The Postmodern Right Anti-Trans Movement Just Keeps Getting Worse
The silver lining here is that we get to demonstrate why classical liberal values are great.
Welcome back to The Liberal View by TaraElla, where I react to things people write and say out there, from a liberal point of view. I believe this is needed because too many people have lost sight of what the liberal way is. We need to have a truly liberal discourse, and I'm doing my part here.
Today's theme is the anti-trans movement that has become central to the postmodern-postliberal right. By anti-trans, I'm not talking about individuals who might have concerns about the demands of some trans activists. I have long defended the free speech of these individuals, and I have also argued that their voices should be heard and considered in good faith. In a world where the anti-trans movement has been thoroughly defeated, there will still be plenty of room for those who want to raise concerns about trans activist demands. True liberals like myself will make sure of that, as part of our defense of free speech and respectful debate. However, what I'm talking about here is the existence of a movement whose purpose is to demonize a whole community, defined by their immutable characteristics, (gender dysphoria is generally considered to be immutable, at least if it is still present by adulthood), which is by definition anti-liberal. The existence of such a movement can't be denied anymore, especially after Michael Knowles infamously called for eradicating 'transgenderism' in his CPAC speech last month.
Furthermore, this movement is postmodern, in that it is propped up by severely biased reporting on trans people and trans issues. It is postmodern because speech is in the service of power here, not in the service of finding the objective truth. The most outrageous excesses of trans activists and the most negative examples of trans individuals are highlighted, and the reasonable trans voices are ignored. There is no concern for objectivity and balance at all. It is all about building a narrative to whip up anti-trans sentiment. The recent reporting over the shooting in Nashville is just one more case where the postmodern right gets very excited when the perpetrator of a crime happens to be trans. Note that it would generally be considered racist to emphasize the race of a murderer, in contrast, let alone to infer that other members of that race are more likely to be violent. Yet the postmodern right has no problem with doing this to trans people. It just shows their double standards, and hence their lack of concern for fairness in reporting.
Importantly from a liberal point of view, the anti-trans movement serves to normalize the postliberal right's approach to politics. As previously described, it normalizes the postmodern approach to news reporting, which treats speech and discourse as a means to wield power, rather than to seek the objective truth. However, this is just the beginning. By whipping up anti-trans sentiment, the anti-trans movement also seeks to turn such sentiment into illiberal policy, which would destroy fundamental pillars of the long-standing liberal consensus (see below for several examples). If you look at history, creating moral panics has always been a favorite tactic of authoritarians, to justify taking away people's liberty down the road. Once this begins, it is really difficult to turn back. Nor will it be only targeted at those at the center of the moral panic, because the liberal consensus can't survive in the long run if it is no longer universally applicable. Hence, the anti-trans movement needs to be seen in the bigger picture: as a tool of the postmodern-postliberal right, who are using it to destroy fundamental liberties. As they are making it increasingly clear, their goal is to 'eradicate' not only LGBT rights and freedoms from public life, but indeed everything else that does not conform to their religious standards. Scary indeed.
The silver lining here is that, in fighting the anti-trans movement, both the postmodern biased reporting part, as well as the attempts to legislate to take away fundamental liberties, we can make a stand for classical liberal values, and demonstrate why we still need these values in the 21st century. In recent years, as a result of the rise of 'woke' postmodernism and its associated ideologies on the far-left, liberal values have been seen as outdated or even bad for social justice by many of the younger generation. By highlighting that the fight against the anti-trans movement is basically a fight for liberal values against post-truth authoritarianism, we can make classical liberal values like free speech and objectivity credible and popular again.
The bill outright bans even private insurances from covering gender affirming care for any transgender person...
This provision would mean that all gender affirming care would need to be paid out of pocket. Even if a company wanted to support their transgender employees medical care, they would be forbidden by the state of Florida from doing so. This would effectively price out many transgender people from obtaining many forms of gender affirming care. This also makes it clear that attacks on transgender people are not about “protecting children,” but rather about “eradicating transgenderism” as Michael Knowles put it in his recent infamous CPAC speech.
-Florida Rep Says Trans People "Are Dead" After Transition, Passes Bill In Committee by Erin Reed
The classical liberal value at stake here is the freedom to do business. There has recently been a sentiment that all for-profit business is inherently evil, which is a very simplistic view that could lead to authoritarian consequences. I believe it is no coincidence that the rise of this kind of sentiment on the left since the early 2010s is followed by a similar development on the right more recently, as seen in the increasingly anti 'woke corporations' stance taken by both right-wing political leaders like Ron DeSantis, as well as right-leaning media. However, when you take anti-business sentiment too far, it is freedom itself that will be compromised, and real people that will be harmed as a result. As this cruel bill demonstrates. (I call it cruel because it is by definition cruel to deny medically necessary treatment for anyone.) I also think it is no coincidence that this bill has been introduced in Ron DeSantis's Florida, where using state power to crush 'woke corporations' is the fashion of the day.
Gov. Burgum’s March 30 veto letter said that existing free speech protections already allow employees and teachers to sue if they’re required to use a person’s “preferred pronouns.” He also said that the bill “infringes on local control by unnecessarily injecting the state into rare instances most appropriately handled at the parent, teacher, and school district level.”
“Ambiguity throughout this bill would invite lawsuits and put teachers in the precarious position of trying to determine how to refer to students without violating law,” Burgum added. “The teaching profession is challenging enough without the heavy hand of state government forcing teachers to take on the role of pronoun police. Parents, teachers, and administrators using compassion, empathy, and common sense can address individual and infrequent situations that may arise.”
“North Dakota will continue to stand for free speech, local control, and freedom from discrimination,” Burgum’s letter concluded.
The classical liberal values at stake here are free speech and local control, things that have been much maligned by some postmodern-left activists in recent years. They believe that speech is power, but as this case demonstrates, the control of speech, especially on an everyday life level, is actually where authoritarian power lies. The reason why such control is bad is because it takes the common sense and flexibility out of everyday life, and makes resolving issues all the more difficult. It might even result in anti-common sense outcomes that benefit nobody. This is why the 'pronoun police' is bad, no matter if it is coming from a left-wing, supposedly pro-trans position (which I have argued against many times already), or a right-wing, anti-trans position (which is what is happening here).
"This bill bans any public funding for trans health care at any age and puts impossible constraints on medical professionals and insurance providers," Hill added.
The bill, S.B. 1029, which was introduced on Feb. 17 by Republican state Sen. Bob Hall, would ban "public funding for gender modifications and treatments," bar some health plans from providing "coverage for a gender modification procedure," and increase legal liability through malpractice suits for medical professionals or health care providers that offer gender-affirming care....
"This bill would have a chilling effect, halting all best practice medical care for all trans people in this state, regardless of age," Christopher Hamilton, CEO of Texas Health Action, a nonprofit that works to provide health services to the LGBTQIA+ community, told CBS News. "If this bill passes, insurers will no longer cover gender-affirming care, malpractice insurers will not provide malpractice insurance to providers, and physicians will not assume a personal financial lifetime liability for providing gender affirming care, affecting nearly 100,000 trans people in the state."
The far-left and the postliberal right alike have unfairly attacked the market economy in recent years, equating it to 'capitalism', 'the elites' and 'the 1%'. Yet here is an example of state intervention which could make trans health care essentially inaccessible in Texas. This outcome would not be possible if the market was left to function freely, as classical liberals would generally support. I'm not a immediatist libertarian who opposes all state intervention. However, the 'markets bad, intervention good' mentality needs some balancing here. And this case offers a much needed reality check.
Politicans as DeSantis are right-wing wokes