Sarah McBride is Right about Trans Activism, just 7 Years too Late
The best time to plant a tree was 7 years ago. The second best time is now.
Today, I want to talk about Ezra Klein's recent interview of U.S. Congresswoman Sarah McBride in the New York Times. I agree with most of the things McBride said in the interview. The only disappointment for me was that this has come, well, seven years too late. After all, McBride herself said that 'by every objective metric, support for trans rights is worse now than it was six or seven years ago'. Exactly seven years ago was 2018, when I first realized that trans activism was on the wrong track, and began speaking up, hoping that we could change course. Everything McBride is saying today, I could have told you way back in 2018. But all I got was a lot of hostility, back in a time when much of the LGBT community was in the grip of far-left revolutionary fever (more on this later). Thus I watched on as trans activists took our community over a cliff, not being able to do much about it. Anyway, it appears that at least someone is finally doing something about it, a development which I'm cautiously optimistic about.
But first, let's take a look at what McBride actually said. I think the most important take away was what she said in the earlier part of the interview, that 'we’ve lost the art of persuasion'. Although she acknowledged the effects of reactionary culture warriors engaging in a 'well-coordinated, well-funded effort to demonize trans people', she also said that 'what we've been doing over the last several years has not been working to stave it off', which I think is what we should be focusing on as a community. Too many people in our community have been going on and on like 'it's not our fault, it's because of fascism' and so on, which I don't really agree with (because it's always up to a community who wants rights to at least improve their optics), but if you won't listen to me, please at least listen to McBride, who appears to be much more sympathetic to your line of reasoning. What you need to realize is that, no matter whose fault it is, we have to get out of the current situation, and do so quickly. This should be the only consideration here, and we need to do whatever it takes to succeed.
Right now, the trans community appears to be divided over McBride's approach to trans issues. Some trans activists have raised suspicions about McBride's motives, which, from what I see, don't appear to be backed by any evidence. For example, this piece accuses McBride's intent as 'to lay the groundwork for a rightward shift within the Democratic Party on transgender rights', and that 'it's become increasingly clear that McBride doesn’t see herself as a fighter'. As usual, it isn't entirely clear what would constitute a 'rightward shift within the Democratic Party on transgender rights', although there was plenty in the article about the Democrats' sports debate, which really shouldn't be the focus of trans rights anyway. (Also, even on the sports issue, there is no evidence that the Democrats are shifting right at all, as there is no record of Moulton and Newsom ever having had a different position. It is likely that the Democrats have always been divided on this issue, but they just didn't address it because they didn't want the distraction.) However, many trans people have also come out in support of McBride, agreeing with her that the activists' tactics clearly aren't working, that more nuance is required on certain controversial issues, and that it's time for change.
In the interview, Klein raised a range of policies, in which the trans activist position is unpopular, including sports, school curriculum, medical transition in minors, and bathrooms. In each case, polls show that, if given only the current activist position and the Republican Party's position, then the Republican Party's position wins. Some activists have pointed to that section of the interview, to say that Klein basically wants us to just accept Trump's policies on these matters as the final word. However, I don't think that is the case. The fact is, on each of those issues, there can be a range of policy options. We just have to find a position that is acceptable to the majority of the public. This position might not necessarily be as restrictive as the Trump position, but would have to adequately address the concerns of most people. As McBride said in the interview, 'in this moment, we have to negotiate with public opinion. And we shouldn't treat the public like they're Republican politicians'. As long as we can come up with reasonable positions on these matters, I don't think the public would insist on keeping Trump's extreme positions. This is also why I agree with how McBride said that we should create 'some space for disagreement' by 'assuming that the people who are on the other side of an issue from you aren’t automatically hateful, horrible people'. It is only through having this space for disagreement, and hence this space for genuine discussions, that we will be able to hammer out reasonable and popular positions on these controversial issues. Which is the only way we're going to defeat and replace the Trumpian policies.
In the interview, Klein also raised the point that 'there's a set of narrow policies, like nondiscrimination, and then a broader cultural effort — everybody should put their pronouns in their bio or say them before they begin speaking at a meeting — that was more about destabilizing the gender binary', and that 'people had a much stronger view' when it came to the latter. I think the trans community needs to be honest with ourselves here. Destabilizing the gender binary for the general public was never our fight, and it wasn't even part of the trans community's discourse before 2015 or so. The critical anarchist faction of the far-left forced injected that issue into our discourse. Unscientific ideas like 'gender is a social construct' only served to distract from our arguments for acceptance and rights, and helped the reactionary culture warriors' goals of muddying the waters and making trans acceptance an ideological and controversial thing. This is why, as I've long said, the far-left is not our friend, period. The far-left's ideas were able to infiltrate our community back during their period of revolutionary fever, in the late 2010s. That period ended when Joe Biden decisively won on Super Tuesday March 2020, thus putting an end to the 'revolution'. Given that it's been more than five years since then, I think it's time we really made an effort to shed the bad ideas left behind by this failed revolution, and return to our pre-2015 platform.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Progressive Conservative Manifesto, the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series. She is also the author of her autobiography The TaraElla Story.
My advice to men who think they are women. If you think that, there are a few things that you need to understand. First of all is that you are still a man because you can't change your biological sex. It's okay to dress any way you wish and to adopt any superficial, stereotypical attributes of women that you desire. Live your life. No one should care, I certainly don't.
However, because women are entitled to be treated fairly and to enjoy privacy from men there are certain things that are prohibited to you and me because we are men. You can't compete against women in most sports because it would be unfair. You can't go into women's private places like restrooms and locker rooms because that would make them feel unsafe. Finally, if you are a criminal you certainly can't be imprisoned with women.
That's it, just like me.
BTW, being men in America we are considered by many to be among the most privileged individuals in the world. Enjoy your status.