Thread by @racheline_m

Cis people: I need you to understand (and help others understand) that “the trans debate” is NOT relevant “to only a small number of people” but to everyone. Thread below for why:

(This is focused on cis women, but cis dudes I need you to listen too. You are also in danger.)

Being anti-trans is only possible by policing the gender and sex of everyone. Because I promise you - you don’t know who is trans and who isn’t.

Also, most of this isn’t really about trans people although we get hurt the most first - it’s about control.

Anti-trans policies require guesswork and punish people - regardless of gender and sex - for not conforming to extremely stereotypical (and white) assumptions about what men and women look like, act like, and dress like.

Here are just some of the types of cis women who have faced harassment, violence, and legal repercussions for using a women’s bathroom:
- women with short hair
- women with alopecia
- women who are athletes
- women who have had mastectomies
- women who are tall
(Continued)

- women who are balding
- women who have facial hair and choose not to remove it for a range of reasons including religious ones.
- women who like pants and button downs.
- women who like hyper-feminine theatrical vintage styles
- women with pronounced facial features

Cis men also face harassment in their gendered spaces if they are slight, short, have long hair, don’t obviously grow facial hair even when clean shaven, prefer not to use a urinal, are disinterested in bonding rituals centered around misogyny and violence, and more

When trans people lose rights everyone becomes open to scrutiny by the gender police. Anyone empowered to police gender is not trying to protect anyone - they’re like a teacher that hates you and loves their red pen.

I mean we’ve got multiple state governments super hyped to give kids internal and external genital exams because there might be one trans girl in Ohio playing softball. What’s the purpose of that beyond telling girls their bodies belong to the state?

Anyway, the more people anti-trans people can find and penalize for being gender suspicious, the happier they are. It’s a form of fascism that isn’t even about trans people. It’s about your freedom in your clothes, hobbies, jobs, and relationships.

It’s about motherhood not being optional. It’s about every creative, curious cell in your body being dangerous.

For cis women, trans rights are about whether you’re good enough at being a woman and good enough at being confined to the white Christian nationalist version of womanhood to be safe.

You probably aren’t. And no amount of punishing trans people will change that.

You like wearing pants? You like your kickboxing class? Big fan of wearing your hair short? Super into making your own decisions about when, if ever, to have kids? Enjoy sitting in anyway other than legs crossed at the ankle? Congrats, cis women, trans rights are about you.

And if you don’t stick up for your trans siblings, you’re at risk of having to say goodbye to everything you love about how you live as the gender you’ve always been.

The anti-trans panic part of a broader fascist agenda focused on taking away everyone’s choices in public and in private.

Abandoning trans people to persecution and death is immoral.

It also opens the doors of your community and your home and your heart to fascism.

Simple self-interest really does require cis people to support trans rights, even if it makes you uncomfortable, and even if you don’t know any trans people.

If you don’t care about us, at least save yourselves.

And maybe get busy explaining that to the cis folks around you

Also cis people? Wanna be useful? Write a letter to the editor every time a newspaper advocates that a party abandon trans rights because it’s not relevant to enough people to matter in our politics.

Also are you bleating about liking this thread but cursing me for “academic” language like “cis”?

Then USE YOUR OWN WORDS TO CONVEY THESE POINTS IN A WAY PEOPLE YOU KNOW WILL BE RECEPTIVE TO.

Come on!

And for the “but sports!” crew: