Star Trek actor George Takei attempted to draw parallels between the interment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II and current legislation against transgender operations on minors.
Actor and commentator George Takei is best known for his portrayal of Mr. Sulu in the television and film franchise "Star Trek." In more recent years, he found new fame as a liberal commentator and activist.
"Despite decades of advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, the troubling pattern of scapegoating persists," the actor wrote in a social media post featuring an internment camp and a transgender activist’s sign.
"As someone who experienced forced relocation as a child, the sense of déjà vu is deeply unsettling. It's crucial that we learn from history, push for change, and use our votes to secure a better future." His post linked to a Substack entry titled, "The Ugly Danger of Scapegoating," where he juxtaposed "the dangers of Republican efforts to scapegoat the LGBTQ+ community" with being "scapegoated along with the Japanese-American community during WWII internment."
Actor George Takei compared bans on transgender surgery for minors for the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. ( Robin L Marshall/Getty Images)
Takei wrote a harrowing personal account of internment, beginning with his family being forced out of their home "at gunpoint" after the Pearl Harbor attack, to being "rendered destitute, then held without charge or trial behind barbed wire" among 125,000 Japanese-Americans.
He emphasized that this had been done when "President Franklin Delano Roosevelt needed to prove he was tough on the ‘Japanese,’" and that it was "unchallenged by most Americans" and was "signed off on by our Supreme Court."
Takei then compared it to modern politics.
"Armed with dangerous tropes from over 50 years ago, where gay and trans people are labeled as ‘groomers’ who are a danger to children, wily politicians such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida began a campaign to drive us out, to erase our families and identities in education, in library books, and in our own communities," he claimed.
George Takei was one of the original cast members of "Star Trek: The Original Series" and following franchise films. (Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis)
Takei then lamented that legislation against "critically necessary" gender-reassignment medical procedures on minors represents yet another form of scapegoating.
"More ominously, and in the name of ‘protecting’ trans kids and in defiance of all expert opinion, politicians at the state level have banned critically necessary trans medical care, leaving desperate parents and families without alternatives," he wrote. "It was not only ignorant, but it was also deliberately cruel. And it is leading to untold suffering for young people already burdened with the weight of successfully transitioning. They are a group that currently suffers the highest rates of suicide among teens."
He followed by warning, "I have seen where scapegoating, if left unchallenged, leads." Takei added, "America is not somehow immune from these dark forces, the kind that led to the horrors of the Holocaust in Europe."
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