Shelf life

Huh. It turns out the people really harmed by climate change are trans sex workers. I did not know that. The Independent informs us:

Joya Patiha, a 43-year-old Indonesian transgender woman, first started to notice that changing weather patterns in the mountain-ringed city of Bandung were affecting her income as a sex worker a decade ago.

Her income as a sex worker? He had a fixed income “as a sex worker”? I think what the reporter probably meant is that Patiha can’t get as many paying customers as he could a decade ago. So no one told him that men think women are old hags at age 25? He thinks it’s the weather that’s the problem? And the reporter takes him seriously?

The rainy season was lasting longer across the West Java province, winds were stronger and in some particularly bad years Patiha lost up to 80% of her earnings.

What “her earnings”? What lost? He earned less than he had before because it was rainy; he didn’t “lose” some percentage of a fixed salary.

Trans women like Patiha are among the most affected by extreme weather linked to climate change, as well as suffering disproportionately when disasters strike.

How? Why? Who says?

“No one is coming out during the longer rainy season,” said Patiha. “It is very hard to make money during that unpredictable weather.”

Indonesia is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and trans women, who tend to face more stigma and marginalisation than trans men or other LGBTQ+ Indonesians, are also among those hardest hit by extreme weather.

Are they? Or is this dim-witted reporter just claiming they are because it’s The Done Thing?

Finally we do get something of an explanation:

The Indonesian government has a five-year plan setting out its development objectives and how it will manage the impacts of climate change and although this includes provisions for vulnerable groups, trans people are not listed among them.

“Women, the elderly, and people with disabilities are mentioned, but there is no provision for sexual and gender minorities,” Darmawan said. The lack of government recognition of their precarity means trans people have few social safety nets, he added.

That is at least specific as opposed to vague hand-wavey. On the other hand it’s not clear why “sexual and gender minorities” particularly need “provision” more than the population at large. Women, the elderly, and people with disabilities are not as strong as young able-bodied males, so it makes sense to provide for them but not necessarily for young able-bodied male trans people.

Whatever. Climate change is going to drag everyone down, so it’s a little pointless to try to score trans ally points by pretending it’s worse for our trans siblings.

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