Trans Rights Are Human Rights
We were warned that the "criticism" (vilification) of transpeople would lead to violence, and on February 11, it led to the death of transgender 16-year-old Brianna Ghey.
We cannot say that we were not warned. After countless instances of LGBTQ+ violence and mass shootings, it is time to accept that broadly speaking, human rights are human rights, and trans rights are among them. The killing of Brianna Ghey on February 11 is a tragedy that will repeat itself as long as any sort of asterisk is placed next to campaigns for inclusion and the rectification of oppression, no matter the identity-at-birth of the oppressed. It will continue as long as “feminist” transphobes continue to degrade themselves and the concept of human rights by jealously and damningly using (what they imagine to be) their newfound positions of relative power to oppress others in turn. Transphobes in positions of preexisting hegemony—the entire Republican establishment, for one example—hold a greater share of the blame for the LGBTQ+ bigotry, hate crimes, and unjust laws, but those of a more precarious position who imagine themselves to be threatened by trans rights lend the hateful movement a sheen of credibility and an occasionally compelling “leftist” façade. Both forms of bigotry must be ended immediately.
Previously on this site, a reaction to Matt Walsh’s transphobic documentary What is a Woman?:
If no one can define the word “woman,” why does Walsh care who calls themselves women? What is his interest in muddying these particular waters with a question he admits early on is unanswerable?
As is the usual case when the right thinks it has struck rhetorical gold, the actual point behind the argument is meaningless and easily sidestepped, because a “woman” is whatever we want it to be and can change depending on our purposes, a concession to the imprecise nature of categories in the real world that does nothing to diminish the historical suffering of (a demographic we might call) cis women or anyone else, nor does the inclusion of seemingly non-female women in the category do anything to abrogate their claim to equality and fairness (it only broadens the tent). Walsh discovers the truth in the first bullet point above, that gender roles are indeed a social construct and that no one in any field (medical, ethical, psychiatric, etc.) is concerned about hashing out the particulars of what does and does not constitute womanhood, but he seems to take the exact wrong lesson from it and implies that because women do not exist, men who transition cannot claim to be one. This is not the indictment of gender ideology he seems to think it is, and the question he poses so smugly is one that no serious person is asking.
There is no more a platonic ideal of womanhood than there is manhood, or personhood, or any other real world phenomena that exists outside of its theoretical counterpart. The usual rhetorical gambit here is similar to moving the goalposts: if a precise, 100% objective gestalt of womanhood cannot be defined, then individuals who have transitioned cannot claim to be any particular gender. Of course, this also means that no one can claim to be a woman by the same demanding criteria, a reasonable answer that would be immediately countered by anti-LGBTQ+ campaigners in one of two ways: that of course a human being born with female chromosomes is a woman and to claim otherwise is absurd (this forgets intersexed and hermaphroditic individuals exist and are born naturally that way, and that medicine used in transitioning contains female hormones), or in a more general appeal to common sense, that if a person looks and acts like a woman, most people would agree that they are one and we can consider them a woman by consensus (the problem here is obvious). Both of these answers are self-defeating: one presumes that the question is meaningless in anything but a theoretical academic context (with no attendant implications for normative real world rights discussions) or that the definition of womanhood is fluid and open to interpretation to begin with. To put it simply: if the ideal of womanhood exists, the transphobes are wrong; if the ideal of womanhood doesn’t exist, the transphobes are wrong.
The implied goal with the question is to turn feminist leanings (see the TERF, or trans-exclusionary radical feminist, movement, a small but vocal proportion of feminists) against trans rights campaigners by pitting them against one another, the implication being that an individual who once presented as male transitioning into a woman is somehow corrupting or trivializing their struggles, when it is plain from actual feminist perspectives that all allies are to be welcomed and supported. For a feminist to be unwelcoming of trans issues is to be exclusionary themselves, to seek a spot at the table with the goal of using their newfound rights to exclude others for reasons no better than those which kept them down for centuries.
Sadly, attacks on transpeople are not limited to the bigoted and easily-debated right-wing, but are increasingly coming from leftists and other marginalized groups who ought to be considerable allies in their fight for recognition and acceptance. Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists’ (TERFs) rhetoric is a symptom of the ultimate corruptibility of putatively left-wing beliefs which are not built on a solid rhetorical foundation but are instead adopted out of naked self-interest or the chasing of fads. Having secured what they imagine to be a sufficient package of rights, these fair-weather leftists seek to close the door behind them, showing that their lofty ideals were only ever a reflection of a form of selfishness—in this case, a rational and laudable selfishness compelling them to seek equal representation, but one that should inculcate upon them the lesson that their fight is never over (and in the the case of the TERFs, women are being attacked alongside transpeople) and that the distribution of rights to others in a similar position does not dilute or threaten whatever concessions they have managed to begrudgingly secure by the ultimate oppressors. These useful idiots represent a distressingly common weakness among liberals—the tendency to turn on one another, which is explained by the existence of right-wing oppression itself, in the form of intimidation, infiltration, the defunding of education and social safety nets, the fostering of mass violence, and other forms of crackdowns. Without the real ability to strike at worthy targets, these groups turn their fury inward and toward those who are in even more precarious positions socially and economically.
The unscrupulous and well-financed right-wing will exploit these cracks at the first opportunity, successfully convincing otherwise consistent leftists to turn against themselves and others who require similar defense in the ultimate service of deregulation and free market dogma. This is a well worn tactic—the culture war has for many decades convinced millions of Americans to vote against their own economic and social interests by inciting conflicts within classes, typically by pitting lower class whites against all others except for upper class whites by portraying tolerance and acceptance as weakness and unmasculine. The ultimate sincerity of these beliefs is immaterial, either in the case of the lower class who are duped into swallowing them or the upper class propagandists who manufacture and push them. If the beliefs are sincerely held or even voluntarily adopted in the absence of such propaganda campaigns (say, a childlike fear of the unknown or of one’s own sexuality driving homophobia), the method to counter them is the same: deplatforming, marginalization, and ostracizing those who preach hatred. TERFs and others who have internally adopted an exclusionary view are given a platform by the media which is disproportionate to both their number and the strength of their arguments, and until the left is fortunate to have access to media influence comparable to that of the right, these are our best tools as individuals in the fight against disinformation and abuse. Unfortunately, opinion pieces defending and dissembling for transphobes such as today’s New York Times opinion piece by serial charlatan Pamela Paul defending well-known transphobe J.K. Rowling are all too common and given an undeserved weight in the corporate media. These are irresponsible and damaging words at the best of times, but studies have shown that the “debate” about transpersonhood and various restrictive laws is in and of itself harmful psychologically, which is no surprise given that one’s very existence is being called into question (and the “debate” also fosters violence directly and demonstrably, which is typically swept under the rug in the media and treated as something akin to understandable if not justifiable gay panic—how can anyone see this happening and not understand that their lives are held in low regard?):
Even without finalization, bills like this have already increased psychological distress among youth, as two-thirds of LGBTQ+ youth report that recent debates about state laws restricting the rights of transgender individuals have negatively impacted their mental health. This is only the beginning.
LGBTQ+ youth do not possess a predisposition for suicidality because of their identity or sexual orientation. Rather, their experiences of marginalization, discrimination, and peer and family rejection serve as significant factors for increased suicidality and mental health symptomatology—which is the epitome of minority stress theory. The Trevor Project estimates that LGBTQ+ young person attempts suicide every 45 seconds in the United States. This past year, up to 50% of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered suicide; transgender and gender-diverse youth are also 2 to 3 times more likely than their cisgender peers to experience discrimination and a lack of safety at school.
“The transpeople are coming for the few rights you’ve managed to secure as a feminist” is no different a sentiment to “the Blacks are coming for the few rights you’ve managed to secure as a poor white person” or identical targeting of other previously- and still-oppressed individuals. The fight for equal representation is all too often portrayed to these groups as a zero-sum game, and for good reason: to discourage wider class solidarity and the idea we may as well fight for everyone’s rights at the same time, because everyone in the lower classes are oppressed in different but significantly comparable ways—because this would be socialism, which is a topic studiously avoided by both major parties. Yet it is also the only arrangement which is capable of guaranteeing a real right to life, beginning with the publicly-enforced economic security which would immediately reduce the need for oppressed groups to worry about upstarts, insofar as this informs their tendency to punch down.
“Exclusionary” is the key descriptor in the TERF acronym; these so-called feminists, having secured their place at the table (or what they carelessly imagine is their place at the table), now work to keep others from taking their own places—not, importantly, the feminists’ places, but their own seats, of which there is not a finite supply. To jealously guard these new privileges is to become the oppressor in turn and abandon whatever genuine principles compelled them to fight for their own rights, a process which actually endangers those rights rights rather than secures them—the difference between a cis- and trans-woman is purely semantic and voluntarily adopted, and the same justifications for denying rights to the latter could very easily be applied to the former, despite the well-curated feelings of security foisted on them by the true power-holders, who will always be both cis- and male. They want these feminists to be simultaneously complacent and paranoid—unjustifiably contented at their new stations yet always worried about new arrivals (the immigration analogy is an apt one), which distracts them from the real threats from above. In a word, this is fascist doublespeak, and the attacks on abortion rights and other kinds of misogynist legislation have escalated alongside homophobia and transphobia for a reason. Yet in demanding equal rights and doing so with occasional forcefulness, the same moral opprobrium over confrontational tactics which was wielded against Blacks and homosexuals previously is being turned against transpeople. As I wrote in a previous article:
If one group can be repeatedly asked to change and strategize, then so can the other, and it is much easier for the power-holders in society to rein in their prejudice than for those seeking equal rights to change their very identity. The rights movement focus groups’ [a name I used to describe those who are critical of what they consider to be oppressed groups’ divisive, confrontational tactics] advice inappropriately places the burden of responsibility on the already marginalized to try and fit into the overarching community, whose niceties are capricious and facile. It forgives that community for its intolerance and allows it to shirk its responsibility to police its own members. Why is the onus on the LGBTQ+ community to provide a sanitized public façade and not on the comfortable establishment to reign in its members’ prejudices? Provided that one’s identity does not require harm to anyone else for its expression (fascists’ distress at having to be reminded of LGBTQ+ groups’ existence does not count as harm), even the most limited form of civil society protects that identity in law, immune to the legislative whims of the majority. One might claim to identify as a rapist, for example, but this identity is rightfully restricted by laws against rape. LGBTQ+ individuals do not harm others by existing, by protesting, by being visible, by marrying, by asking to be called a certain pronoun, by having sex, by raising children, or by sharing a diner counter with straight cis males. This is a basic point, but it is often lost in the patronizing minds of the centrism worshippers.
