Blog
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.
Oh, it’s about sports, is it?
Nope, it’s not. It’s about constraining transgender lives. I don’t judge sports. I don’t pretend to. But I can detect when someone alleges injury and proposes a false remedy to delegitimize a group of people.
Three books that tell us to smash our categories
Recommended nonfiction by Miller, Fox, and Waters. Nonfiction recommendations: A 2020 book about David Starr Jordan, a 2023 book about William Beebe, and a 2024 book about Avery Brundage.
The indispensable history of ‘sex testing’ in sports
Waters keeps the book focused on the 1930s, with the history told in such a way that it’s crystal clear how it’s relevant today. The moral panic over trans people in sports continues not to be about sports.
As Berlin held the 1936 Olympics, these athletes changed their sex
Assigned female at birth, some went on to live as men. Eugenicists, sexists, racists, and fascists held power. Possibilities were disrupted when the Nazis rose. And the 1936 Olympics belonged to Hitler.
What transphobia sounded like in 2010
‘How Evil Works’ (2010) by the editor of WorldNetDaily. In discussing racism, antisemitism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, the author of course purports not to perpetuate them, but he very much does.
Classic transphobia — since 1981
Classic anti-trans arguments in ‘The Spiral Path’ by David Fernbach. Trans people have genders, but we don’t uphold, benefit from, or depend on the gender system any more than cis people do. That’s transphobic disinformation.