I usually avoid politics on this community but thought this article kinda fit
“I don’t care about other people’s rights until it personally affects me”
Most of the right are the uneducated and poor voting to empower a system that already oppresses them. For many of them, it’s not about what affects whom, it’s about whose side is winning. The fact that a Republican changed sides at all is enough for me. I do not care why.
I mean, I get that, and the amount of rage I feel about the fact that Republicans never have any empathy for anyone they don’t know is probably going to give me an ulcer, but this is good news. People changing their minds in response to new information is a positive thing, and we should encourage it. There are plenty of LGBTQ+ people whose families don’t change their minds. That’s how we end up with kids committing suicide or living on the streets. My extended family would never change their minds, and it’s led to me cutting them off, and my cousin will never come out because I’m pretty sure his dad would kill him, or at least do his level best to beat him to death.
Anyway, I didn’t mean for that to get that dark, but that’s the reality for a lot of us. I’m going to welcome anyone trying to be better with open arms.
I fully agree that conversion to the right side of things is good, but god damn it’s hard consider it uplifting when they didn’t have to be selfish pricks to begin with, and the only reason they came around is because the person being treated like shit was a loved one. They would have gladly treated that person like shit if they were a stranger. I wouldn’t call that uplifting.
Let’s not let perfection stand in the way of progress
In this case it’s even worse, they’re not even looking to achieve perfection, they’re looking to change past reality, which as far as I know, isn’t an option until we come up with a time machine.
This is weird for me - you disagree with each other, but I very much agree with you both!
Yes, I find some republicans really annoying with their “I never thought it would be MY loved one that got mistreated” and “I just can’t understand why my republican friends haven’t realised that gun controls are a good idea like I did when my kids nearly got shot at school last month”.
But on the other hand, there’s hope that people can change their minds and suddenly see humanity where they were previously demonizing, turn around and start advocating for a bit more love and kindness in the world.
This is weird for me - you disagree with each other, but I very much agree with you both!
Exactly! I’m slinging out upvotes like Oprah.
Oh me too, me too.
People changing their minds in response to new information is a positive thing
I still hope their toilet seat is perpetually too cold for their comfort.
Calm down, satan!
Man, you took the words right out of my mouth…or my typing fingers as it were. I was going to say almost exactly that. I remember them saying “Covid is a hoax. Covid is all a democrat conspiracy…”
And democrats took it seriously. Wore masks, stayed 6 feet apart, got vaccinated. Yes, it affected democrat cities, because cities are more densely compact than rural areas, but somehow those rural area republican voters are the ones that it affected the most. Suddenly I was seeing posts online like “I didn’t think this was real, but now my brother is dead. Treat it seriously guys!!!” and they’d get ignored by their own people.
Oh NOW it’s real? NOW it’s no longer a hoax, because it affected you personally??? I feel cynical in saying that I don’t feel empathy for that type of person, because it’s such a self inflicted wound, but it’s true. If rural areas put the same amount of care into covid precautions as the democrat voters did, they’d have been largely unaffected. Forget 6 feet apart. They live on farms. It would be like 6 acres apart. You know why I wasn’t largely affected by covid? Because I wore a mask. I stayed my distance. I got 4 different rounds of vaccines. I listened to medical advice. If they’d have done the same, these sob stories of people doing stupid things facing stupid but very real consequences wouldn’t exist.
Sorry to go off on a rant, but this just bug me so much. People that refuse to believe anything is that big of a deal, unless it minorly inconviences them. Then it’s the biggest deal in the world. Not that covid was a minor inconvience…but it could have been if everyone just did what doctors said. For me personally it was a minor inconvience, which I feel a lot of other people COULD have had the same experience. My 98 year old grandma lived to be 102, just recently dying because everyone in my family agreed to treat her like a fragile piece of glass. Yet these people can’t be bothered to wear a cloth over their face in public, AND THEN HAD THE GALL TO USE “I CAN’T BREATHE” AS THEIR MOTTO FOR NOT WEARING THEM!!! This at a time when “I can’t breathe” was already the motto for the injustice that George Floyd faced.
Ok, I have to stop now. I’m getting myself worked up.
This is how we got the Herman Cain Award.
“THIS COVID IS NO JOKE!”
Would you rather the grandparents had shunned the grandchild? What use is gate keeping correct decisions?
It’s not so much gatekeeping, as much as it is reminding them that they contributed to building a world that is hostile toward their grandchildren in the first place.
