Milton, Florida.

Hick, backwater (literally), Southern town. This guy is mad about trans people.

Last week the sign said "Biden Stole It!"

But this week, it's trans folk. And he's mad enough to put up this sign in his front yard.

1/

I've seen this guy, got to be in his 70s. Old white guy, from Milton, Florida.

Milton, this is about as Southern redneck as it gets. Confederate flags, rusty pickup trucks, aching poverty, and a Baptist church on every corner with a sign out front damning you to hell.

2/

Milton, Floria. A couple hundred yards from this guy's house is a local train museum, where you can visit the old Milton Station, where there's a waiting room for white people and one for "the coloreds." From the 1960s. The LATE 1960s.

THAT's the kind of place this is.

3/

That sign? XY don't lie. MALE=Male.

Figure this guy is a real geneticist, do you? Weird how it's ONLY XY chromosomes though. Not XX. Just XY. Just male equals male. He's not worried about female equals female.

JUST males.

You see what he's REALLY afraid of, right?

4/

Genetics. Biology. Science. XY don't lie.

I mean, you've GOT to see the irony here, next to that Trump Pence sign.

I'd be willing to bet you a crip $5 bill this guy's ideology comes from religious beliefs that discount that very same science at every turn.

5/

But here's the thing: how many trans people does this guy actually know?

I mean, in THIS town, right? In THIS place. How many trans people has he actually met? Okay, not even met, seen? Today? This month? This year? EVER?

I'd be willing to bet that number is zero.

6/

I'd be willing to bet this guy has never met a trans person in his entire life (that he knows of).

I'll bet that in the 7 decades of this guy's existence, a trans person has never impacted his life in any measurable fashion whatsoever.

7/

And yet, here he is, so terrified of trans people that he's got a huge sign in his front yard. And not just a sign, but SCIENCE -- not good science, but it's Milton, Florida and the sign has GENES on it and not JESUS.

You'd have to live here to see how weird THAT is.

8/

Where did this come from? Who radicalized this guy?

Seriously, if you looked -- really looked -- I suspect you'd be hard pressed indeed to find anything that impacts this guy LESS than trans people existing somewhere.

And yet, THAT's what he's mad about.

9/

That's modern conservatism, right there.

Madder than hell about things that have nothing to do with them.

Furious other people even exist.

Enraged others dare live their lives without permission from this guy's miserable small god.

Mad every day.

10/

Because that's all they have, rage, hate, and fear.

They're pissed off because somebody somewhere identifies as something they don't approve of, but they've never ONCE stopped to look at their OWN identity. At what THEY have become.

11/

Their own religion commands them to leave judgement to their lord, to look to the the beam in their own eye and not the mote in their neighbors'. It commands them to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick.

Trans people aren't mentioned once by their deity.

12/

Yet, this guy doesn't have a sign in his yard because he's mad about poverty, or hunger, or the vast uninsured multitudes of sick people in this very town where he lives. People HE ACTUALLY MEETS EVERY DAY. People who actually DO impact his life. Friends, neighbors, family.

13/

No, it's trans people he's mad about. It's chromosomes, biology, and science he doesn't even believe in. He's mad enough to put a sign in his yard about a thing that affects him not at all.

I ask again, who radicalized this guy?

I know the answer. I bet you do too.

14/14