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Marsha P Johnson: A Chrome extension to highlight trans erasure
- jey 2y agoApparently this is the background context: https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/g-s1-48923/stonewall-monument-transgender-park-service https://www.npr.org/2025/02/14/g-s1-48923/stonewall-monument...
- jfengel 2y agoI'm surprised that they bothered to replace the sign at all. I'd expect them to just remove it, the way they've eliminated all mention of homosexuality in other parts of the government. I suspect that the monument itself will be disestablished, as soon as they get around to it.
- novemp 2y ago[flagged]
- sophacles 2y agoThey would never remove a monument right? Or does it have to be a statue to count?
- jfengel 2y agoThis isn't just a "monument" in the sense of a statue. It's a National Monument, like Devils Tower or the Little Bighorn Battlefield. But yes, they absolutely could decide that LGBT history is not worth celebrating in the same way we've decided that treason and slave-owning isn't worth celebrating.
- sophacles 2y agoI thought the argument for statues was "it's history not celebration".
- jfengel 2y agoThat is the argument made for them, yes. But it's a little unclear on why they decided that quite so much of our history should be about those particular people. They never seemed to want to supplement other statues to remember more of history.
- pessimizer 2y ago> When describing the Stonewall Uprising, the website now reads: "Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal, but the events at the Stonewall Inn sparked fresh momentum for the LGB civil rights movement!" Were there any laws that affected trans people at all, though? There were laws against homosexual sex (covered by LGB), but I don't recall any laws about expressing gender identity.
- kevingadd 2y agohttps://jacobin.com/2023/03/cross-dressing-law-united-states-history-drag-bans https://jacobin.com/2023/03/cross-dressing-law-united-states... > Anti-cross-dressing laws were the exclusive province of local governments, and no state or federal legislature directly outlawed this type of dress. Several states did, however, pass anti-disguise or masquerade laws that encompassed cross-dressing when enforced. In 1845, for example, New York’s state legislature passed an anti-disguise law that made it a crime to appear in public with a painted face or when wearing a disguise designed to prevent identification. Passed in response to rural workers who wore women’s dresses and masks while participating in anti-rent protests, the law was later used to criminalize a wide range of cross-dressing practices. > Similarly, in 1874, California’s state legislature passed a masquerade law in response to gambling saloon dealers who wore disguises to avoid identification by undercover police. As with New York’s anti-disguise statute, local police repurposed California’s masquerade law to arrest multiple people for public cross-dressing over the next one hundred years.
- gumby271 2y agoThe most obvious example is the "Three Article Rule" that enforced that you must wear at least 3 articles of clothing that "match" your assigned sex at birth. These were easy rules for police to use to justify arresting people. I'm sure others more in the know can provide similar laws and ordinances that affected trans and cross dressing people.
- pessimizer 2y agoIf that's the most obvious example: > The problem is, the law technically never existed. Instead, accounts suggest that police generally used old, often unrelated laws to target LGBT people throughout the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. 1st hit: https://www.history.com/news/stonewall-riots-lgbtq-drag-three-article-rule https://www.history.com/news/stonewall-riots-lgbtq-drag-thre...
- jjk7 2y agoWhy did they put a photo from 2001 in black and white? To make it seem older?
- razille 2y ago[flagged]
- abeppu 2y agoThis seems like a more timely and targeted revamp of Jailbreak the Patriarchy. https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/jailbreak-the-patriarchy/fiidcfoaaciclafodoficaofidfencgd https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/jailbreak-the-patri...
- thecuntdaniel 2y ago[flagged]
- twerkmonsta 2y agoHow does this help anybody?
- moomin 2y agoLet me ask a related question, how does employing the power of the federal government to do the reverse manually and at genuine cost to the taxpayer help anyone?
- novemp 2y ago> at genuine cost to the taxpayer Trans people are also taxpayers.
- II2II 2y agoDirectly? Nothing. Indirectly, it is raising awareness of what the current administration is either doing or enabling. It is also raising awareness of the Stonewall riots.
- DFHippie 2y agoIt makes the people under attack feel less alone.
- ryuhhnn 2y agoHow does this comment help anybody or move the conversation forward?
