The opinion editor of The Washington Examiner, Brad Polumbo, writes on the 16th of March 2020: “As if we needed more evidence that progressive, identity politics activism is a grift, several left-wing groups that fundraise off of gay and transgender rights are greedily trying to turn the coronavirus into a victimhood issue. A letter that was constructed is just another cynical attempt by left-wing gay and transgender activist organizations to fuel the fake victimhood narrative they need to keep their donor base engaged.”
In his article, he writes:
“As reported by the Washington Blade, we read:
“More than 100 LGBTQ or LGBTQ supportive organizations on March 11 released a joint open letter to health care providers and media outlets urging them to be aware that LGBTQ people may be at greater risk for [coronavirus] than the general public.”
The letter says “As the spread of the novel coronavirus a.k.a. COVID-19 increases, many LGBTQ+ people are understandably concerned about how this virus may affect us and our communities. The undersigned want to remind all parties handling COVID-19 surveillance, response, treatment, and media coverage that LGBTQ+ communities are among those who are particularly vulnerable to the negative health effects of this virus.”
Groups that signed the letter include the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, GLAAD, and more.
This is, frankly, ridiculous. The coronavirus is a virus. It does not care if you are gay. Efforts to somehow make a global pandemic evidence of anti-gay and anti-transgender oppression is a case of shameless self-victimization at its worst.
The letter’s reasoning as to why the coronavirus is somehow an issue of gay and transgender oppression is threefold.
– 1. First, they claim that gay and transgender people are more likely to be smokers and that since the coronavirus, a respiratory illness, is more deadly to people who smoke, it’s therefore specifically a threat to the “LGBTQ” community. This is a ridiculous stretch. The coronavirus is a threat to smokers, some of whom happen to be gay or transgender. It has nothing to do with their sexuality or gender identity.
– 2. Second, these activist groups claim that gay and transgender people are more likely to have compromised immune systems due to diseases such as AIDS, thus putting them at greater risk for the coronavirus. This, on the surface, sounds like a reasonable assertion, but it’s actually unsupported by the facts. Dr. Sarah Henn told the Washington Blade that, for AIDS that is treated and managed, the increase in risk or susceptibility to the coronavirus would be “very slight.”
– 3. The third reason the groups cite is that gay and transgender people supposedly face discrimination in healthcare. They provide no evidence of any gay or transgender person being turned away from coronavirus testing or treatment due to his or her sexual orientation, nor is there any to provide. It’s a long way from some doctors not wanting to be forced to provide sex-change surgeries, and a refusal to treat the coronavirus.
Conclusion
This letter is just another cynical attempt by left-wing gay and transgender activist organizations to fuel the fake victimhood narrative they need to keep their donor base engaged. Shame on them for extending their identity politics addiction to a global crisis.”
Brad Polumbo
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Comment from Job Berendsen
The letter by these professional activists is not an incident, suddenly provoked by a casual occurance that must be addressed. It is part of a pattern to be found when being subjected to the moves of activists who have radicalized.
The glorification of victimhood was advised by the two men who inspired the radicalization of the emancipation movement in 1989 in reaction to the AIDS epidemic. We now see the same reaction to the Corona epidemic.
There where moderate activists find it below their dignity to assume a victim stance, Michael Kerk and Hunter Madson imagined that a victim stance would further the advancing of a gay movement to ward off criticism of the actual sexual conduct.
In their paper “The Gay Agenda, The Overhauling Of Straight America” (1989, download here), we read,
“Rule #2 Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers.
In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector. If gays are presented, instead, as a strong and prideful tribe promoting a rigidly nonconformist and deviant lifestyle, they are more likely to be seen as a public menace that justifies resistance and oppression.”
Rule #3 Give protectors a just cause (…)
Rule #4 Make gays look good (…)
Rule #5 Make the victimizers look bad.
At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights, it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified. This will be all the more necessary because, by that time, the entrenched enemy will have quadrupled its output of vitriol and disinformation. Our goal is here is twofold. First, we seek to replace the mainstream’s self-righteous pride about its homophobia with shame and guilt. Second, we intend to make the antigays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types.
The public should be shown images of ranting homophobes whose secondary traits and beliefs disgust middle America.
These images might include: the Ku Klux Klan demanding that gays be burned alive or castrated; bigoted southern ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged; menacing punks, thugs, and convicts speaking coolly about the “fags” they have killed or would like to kill; a tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed.
A campaign to vilify the victimizers is going to enrage our most fervid enemies, of course.”
By assuming or implying a victim stance, onlookers automatically assume that there must be a victimizer. Kerk and Madson advised using irrational techniques rather than actually providing rational and substantiable arguments.
They showed how irrational communication works just as well as a rational debate does, because the implied ‘victimizer’ cannot retaliate. After all, no arguments are presented, merely feelings. And feelings are not up for debate. Their activism approach has proved to be a brilliant strategy, and even decades later, it still forms the unbeatable core mantra of the radicalized elements within the movement: “Claim the victim role and imply whenever you can that the other guy is a bad guy”.
And so we see a group of professional activists reacting toward a real epidemic. The writers of the letter above include the “National LGBT Cancer Network” and “Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality”. What cancer has to do with same-sex attractions remains shrouded in mist. Also, I must add that any health professional advancing any political issue of his own, seems highly unprofessional to me.
The day the letter was issued (10th March 2020), the USA counted a mere 600 people infected, according to MSM News. If 3% of the population identifies as experiencing same-sex attractions, then we are talking about 18 individuals. There was talk of a cruise ship that week, but in no way could a structural problem be identified with only 18 cases nationwide, none of whom were on the cruise ship. The existence of a LGBT problem with corona, based on facts and necessitating action, is fake news.
For years, the left movement in the USA has tried to convince its audiences that three brands of personal identity constitute an endemic virulent problem in society: racism, sexism and homophobia, all of which imply victimhood. But this is almost always a fake victimhood. And now, all of a sudden, a real epidemic comes around which could become endemic.
We are witnessing how the professional activists beat on the time-worn drums to reiterate the alleged ‘true’ endemics of American society. Percussion is their trade. They apparently feel that their cause will not be center stage during the oncoming political elections. The young audiences must therefore be remembered who the true victims are: gays and lesbians.
And even if science proves that the Corona problem is by all means a problem for the elderly, the frail, the multiple-diagnosed patients, and children with retardation problems, then the center stage must be battled for again. Bring on the kettle drums, boys, time to get to work and do the usual stuff.
Is ‘Me-Too‘ changing into ‘Me-First’?
Conclusion
Above all, the document reinforces homosexism, meaning the notion that homosexual feelings would be a hardware issue, an inborn trait, leading to the imaginary existence of a separate sexuality and hence a separate breed of mankind. Radicalism has, over the past three decades, led to the growth of a sectarian parallel society with its own fake science, fake scientific organizations, culture, a special breed of health care workers and a hunger for state power. The last thing that LGBT activism needs right now is being overshadowed by real life problems, especially with the option of a new president.
Job Berendsen, MD.