Mar.09

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Why the Trans Hate?, Part III

We have gotten so many messages about trans hate that we're going to keep this going for at least a few more days. Again, we take this as evidence that the subject is of interest. If it's not your bag, then you can always skip over these items.

In yesterday's entry, we had a few folks that offered up criticism of the movement for trans equality. We're going to start with some more of those, because we would not want to be an echo chamber or to be building a bubble, and we believe that if we're going to do this thing, then we need to include many and varied viewpoints (as long as those viewpoints don't cross the line into being abusive). And with that preview, away we go:

• L.E. in Putnam County, NY: We do not characterize laws against public drunkenness or drunk driving as stemming from hatred for alcoholics, or laws against stealing as motivated by hatred for kleptomaniacs. And only if we are Donald Trump do we identify the root cause of people insisting on valid election results in which Donald Trump was defeated not being overturned because they displease Donald Trump as that they "hate Trump."
  
  If people were infallible judges of themselves and their actions there would be no need for laws or governments, whatever anyone did would be right. But not all desires are equally worthy or all decisions equally wise.
  
  Among the most obvious mistake anyone can make is to insist that they are of the sex opposite to that dictated by their genes, and to insist that it is in fact a mistake is not a matter of "hatred" for those who are, and therefore necessarily have a positive need to stop, making that mistake. It is concern for their well-being, no matter how bitterly resented, just as an alcoholic may hurl charges of "hatred" at those who withhold his liquor bottles.
  
  Those who defend playing along with claims to be of one's genetically-disproven sex take comfort in painting those who insist those claims be corrected as motivated by hatred, but this is simply not the case. Neither is it hatred to deny the amputation of healthy limbs of those with BIID, or to implacably declare human those who are passionately "Otherkin" or "Therians."
  
  As ever, I remain a pro-abortion-rights,anti-death-penalty, never-religious lifelong Democrat.
  
  
• R.C. in Madison, WI: You have published several positive responses to the letter of a month ago from P.R. in Arvada. I take it the responses which were not positive were deemed bad and/or thoughtless.
  
  For example, did no one ask what right an atheist (P.R.) has to tell religious people how to interpret their religious texts? P.R. wrote, "Maybe there is something about it in the Bible or another religious text but surely there are worse things people do." P.R. should ask J.E. in Manhattan, who wrote on January 1, "The Bible is very clear that gender-non-conforming people should be killed (in both the Torah and New Testament, the penalties for homosexuality are clear and explicit)." And I didn't have to look hard to find Deut 22:5, "A woman must not wear men's clothing, nor a man wear women's clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this."
  
  I also note the end of the item where you quote the governor of Mississippi: "Sterilizing and castrating children in the name of new gender ideology is wrong." Apparently, if I agree with this I hate trans people. Fortunately I do disagree with it, specifically with the part that implies scenarios where sterilizing children is OK. And your readers will say that it doesn't happen, but right-wing publications like The New York Times report that it's becoming common to perform mastectomies on trans adolescents who were AFAB. I recall one your readers writing that these procedures will not performed on minors without a thorough psychological evaluation, and later I read in the Times that experts involved in updating the WPATH guidelines are seeking to remove the recommendation for psychological evaluation of minors seeking to transition. I don't see any lines here that people aren't willing to cross.
  
  The juxtaposition of your items suggests that I hate trans people if I deviate at all from a maximal pro-trans position. The arguments for that position include the following from R.L. in Alameda: "no parent is transitioning their son into a daughter in order to win a state championship." If that's the case, then the daughter could compete against the boys and you shouldn't have a problem with policies restricting girls' and women's sports based on, for example, the indicator on the athlete's original birth certificate. You might respond, quoting S.O. in Springfield, MO on January 1, "there is simply no test they can adopt that will not bite them in the rear." Really? There's no way to distinguish Caitlyn Jenner from someone who was AFAB? Any test we adopt will allow men to compete in women's sports? Then why do we even try to segregate sports? If I ask these questions, you say I hate trans people. I can't imagine why that would discourage anyone from voting for Democrats.
  
  
• L.J.D. in Orlando, FL: I was reading Wednesday's edition and came across the letter from B.P. in Pensacola. I have one thing to say to you, B.P.: THANK YOU
  
  As a fellow Christian, I find the hate thrown at the trans community by "evangelicals" to be disgusting. I also hope no one believes that being Christian means hating others. Jesus' example to humanity was humility, compassion, understanding, tolerance, and most importantly, love. He never would have condoned or accepted the hate that these people have suffered. I'm happy to see another brother (or sister) in Christ speak up and say this is not acceptable.
  
  I think the root of the hate stems from one main point: ignorance. People don't really understand what being trans is about and just revert to a baser instinct, which is fear and hate. In no way can I speak to the experiences of the people in the trans community since I am not trans. Nor can I speak to the effects they have on others as I don't know anyone who has come out as trans. But I have tried to read up on what being trans actually is. The more I read, the more knowledge I gained and could better empathize with their situation.
  
