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Notes -
First I imagined a world where hardened criminals pretend to be gay, or trans, or whatever, to up the ante of anyone taking them out if caught.
Second, I wondered if we already live in that world.
Knowing what I know of the underclass, to whom hardened criminals overwhelmingly belong- no, they don’t. They don’t expect legal consequences for harming them and think relying on such things is for battered women. They’ll pretend to be gay or trans for temporary advantage(eg nicer prison), but not to take advantage of legal protections.
This attitude that legal protections don’t apply to them is a big part of why they’re so violent; for people living under state protection it’s best to let stuff go most of the time, but without it, to do so is suicide. Add in pervasive impulse control and IQ problems(trans inmates just keep getting their cell mates pregnant) and the fact that big chunks of them hate each other for whatever reason, and underclass violence is just a fact of life to people immersed in it. The idea that it’s a bigger crime to assault a gay man doesn’t occur to them because in their world assault isn’t wrong, it’s just impolite without a good reason.
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