Probably best to start with a trigger warning, as I will be covering molestation. Sadly, not the sort where moles are just doing their duties.
YouTube just served me this. (very much a trans-friendly link)
And I was basically left wondering who the hell feels threatened by others being themselves. I hope this will not come across as inappropriate from a nominally cishet male.
My background is hopefully not normal. At the age of 6, I was repeatedly involved in anal sex with a neighbour (his idea). Not to be outdone, a female cousin six years my elder babysitting me a year later introduced me to kinks that one should not know at 7 but would later inform my relationship choices in a less-than-ideal manner.
That would take another 23 years, but my first real relationship, in college, was with a woman whom I like to claim I lost my virginity to (so as to avoid having to bring any of this up) that I also ended up in discussions with about being a sperm donor for her and her wife years later.
After her, my year as a raver started. One learns very quickly not to assume a goddamn thing about anyone’s sexuality or gender identity in that environment. It took two years in college to get to the point that I’d slept with more women than men, and just a few years ago, I started talking with a guy who I had to ask “are we flirting?” when our conversations felt more like what I was used to on intentional dates.
Hence “nominally.”
So I have always been somewhat in orbit of the queer community without ever considering myself part of it. Indeed, a big reason I chose Beehaw was because inclusivity is just the sort of thing one should engage in.
But this video was a maddening experience (I mean, I totally agree with the presenter), given that I don’t see who’s threatened by the existence of the trans community. Unless you’re pinning me down and forcing me to do things I don’t want to do, what you do in your life is not my concern.
I again apologise for what is likely a very basic question, but I just don’t get this. There are so many things to be concerned about in the world, and my god, I thought we’d gotten past petty shit like othering people. How my second wife was proudly bi and somewhat racist (first wife, same deal, minus the racism) was a confusing juxtaposition, but I was in a bit too deep by the time that became apparent.
After that divorce, I ended up with a coworker I didn’t even realise was a lesbian (she’d say I turned her bi), so straight is simply not normal to me. How is this a standard assumption, and how the existence of trans people are an existential threat is baffling, unless we take the view that straight people have more kids, which is what capitalism needs to forever feed the growth beast.
Is it as simple at that? I’m going through some stuff currently that makes me ill-equipped to dive down the research rabbit hole, so I’m reaching out here in the hope of understanding without spending several hours getting angry.
There’s no threat posed by the trans community, unless you’re in the business of keeping people oppressed or unhappy. Then the trans community poses a threat, because we are going to fight to let people live their true lives! (tl;dr, no, nothing, trans people are just trans)
Have you seen us?! We’re dangerously adorable!
[Very joke] Bovinoscatological research (which also invented that term) suggests that 89-96% of trans people are cuter than should be possible or sustainable, based on previously established science. What will happen when the dorbs exceed this planet’s ability to support them?!?
Also our flag frickin’ rocks. 🏳️⚧️
I wish I could upvote twice! :P
I just gave an upvote in your stead. Consider it done.
I think a lot of people who don’t like trans people are probably something between resentful and defensive. They’ve spent their lives dutifully cramming themselves into a little pink or blue box; when they see that we readily disregard what they see as binding them, I could see that either seeming unfair or scaring the hell out of them.
If I can become a woman, live in the world and be happy with it and even grow my own genuine home grown organic titties, that has implications for what’s possible for others. Maybe even them. They may not want to transition, but there are probably things they’d like to do that they don’t allow themselves because of gender.
They could just follow our example and just do whatever they want too, but there’s probably a bit of a feeling of sunken cost, as well as the conflict between the obvious appeal and self evident goodness of freedom and the dumb bullshit they put themselves through.
60% sour grapes, 30% internalized fear of themselves, 10% thinking it’s cool and funny to hate on queers; something like that. That’s my guess.
This is my guess as well. And I think for female transphobes, a big part of it is internalised misogyny. On some level, they hate women, but can’t admit it because they are a woman, so they hate trans women (who they see as choosing to be women) and they hate trans men (who they see as also hating women and choosing not to be one). The reason I think this is an awful lot of female transphobes also seem to spend a lot of time judging other women for a lot of things: being too poor, too black, having too many children, not enough children, having too many partners, not enough partners, being a sex worker, having too high-powered a career, being insufficiently ambitious/aspirational. The only common factor appears to be hating all women who aren’t them.
Seems like every time I hear about some “TERF” (as if they’re feminists, bleh!) more than just a little, they’re also a raging “antifeminist” (misogynist). Tons of “blah blah blah that’s not a real woman” but out of the other side of their mouth it’s a bunch of rhetoric about a “woman’s place” and how women should find a man and serve quietly or shouldn’t be allowed to vote or whatever. So, this comment really fits well with a bunch of stuff I keep seeing: seems like a bunch of the women pushing this crap have just eaten up misogyny or are grifting on it.
