Let’s talk about language and how it shapes our understanding of current events. I recently read two news articles that made me very angry. As a general rule, when something on the internet makes me mad, I try not to engage with it (don’t feed the trolls, as the saying goes), but I think these articles shed light on where our Overton Window is. Both articles were talking about LGBTQ* folks moving to Europe. The first was talking about Ellen Degeneres and her wife moving to England, the second was about the increase of queer folks moving to the Netherlands. While the actual content of the articles aren’t that relevant (both provide a very surface level look at the current political climate), I will link them at the end. What I want to talk about is the phrase “voting with their feet” that was used in the second article.
Let me say this: trans folks leaving the U.S. in response to the Trump administration is not them voting with their feet. The phrase they are looking for is “refugee.” Trump has made it clear that he wants to get rid of trans people, in any way, since before he was reelected. Trans people moving to Europe in response to this is not them moving somewhere that better fits their political beliefs but is them fleeing a government that is striping them of their human rights and painting a target on their back.
Yet to acknowledge that the U.S. is creating refugees would do two things that fall outside the current Overton Window. First, it would admit that the Trump administration is attempting to kill trans people, as it promised it would. Second, it would de-racialize the term refugee. While both of these are important topics, I will only briefly mention the latter. I am not an expert in the racialization of refugees, as it falls outside my lived experiences and circles of connections. That being said, it is important enough that I feel the need to state it here. The term refugee is a racialized term. Modern politics have built the idea of refugee as a category of Brown people who come to the U.S., with why they are leaving their countries of origin being secondary, if at all noted. The term is used in the abstract, to talk about people, either for or against. The term is not actually used to understand, but as a tactic in political debate. Brown people fleeing for their lives becomes nothing more than a hot-button topic for debate. The idea that a refugee could not only be white, but also not be part of the immigration ‘crisis’ goes against the construct of refugee that has been built. Thus, the news cannot use the same language they use to talk about (Brown) refugees as they would about (assumed white) trans people fleeing the U.S..
Along with that, the idea that the U.S. is creating refugees goes against the Overton window. Refugees is an abstract group of people that simply exist to be debated. To admit that the Trump administration is creating them would be to admit that policies affect people on an individual level. The trans ‘debate’ is not about people. It is about creating a group of people to target and then showing Trump supporters that policies are being enacted to harm that group. The fact that trans people were chosen is not relevant, only that the target has been painted and policies made. To acknowledge that trans people are in fact refugees is to make it so that the ‘debate’ cannot actually be a debate. Because it says that real harm is being done. It shuts down the arguments of the bigots, who want to pass it off as simple policy. It shows that the debate is not pro trans vs anti trans, but human rights vs genocide. Yet, since the Overton Window is so far to the right that genocide is reasonable policy, using plan language to label it as such is outside the Window. So instead, trans people are “voting with their feet” by moving out of a country that wants them dead. This language allows for genocide to continue to be within the Overton Window.
Lastly, I want to tie in Texas. As I write this, more than fifty Democrat state-lawmakers have left Texas to prevent a vote to gerrymander the voting maps in favor of the GOP. While the news coverage on this has been wide, the framing of it clearly shows the Overton Window. The fact that the GOP is trying to prevent free and fair elections is not being given the same weight as the Democrats doing everything they can to stop that from happening. Trump demanding more seats from Texas is treated as nothing more than business as usual, not as the tyrannical reach it is. The Dems who used their only option to prevent this is seen as wild and out there, not as concerned public servants trying to protect the people’s right to fair elections. The phrase “voting with their feet,” what the Dems are literally doing, has not been used. The framing as resisting dictatorship as extreme yet the GOP power grab as nothing but a part of a headline shows just how far right we are. The language used normalizes the extreme and sets the normal as nothing but an extreme reaction.
Language shapes how we think. We need to remember what is normal when we frame the conversation. Trans people fleeing the country for their lives is not normal. It should not be framed as such. Elected officials reacting to a power grab should be seen as them doing the moral requirements of office, not as some spectacle. The language we use to talk about events defines how we see them. We cannot allow for the current moment to be defined by an Overton Window that will allow for genocide but not for resisting it.
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/united-kingdom/ellen-degeneres-says-moved-britain-trump-rcna219942
CLH Words 
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