Post #1164211

2026-04-15 15:29 UTC

From the Anti-Authoritarian Playbook; “The targeting of trans people - and specifically trans youth and trans women in sports - is not a policy agenda. It is a strategic operation. Understanding it as policy produces the wrong response. Understanding it as strategy produces the right one. Jason Stanley, in How Fascism Works, identifies the targeting of vulnerable minorities as a core mechanism of authoritarian consolidation. The function is not primarily to harm the targeted group, though that harm is real and intentional. The primary function is to test the solidarity of potential opposition coalitions, to find and exploit the fracture lines, and to establish a precedent: that some members of the coalition can be sacrificed when the political cost of defending them is judged too high. Every successful authoritarian project has done this. The question it is always asking of the opposition is: is there anyone in your coalition you will abandon to protect the rest? Because if the answer is yes, we know exactly how to proceed. We find that person. We make defending them as costly as possible. And we watch the rest of the coalition either hold together or fracture. If they fracture, we learn where the next fracture line is, and we push there. The targeting of trans people is not the end of this strategy. It is the test. And what the test is measuring, in real time, is whether LGBTQ organizations, progressive coalitions, and pro-democracy movements will sacrifice their most vulnerable members when the pressure is sufficient.

Replies (17)

@rhold@norden.social 2026-04-15 16:03

@Elodie_lyra this is an eye opening summary. I already knew parts of it but this fills the blanks for me. I now understand better why it's always perfectly harmless groups, which do no harm to none, who get singled out and target of hate campaigns.

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@IcooIey@mastodon.green 2026-04-15 16:04

@Elodie_lyra If we aren’t all safe and free, none of us are.

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@WhiteCatTamer@mastodon.online 2026-04-15 16:35

@Elodie_lyra This is also why TERFs and 4channers have been pushing the “queer is a slur” idea until young or inexperienced people start repeating it. It pairs with shit like “LGB Drop the T” by splintering communities into individuals who have nowhere near the same power as the original communities did in the selfish but vain belief that they deserve acceptance before others do. This is why I firmly identify as queer, because umbrella terms cover everyone in community.

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@rootschange@federate.social 2026-04-15 16:44

@Elodie_lyra such an important note and one I see missing in many organizing spaces! Thanks for sharing We go together or we all fall.

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@shye@deadrobots.social 2026-04-15 17:04

@Elodie_lyra@lgbtqia.space It's classic divide and conquer. The same "technique" is used in both the macro and micro, and so easy to see and understand if you have knowledge and experience with domestic abuse. It's very particular human behavioral characteristics of a certain mindset that are imposed outwardly onto others and the environment. Often in domestic situations being unconscious, rather than conspired, but in both cases still mostly derived from insecurities and inadequacies, with the need to control others and the environment. ○ Step one is distraction - shifting the focus of the cause of a problem away from the perpetrator / abuser to somewhere else. ○ Step two is division - turning groups against each other, or an individual against friends / family. ○ Step three is isolation - keeping groups or individuals ignorant, and controlling the information they receive in order to shape their belief system - making them more malleable and controllable. That testing (mentioned in the original post) which is a part of this process, is the same as how a domestic abuser constantly tests their partner, and which is also a part of classic conditioning - which is why the testing is continuous and punishable, until the subject(s) automatically respond in the desired manner, where they are then rewarded. The bottom line though is that humans are just shit.

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@star@fed.amazonawaws.com 2026-04-15 17:58

@Elodie_lyra Thank you for this post! However, could I ask that you add content warnings to it? That'd be very nice of you :)

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@idren@mstdn.ca 2026-04-15 18:14

@Elodie_lyra I keep referring to this mother Jones over and over and over this year https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/gender-ideology-mother-tongue-keyword-judith-butler-trump-terfs/

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@damonology@lgbtqia.space 2026-04-15 18:17

@Elodie_lyra omg thank you. This is literally what I've been ranting about for years. It's nice to see it worded better lol

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@junior42@norden.social 2026-04-15 18:31

@Elodie_lyra Deshalb ist es um so wichtiger, bei hohem Druck zusammenzuhslten

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@dimamord@social.vivaldi.net 2026-04-15 19:19

@Elodie_lyra Out of the blue? Everything happens out of the blue no? When one believes they are the victim they don't see the causes of the backlash or other things that one's opponent sees as an upfront to them, when you take a position of "I am holier than though" the cycle of hatred just continues. One day you will be successful and then continue on with what you think is right and then they will win and they will continue what they think is right. What a lot of historians who study history both political and world history is when one side demonizes the other, it just a constant cycle. And you know what? That is how people in power like it. Think about it for a moment, and once you do you may see what actually is working and not working. But I'll probably be called names by either side and be dismissed as usual.

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@stepheneb@ruby.social 2026-04-15 19:56

@Elodie_lyra Here’s a guess for another reason their leaders find a strategic value in cruelty. When cruelty becomes an essential aspect of state power and coercion it’s always applied to folks with less power. I think one underlying purpose for this performative cruelty is to solidify political control by getting more of the “right” folks to hate together. This is very similar to tactics cults use. My last Twitter post four years, more context in alt-text

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@megmuttonhead@mas.to 2026-04-15 21:39

@Elodie_lyra 100%. Transparently so!

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@holdenweb@freeradical.zone 2026-04-15 22:23

@Elodie_lyra The Israeli playbook in a nutshell.

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@feisty_lemming@zeroes.ca 2026-04-15 22:41

@Elodie_lyra I suspect a different but related test already happened with the pandemic. People with disabilities and immunocompromised folks were already abandoned because taking any precautions at all was too hard and hurt “the economy.” Now most of these humans are not even safe visiting their doctors.

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@threetails@plush.city 2026-04-15 23:55

@Elodie_lyra And the Democrats are falling for it.

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@iamada@tech.lgbt 2026-04-16 05:59

@Elodie_lyra After we proved through fact and scientific study, that trans women perform worse on average than their cis counterparts due to the difference in available testosterone after hormone treatment (specifically GnRH blockers) Any argument against trans women in sports today no longer has a basis in anything else than exclusively hate and bigotry.

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@Nezchan@wandering.shop 2026-04-19 14:13

@Elodie_lyra Amazing that only days after you post this, the new head of Stonewall UK announces that they're only too happy to sacrifice trans people and is Tuesday good for pushing them under a variety of large vehicles.

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