How Compassion can Help End the Division Over Trans Issues
Plus, Why Tribalism is Freedom's Worst Enemy
Both sides need to stop fighting and start again from a place of compassion
Compassion is the key to solving all kinds of stalemates. After all, nothing is too difficult to resolve, if you have the will. Compassion gives us both the will and the solution. Today, I'm going to talk about how compassion can help end the current stalemate and division over trans issues.
I think the biggest problem we have right now is that people on both extremes of the trans discourse aren't actually thinking about the issues from a compassionate angle. They are not thinking about it as something that impacts their fellow human beings, whose concerns deserve compassion and accommodation. Instead, both extremes are about trying to impose their ideology on society. This is why they are unwilling to consider voices and viewpoints that do not fit their pre-existing agendas. This causes an inability to compromise, or even have a civil discussion.
As I have said before, the combination of moderate conservative philosophy and compassion for disadvantaged communities can lead to a healthy, practical reformism. By embracing this combination, we can chart a middle path forward, and avoid the extremes of 'left-wing' radical deconstructionism and 'right-wing' authoritarian reactionism. Applying this to trans issues, we can see that trans radicals have erred in their ideologically driven desire to tear down the status quo. Concerns about free speech, fairness, cultural norms and parental rights are all swept aside as part of the 'transphobic' status quo. The fact that these views are rooted in long-standing values of our society and often applied to other issues too is dismissed by the radicals. They see everything in the status quo as 'oppressive', feeling well justified in their views because of the philosophical theory they have learned from thinkers, who are/were themselves out of touch with how the real world works.
And it's not as if this approach is actually compassionate towards trans people: a lot of the linguistic changes are not necessary for trans people to live fulfilling lives. The focus on abstract cultural issues distracts from effective arguments for trans acceptance. The refusal to deal with concerns from the rest of society means trans rights reforms can't gather popular support. Therefore, I would argue that such a counterproductive approach is, by definition, not very compassionate towards trans people.
A better way to approach trans issues would be to start from a place of compassion for trans people, as well as for other concerned stakeholders, and to find ways that would accommodate the needs and concerns of everyone. Firstly, what do trans people need, in order to live fulfilling lives? Reasonable accommodation measures like anti-discrimination provisions so that they have a job and have a place to live in. A guarantee of the ability to access transition health care to alleviate gender dysphoria, which should not be deliberately made difficult by culture war politicians, particularly in the case of consenting adults who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria by their doctor. The freedom to express their gender identity, which would include not being seen as potentially 'sexual' just for doing so, like some recent anti-drag bills would imply. Some form of legal recognition and protection, so that culture war politicians can't just decide to take away their rights to score political points. Things like that. These things can actually be achieved under the existing political and cultural framework, and don't require radical changes to the status quo. Importantly, they don't impinge on free speech, and they don't prevent the legitimate discussion of the aforementioned social concerns.
On the other hand, trans people have to be compassionate towards others' concerns, at least when it comes from a place of genuine compassionate concern, as opposed to culture war point-scoring. I agree that we don't need to treat with any respect far-right commentators arguing that local communities can or should ban 'men wearing dresses'. These blatantly anti-trans and fascistic views should be legitimately shunned by those who are committed to classical liberal values. However, concerns about the erosion of language around motherhood, fairness in sports, and teenagers making irreversible decisions they might regret are a completely different matter. These concerns all arise from a place of compassion, to some extent. If we just brush them aside as 'transphobic', we would not be compassionate enough to them. My fellow trans people, I'm not saying that you need to agree with what these people are saying or the solutions they propose, I'm just saying that you need to treat their concerns with respect and empathy, rather than shout 'you're transphobic' at every turn.
I strongly believe in compassion being a two-way street. I hope society is compassionate enough towards the trans community to help us get the things we need, and in return, I practice compassion towards those with concerns about certain trans activist agendas too. This way, I hope we can get some common ground, and get to negotiate practical compromises that will address all of our concerns.
Why Tribalism is Freedom's Worst Enemy
It leads to an endless spiral towards irrational authoritarianism
The political landscape of the 21st century West is increasingly a battle between moral libertarians and morally coercive authoritarians, and the authoritarians often attempt to take over previously libertarian movements by infiltration and bad arguments. By understanding what conditions are good or bad for freedom, we can avoid the influence of authoritarianism.
Today, I'm going to talk about tribalism, and why it is bad for freedom.
On a common sense level, there are already many reasons why tribalism is bad for freedom. Tribalism inhibits independent thinking, and allows bad ideas to be accepted without critical thinking and vigorous debate. This allows moral authoritarians to push through their policies without the usual level of scrutiny. If tribal echo chambers produce a moral panic, things are even worse, because the overwhelming emotionally-driven demand for immediate action leaves even less time and space for proper scrutiny and debate. This is why, historically, moral panics have always served morally coercive authoritarians well, and as a result caused a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering. Tribalism also puts pressure on people to stay in line with the group's consensus, thus having a chilling effect on free speech and freedom of conscience.
On a deeper level, tribalism is incompatible with freedom, because it is incompatible with rationality. Rationality is the best defense against authoritarianism, because it can be used to show why the wannabe authoritarians are objectively less moral. Furthermore, free speech, freedom of conscience and intellectual freedom are conducive to rationality, objectivity and good order, and are logically upheld and cherished when people are committed to these goals. Tribalism makes all this impossible, because when people want their team to win, to 'own' the other side at all costs, they can't be truly committed to rationality and objectivity anymore. Free speech and intellectual freedom aren't always good for 'owning' the other side, and they will naturally be swept aside when they become inconvenient for the culture warriors. This is how tribalism, often in the context of a culture war, allows rationality to be defeated, and morally unsound authoritarianism to win.
All this is actually playing out in real life, in the contemporary Western political landscape. In the 2010s, a form of left-wing moral coercion rooted in postmodern critical theory went mainstream, and the early anti-woke movement was essentially an attempt by moral libertarians to push back. However, later on, organized conservative politics, with a strong morally coercive bent itself, came to hijack at least part of the anti-woke movement. The so-called anti-woke cultural narrative right now consists of both important insights and truths, as well as distortions, conspiracy theories and outright lies. This combination of truths and untruths leads to two things: firstly, it weakens the argument against postmodern critical theory, and hinders the defense of values like free speech as a result. Secondly, some people could come to anti-wokeism because of the truths, and then be hooked by the untruths as well. This is not happening accidentally, it is happening because of tribalism, and the attempts by authoritarian politicians and political parties to take advantage of the tribalism for political gain. The resulting contamination of genuinely rational arguments against postmodernism with culture war garbage leads to an inability to have a proper, intellectually sound debate about postmodernism, which ultimately reinforces the tribalism on all sides. Over time, this will send us all down an endless spiral further and further away from freedom and rationality, and ultimately allow the immoral authoritarians on both sides to win, if we allow things to go on like this.
I hope I have demonstrated why tribalism is the number one enemy of freedom, and needs to be resisted and opposed at all costs. It's like how runaway inflation is not compatible with a good economy. If you tolerate even a bit too much tribalism, we will soon find ourselves in a major recession of freedom, and it will be very difficult to recover from that.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
You can also read and follow TaraElla's second substack, focused on political philosophy, here.