It’s probable that my taste in partners stems from a complete rejection of gender roles given being told by my mom that “women can’t rape men” when, well … all fucking evidence to the contrary.
To me, a “real woman” doesn’t need a man, given the implications of that idea. Even the ones I’ve ended up with have tended to talk a big game about feminist ideals, but when the power bill needs to be paid, why can’t I just do that? Like, you have Firefox and the login credentials, and we have a joint account, so … what’s actually going on there?
My longest relationship featured power exchange, though in about the most unhealthy way possible. I don’t want to wear the pants; I want someone who makes my life easier. A partner. To the point that when I’ve had joint accounts, what I suggested was that we look at joint expenses, then divide that up to the basis points by current income levels, such that we’re both contributing the same percentage.
In both cases, I was making more, so I contributed more. But that seemed equitable and the only way that we were jointly helping each other. In no world does it make sense for me to just keep an extra $10,000 for myself because my career is longer.
I want someone to challenge me, to provide input, not someone who wants to coast on having “found a man.” But from my experience, even with independent ideas, this imbalance is so ingrained that it’s treated as a given.
They may not want to transition, but there are probably things they’d like to do that they don’t allow themselves because of gender.
Doesn’t even have to be gender or sexuality related; the fact that you can change such a major characteristic of your body in order to be who you truly are and become happier can feel like their problems they are perhaps fighting are miniscule and so how is it possible that they didn’t solve them for their whole lives?
Basically envy exists, too. And since something “not normal” made you happy (while they struggle with simpler things) you must be actually weird and the fact that you’re happy is an anomaly.
What you are seeing in public is a phenomenon of Evangelical Christianity being amplified for political gain. There are religious puritans who genuinely and sincerely believe that the mere exposure to the existence of non-cis hetero people will cause actual cis hetero people to “become sexual deviants.”
Which, in their world, it probably looks like that. Oh your perfect totally-and-completely-straight child “suddenly became” gay after learning online that gay people exist? To these ignorant puritans, it really seems like a magic transformation when in reality it’s just standard-issue coming out of the closet. They have zero understanding that, if you wouldn’t repress people in the first place, this wouldn’t happen because there wouldn’t be a closet to come out of.
But back in the 90s, they fully lost the crusade against cis gay people. Cis gay people are normalized to the point that my very evangelical aunt now happily accepts her lesbian daughter.
The politicians who used to leverage this bigotry against gay people to drum up votes know this, so they moved on to the new bogeyman of the day: trans people. I see the exact same verbiage used now against trans people that was used against gay people (and especially gay men) in the 90s. “They’re really pedophiles, they’re a cult that’s recruiting and corrupting your children, they’ll turn cis people into something they’re not, it’s not safe for children to be exposed to this ideology.”
Those exact same things were said about gay people in the 90s, literally word for word. Even the “trans agenda.” In 1992, it was the “gay agenda” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_agenda
This is why I have a patch on my bag that reads “Evil is boring.” Because these bigots can’t even come up with a new script. It’s the same old thing over and over and over, just with new targets.
It’s obvious to anyone who isn’t completely terrified of sexuality that the existence of trans people is not a threat to anyone anywhere ever. What you’re seeing is nothing but bigotry being leveraged for political gain.
First things first, the trans community is not a threat to anyone.
As for the existence of transphobia, my (limited) understanding is that there are a few origins:
1. Power
As Michel Foucault wrote in Discipline and Punish, gender and sexuality became an instrument of power. Society uses gender and sexuality to control its people. E.g. men should be strong, women should be weak, marriage must be done by a man and a women, etc.
The existence of LGBTQIA+ community challenges this discourse directly and is therefore seen as a threat by those with power.
2. Conservatives knew that the fight against same sex marriage were lost
Therefore the transgender community became their biggest target now. A lot of people still have limited understanding of transgender, and gender as a social construct in general. Conservatives and neo-reactionary think they could still push back against transgender. A small number of LBG people also thought they could gain acceptance among conservatives by throwing the transgender community under the bus.
It must be said that if they succeed, the rights of LGB people will be their next obvious target, and therefore we are all in the same ship together.
3. TERFs
Some women had bad experience with men, and they project this onto transgender women. We see them mainly campaigning on limiting the use of women’s bathroom for transgender women, which made their lives very difficult.
It must be clearly said that their experience have noting to do with transgender women, who are some of the nicest persons I have ever met.
IDK, friend. It is true that trans folks are over-represented in leftist movements but I think that’s attributable to dissent being natural when the status quo doesn’t uphold social contract for you and people like you.
