Originally a comment by Artymorty on Oppression for the Bugatti set.

I think collective guilt and shame about the past’s homophobia casts a long shadow in the minds of progressive Euroamericans. And as for gay people ourselves, we can add personal trauma to the mix. We seem as a society, gay and straight alike, to be transferring all of our unresolved feelings about gay rights over to the trans phenomenon.

I was having dinner with someone the other night, who is sympathetic to my position. But he was very gravely concerned about the plight of “vulnerable feminine gay boys” and their anguish in the hands of cruel Republicans passing so many “anti-trans hate bills.”

I tried to take apart each of the preconceptions packed into such sentiments: trans doesn’t mean gender nonconforming; there are many ways to address anxiety over gender nonconformity that don’t involve gender identity or gender medicine; a lot of legislation being introduced is no doubt partly cynical culture-war baiting on the part of Republicans, but nevertheless, legislation to pull back on medical experiments on kids and the elimination of women’s spaces is agreeable in principle; mostly this movement is driven by entitled transvestites who’ve found a loophole and are making a giant power-grab; the curbing of free speech and general environment of panic around this topic is dangerous; homophobic and misogynistic tropes are being reinforced; etc, etc…

And he didn’t disagree with any of my points at all. But I could see that his heart wasn’t budging. A deep, emotional attachment to this cause has been generated, and it’s going to take a lot of deprogramming to undo it. This is the domain of religious belief, not rational thinking. Even among some of the most atheistic people.