Perhaps you might examine the various way in which queer people in general have been marginalized by labelling all their activities as obscene and sexual. For example, you might take the example of teachers in Florida who are in a same-sex marriage being prohibited from mentioning their marriage lest they be sanctioned for sexual content, while teachers in straight marriages were under no such restrictions. Similarly, the existence of queer people itself has been deemed so sexual by some that even mentioning to a child who is struggling with their identity that queer people exist has been called–in all absence of reason–child abuse.

If you can take those example, and then consider that your perspective of furries, much like homo- and transphobes’ perspective of queer people, is skewed to view it as entirely sexual despite all the parts that aren’t and classify the parts that would be normal sexuality in any other subgroup as deviant. This, as you might be able to deduce, can be quite restrictive of those people’s “allowed” place in society.

Sorry, were you around for the past several elections? Perhaps the 2020 elections where, upon the progressives banding with Biden to get him elected with the expectation that we would be able to “push him to the left”, the Democratic party decided that the reason they didn’t win more seats was because Progressives had damaged their chances of winning, and they must be marginalized. Or perhaps the 2016 elections where, the target of a long running hate campaign was preferred by the party over the popular progressive candidate who was then blamed for his supporters not being won over. Or the 2012 elections where the incumbent Democrat failed to deliver on progressive policies and was a high water mark for drone strikes, but progressives helped bring the win over the candidate Republicans weren’t excited for.

I voted for Harris in hopes that she’d beat out Trump despite how much she and Biden before her discarded progressive policy. I was under no expectation of Progressives being able to do a damn thing to reach her.

Please recognize that other people in this thread are doing those things while you, separately, are merely deriding furries. And while they may not be wholly queer, there is a lot of queer people who are furries and, apparently, a least one study found that two-thirds of furries are queer. And, yes, as it happens “theatre kids” are often queer, and recognizing that a lot of homophobia is directed at theatre folk because it can be an space for queer people to safely explore their identity is somewhat important.

Clearly, no queer person has ever adopted a flamboyant persona and worn elaborately designed costumes.

I’m all over this comment chain. It rather bothers me seeing this kind of bigotry get deployed against a queer subculture, and a rather long standing one, because it’s the same oppression that gets put on us from the outside, and it is especially galling when I see queer people do it to other queer people. I presume that TERF lesbians calling trans people “predatory men invading women’s spaces and misguided sisters” is something you can’t stand at least as much as I do? Please recognize that painting furries as sexual degenerates is the same thing. Maybe I’m at a nexus of the gay furry community, but so many of the queer people in my locale are also part of the furry subculture, and, no, their existence is not purely sexual, and, yes, furry is a pretty core aspect of their identity and culture.

Oh, indeed. I’m sure you have a tight five about identifying as a helicopter you’re just dying to share with us.

And now the pivot from furries to trans people. I am utterly shocked that this would be the case.

Another day, another sensationalization of the sexual aspects of a queer subcultures. If it’s not the “inherent sexualization of discussing gay people”, or trans people as "autogynephillia and autoandrophillia’, it’s furries or kink at pride. It’s really disheartening hearing the same tools of oppression being deployed over and over again.

Tell me you don’t know queer subcultures without telling me you don’t know queer subcultures. Would you like to complain about drag shows while you’re at it? I hear it is very in vogue at the moment.

If the Uncommitted movement had tens of millions of registered voters come together and pledge to vote Harris if and only if she took a harder stance on Israel, that might have helped.

… are you familiar with what the Uncommitted National Movement was asking for? Like, half of Lemmy is bashing the Uncommitteds for the 15m vote difference between Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024.

Like, do you get that Listen to Michigan alone got 101k Uncommitted votes in the Michigan Dem Primary to Biden’s 618k? That they had a stated goal of “an immediate and permanent ceasefire”? That there were Uncommitted delegates to the Democratic National Convention that were denied the opportunity to speak at the convention? That the there were protests outside the DNC demanding the Uncommitted movement be allowed to speak?

Which part of this is failing at being the movement you’re saying the DNC would listen to? If the 15m gap is truly completely at the feet of the Uncommitted, then what are you saying was the reason that the DNC cut them out of their strategy?

If you vote with the hope that it will fixes problem by itself, you won’t get very far. Voting is sort of the end of a political process, the other end starting in people building political movements. For your vote to mean something, you have to be voting with a political project. So, focus on the political projects: start building the structures that protect people first, without relying on the government’s approval. Support your communities of care and build your mutual aid networks. Don’t wait for it to be delivered from on high, get with people who also care about the things you care about and start using what you have to build what you can.

Ah, yes, the “laziness and entitlement” of risking becoming a political prisoner for checks notes not wanting to participate in a plausible genocide. Clearly, political prisoners and genocides have nothing to do with Israel.