The Insidious Fear of Transphobia

So. Who's ready to get analytical again?

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Ever heard of the term "TERF"? I mean if you follow me on twitter, you most certainly have seen me
using it quite frequently. It stands for "Trans Exclusionary Reactionary Feminist". "Feminist" in name 
only, and "Trans Exclusionary" in that they really, and I mean really hate trans people. This little group 
loves to congregate on subreddits such as r/gendercritical and on twitter accounts with profile 
pics of ovaries for some reason. They run on such platforms as "an understanding of biology from 8th 
grade" and "we just want to be free to hate people". Real nice people, as you can see.

The point of this all is, today we're gonna be looking at a blog article made on a blog called "Treading on
Capes", specifically "Why trans rights are NOT the new gay rights".
     
This is a great article because it quite plainly shows many popular TERF talking points, and we're here
today to dispel these points. Let's get going! Feel free to read the article first, for assurance that I'm not 
misrepresenting the author's points. Passages from the article will be in italics.

The article starts off with a preamble framing the whole scenario:

"Societal acceptance and progression with regards to gay rights are now seen to be something which 
must be brought to trans individuals, and that to stand in the way of this, is to be of the same ilk as 
those raving homophobes from history – specifically, the wrong side of history."
   
From this and the title, we can see that the aim of this article is to attempt to tell us why comparisons
between the gay rights movements and trans right movements are inappropriate to draw. As you 
might already be able to tell, I think this article is horribly incorrect and deeply rooted in hatred. 
Let's see why.

"The big big biiiig significant difference between calling gay people predators and calling  
trans-identifying males predators is that one is true a lot of the time and one is not."
   
So right off the bat, the article is quite clear in the presumptions it makes, namely, in that it thinks all
trans women are predators trying to do harm to cisgender women. While normally I'd want to ignore
such a hateful point, I think it's important to establish the angle this author is writing from, and to set
the stage for the rampant bias and double standards applied throughout the article. Just keep this
sentiment in mind as we go.

"I am not aware of any evidence that gay people commit violent and sexual crime at significantly higher 
rates than straight people, and would find the claim offensive and homophobic. But the stats behind 
males committing violent and sexual crimes are stark. Males are responsible for 81% of violent crime,  
89% of violent crime against children aged 10-15, 98% of rapes of women and also 93% of the rapes 
of men to top it off. Crucially, it’s not about identifying as a man, it’s about having a male body 
(you know, a dick)."

One issue that's clearly evident is the sources of the statistics used. I'm not calling them faulty, rather, 
they've only got statistics from two countries, and are trying to apply them broadly. The first two links 
are pertaining to the United Kingdom, and the second two are pertaining to the United States. Even if 
they were just trying to talk about one place, crossing the statistics shows that they're trying to pick and 
choose what sounds the scariest. The stats cited don't seem faulty, however, the way it is framed, and 
how broadly they're trying to apply them make this first point seem a bit dishonest, or at the very least, 
poorly explained and shown. You can't take numbers from one specific area of the world and just apply 
it to everywhere else. You can say it's indicative of trends, use it to make a point, and that'd all be well 
and good, but just applying it doesn't fly.

"Regardless of how they identify, male-bodied people demonstrate the same – elevated – rates of 
violence. We are not claiming that all trans people are predators, we’re claiming that males have a high 
propensity to be and that they can’t identify out of their oppressive position in the gender hierarchy."
  
Quick side note: that study they cite? If you read it like this person is, you're reading it badly.
Don't just take my word for it, here's one of the authors of the study itself saying this. The study in
fact was comparing conviction rates between two groups, and in fact found that trans women did not
have a conviction rate similar to cisgender men when allowed to properly live their lives.  

But besides that, their point makes no sense regardless. The aim of this article is to disprove links
between gay and trans rights, yeah? Well... gay men exist. And if you're going to say that assigned
male at birth folks are more prone to violence so we shouldn't give them rights... you can't just not apply
that to cis male people. It's this ridiculous double standard, where gay men AMAB should be
given rights, but trans women, AMAB shouldn't be? The point just doesn't work and reveals deep bias at
play. 

"Out of fear and ignorance, any attempt to comfort, protect and make visible gay people was 
disregarded as ‘brainwashing’. The possibility of being gay and loved should have been open to 
children, and then they should have been allowed to become whoever they are.
  
...This is where concerns for three types of people start to merge; trans people, gay people and 
gender non-conforming people. Here is a super important collection of research which really sets 
apart the trans movement from the gay rights movement: the majority of young people who identify 
as transgender will one day stop, and the majority also turn out to be gay. In other words, there are a 
lot of gay people and people who were just gender non-conforming getting caught up in the trans 
movement."

