Anatomy of a Panic Featuring Chris Rufo

 

Chris Rufo was the guy who brought us the "CRT" moral panic, when he didn't actually know anything about CRT, but decided that if it made people uncomfortable, that was his angle--their discomfort, not whether the theory was right. Now I could be biased: when I see Discovery Institute and Claremont Institute in someone's bio, I immediately feel some kind of way. The Discovery Institute is the kind of people who will genuinely lie in your face that intelligent design is not some kind of creationism, when all they did is rebrand it. Claremont Institute always gives me mad "David Barton but without the ugly shirts" vibe. Historical revisionist think tankery about how maybe "Save babby makes Christofascist possible?? If states rights definitely???"

OK, it sounds like I'm deeply dismissive of the kind of intellectual output of people who are actually dedicated wingnut welfare grifters who only exist to pump conservative memes into the dialogue. Uh, you've got that entirely right. They are a cult. They are steeped in mental Amway and always be selling. Most of the FFF's (your Family, Faith, Fuckery) groups are funded by pecksniff billionaires that are sort of incestuous at this point. The Uhlines, The DeVos'. The Princes'. Go and look up the whole God and anti-gay pedigree. This is what deep-pocketed individuals fund when they feel a pang of remorse over how they got so rich when poverty exists. They scapegoat "immorality"--of the sexual and non-Biblical flavor. Because the Bible says the poor are always with us, and they like that ratio. It beats paying folks better. 

But maybe people could "respectable" their way to doing better? 

It's a fucking lie. MLK wore a suit and tie, and was in his time considered a radical in a suit and tie.  A suit and tie, or even a uniform doesn't save scapegoats. Harvey Milk wore a US military uniform and became a civil servant, and was not spared because of respectability. Chris Rufo is doing his lies probably for financial grift, but he's targeting real people. 

So the minutiae is that drag is not stripping (one keeps the clothes on) and gay is not trans (although they can overlap). but what he's doing is trying to divide and force definitions. Make people waste their time explaining and dividing.

The definitions are part of the problem.

Like the desire to define a woman. I don't want to be defined. I like wrestling and heavy metal. I wear what I want. I smashmouth my political commentary. I can buzz all my hair off (I don't, but) and still be all the woman I want to be.  I'm not defined by my sexuality or reproductivity. Defining women dress codes them and tells them to stay away from STEM. It unnecessarily limits us. 

I'm sorry TERFS, but everyone who now or ever walked in my ladies' shoes needs feminism, and needs feminists like me to stick up for LGBT+ people. There is nothing wrong with stripping (although I get why not in front of the youngin's w/o consent) , or LGBT people, and there is nothing wrong with drag--it's all one family of diversity of expression and the ridiculousness of pigeonholing people when we are so unique and hold such a range of possibilities of expression within us. 

Chris Rufo admits he's just trying to be sensationalist, and the toadies fall in line. They are on the next bandwagon. Demonizing all LGBTQ with whatever stigma or groomer claim or deviant label because they move the goalposts--and are fine saying out loud that they do. But he said it himself, and we know his lies are lies. 

It's time Rufo gets wrecked, and not his demographic target. He is singling out groups to divide and conquer the left. He is a fraud. He is a hater and a fake artist. He divides communities and destroys taxpayer value in their school systems. He is a self-named grifter.