@Jennifer1984 Said
I can see where you're coming from and I know how you feel.
It's the climate of suspicion and mistrust that is the disturbing thing.
After the Civil Partnerships Act in 2005 and all the advances made during the Tony Blair years.... and even to an extent, carried on by David Cameron who fine-tuned the concept of gay unions as 'partnerships' to actual 'marriage', the whole of society seemed to have embraced homosexuals as ordinary people.
I was very fortunate in that I enjoyed the best of this. I came out in 2003 and as a young person didn't really suffer the worst of the discrimination and persecution that went before.
Even after the passing of the Snoopers Charter some six years ago, that in itself didn't seem to make much difference to us. That was sold to the public on the grounds of being an anti-terrorism and child protection measure and who could disagree with that.
But since 2016 the whole picture has changed. I know I rattle on about Brexit and it must become boring to some people, but it's almost impossible to convey in mere words the shift we have undergone here since then.
The hard right have always lacked credibility because most people were generally liberal minded. All we wanted was to live our lives... trundle along... make a living in peace and security. Very ordinary aspirations and we were happy, accepting and tolerant.
Brexit changed all that. It emboldened the hard right and they've used it to gather momentum since.
It has made extremism acceptable. It is now acceptable for the government to contemplate sending navy ships to sink migrant dinghies attempting to cross the English Channel. It is now acceptable for the government to remove funding to feed children in poverty. And it is now acceptable for people to persecute minorities again. Despite a relentless and conspicuous catalogue of failure, corruption, abuse of power and blatant disregard for any of the norms of acceptable political practice, the Tories are unbeatable in an election at this time. How does this happen...?
Calls to bring back the death penalty..... forcibly separate migrant children from their families...... exclude minorities from social services......... withdraw Britain from the Human Rights Act..... Abolish any number of Civil Liberties..... all these and many more are being touted seriously, and are being taken up by politicians pushing to put them through Parliament. With an 80 seat majority in the House of Commons, and Boris Johnson elevating those he can trust to toe the party line into the House of Lords, the likelihood of success is becoming increasingly certain.
The Tories are changing electoral boundaries (gerrymandering) to prevent the opposition ever gaining control. Opposition constituencies are being merged, 2 into 1 to cut the number of seats they can win in Parliament.
20'000 more police being recruited by the party that in 2015 cut police numbers. What does that smack of...? Threats to use the army on the streets for civil control in case of demonstrations.
All of these moves have started, and gathered pace since June 2016. There is a feel of all this being part of a systematic move to an oppressive and dictatorial regime
And now, out of the blue, they want to start gathering this data. Call me Little Miss Paranoid if you will, but you can see where suspicions of a systematic descent into fascism are coming from.
You've read the likes of Bob the Fisherman and the Australian on this very forum. Extreme stuff. Disturbing stuff and you'd call it unsustainable in a functioning democracy. But that is what we no longer have.
And so what may seem an innocuous question on a census form..... that most of us would accept as being reasonable and trustworthy at any other time now seems dark and fraught with mistrust and suspicion.
What do they REALLY want this data for...?
And I hate what this growing climate of fear and trepidation is doing to the country I had grown to feel safe and secure in.
We are starting to get genuinely scared.
yeah, I get it. I use sarcasm and dark humor to cope a lot, but similar hard right changes have happened here. Names are different of course, but the idea is the same. I've always had some anxiety, but the actual panic attacks and need for medication is gotten a lot worse. Which here is a double edged sword, as our healthcare system is all a s***show, and getting any mental health help worse.
a lot of various communities are pulling together to do what we can, its not enough, but it helps. it makes it a very distrustful era. The death of RBG and rush to replace her on the court may change so much for generations. So much is at stake, and we have our own version of gerrymadering and voter suppression going on. For the current election they have severely reduced the numbers of polling places, and destabilizing the postal service, so ballots being returned through the mail, is all of a sudden a big issue, when it shouldn't be.
I hope it changes, but it's been really emotionally rough, and several people i thought I knew have said reprehensible things in my presence, that leave me wondering did i really know them, and how honest were they with me and that is a bit of a mind f***. I don't like being distrustful, but some of these are life and death circumstances.
the oh...its not a big deal thing Trump did on June 12, to reverse medical protections from LGBTQ+ -- supposedly that was because the transgendered people were "forcing" doctors to perform examinations on biological parts they did not have. --- Bull crap, was not a problem that need "fixing" any way, its in effect now.
almost all major insurances have dropped all protections or even the ability to file a complaint or investigation if someone is being discriminated on sexuality or gender identity. The ones that haven't pulled it, may just not have gotten around to it, not so much that they won't. We enroll in our medical insurance plans once a year, usually in Oct - Nov to start in January, but there are a bunch that enroll in May and June for a July 1 start date. I am on the July date, and the insurances that have the larger July changes, are the one that haven't made changes yet. -- Simply because the law changed too late to for them to make changes last year. And because of our health care system, these plans are pretty much the only access to medical care anyone has, other than they are legally required to stablize you in and emergency room (then bill you full price) and some doctors will accept out of pocket payments for treatment, but it is almost always pay in advance. Which makes sense for elective surgery, like new boobs, but when its your gall bladder its a different issue.
so add this into an already clusterf*** of a system, and well.... I'm also not optimistic.