This next argument is, in short: "Gay people and people who don't conform to gender roles are being 
made to think they're trans". 

So, funny thing about one of the blogs it pulls from. The second link is citing a blog by James Cantor,
who actually supports trans rights across the board. Might want to check your sources there.

Regardless, I'm going to tackle the main point. My argument is quite simply: no, this doesn't happen.
Trans rights advocates are not trying to make people think that they're transgender, nor do they believe
that because a boy wants to wear a dress he's a girl. Let's examine what the largest advocacy group in
America, the Human Rights Campaign, says about this. They have a helpful pamphlet you can go
through as well. In it, they take careful pains to show the difference between gender expression and
identity, and say that "Not all gender-expressive children are transgender". They draw careful lines 
between identity and expression of gender. They talk about how it's important to let kids explore who
they are. What it never says is "your child is definitely transgender". It takes a position of openess, an
ongoing dialogue with the child, and working with them to ensure they can figure themselves out. This
doesn't seem like a movement entrapping gay and gender non-conforming people. 

The next paragraph or two talks about the semantics of mental illness and not very relevant to the 
overall point. We'll pick it back up here: 

"Sex dysphoric people, arguably have a dysfunction. How else you can swallow the philosophical 
conundrum of how you can be born in a ‘wrong’ body and require man-made pills, injections, hormones 
and surgery for the rest of your life in order to be your ‘authentic’ self, is lost on me. Remember, 
trans groups want no gatekeeping at all on access to hormones. Gay people did not require a jab 
every month to continue being their natural gay selves."

This is, to put it lightly, a pretty big misunderstanding of being transgender and what transitioning is, 
namely that they're not the same thing. Transitioning is a process and set of actions that people who
are transgender may or may not undertake. This includes medication, clothing, voice training, name
and pronoun changes, surgery, etc. Many trans people will not take some of these steps. What's 
important to note is that that doesn't affect them being transgender. Being trans is not something
that requires pills to happen, it's just a state of being, in the same way that being gay is just a state
of being.

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"The complexity of the harm inflicted between sex dysphoria at a young age and the oppressive forces 
of gender only highlight that treating young people to be comfortable with themselves and learn how to 
acknowledge, fight and cope with the violent suffering that the institution of gender inflicts on people is 
the more efficient and parsimonious way to go."

If you really cared about helping trans people accept themselves, wouldn't you be all for allowing freely
dispensed HRT and surgery? It's been shown many times over to be the best, most reliable way we 
have to dispel the demons of gender dysphoria. We can track physical solutions much more exactly
and know much more about them than any mental therapy. There's also the ethical concerns of mental 
treatment (see the sadly ongoing gay conversion efforts). The point is, if this is about helping people, 
making medical options open to all makes it easier to help. Why not support it, again? 

"For the trans identifying individuals without sex dysphoria: Some trans-identifying people feel that their 
bodies are fine, have no sex dysphoria and want to walk around with beards and deep voices and still be a ‘she’. The effects of this is that we are losing either a) perfectly good pronouns we all understand 
which exist to describe the world accurately, or b) a gender non-conforming individual who would gloriously challenge gender stereotypes."

Intersex people already completely destroy this idea of our binary and tying appearance to pronouns. 
Someone could be male and identify in every way, but have androgen insensitivity syndrome and be
unable to develop many masculine characteristics. Or take Klinefelter Syndrome, where low 
androgen sensitivity can lead to a mix of conventionally masculine and feminine traits. My point is that
the way we discuss what is "masculine" or "feminine" is is often grossly behind the times, and we're
learning that identity and appearance aren't the same thing at all, and need to be updated. 

Also, "losing a gender non conforming individual"? Eugh.

Alright, onto the final points:

"Gay people, as far as I understand, wanted some pretty bog standard rights and freedoms. I think they 
wanted to be able to love who they wanted, live with who they wanted, to express themselves without 
violence or ridicule and not have their life opportunities negatively affected by their sexual orientation. 
What do trans people want?

Trans people want biological sex to be a completely bogus concept. They want ‘he’ and ‘she’ to mean 
anything at all. They want made up words like ‘xe/xir’ to be their own special pronouns. They want 
lesbians to be able to have penises. For sexual orientations to have nothing to do with male and female 
bodies. They want medical interventions such as synthetic hormones which have not been widely 
available long enough for studies to highlight any long-term consequences of their use, to be freely and 
widely available to everyone – including young children. They want the word ‘gender’, which in every 
intellectual sphere for decades meant 'an oppressive hierarchical structure forced onto people into society, with effects dependent on their biological sex', to mean 'picking a point on a spectrum of 
feelings'."

