It's 2023--Why Do We Still Have to Deal With These Issues?

I express my thoughts about the current conservative backlash, by talking about the most obvious examples thereof.

The words I use in the recording may not match the words in the transcript.

Transcript

I'll preface what I'm about to say by acknowledging that conservative backlashes against any sort of social progress for the masses is nothing new. But does the world 
really have to deal with yet another one in this point in the history of the world?

Allow me to start by talking about the news story that got me thinking about this issue: In March, United States Congress Representative Lauren Boebert announced,
at a conservative women's conference, that her seventeen-year-old son and his girlfriend are going to be parents, making her a grandmother at thirty-six years old; 
at the same conference, she praised the rate of teen pregnancies and births in rural areas of the United States, stating those people "value life." Representative
Boebert is against abortion and comprehensive sex education, even in taxpayer-funded public schools--even though studies have shown comprehensive sex education works,
whereas abstinence-only education has been proven to be counterproductive--and has other deleterious effects.

Meanwhile, Republican Ron DeSantis has become governor of Florida, which he has announced he is determined will be the place "where 'woke' comes to die" (his 
verbage)--which is the purpose of Florida's 'Stop WOKE Act'. There is also the Parental Rights in Education Act, also known as the 'Don't Say Gay' bill--to which my
response is, What about the rights of parents who support the rights of marginalized people, including the LGBTQ+ community? Governor DeSantis has also started a
fight with Walt Disney World and other companies in Florida that don't share his views, especially those with environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG)
policies. Among all of these activities and policies, he had the audacity to title his book 'The Courage to Be Free: Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival.'
(Sigh.)

But the current conservative backlash doesn't stop in the good old U. S. of A. Here in Canada, the Conservative Party's current leader, Pierre Poilievre, pissed away
a golden opportunity to speak about three Conservative Party members dining with far-right German politician Christine Anderson, and thus reveal where he and the 
Conservative Party stand in the greater scheme of things. Not only that, he was accused of Photoshopping his arm in a photo posted on Twitter as part of his birthday
wishes for his wife; I bring this up because, if Poilievre did Photoshop his arm, to me, doing so promotes toxic masculinity.

The most obvious recent consequence of the current conservative backlash is the murder of Brianna Ghey in the United Kingdom, who was murdered in a park in broad
daylight by two teenagers, one boy and one girl, simply for being trans. To add insult to injury, the UK's 2004 Gender Recognition Act prevents minors from 
acquiring gender recognition certificates, meaning Brianna will more than likely be misgendered and deadnamed in death. The British government ignored Twitter 
campaigns and a petition with more than 13, 000 signatures for Brianna's death certificate to posthumously reflect her gender as female; their stated reason for 
ignoring the campaigns and petition is that their current policy 'strikes the right balance,' and they have no plans to change it. To which I ask, the right balance
between what and what? As well as being a consequence of the current conservative backlash, the murder of Brianna Ghey is another stark reminder that the most 
privileged among us love minority groups when their members die, but we need to do better by those who yet live--especially seeing as the current backlash is 
emboldening people with a bigoted worldview.

Even one of the few rays of light I've recently discovered in this darkness--in the form of Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, MD, PhD--has at least a few sore spots. Dr. 
Kaplan-Myrth is an advocate for marginalized groups and a trustee on the Ottawa Carleton District School Board (OCDSB), and actions she has taken during her time as 
a school-board trustee have made her a target for reactionaries. Besides having been subjected to anti-Semitic harassment, Change.org recently removed a petition 
demanding her resignation or removal from the OCDSB for cutting the microphone of a father who objected to the use of washrooms by trans students during a school
board meeting--to which police were called--with the claims that the parent was "just stating concerns" about trans-inclusive washrooms and that "parents and students 
are having their voices and right to free speech taken away by this individual." (I guess trans people--including kids--their health, safety, and lives don't matter.) 
And this wasn't the first time police were called to an OCDSB school board meeting since Dr. Kaplan-Myrth became a trustee thereon--in November of 2022 they dispersed 
a crowd of roughly 150 people during a meeting to discuss Dr. Kaplan-Myrth's calling for mandatory masking in schools.

In this age in which real issues such as climate change, poverty, and the other real costs of capitalism are being addressed and discussed, conservatives are shouting 
and wailing about what they call 'woke culture' and demanding not just a stop on the clock, but a return to a time in which everyone--especially those who are not 
wealthy cis heterosexual able-bodied white men--knew their place and those in power faced no accountability for abusing that power. It doesn't help that such people 
believe the world revolves around them, and thus cannot live and let live.