Category: Trans
The freedom to be left alone
We should have the choice, but we don’t always have it. In the past, when prompted to think about whether I’m ‘out’ or ‘queer,’ I’ve thought about the transgressive sense and about the meaning of visibility.
The system always leaves someone out
It doesn’t mean the person is strange. Any time we make a system of classification, someone won’t fit. This exclusion might say more about our need to classify people than about them.
Baldness isn’t just physical
It’s also performative. Labels describe how we live. Even when they describe reality, they’re about perceptions and performances. How we live interprets who we are.
When labels don’t feel right
She had two moms, and she didn’t like the word ‘straight’. If we have a stake in a shared outcome, we might avoid declaring how we’re different and separate from others, especially to imply our superiority.
People have been mad about ‘cisgender’ since at least 2007
If someone wants a world where no one is marked as cis, they must simultaneously fight for a world where no one is marked as trans.
‘Cis’ or ‘biological’?
They’re both adjectives, but we have preferences. No, ‘cis’ doesn’t imply that trans people are better. ‘Cis’ implies that trans people are equal. People who object to this equalization are transphobes.
‘And you know what that means’
Is it a dogwhistle? I don’t know what it means. Transphobic essays are fiction. Not the harmless entertainment kind, either. These are lies about brutalizing the elderly and medically intervening on kids.
A bigoted premise sparks an ideology
For some, transphobia and homophobia are first principles. Transphobia is an ideology for many, a lens through which they see the world. There are other ways to think without first striking the match of transphobia.
15 transphobias in ‘Trans Totalitarianism’
Rod Dreher’s August 2022 article in The American Conservative. Low on facts, high on transphobia. Here’s how we recognize that the perspective is transphobic. And here are 15 specific pieces of nonsense.
Richard Dawkins is stuck with a transphobic podcast
Indulge transphobia long enough, and it becomes part of who you are. People standing up to announce themselves as transphobes, even when their viewpoint wasn’t asked for, is one social consequence of transphobia.
New ‘New Atheist’ cry: There is no trans
Yes, Dawkins did fall down the transphobia rabbit hole. QED. The New Atheists used to insist there is no god. Now Dawkins mainly insists there is no trans. People asked me to prove he was transphobic. Here it is.
Richard Dawkins had Kathleen Stock on his show
No, this anti-trans position isn’t ‘moderate.’ It’s hypocritical, unfair, and insincere. Both of them are openly making it up. Never mind whether it’s kind, which Stock says she doesn’t care about. It isn’t moderate. Nor fair. It’s insincere.