First of all: No studies? Here's a study which cites many, many other tests done using these 
"synthetic hormones" (which are just like, y'know, hormones. That we all produce.)

That silly little error aside: you know what trans rights are advocating for? More choice. We don't want
to change who people are attracted to. We want people to find words and ideas that fit who they are.
We want people to not be forced into roles or genders anything. We want freedoms. The last point is
also rather telling. "We've always done it this way so it must be right" is not a solid argument, nor one
that makes sense. Knowledge changes. What we know changes. And we can't just cling to some old
understanding forever. What's being taken away from you when someone wants a different name
or pronoun? How are you being negatively impacted when someone wishes to take estrogen or
testosterone medication? How does a trans women being in the locker room with you seriously
impact you?

The answer is that it doesn't. The point I hope I have made here is that this "anti-trans" movement isn't
based in anything but fear. Fear of change, fear of being wrong, fear of some fake idea that somehow, 
you having to be more open will lead to bad things. Trans people just wish to live their lives, and maybe
open us all up to new ideas. Why, exactly, is that a bad thing?

Thanks for reading.

The Understanding of Night in the Woods

So… I finally played Night in the Woods.

You should go and play Night in the Woods before reading this, really. And perhaps a mild content 

warning if descriptions of mental illness will distress you.

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Mae hit really damn close to home for me. Like, almost uncomfortably close to home. I could talk about 

so much in this game. It just understands shit about life, and people, you know? But I want to… maybe 

get personal for a minute, and talk about Mae, or more specifically, Mae and mental health.

I’ve always been prone to dissociation (Detachment from your surroundings and emotions). Probably 

since I was fairly young, although I never realized what it was until much later in life. Hell, I do still go 

through episodes of it sometimes. Everything stops feeling real around you, and there’s just nothing to 

be done about it besides act or let it ride out. It’s always been a part of me, and honestly, likely always 

will in some way or another.

What I’m trying to say here is that this game understands it in a way, well, I’ve never seen any work do 

before.

Night in the Woods understands the detachment and isolation it brings. It’s nigh impossible for Mae to 

talk about this with people until she’s almost killed. You go the entire game not really understanding 

why she left college, why she’s having these nightmares, why she seems sociable and caring and at 

the same time standoffish and a loner. This stuff is hard to talk about. It’s embarrassing. It makes you 

vulnerable and exposed to discuss it. I’ve sat alone in bed many times wondering “what if people think 

I’m weird”, “what if they hate me”. Mae can’t articulate it. She’s afraid to. That’s an all too common 

occurrence, and the game understands this and carefully writes about it.

Night in the Woods understands the emotion this brings. Anger is a predominant one. Mae gets pissed 

off at people, pissed off at society, pissed off at herself. Why don’t people understand, why has the 

world as large thrown her to the side, why the fuck can’t she ask for help? It’s not fair, and it never was

fair. How are you supposed to explain this to people with no reference point? How are you supposed to 

expose yourself to a society that has kicked you while you’re down? How are you supposed to own up 

to your own mistakes without spiraling downwards?  It doesn’t always have answers for this. These 

are often questions simply bemoaning how terrible the world is towards people like Mae, like me, like 

so many people I know. Sometimes it all breaks, and Mae is left simply crying. Sometimes, she’s out 

of emotion to give. These are real and raw things that happen. And the greatest good in this game isn’t 

some solution to it all. It’s people that listen, and get it, and give you a shoulder to cry on and vent at.

And, well, to wrap it up: the game understands what these experiences are like. The one line that 

made me realize “no, this is real”, was Mae describing everything as “just shapes”. The world falls 

away. All sense of placement and what you think is steady and real falls away. Maybe the world turns 

into shapes and colours, for Mae. Maybe the world will start to feel like a toy set, or a stage in a play, 

where everything is a prop that doesn’t matter, for me. And what the hell are you supposed to do when 

your very emotions stop feeling real? Get some control, maybe. Maybe start kicking walls, throwing 

things. Try to speak but you can’t. Run away from any conversations, they all feel so fake anyway. 

Small things like a statue become terrifying. Maybe even be violent. Stop caring about the well being of 

your own body and hurt yourself. Beat the hell out of some kid with a baseball bat. Who cares. None of 

this matters to your head anymore. All that matters is control, trying to feel real, and survival.

...Night in the Woods understands this. It understands what it’s like to go through this. It knows how it 

looks to others, it knows how it feels in your head, it knows how hard it all is. Night in the Woods god 

damn gets it. It’s so rare that I ever see a work that approaches knowing what it’s like. It knows it’s not 

fair. It knows the impossibility of it all. And yet it also offers hope, a look into what can be, what we can 

work for. It’s filled with understanding, friendship, and love.

I’m glad I played Night in the Woods.