A similar form of patronizing concern can be found in the rights movement focus groups’ support for equal rights as a self-serving safeguard of their own rather than an intrinsic good. The rights of the marginalized are worth protecting in and of themselves, and need not be cited as warnings of what could come for the rest of us should they be further restricted. “If it could happen to them, it could happen to me” is a fascist line of thinking that presumes we are only capable of self-interest and conceptualize the rights of others only as a bulwark against intrusions into our own lives. To protect the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals only because theirs would be destroyed on the way to your own is to exploit the LGBTQ+ community—support predicated on this notion would evaporate the moment it becomes politically expedient to throw them under the bus, if it is believed that doing so would protect one’s own social position.
This oppressive impulse is sadly common in the human species, but it is not instinctual or natural. It is a consequence of the corrupting influence of capitalism, under which scarcity and the threat of insecurity (financial or otherwise) can often prove fatal or at least life-destroying. The impulse to jealously hoard wealth and rights “just in case” catastrophe strikes for the good of oneself and their families is wholly a social phenomenon, in this case the effect of late-stage capitalist economic and environmental woes, and it is the same impulse driving the wealthy to hoard more and more of their wealth at the expense of everyone else; they are more aware than most that the climate and environment are soon going to impoverish, displace, and kill many millions of people. “I and my family will not be made victims” would be a laudable thought if their efforts to protect their own did not both create the environmental problems at the onset and worsen everyone else’s ability to deal with them. This is what the unconstrained free market does to us all: it corrupts otherwise rational survival instincts and turns them into a competition wherein the strong (in this case, those who are lucky enough to have been born into wealth or learned how to exploit the system) guarantee their futures to an excessive degree while everyone else is left to hang.
After some backlash from activists about transgender campaigners ‘coopting’ a phrase meant for another oppressed group, this Transgender Action Block has conceded to no longer using it publicly. Rather than welcome its use in a different but no less urgent context, there are some who see its use elsewhere as threatening or diluting, proving that they have learned little from their struggles.
To conclude, the tendency of some oppressed groups to seek a position of power in order to oppress others in turn is evidence of a fascist campaign to exploit the (somewhat understandable) rhetorical vulnerabilities inherent in these groups as they gain a seat at the heavily-corrupted table. Without systemic change toward full social and economic equality, these groups will continue to be all-too easily exploited by the ruling class:
What exactly is meant by the Newspeak word “wokeness?” It might be defined as a slavish devotion to political correctness and the strict avoidance of offending anyone, but the fascist will be quick to take offense at its use in schools or in the workplace, so that definition falls short. Is it the enforced consideration of the feelings of others?
@thehowie I’m not surprised at all. That was to inoculate the public. As a prominent vaccine advocate, you should understand that. Yale is the epicenter of the woke mind virus attempting to destroy civilization.Whatever “wokeness” is, it has become the bane of fascists, a newspeak non-word that, along with “critical race theory,” “groomer,” and “liberal,” no longer means anything. Anti-trans reactionaries have occasionally attempted to turn this on its head by alleging that defenders of trans rights are victimizing women by failing to clearly delineate what is meant by womanhood, creating a false dichotomy between cisgendered women and trans women. In doing so, they attempt to turn femininity itself into newspeak by pitting one marginalized group against another and asking them to exclude others in turn, failing to recognize that the precise platonic definition of womanhood is irrelevant even in a medical context. Like all attempts by fascists to coopt the language of inclusion, this one is insincere and meaningless, and this is characteristic of their perversion of language. Even fascism itself, in the hands of a fascist, is undefinable.
This last primary characteristic of fascism is its main unique aspect—its incongruence and willful irrationality precludes the act of defining and delimiting it. If no one is unable to understand fascism, they will be unable to fight against it. In this way, fascism unintentionally legitimates the use of force against it: if it cannot be thwarted with words and laws, and reactionaries wield it as an existential threat to anyone who opposes it, the only recourse is one of violence, and any hesitation to preserve universal human rights via forceful and coordinated action is itself a form of Ur-fascism. In abandoning reasoned argument and deliberation, the fascist admits to being no better than a rabid dog.