  One focus in particular I've found intriguing is genetic mosaicism. As the name implies, a person with genetic mosaicism has more than set of genes in their body. Genetic mosaicism starts in the womb. It has happened to the person before they are even born. This concept shoots down several reasons that people hate on the trans community. Clearly, these people aren't being groomed by Democrats. How the *%&! do you groom someone in the womb? Additionally, how can you paint these people as a detriment to society when they haven't even entered society?
  
  But people don't want to educate themselves on it. They just hate what they don't know. It's similar to how there's more racism among white people in rural areas than urban ones, because rural folks don't connect with Black people that often. There's so many aspects of life that fear creeps into our mind because we don't try to learn what it is we're afraid of. My $0.02.
  
  
• E.D. in Saddle Brook, NJ: You wrote: "Jesus never suggested that picking your gender was up to you." Being a virgin birth, Jesus would have had one X chromosome and no Y chromosome. That would make Jesus female, but Jesus presented as male and went by he/him pronouns. Jesus wasn't the "do as I say, not as I do" type, so I'd take that as a strong suggestion in favor of picking your gender.
  
  
• B.C. in Phoenix, AZ: I'm always amused by the way Christian Righties and Christian Lefties try to massage scripture in order to support their opposing stances. Transgender people have been around since forever, but the Bible is silent about them. Christian Righties have taken that as a cue to lump them in with homosexuals, and have condemned them with all the passages from the Old Testament about "abomination this!" and "abomination that!" Christian Lefties grab the New Testament and use a "throw the first rock if you're guiltless" routine that requires a level of reading-between-the-lines skill that I simply don't have.
  
  How our religion says we should treat trans folks is actually what this whole social contest is about. I'm lucky that I'm an atheist because I can always just say "Leave people alone! Nobody has the right to dictate who you should be or who you should love, so you don't have the right to dictate it to anybody else!"
  
  That being said, nobody is gonna dictate to me what pronouns I need to use when the topic requires gender references. If you look female, I'm going to use "she," "her" and "hers." If you look male, I'm going to say "he," "him" and "his." "They," "them" and "theirs" is reserved for groups, not individuals. I've been speaking and writing English following those rules for way too long to change. Atheism, for me, is part world view and part rebellious nature, and in all my years I've only identified a single drawback with this belief system: I know that dirtbags like Tucker Carlson won't burn in
  
  
• L.C. in Brookline, MA: Several people have blamed the hate directed against trans people on "bad marketing" or some such thing by the trans activists. I think that this is unfair to the trans activists who have been trying to fight what was already a tide of hate and outright discrimination directed at them. What they do are at worst mild annoyances, perhaps not said in the best of judgment, but understandable from their efforts to survive in a world flooded with a toxic mix of the rigid conservative ideas about gender roles (going way back before transgender people were mentioned much) and the hatred of conservatives for anyone who tries to get out from under the rigid gender roles they impose. Trans people are not unique in being targeted by conservatives this way—it's just that conservatives have decided that trans people are currently the easiest target. And then the conservatives engage in the bad marketing.
  
  
• J.S. in Germantown, OH: There are few arguments that drive me into a frenzy more than the one spouted by M.H. in Seattle: "If one is concerned about rape culture, it is not unreasonable to ask that women's restrooms be penis-free zones." Really?!?!?! If one is concerned about rape culture, it is completely unreasonable to think that a man who is willing to rape a woman would be stopped by a law preventing him from wearing a dress in a women's restroom.
  
  
• C.Z. in Sacramento, CA: I found it sad, but typical of the way this now male-oriented website has been trending, that you completely ignored the fact that yesterday, March 8, was International Women's Day. Instead, you chose to focus on the 5% of Americans who identify as transgendered, rather than the 50.8 % who are women, in answer to the question from a reader about "why people hate trans people so much?" So, my question is: "Why do people hate women so much?"
  
  American women's rights to control their own bodies were pushed back 50 years in a single day, thanks to the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v Wade, thereby allowing the states to outlaw abortion. But that was not far enough for right-wingers, who evidently want American women's rights to be pushed back 150 years. Per Wikipedia, "the Comstock Act of 1873 criminalized any use of the U.S. Postal Service to send any of the following items: obscenity, contraceptives, abortifacients, sex toys, personal letters with any sexual content or information, or any information regarding the above items... The restrictions on birth control in the Comstock laws were effectively rendered null and void by Supreme Court decisions Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)." Right-wingers like sexual harasser and Supreme Court associate justice Clarence Thomas now want to overturn both Griswold and Eisenstadt, thereby making birth control illegal. (Not to mention sex toys, condoms, porn, and romance novels.)
  
  When women don't even have control over their own bodies, they instantly become second-class citizens, who are therefore easily ignored, and discriminated against in all other facets of their lives.
  
  I'll save you the trouble of sending this out to the readers for comment, and answer my own question. Why do people hate women? The right-wing's focus on eliminating abortion and birth control has nothing to do with religion or the sanctity of life and everything to do with power. It's all about controlling and dominating women, who though they may be less muscular than men, actually control the most important factor determining the success of a civilization—reproduction. The right-wing-nuts want to deprive women of their "god-given" right to control whether or when to give birth, all in the name of their "god." Huh?

Tomorrow will be all responses from trans and nonbinary readers. (Z)