I think it’s just frustration that they can’t take the leap that every trans child has grandparents. It’s like someone realizing that knives are sharp and can hurt their baby and then finally connecting that voting for the sharp-blades-for-infants party could be harmful to people!
My guess is that they’d rather those grandparents not have been hateful pieces of shit in the first place. But better late than never!
Well that’s my point. Maybe I’m too willing to give older folks the benefit of the doubt, but we don’t know anything about these folks besides political affiliation and that they have a trans grandchild.
I mean, I grew up in a conservative household. In 1997, trans healthcare wasn’t a consideration. It wasn’t an issue in 2007. If it’s not an issue, I guarantee that it wasn’t on most voters mind. The vast majority of the ardent champions for LGBT rights in elected office right now were part of the majority that were against marriage equality at some point of their political career.
Disparaging people for growing, regardless of the reason, is counterproductive.
Well that’s the thing: nobody’s disparaging them for growing. It’s great that they finally saw trans people as people. Wonderful for them. But they’re LIFE-LONG Republicans. They sat through Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, and Trump as president. All the while, their party just got shittier and more full of bigoted people. They watched the rise of right-wing talk radio, with horrendous humans like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck spewing their vitriol in the name of the party, and they remained. They watched the Tea Party hold up signs decrying Obama as a monkey, or a muslim, signs calling for the hanging of Obama, and they remained. They watched Trump try to overthrow democracy as hundreds of terrorists committed violence at his bidding, and they remained.
Now, they’re finally deciding to leave the party because the bigotry they supported all along suddenly became turned their way. Fuck them. I’m not disparaging them for growing. I’m disparaging them for being pieces of shit.
The second-best time to realize others matter is today; but we get to remind people that the best time would’ve been before today
Would have liked to have seen them do that for the reasons they did even if they didn’t have a trans grandchild
Did I say I wished they continued to be pieces of shit? No, I just don’t see it as uplifting when a person’s empathy only extends to their immediate family.
Did you read the article?
It explains that their daughter’s experience more or less opened their eyes to the treatment as a whole. (As in not just their family) It may be spun that way, but for two (likely groomed) 70’s+ republicans in a primarily red state, to have any diverging beliefs from their party is a good thing. It shows that the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, while admittedly slow (and shouldn’t be necessary), is showing progress, even if it’s small.
As another user mentioned, they could have just disowned their granddaughter, like a lot of bigots do. I’ve seen it happen and know a few people that it happened to. It’s not a good feeling being alone in the world because your family doesn’t agree with your identity.
I say that while the fight is still going on, we can at least enjoy this, albeit tiny, victory.
Standard republican bullshit.
I’ve maintained for many years that the biggest thing the right lacks is an imagination.
Look, lead poisoning degrades empathy. I’m just glad they have some left.
Ah, classic conservative “Its okay until it affects us, and now that it affects us its the most horrible thing in the world!”
I’ll give the couple in the article this, I know many of the it’s okay until it affects us types and none of them changed their voting habits
Classic conservative (and especially with “Christian” added onto that) = Severe lack of empathy
severe lack of empathy…for others
Empathy is inherently “for others”.
I think by “others” they just meant outside of their immediate in-group.
Perspective is a bitch.
thats…a classic human thing. so you must be saying anyone who isnt conservative isnt human. wow.
poor idiot think they got me in a gotcha, when all they are doing is revealing that they don’t give a fuck about horrible shit until it happens to them.
straight to insults. classic hidden conservative tactic. thanks for calling me not only non human but also an idiot. this website saddens me sometimes. but not that much because i dont really care
Saddens me that people like you exist in society, coldly and sociopathicly indifferent to, if not actively complicit in, the suffering of their fellow humans until it personally affects you, and that you think its not only completely normal, but base human conduct.
but why concern yourself with others when you can project at others and clutch pearls.
oh sorry, i did not know i was speaking to the paragon of humanity. the one who has never sinned. the pure soul. you are perfection in human form 🤯🤯🤯🤯 keep up the great work 🫡 i salute your service to humanity
whatever you say, sociopath.
geez i apologize and say all those nice things about you and this is how im treated in return. sad.
“It’s been very, very disappointing. It was a no-brainer. I’m voting Democrat, and it doesn’t take intelligence, it just takes compassion, whether you’re a grandparent, whether you’re a parent, an aunt or an uncle,” she said. “Everybody should be treated equal. It doesn’t matter color, race, gender. It’s just a travesty when you get the government involved with trying to legislate how we should feel.”