- pessimizer 2y ago> I know, Marsha did not throw the first brick at Stonewall. I assume that the intention is to confuse people. They at some point found out that Johnson wasn't at Stonewall until it was over, but still for some reason need that name to continue to be associated with the event. I assume the next extension will insert mentions of Saddam Hussein around any mention of 9/11, but include a disclaimer that says "I know Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11."
- soheil 2y ago[flagged]
- maxsilver 2y ago> Nobody is erasing you Except they are. The US Federal Government is actively erasing this group of people from all official web presence. It's literally why this Chrome extension exists at all.
- zapzupnz 2y agoI know that on HN it is discouraged to say things like “did you even read the page?” But I feel it’s apt — not only will you see it’s an unsigned extension (so not on the Chrome Web Store, meaning the extension itself isn’t the channel for activism; the GitHub page’s README.md does that all on its own) but they provide examples of the trans erasure, particularly heinously by the US federal government. The erasure you claim isn’t happening is right there, plain as day. When you are not personally affected by something, clearly having no stakes in the matter, I borrow another example of what we generally avoid on HN but feels so apt: sit down.
- Stevvo 2y ago[flagged]
- Avshalom 2y agoI wonder if that's an easily disproven talking point... https://bsky.app/profile/hughryan.bsky.social/post/3li5yltc3ns27 https://bsky.app/profile/hughryan.bsky.social/post/3li5yltc3...
- ryuhhnn 2y agoTrans is an umbrella term that can be used to refer to anybody who does not identify with or express the gender they were assigned at birth (https://www.hrc.org/resources/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-terminology-and-definitions https://www.hrc.org/resources/sexual-orientation-and-gender-...). Having surgery and/or always presenting as a gender you weren't assigned at birth is not a prerequisite to being trans. "Transvestite" is a somewhat dated term that is considered offensive in some circles, though either way, a transvestite would by definition be "trans".
- emilamlom 2y agoWording has changed throughout history as has our understanding of gender and sexuality. While the specific word "transgender" may not have existed, it's still true that she lived as a woman at the time. At the very least, you can't argue that there's gender-nonconformity going on there. The fact that the Stonewall monument was targeted for removing references of "trans" should hint at why the author of the extension named it this way.
- razille 2y ago> it's still true that she lived as a woman at the time That's an awfully sexist perspective, isn't it? A man acting out some feminine stereotypes doesn't somehow become a woman by doing so.
- emilamlom 2y agoSure, but there's a clear difference between a man who dresses feminine sometimes but otherwise still prefers being referred to as a man and Marsha Johnson. She moved to a new town, changed her name, went by feminine pronouns, and pretty much exclusively dressed as a woman. That's what I meant by my comment, but thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt.
- PaulHoule 2y ago[flagged]
- UncleMeat 2y agoI'll happily vote you down because political power is formed by collaboration. Excluding trans people from the liberation movement makes the gay community weaker against attacks, not stronger.
- PaulHoule 2y agoThe trouble with that argument is if you consistently take the most radical position on every issue, people will leave. Either they leave outright or they just check out emotionally. That's not the same as excluding trans people. [1] Myself I have gone out in drag in the past and seen for myself from people's microexpressions that it is not entirely safe. I think people should be safe to express whatever gender characteristics they wish whenever they want to express them. In the past 15 years the T community went through a sharp ideological bend that is reducitivist and deliberately polarizating that is making it less safe to be different from other people, not more safe. Just because I practice Foxwork and channel an entity which might be a different gender than myself means I need to endorse the self-described 'egg-hatcher' who persuaded a neurodivergent friend of my son to go down a path that hasn't solved his [2] real problems but has added more problems. [1] speech is free, listening is priceless; want to be part of a movement, understand that movement in all its diversity, don't make a black-and-white there-is-no-alternative declaration that other people have no choice in the matter [2] he says we can call him 'he' at this time even though she goes by 'she' at work
- ryuhhnn 2y ago> don't make a black-and-white there-is-no-alternative declaration that other people have no choice in the matter say the person who quite literally can't accept that there can be more than three letters in an acronym, less the entire world order be thrown to the wind
- delecti 2y ago
- kneegerman 2y ago[flagged]
- daft_pink 2y agoAre they going to make one that turns Gulf of America back into Gulf of Mexico?