Stop Using Trans People as Your Political Football!
Or better, end the culture wars and the hyperpolarization
The hyperpolarization in politics, the always escalating culture wars, the rising authoritarianism on all sides... it gets very frustrating over time. Especially if you are a trans person, one of the groups of people both sides like to use as a political football. When I first came out as trans in the mid-2000s, a friend told me the world might not understand us for 100 years. You know what? The way things are going now, I'd rather the world forgot everything about us, and not understand us for another 100 years. Not understanding and leaving us alone is better than whatever situation we have got now. And frankly, most of us (except the activist establishment) didn't ask for 'visibility', so we certainly don't deserve whatever we are getting right now.
Detransitioners like Chloe Cole and Prisha Mosley have run into the (temporarily) hospitable arms of Matt Walsh, a deliberately corrosive right-wing pundit at the Daily Wire. The automatic rejection of detransitioners by progressive activists has been a terrible miscalculation. Detransitioners are vulnerable young people in need of support and compassion, but because there is currently no room for heterodox narratives on the Left, detransition advocates have fallen in with anti-trans conservatives with social clout and cash. Alliances with figures like Walsh will only make nuanced dialogue harder, and detransitioners risk becoming pawns of conservatives who support outright bans on gender affirming care, even for adults. The upshot is a political culture that continues to thrive on division and mutual hatred.
-Fear and Self-Censorship in Higher Education by Ash Kahn in Quillette
Some people keep denying that trans activists are doing anything wrong. Well, this is one of those things they are clearly doing wrong. Frankly, I still don't get the reason why the trans activist establishment won't regularly feature at least some detrans voices. They are letting anti-trans right-wing culture warriors have a monopoly on the detrans conversation, and this is dangerous for us. Trans people who are actually paying attention to what is happening (like myself) are very frustrated at the people who are supposed to 'represent' us.
Hyperpolarization precludes coalition building, and I find it hard to understand why so many progressives are unable to grasp this obvious point. We have fallen into the same dynamic as the Right: alienating our own while preaching against alienation, further nourishing the collective crisis of anxiety and depression.
-Fear and Self-Censorship in Higher Education by Ash Kahn in Quillette
I really love this quote from the end of the aforementioned article. Someone has to act to end the hyperpolarization, in some way. Someone has to take the first step. Or we are all doomed. Compromise shouldn't be seen as weakness (as long as you aren't compromising individual freedom itself). It is the very thing we need at this moment, and someone strong enough will have to make it happen.
While the majority of discourse around SB254 focuses on its repercussions for transgender youth, a provision that has received less attention within the bill is already spelling disaster for transgender adult care. The legislation bars all nurse practitioners from offering gender affirming care and imposes additional restrictions on informed consent care for transgender adults. Considering that nurse practitioners provide the majority of gender affirming care, this could drastically reduce the number of providers, lowering it to a level that is unsustainable for Florida's transgender patient population.
Meanwhile, extremists on the right keep attacking trans people. I'm not talking about trans activists, I'm talking about everyday trans people who just want to live their lives quietly. It is now clear that the right wants to make trans health care difficult to obtain, and it's not even about the kids. They want to make medical transition difficult for adults because they don't like it, similar to how they made abortion difficult in the Roe era because they don't agree with it. These people are extreme authoritarians who don't respect that others have the right to their own medical choices.
Also, looks like the 'free state of Florida' isn't free after all. If a state that acts like this gets to call themselves free, then freedom means nothing. This is why we urgently need to have a renewed focus on freedom, what it is, why it's important, and how to center it in our politics. It's a shame that people don't talk enough about freedom these days. Freedom is my first priority in politics, and it takes precedence over all other priorities, and it will remain this way until at least we get over the current crisis of (un)freedom.
The Oxford Union, the university’s 200-year-old debating society, is set to host a talk by former Sussex University philosophy professor Kathleen Stock on 30 May, as part of its Trinity Term calendar of events. The academic has sparked controversy over her trans exclusionary views, although she states she is not transphobic, and quit her job at Sussex University after accusations of transphobia by students and activists....
“On the 30th of May, Professor Stock will be interviewed by the president. After this, our members will have the opportunity to question and challenge Professor Stock at our despatch boxes, where any member who asks a question will have an opportunity to ask a follow up question,” the statement reads.
“This format is designed to uphold the union’s founding principle of freedom of expression for both our members and our guest speakers. Attendees can use this opportunity to respectfully engage with and challenge Professor Stock’s views.
-Oxford debate society to offer support and welfare resources for students over Kathleen Stock talk
There's been a lot of controversy over this particular talk, and predictable calls for it to be cancelled. I, for one, don't see the value of cancelling talks like this: gender critical views are already everywhere, and censorship doesn't work in the modern world anyway. Instead, we should be brave enough to debate ideas we don't agree with. I'm not familiar with Oxford Union, but it appears to me the format does give enough space for those who disagree to challenge the speaker. What we should do is to use that space to air our disagreements. We need to think about actually winning the battle of ideas, rather than aiming to shut down ideas we don't like, because the latter is both illiberal and counterproductive. What I'm saying is that all the energy being put into cancelling this event could instead be put into thinking of better arguments to challenge gender critical talking points.
In a blast to critics who say he is too right wing, he said that Labour must understand “precious” parts of Britain's “way of life”, communities, and environment are worth preserving.
“And look – if that sounds conservative, then let me tell you: I don’t care. Somebody has got to stand up for the things that make this country great and it isn’t going to be the Tories,” extracts from his speech pre-briefed by Labour said.
Talking about developing better arguments, one important aspect of this would be appealing to what people actually want, and what they actually cherish. The influence of postmodern critical theory is making left-leaning people lose sight of this. British Labour leader Keir Starmer apparently understands this, unlike many people on the left these days. Most people like the status quo at least to some extent, they like what they are familiar with, they like what they grew up with, and they don't appreciate radical disruptions to their lives. No matter what cause you are championing (trans rights, for example), I think you should present it as a continuation of society's established values (fairness and compassion, for example), and come up with solutions that are least disruptive to society's functioning. This is the only way change will be acceptable to the majority. (By the way, I think the experience with marriage equality taught us that you actually need at least 60% support for any change to happen, because of the inertia for change. This would make conservative-leaning appeals even more important.)
Note: The articles quoted above do not necessarily reflect my views, and I do not endorse their arguments outside of what I have specifically agreed with.
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).