Free life pro tip: just never vote republican ever again.
also here’s an idea: you can be none of those things. you can just be not at all related to some people and still feel compassion.
“What, you mean care about someone you don’t even know? Sheah, right!”
Attacking trans people will eventually give way to something else, as it has before. When push comes to shove, family normally overrides politics. The more things they attack, the more chance it has of hitting somebody they care about.
Racism will always work though, because no middle class white kid ever came home and said “Mom. Dad. There’s no easy way to say this… I’m black.”
Dating a black guy/gal can sometimes prompt some introspection. Not as often as I’d like, but sometimes.
There must always be an “other” for conservatism to work, because they need that other to hate, and to feel superior to, so they don’t notice/give care to how much their own policies and the ones they support are destroying their own livelihoods.
The only good republicans are the ones who quit the party for democracy.
Because why try to make a change when you can just give up and quit? /s
Bigotry isn’t a part of the Republican platform, it’s a disease that members of the party have and isn’t going to be changed until those people start getting pushed out from within.
…and before you try to argue that it’s permanently engrained remember that the Democratic party once supported slavery and the Republican party was formed in direct opposition. So things very much can change.
It takes time to change the hivemind and it can only be done by people standing up against it from within, not from people surrendering and fleeing.
Trump is the platform at this point. The disease is in the bones.
He’ll be dead and gone in a few years. Giving up to him and letting him shape the way moving forward is cowardice.
Warning, the below is not uplifting @ all. Avoid if you don’t wanna see it.
spoiler
Then there’s my parents who disowned my younger brother after he came out as male… They kicked him out of the house and now he’s broke and alone trying to scrape by in the world. I’m one of two family members that supports him out of a previously huge family network. I tried to warn him that this would happen but he was convinced that everyone would do a 180 on their deep-rooted political beliefs.
Yeah I’ve been disowned for 9 years. I’m doing well, and I’m definitely the anomaly (most disowning in my experience is like 2-3) but it’s important to remember that not everyone chooses loved ones over bigotry
seeing people shitposting in the comments here.
And while it’s funny, i concur on that. Should we also not congratulate them for being able to grow and change?
These isn’t exactly a leopards situation. This would be more of a leopards situation if they did nothing but complain about republicans being shitty, which they havent done.
personally, i think these two people are rather nice individuals. I suspect they make for some ballin grandparents as well.
They were perfectly willing to support and spread the hate right up until it personally affected them.
Good for them for changing when it did personally affect them, we have seen Republicans literally dying (covid) instead of learning from their experiences, but it is a very low bar to set for being “nice people”.
i mean, isn’t that like, the only way that it goes. You either lock in, be a dick, and die a dick. Or you fucking change your mind, because you aren’t close minded.
Sure it would be optimal if they were there from the beginning, but like, it seems a little too harsh to not retroactively give them a pardon in this case.
but it is a very low bar to set for being “nice people”.
idk, i feel like it should be the normally accepted bar, otherwise there is literally no such thing as dissenting opinions. But that might just be me.
They were perfectly willing to support and spread the hate right up until it personally affected them.
Hate to break it to you. But that’s not a republican trait. That’s a human trait.
It’s why you’ll sooner donate to support the hospital stay of a person in your hometown than you would to a earthquake in zimbabwe. It’s the reason we don’t sit in a corner catatonic with grief at every little thing that happens in the world. Proximity bias is necessary. While it’s not meant to replace empathy, pretending that these people are somehow shittier than every other human in nature just perpetuates a hate cycle that keeps us where we’re at.
They didn’t believe in Trans people. Than their grandkid came out and they changed their mind. But it’s disingenuous to say ‘Oh…now that it affects them.’
What’s more likely is, being actually personally exposed to something forces you to re-contextualize your beliefs. That’s not a bad thing and it’s not to be derided.
It’s why you’ll sooner donate to support the hospital stay of a person in your hometown than you would to a earthquake in zimbabwe.
This, right here? Is making an assumption that doesn’t necessarily hold true. I’ve made donations to DOZENS of world-wide charities and never once even thought of donating to a person in my hometown. It’s not because I’m callous… it’s because my hometown has a system in place to help people with medical needs.
It’s not about helping who you know or have a personal connection to… it’s about helping people who NEED the help. It’s one of the reasons I find this “pay it forward” crap at restaurants so egregious. You know who doesn’t need their coffee paid for? The person who’s already in line to buy a coffee at Starbucks. If they couldn’t afford that coffee they wouldn’t be there. If you’re itching to spend money on someone else, put it in the tip jar.
