Guest post: What the hell happened between then and now?
Originally a comment by Artymorty on Embrace the diversity.
It really is so lazy of Taylor isn’t it. She says she thinks it’s possible that “safe spaces and diversity can coexist” but she wants to silence the only person around who is actually doing the work of thinking and talking about how to fairly make that happen.
If you want women’s rights and trans rights to coexist, you have to let both sides have a say.
Let’s flash back to the year 2005 for a moment. (Picture it: Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” on the radio; Harry Potter 4 at the movieplex; Grey’s Anatomy on the teevee… It wasn’t that long ago, is what I’m saying.)
That was the year the UK introduced the Gender Recognition Act, to enshrine trans rights in UK law. What’s absolutely wild is that the language of the Act and the language of the trans rights advocates who backed it is virtually indistinguishable from the language of most people who’d be considered dangerous TERFs today. Trans advocates openly acknowledged that there was a conflict between women’s rights and trans rights and that a compromise had to be made, which involved strict conditions on which males could be considered legally women and even then it allowed for strict sex-segregation where it was deemed reasonable to protect women’s rights.
So what the hell happened between then and now? Hell, they’re still making new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy! That’s how not long ago all that was. How is it that opinions that were considered the height of enlightened progressiveness when Grey’s Anatomy was in its first season have been likened to neo-Nazism by now?
I can tell you one thing that happened: just over a year after 2005 ended a little website was launched: http://www.tumblr.com.
I think the rise of social media played a big part in this madness.
While social media did help to amplify the message, IMO it was the emergence of the idea that you didn’t have to take concrete steps to transition to be considered a trans-person that’s led the rift we’re seeing now. The shift from the formerly common term “trans-sexual” to “trans-gender” is evidence of this change. It will all end in tears of course because the fact that there are two sexes is still there and that fact can’t be ignored or elided no matter how loudly one yells TWAW or other such slogans. It’s a category error to equate gender with sex, as gender is a concept and sex a biological fact, and laws that protect women on the basis of their sex don’t work if gender replaces sex, as evidenced by trans-women entering athletic competitions.
I think the overwhelming majority of the Rapid-Onset gender dysphorics — those who showed little to no sign of being uncomfortable with their sex or gender — all spent a lot of time online on places like Tinder or Deviant Art before suddenly announcing they’re transgender. I’ve read some interesting accounts from people who’ve desisted or de-transitioned describing what it was like. There’s a lot of discussion on gender; a lot of people who’ve transitioned; a lot of ‘could you be?’ and ‘I bet you are,’ followed by praise, status, and an instant claim to being both interesting and oppressed. People who hung out there insist that the average person has no idea of the magnitude of the echo chamber. It’s intense, and angry.
J.A wrote:
I don’t think so. To me it seems to be fueled more by the constant stories of the pain and agony the transgender go through if they can’t get their hormones and surgeries. It’s like a physical pain, and one suffered most by teenagers who are most likely to need to wait. A lot of the condemnation directed to anyone who smacks of being a ‘terf’ is similar to what you’d run into if they were dealing with child abuse. In fact, I’ve been told more than a few times that transphobia IS child abuse.
The ideology feeds into that. A toddler knows their gender identity. If they’re insistent, persistent, and consistent for — oh, at least 6 months to a year — social transition. Then puberty blockers. Then cross-sex hormones and operations because of the *suffering.* IMO the rift is rapidly widening because the feeling is that suffering people are desperate and the Bad People enjoy that.
And you know what that sounds like?
McMartin Preschool, the Satanic Panic, Paul Ingram, etc etc etc.
Yoked with the religious concept of being a violent denial of your identity if you disagree, because you have so wrapped your identity up in this particular belief system.