‘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.
YouTube deleted the Peterson/Joyce ‘meat lego’ video
On ‘meat Legos’ and what’s older than trees. “That’s what people say about me,” Joyce says innocently, smiling, batting her eyes. “That I want to cause a genocide…When did I ever write such a thing?”
What we can learn about Helen Joyce in two sentences
That second paragraph on the book jacket of ‘Trans’. Whose feelings matter? It’s a premise of Helen Joyce’s book ‘Trans’ that cisgender people’s feelings matter the most. It’s right there on the book jacket.
The misrepresentation of compassion and solidarity
No, J. K. Rowling’s 2020 blog post wasn’t compassionate to trans people. ‘Gender critical’ ideology typically promotes hostility and ignorance. GC, of course, claims to be kind to trans people. But that’s disinformation.
‘Radical gender theory’ is itself a social construct
The people who’re making it up do not have good intentions. This isn’t a serious intellectual project. There’s no scholarly substance. Chris Rufo just wants to organize the right-wing to make noise and hurt LGBTQ people.
Anti-trans bills encourage far-right violence
That may be the intent. It sure looks like the outcome. The far-right wants the support of the center. The center has anti-transgender legislative campaigns. The far-right perpetrates anti-transgender violence.
Why is the far-right ever more intensely anti-trans?
Because they’re bored by finally winning against abortion rights. Fascists oppose trans people because they find difference threatening. Being anti-trans is fundamental to their politics, and it predicts what comes next.
How the far-right comes for trans people
Violent far-right U.S. groups are ‘hugely and deeply’ anti-transgender. Anti-transgender rhetoric isn’t “just asking questions!” or curiosity or nuance. It is hateful; it is organized; it foments organized violence.