So yes, it’s completely fair to judge people for this. If you are completely unable to conceptualize people’s needs or suffering until it’s shoved in your face in a way you can’t avoid, that’s not human nature - that’s a character flaw.
This change of heart is laudable, but do they still carry the other abhorrent views of the GOP in their hearts? Do they want the wall and deadly force on immigrants until one of their grandchildren marries an immigrant? How many personal connections does it take to finally become a good person?
I get it, I just get so pissed people only doing the right thing after if affects THEM. The GQP has been bashing gay and queer folks for decades! But, it’s only after their child is targeted that they see the light.
They are better than those who are still in the GOP, and I’m happy they left, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
I feel like so much of it comes from really not doing the work to understand. It doesn’t help that With trans issues people get flat out lied to and because there’s nobody on hand to say reality check stuff like : "What the fuck do you mean ‘The uptick of trans men is causing a wave of hysterectomies in a mass sterilization plot’ … one of the largest reason for temporary detransition is for pregnancies. Also STOP TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE LIKE BREEDING STOCK. " You get a rolling problem where the disinformation is layers deep and they only trust the sources who are financially rewarded for saying the bullshit- because they believe so hard that everything is a conspiracy and have this backwards perception that if only a tiny handful of people in a field are saying something that contradicts a varitable mountain of concensus then that thing is automatically somehow more believable…
I feel like having someone in your family who opens your eyes to the realities because of the immediate demonstratable contradictions of observed reality makes sense. These people caught in transphobialand have by and large been duped. They were ignorant and a bunch of people took advantage of that for financial and political gain. While I can see how not being immediately empathetic isn’t great I dunno if I am as mad when observing from the angle of these people just being kind of dumb enough to be played.
I get it, I just get so pissed people only doing the right thing after if affects THEM. The GQP has been bashing gay and queer folks for decades! But, it’s only after their child is targeted that they see the light.
it’s the most trivial way to change peoples opinion though, so it should make sense. How do you stop racism? You get white people to talk to black people. How do you stop homophobia? Get gay people talking to straight people. This is like 90% of social cohesion.
I think you’re focusing a little too much on the sour taste no longer in your mouth, and not the sweet one that is currently there. I would venture to bet that if you talked to these people personally, and got to know them, you would probably really enjoy that interaction and have very little malice towards them after the fact.
When being a decent human being comes in the way of voting Republican.
Always has. These people just had their eyes opened because the hateful Republican rhetoric is affecting people in their orbit for a change.
The most infuriating part is that these morons are like “I don’t care about that shit, I don’t want my taxes to go up!”
But Republican policies have ALWAYS shifted the tax burden on the regular folks.
A classic example is, they’ll lover your house taxes by 200$! Yaay!
But now, your city can’t repair the roads, so the potholes fuck up your car and you have to get it repaired for 500$!
Another good one recently was, your house taxes are going down 100$! Yaay!
But now, after a thunderstorm that caused a bunch of huge branches to fall down everywhere, the city has no money to collect them, so you’ll have to pay 500$ to dispose of them.
I could go on for hours with examples. Not a single Republican tax cut has ever lead to you, the average American keeping more of your money. It just looks like it if you don’t count past the number 5.
Based.
fetch
Shpadoinkle
Progress is progress. Any amount of empathy in this world is welcome.
It’s never too late to develop the valuable human skill of “empathy.”
Although most of us learn it at an early age.
is it still empathy if they only changed their stance on it when it affected their own family? IDK. but i guess it’s a bigger step than my own parents took, so I’ll give them that.
Who let the leopards in here?
‘no empathy’ people are wrong about cons. They have empathy but it is selectively turned off for certain groups because they have been conditioned to be afraid or disgusted by them. This isn’t an excuse but it is normal behavior - a lot of lefties don’t give a damn about the wellbeing of cops either. It’s not the same thing but it IS the same mechanism. Fear and hate stops people from feeling empathy. It’s human psychology and the cornerstone of all right-wing rhetoric.
I believe that by learning to undermine that kind of hateful rhetoric we can kill the soul of the anti-trans movement.
Mmmm, it’s certainly not a monolithic group but I have a couple friends who are now hated by their parents for their queerness
rightoids seething
Two family members do something to support their families. Why is this news?
Probably because the natural republican response would be to disown or completely ignore and disrespect the trans family member in favor of their own shitty views and this is an outlier.
There is hope for Republicans yet.
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