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Long but good and important thread about how debating trans rights can be harmful *by default* and how you don't need to analyse harm to know that it happens.
The endless trans rights debates playing out in academia and our media are harmful. They just are. They're unequal, they're reductive, they present false ideas of balance to bias the rhetoric, and they prevent more meaningful discussions from taking place.
I've used the example before of how medical research into trans long-term healthcare with various conditions doesn't take place because the focus needle is stuck on "should trans people get treatment in the first place"?
It's like that, but with everything, everywhere.
It's like that, but with everything, everywhere.
Trans people are by definition experts on our lives, our needs, our experiences. To put them up against someone who knows none of that, and has an agenda that audiences will be predisposed to through a lack of familiarity, is to challenge our very existence.
The stakes are radically different too. A cis person who picked up transphobia as a hobby in their free time will naturally have far less investment in questions of "should trans people deserve rights" than trans people ourselves. But if we get emotional, we're viewed as suspect.
There's a common suspicion that trans people are biased and unreliable, which is a large part in why the media platforms still go to cis allies and representatives 'speaking on our behalf' than trans people ourselves. When we say it, we're not believed, because we're suspect.
And so debates often end up as traps, where trans people are lured with the opportunity to finally have a platform, only to have that platform used against them to devalue and invalidate them.
"Today we'll be talking with this charity professional about trans healthcare in the UK. AND we also have a bigoted columnist, surprise!"
Person who knows about trans healthcare: "Well, the problem is..."
Columnist: "You're not actually your gender"
P: "Um..."
C: "Toilets!"
Person who knows about trans healthcare: "Well, the problem is..."
Columnist: "You're not actually your gender"
P: "Um..."
C: "Toilets!"
P: "We're struggling because we hav..."
C: "You're too entitled, too angry, too silencing"
P: "...time's running out to..."
C: "You're coming for our kids!"
P: "I was invited here to talk abo..."
C: "Pervert"
"that's all we got time for, thanks for debating trans healthcare"
C: "You're too entitled, too angry, too silencing"
P: "...time's running out to..."
C: "You're coming for our kids!"
P: "I was invited here to talk abo..."
C: "Pervert"
"that's all we got time for, thanks for debating trans healthcare"
And they hide behind ideas of rationality and the scientific method to justify this, because of course debate is the best way to discern truth. Except it's not, especially when dealing with such gross inequalities as we do here. It's rigged from the start.
And so