Most of us have mundane lives like everyone else, just made possible by transition.
They’re threatening to make the whole world cute as fuck.
Don’t give away the trans agenda!!!
My metric has been androgyny. Dude, chick … if you’re not obvious about this, I’m interested. I’m surprised this isn’t more common amongst those born in the late '70s.
In no particular order:
Organized Christianity needs original sin.
If people believed could achieve righteousness on their own, they wouldn’t need a church. To keep people perpetually indebted, organized Christianity needs people to feel not just that they did something wrong, but that they are something wrong. Enter the self-appointed apostle Paul (don’t get me started on that guy), telling you that every natural desire you have is evidence of your sinful nature. This is why the most widespread denominations heavily regulate sexuality and identity.
Patriarchy needs masculine superiority to be immutable.
Patriarchy doesn’t say men deserve authority because they do better, but because they are better. A man is assumed to have a set of masculine virtues suited for authority, and so to claim that authority, a patriarch just needs to show up and remind people he’s a man. But what if a man could lack one of those masculine virtues (such as aggression)? And what if a person who looks male isn’t, or vice-versa? The more things a man could be, the harder a patriarch has to work to prove they’re the “right kind” of man by flaunting their masculinity (see also: truck balls). And for women who gain privileges by sucking up to the right patriarchs, every stripe on the rainbow flag is yet another thing they have to prove they’re not. So punching down on “deviants” isn’t just a way to reassert one’s position in the hierarchy, it’s also revenge against those “deviants” for stealing or diluting the patriarch’s claim to his birthright.
The heteros are upseteros.
Heterosexual people are very accustomed to society and commercialism catering to their sexuality. Objectification is rampant. People are so accustomed to sexualizing anything on two legs that the mere mention of homosexuality has them vividly visualizing the act. Even devout religious people. Especially devout religious people. And that can be unpleasant if you’re not into homosexuality, or trigger a self-loathing spiral if you are but don’t want to admit it. This is why so many homophobic people make exceptions for whichever kinds of queerness they like to see in their porn, and others make exceptions for every kind of queerness except the ones they like in porn.
Fascists need a scapegoat
Fascism is a form of authoritarian ethnocentric ultranationalism based in a social-darwinist backdrop that promises mythical palingenesis if the weak and treacherous are purged. Fascism has deep ties to religion and patriarchy, but it is uniquely reliant on having a scapegoat or “other” to cast as treacherous, powerful, and responsible for the nation’s failures – after all, if there’s no scapegoat, then there’s no reason to grant power to a fascist dictator. Critically, that scapegoat must not actually be powerful, or else purging them would be a self-defeating endeavor. While fascists regularly change their formula to avoid categorization, they almost invariably target sexual minorities thanks to their disenfranchisement by religion and patriarchy.
Self-determination is an act of rebellion.
I saved this for last so I could end on a less depressing note. If you believe mankind is inherently evil (see also: original sin), then you also believe that giving people the power of self-determination is dangerous. I believe that art is the battlefield upon which the wars for the identity of a nation are fought, and America in particular has a long history with this battle. In a 1787 letter to his nephew, Thomas Jefferson wrote that morality is a construct by and for society, and that individuals should ignore peer pressure and trust their instincts when choosing their moral and religious beliefs. Jefferson was a Unitarian, a denomination later sadly but predictably deemed heretical. In the mid/late 1800s, the American transcendentalists spat absolute fire like Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” (a guide to radical self-acceptance and being a bad boy sugar daddy), Thoreau’s “Walden” (a guide to rejecting capitalism and living in a cabin thanks to your sugar daddy) and “Civil Disobedience” (a guide to big dick energy which would later inspire Ghandi), and Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” (a guide to getting high in a field and realizing there’s nothing evil or gross about you). Many years later, this philosophy inspired works like Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” (a guide to punching me, specifically, right in the feels). The very concept that there’s nothing wrong with you and that only you get to decide who you are continues to be radical, dangerous, and completely unstoppable to this day.
Wow. Thank you for this insightful analysis.
Organized Christianity needs original sin.
If people believed could achieve righteousness on their own, they wouldn’t need a church. To keep people perpetually indebted, organized Christianity needs people to feel not just that they did something wrong, but that they are something wrong. Enter the self-appointed apostle Paul (don’t get me started on that guy), telling you that every natural desire you have is evidence of your sinful nature. This is why the most widespread denominations heavily regulate sexuality and identity.
Plenty of Christians do not believe in original sin. Many of us believe that all people are inherently good rather than inherently evil.
I’m sorry you went through that and I think it’s interesting that you talked about a girl with a fluid sexuality. I think people get scared that it’s like conversion therapy or just predatory behavior but since you went through those harmful experiences, you know what it looks like. So when someone says hey this trans person is a threat despite them having done nothing, you understand that isn’t true.
I hope you’re doing better now and taking care of yourself. It’s always sad to hear as someone who used to babysit. The kids I watched could barely beat Mario on the Wii so I had to carry them through the whole stage.
Actually now that I think about it, I think the kids knew before me because they’d ask me if I was a boy and all I could say at the time was I didn’t care what they called me. So transphobia is probably a learned thing where people project their fears onto us.
So, just to pile on, I had a girlfriend in Kindergarten. First kiss, so this predates everything else. Tomboy when I had no idea this was a concept, and when I later found her on Facebook, dyke of the highest order.
This actually started making a lot of sense. My crush of the '80s? Tasha Yar.
But Tana was just the girl who was relatable. Wanted to do guy things with the guys, and why wouldn’t you want that?
ETA: It was just the sort of thing where wrestling turned into a kiss, just because we were curious what that even entailed. Maybe I was really bad at it, but I like to think from her haircut that I was not the sole reason.
Now that I think about it, I was exposed to an unusual number of tomboys. Tessa (daughter of a friend of my mom’s) also comes to mind, and while two data points are not a trend, if we include Tana, Tessa and Tasha (she’d come along later, of course, and just be a boy’s fantasy) … well, now we pretty much only need add some apostrophes for this to be a full slate of Vulcans.
Fascinating.
The basic answer is to control people and build targets for them to go after. As gay and lesbians were gaining more rights, see: marriage equality, the GOP/Republicans/Neo-Nazi elements that were beginning to gain power needed a new target. So they settled on trans people and started pushing the bullshit idea that they’re all pedophiles and mutilators of children’s genitals.
The science and standards of care do not allow for what the right is claiming. They just needed an easy villain and since their base is full of people who are easily manipulated with fear trans people were the perfect target. Why? Because trans people make up like .03% of the population so most of these people have never met one.
Hard to get into everything as I’m on my phone, but yeah. I’m trans myself but even if I wasn’t I would be able to see that their claims are absolute BS.
There are so many things to be concerned about in the world
That’s exactly it. Present day conservatives don’t have any solutions to current problems, so they have to make up a boogieman that has to take the blame for all that is wrong in the world (instead of the actual causes) and that only they can save their followers from (because everyone else is already “indoctrinated”.) Anything that’s against “traditions” is a good target (often a minority that’s starting to get treated in a more equal way.)
I think most intolerance comes from a mix of unfamiliarity and being informed by rumour. When you ask a transphobe what the issues are they talk about paedophilia, forced conversion of children, all these things that of course don’t happen. It’s the boogyman under the bed.
I have some relatives who are basically intolerant of everything, other races, any religions, gay people, whatever. But one of their best friends is a 60 odd year old transwoman who came out like 15 years ago now and they are absolutely fine with her, use her correct pronouns, they do use some old fashioned terminology, like “used to be a man” and that sort of stuff but she also does the same.
Not to say that it is ever up to trans people to put themselves in rooms with bigots, but like, bigots having trans friends would help no end.
The trans community, or any other community of marginalized people for that matter, is not a threat to any one person but to conformity and the status quo.
Throughout history, very similar people held the most power and wealth, and power and wealth were passed on not by means of merit but through connections.
But this power was always fragile and dependent on others, on servants, the lower casts and classes. Every now and then though, the lower classes unite, revolt and force the ones in charge to make concessions or straight up replace them.The rich and powerful obviously want to limit these occasions and the most effective way to do so is to make the lower classes believe that they are not the enemy and someone else is to blame for the misery, someone else wants to take the few breadcrumbs the lower classes have, someone else is the villain. As longs the lower classes have another enemy to fight, they’ll conform to the class system bestowed upon them by those who hold power, serve the system, consume the goods sold by the rich.
But you cannot vilify just anyone. If you make the majority and enemy, they’ll resent and ultimately revolt. You have to pick those who are few and have limited capacity to fight back. Refugees, Sinti and Roma, Jews, the LGBTQ+ community.
Gay people have achieved too much public support, and the fascists cannot get away with othering them any longer. So they have moved on to a social group with less public support. This allows them to fabricate an enemy out of a relatively small group of nonthreatening people to keep the fear flowing which fascism requires to operate. That is one component.
Another is that our society is built on pretty strict gender roles. Trans people’s mere existence exposes that gender roles are not naturally as strict as society would have us believe. So even though trans people are mostly ordinary folks who simply present at some point in the wide gradient other than strictly cis male or strictly cis female, and even though the trans people in my life are some of the best people I have known, the fact of sympathy to trans people is a threat to the status quo.