made a habit of threatening family-friendly drag performances and story hours. The Texas bill grants the practice a vile authority — and pulls from a long legacy of the government using state-sanctioned vigilantism to enforce white supremacy, gender conformity, and border rule.
It won't be long before RRSDS leads to non-conforming people being murdered by zealous, heavily armed people seeking to inflict self-righteous discipline on the bad people. Knowing this was coming, Texas has empowered and encouraged the impending slaughter by anointing the murderers to the lofty status of God's righteous bounty hunter.
In due course, the radical right Texas legislature will come to see that instead of bounty hunters, God's enforcers are law enforcers. They are thus entitled to State Marshall status, a badge and qualified immunity for non-conforming who get people shot dead. It will be a BYOG operation. MAGA!!
BYOG = Bring your own gun
Compulsory heterosexuality and gender conformity is so manufactured and
fragile, that it requires heavy policing and enforcement
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In another exciting development from Texas, the legislature is proposing a law that deputizes citizens and empower them to shoot immigrants crossing the border. The Independent writes:
Republican lawmakers in Texas want to create a state security force to patrol the US-Mexico border that critics have characterized as a "vigilante death squad policy."
Dade Phelan, the Republican speaker of Texas' House of Representatives, told a meeting of the Texas Public Policy Foundation that he plans to introduce a bill that he says will "make national headlines and change the conversation on border security," according to The Intercept.
The bill — House Bill 20 — would allow Texas' Department of Public Safety to hunt, arrest, and deport undocumented migrants.
The group would be comprised of law enforcement officers and civilians under the direction of a governor-selected chief. The members of the group would also be extended immunity from criminal prosecution relating to their actions on the border. They will be directed to "arrest, detain, and deter individuals crossing the border illegally including with the use of non-deadly force."
The group will also apparently be authorized to "use force to repel, arrest, and detain known transnational cartel operatives in the border region."
I've argued here several times that if Democrats get blown out of power and democracy falls, illegal immigration is going to be a key factor in the collapse.
Defending the border
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