The Letterbox: We Don't Want To Be Part of This Revolution
I think a large part of the current confusion and toxicity in the trans rights debate is due to the strong influence of the gender deconstructionist types (described in the last two paragraphs of What is a Woman: A Trans Woman's Perspective, Jan 27) among the activist class. Unfortunately, they do get a disproportionate amount of coverage in the media, who allows them to effectively 'speak for' us.
I agree that they are only in the trans debate to advance their own agenda, i.e. the deconstruction of the categories of male and female. They are false friends to us. Too many trans people can't see through that. The public isn't going to accept any attempt to deconstruct of the categories of male and female. (How could you expect them to accept that? It would be like expecting people to deny self-evident truths!) This is why it's important for us to dissociate ourselves from these false friends, and return to a narrative based on our actual lived experiences and needs.
Think about this. Trans people want trans rights, because we want to live as who we are, in peace, like everyone else. We don't want to be a part of any revolution. On the other hand, the gender deconstructionists essentially agree with anti-trans campaigners that Self-ID would bring chaos, the only difference is they actually want the revolutionary chaos. The gender deconstructionists not only don't want what we actually want, they are helping to make the TERFs' case against trans rights! No wonder the TERFs are winning and we are losing! Who needs enemies when you have 'friends' like these.
This is why we need to firmly slap down gender deconstructionism if we want to win trans acceptance and trans rights. I'm not saying that it would be enough just to do that, because transphobia is still unfortunately a real thing, but it's a necessary first step if we want to have any hope of winning anything at all.
Editorial note: the 'gender deconstructionists' discussed here refers to the people described in the original article, i.e. certain activists and academics. It does NOT refer to non-binary people. We will never publish viewpoints that hate on people because of who they are.
The letterbox publishes selected letters in response to pieces in The TaraElla Project. The aim of the whole project is to advance the discussion around trans issues in a productive way, to break the current stalemate.