@evan the poll is best worth skipping.

@amirbkhan why is that?

@evan yes, because oppression is transversal. But I am not sure why the singling out of trans people here?

@Tina I'm happy to elaborate after the poll is over.

@evan Solidarity isn’t (or shouldn’t be) selective. It’s about shared humanity and standing against oppression in all its forms. Singling out ‘trans people + Palestinians’ almost trivializes the principle, as if empathy needs to be polled case by case.

Thanks, all. My answer is Yes.

Sometimes people present a false dilemma where there's only enough justice and human rights for one group of people, so you have to pick which one gets rights and justice, and which one gets nothing.

This particular question (trans rights vs. Palestinian survival) was presented by some people during the 2024 US presidential election, when both questions were very much on the line. It's a false dilemma; all people deserve rights and justice.

@Tina This particular pair of vulnerable groups of people were singled out for online discourse as a false dilemma during the 2024 presidential election campaign. Roughly, the argument went that if you concentrated on trans rights, you were condemning Palestinians to eradication. If you worked to prevent the genocide in Gaza, it would hurt trans rights at home. It's a garbage argument. I wanted to see how popular that POV is here on the Fediverse.

@amirbkhan I agree. Unfortunately, this pair of vulnerable groups of people were specifically set in opposition in online discourse during the 2024 US presidential campaign. Roughly, that if one concentrated too much on Palestinian survival, it would be costly for trans rights, or vice versa. It's an insidious argument and I'm glad to see it doesn't have much purchase here on the Fediverse.

@dneary https://cosocial.ca/@evan/115106845436772405

@evan OK, fair enough. Sadly, I get the feeling that the wording of the poll kind of reinforces that false dilemma.

@evan thanks for the explanation. I did not even think of the US election as an example, because here in Ottawa there was some drama just this weekend around the pride parade being stopped and eventually cancelled. In that case, the demand presented was kind of the opposite of what you were worrying about: either everyone expresses solidarity for both things, or no one will be allowed to express solidarity.
That case has more going on than this short summary, but it is an interesting connection

@Tina that's totally fair. Asking questions like "do some people deserve human rights?" or "should we support some people's right to live?" makes it sound like that's ever OK. I appreciate the firm moral compass on the matter. I try sometimes to ask questions that go outside my comfort area, and I think in this case it pushed some other people too.

Also, I'm sorry that this poll went up on the day of the MN shooting. It has been a hard couple of days of transphobia, and this unrelated poll may have seemed like a weird commentary. It was not; sorry for any confusion.