But it shouldn’t surprise me. Queensbury, NY is a community some 30 miles north of where I live. It is a community which is fairly agrarian, but also has a fair amount of old paper mills. It has become somewhat more cosmopolitan over the past decade as people move north from New York’s Capital/Saratoga Region where I live, but it is still a pretty red part of New York State.
There has been a conflict building in the Queensbury School District due to a student transitioning. It has been on the local news for the past several days, and some of the ignorant statements at the school board meetings make me feel like I have suddenly moved to Alabama.
Most of the extreme northern parts of New York State, and a large portion of Western New York State are pretty deeply red. Those areas are pretty rural, with a lot of farmland - not something which most people associate with New York. Queensbury being in the northern portion of the state, is in a red area. But it always amazes me when I see this kind of hate and ignorance this close to my home - a place where I am protected by law.
https://wnyt.com/top-stories/intense-board-meeting-at-queens...
Comments
Not just the "far" North (of NY)
It doesn't surprise me at all. I live in Westchester County, a large (mostly) affluent county bordering on NYC, and there's been transphobic fights at school board meetings in the northern part of the county. (Some of it from people who aren't in the district.) Rockland County, just across the Hudson River from us, is heavily MAGA, to the point that the local Pride center felt they had to put in bullet-proof glass. Our congressman (Mike Lawlor) claims not to be MAGA, but always votes in line with the Trump gang.
New York State has a reputation for being "liberal" mainly because a large part of the population is in NYC or the immediate area. (FWIW, Long Island has long been a Republican stronghold.)
You are correct……
Regarding Long Island - I actually started to include that area In my original comment. And I also spent a good deal of time around the Newburgh and Montgomery areas some time back and found them to be the same. However, it isn’t just the populace of New York City that swings the state blue. The area where I live, the Capital/Saratoga region also votes predominantly blue - although Saratoga Springs is much more purple than for instance Albany.
Like much of the country, the more rural areas tend to be more conservative. However, it has been my experience over the years that even in deep red states there are areas which are much more progressive - college towns for instance quite often tend to be more liberal. Not all as there are obviously schools with conservative leanings and students (the so-called “Christian” schools as an example), but a case in point would be Columbia, SC, where I spent a few years working. Located in a decidedly red state, Columbia was surprisingly a very welcoming area for a transgender woman only a few years into transition. I was decidedly less passable then than now, yet I found the people there to be much less prejudiced than one would expect. Especially in the area where I lived, near to the University of South Carolina.
But my point was that I was shocked to see this happen so close to my home.
Yes, I still get ignorant and rude people staring at me - usually when they hear me speak, or if I stand up and they realize I am 6’1” in three inch heels. And yes, I have gotten comments or even been laughed at - but not as often as I get treated like any other woman. Where I live, it is not uncommon to be referred to as “ladies” when my wife and I go out, or to have a gentleman open or hold a door for me, or to say, “After you miss.”
There are really ignorant and prejudiced people everywhere. I guess you never really know a person’s true colors until they suddenly find themselves faced with something of which their ignorance makes them afraid - and rather than try to learn and understand, they allow their prejudices to rule them. It has always been that way, and it is that which predators like Steven Miller and his puppet Donald Trump twist to their benefit.
It worked for the Nazis in the 1930’s, it worked for Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s, and it is working for Miller and Trump right now.
D. Eden
“Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir.”
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus