Resident Lighthouse Ghost

I’m bringing this up because I’ve seen some really weird criticisms lately that take the stance that if you make a robot that has no gender or sexuality, that’s somehow… bad? That a single sex alien race, or a trisexed alien race, or a hermaphroditic alien race, is somehow inherently insulting to trans people? And this take is fucking baffling to me! These are exactly the traits you would expect in robots and aliens! (This applies to robots that seem to act autistic, too; many common autism traits also happen to be traits that you might expect in artificial intelligences.)

I can see the logic. At some point, we noticed all the stories with human cis men and human cis women who were almost entirely heterosexual, and some robot who doesn’t have a gender and explains this to someone at some point, and some people went “woo, agender representation!” and then everyone had to be like “that’s not agender representation, it’s a robot.” Which is correct; the robot happens to be agender, but if none of the humans are then having all the robots be agender isn’t agender representation. So some people started thinking that the robot was the problem. The robot isn’t the problem. The robot is fine. The problem is the humans. The robot’s existence isn’t some insult to the agender community, or the nonbinary community, or the ace or aro or autistic communities, depending on what traits it was given. It’s not representation, but it’s not an insult.

“Oh, but making all the robots asexual is saying that being asexual makes someone a robot!” No. It doesn’t. Making none of the humans asexual and making them all confused by it and having them treat it like some big division is what says that. “Making aliens that don’t have genders gives the impression that genderless people – ” NO. IT DOESN’T. Making all the humans cis people who treat the absence of gender as a weird alien thing is what does that.

He didn't do it.

The cops very clearly planted evidence on him because they had to make an arrest because all eyes were on them and whoever actually did the deed was making them look stupid.

Why would the real killer hero have kept the weapon on his person and traveled two states over while carrying it and a manifesto in his bag, conveniently turning the crime into a federal matter? The same guy whose bag they found in a park, filled with monopoly money? Why did the police turn off their bodycams, take Luigi's stuff, drive a block away, turn their bodycams back on, go back into the restaurant, and then arrest him?

Always leave out anything but just gay men.

Some will even claim that trans people weren't targetted by any laws.

This is also untrue, as many others have said. The infamous nazi book burnings were specifically trans literature.

that even the orgs and books

that do mention this.

I’m convinced a lot of the resistance boils down to simple racism. White Americans don’t want people of color to have the same things that they do.. They think by giving everyone equal access to healthcare it will somehow mean less healthcare for them.

The National Indian Child Welfare Association is an organization working to protect indigenous children and families through education and advocacy on child welfare and kinship rights. The original Lilo & Stitch is very relevant to the ICWA as it shows a US government agent attempting to separate an indigenous woman from her child ward to put her into the care of the state, something that has happened and continues to happen to indigenous children. Nani's "Aloha 'Oe" scene was added as a way to parallel their situation with the colonization of Hawai'i; the original song was written by the last Queen of Hawai'i as the United States forced her to cede her ancestral lands to them, which they then proceeded to colonize and commercialize. Nani is unable to find a job due to the tourism business taking over her land and Lilo is objectified enough to mirror the behavior (taking photos of white tourists rather than white tourists taking photos of her) and gets removed from her traditional dance because of a rich white or white-passing bully.

The original movie is subtle in its messaging but very clear if you know anything about Hawai'ian history, and the movie ending with 'ohana being kept and Nani being able to keep her sister, who she loves, because she now has a support system who can assist her in her own shortcomings is presented as a happy ending for everyone, and the ideal community that we should strive for.

The reboot, if you haven't seen it, has Nani (played by an actress whose mother is a Hawai'i realtor) literally look Lilo in the eye and tell her that 'ohana is a fantasy that can never be reality and that their parents abandoned them by dying. She AND the film see Lilo as a burden on her that is alleviated when she gives up custody and goes to the mainland for college. Why not have her go to a Hawai'ian college, or do classes online while staying with her sister? Because they didn't think about her actually caring for and loving her sister. They thought about how she should go pursue the generic American Dream, and this neurodivergent traumatized child should be passed off to someone else. They literally have an indigenous CPS agent tell her to do this. Her happy ending is giving up custody of her sister to a neighbor and going to a white-dominated university.

Even the non-indigenous characters get removed from the 'ohana, as Jumba is now solely evil and irredeemable and serves as the final antagonist instead of Gantu, which also provides the wonderful(/s) message that criminals cannot be redeemed and government agents are never wrong. The reboot looks at you and tells you that family means nothing and indigenous people should give up their children and culture and assimilate. The director literally said in an interview, "Some people get left behind."

All this to say, we're definitely donating to the NICWA today. They fight to protect the Indian Child Welfare Act that prevents indigenous children from being kidnapped away from their cultures and assist indigenous families in protecting and caring for each other.