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.

Cuphead, Outrage, Shaun and Jen, and I, Hypocrite

What’s this? This isn’t the content usually on this blog! Why the sudden shift?

...No real reason. Just felt like doing it. I felt an urge, a need, to dive into the muddy waters of  

Response articles. We’re gonna be looking at a response video to a response video on a controversy

that shouldn’t have existed.

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Yeah, OK I’ll back up. Originally, this chain of events started with an outrage over people “slandering” 

the hot new video game, Cuphead, with accusations of racism, ableism and the likes. This got many 

Gamers whipped up into anger, and you may have heard of this outrage bubble a while back. Later, 

noted skull enthusiast Shaun and Jen did a video on this, and concluded that this outrage was born of 

very little, and was most likely a fabrication in order for people to keep the outrage going. A rather good

video, worth a watch.

This is where a channel titled “I, Hypocrite” comes in. A lovely chap who’s made videos such as:

Clearly, nothing wrong here. Anyway, he made a video responding to Shaun’s previously mentioned 

video, titled "Debunking Shaun's Manufactured Manufactured Cuphead Outrage". And in order to 

complete this mad cycle of responses, I figured, why not have a go at it?

Before we get into it, a few disclaimers. I have not personally played Cuphead, although at this point 

the game itself is hardly relevant to the discussion around it. I will not be covering every single point I, 

Hypocrite makes in his video. Several times it devolves into insults, movie clips, and unrelated 

tangents, so for the sake of time I will be sticking to his main arguments. Finally, I’d highly recommend 

you watch Shaun’s video, again, for the sake of clarity here. I’d also recommend you watch I, 

Hypocrite’s video, if you want to see his full argument and assurance that I’m not taking him out of 

context.

So, to begin, he first tackles Shaun’s overview of an AlphaOmegaSin video. Shaun makes the point 

that AOS is making a big fuss over people calling Cuphead “Racist and Ableist”, however, no single 

person is ever cited as saying it. It’s always “these people” who are saying it, at least, in the Alpha 

video. This is a setup to the point of the whole video, and Shaun uses it as a launching off point to 

discuss the strange lack of anyone specific claiming these things.

In order to refute this point, I, Hypocrite, makes a point of going through Twitter and finding people 

who are actually calling Cuphead racist. He pulls up a couple of tweets and threads, and claims that 

this shows that there are actually people calling Cuphead racist. He says, and I quote: “If only there

were websites known for this kind of behaviour, that we could maybe go to, and run a little search...

I guess it would behoove us to do 5 f***ing minutes of research, wouldn't it, Shaun?"

Now this is, honestly, a rather silly point to make, and it’s indicative of the larger issue Mr. Hypocrite 

will keep encountering: he keeps flat out missing the point. He hears Shaun say “Who is calling 
Cuphead racist?” finds some people using the word racist in relation to Cuphead, throws them up, 
and laughs, thinking he’s defeated Shaun already. Thing is… he’s missing the larger point.

When Shaun says “AOS is whipping his audience up over nothing”, well, that’s what he’s saying. The 

point is that Alpha (and later Ian Miles Cheong and CheekiScrump) never provide a good and proper 

source for their opposition. Alpha never points out any specific tweets or anything, and *that* is the 

point. Thing is, if you look hard enough, you can find people saying bloody well anything on Twitter. I 

could find people making a serious case for the earth being totally hollow, but a few disparate people 

on Twitter does not an opposition make. What Shaun is asking of these people is “where are the 

legitimate, well thought out arguments?”, "Who are you mad at?", and so on and so forth.

The other, larger point I want to bring up is: how would the viewers of the Alpha video know? How 

would the people who read the Scrump article know? None of these folks ever cite a specific person. 

This is the second area in which I, Hypocrite misses the point: the video is overall about these figures 

making people angry at nobody. Watch to the very end of Shaun’s video, and you’ll see that the overall 

point is this “outrage at nothing”, and that very much applies even if there are some people doing it on 

Twitter. How would the audiences know? No people were ever cited as saying it. Hypocrite is missing 

the point, and trying to play “gotcha” without thinking of the video as a whole.

So then, onto his next major point, where he moves to people calling Cuphead ableist. Hypocrite takes 

the same general tactic from last time and applies it to this point, finding people calling Cuphead 

ableist… on… Shaun’s video?

I do hope you see the issue here. It’s rather unfair to take Shaun to task over things people have said, 

y’know, after he posts his video. Because that’s when Youtube comments are posted. You can’t make 

a comment before a video exists. Just, find better sources for your “gotcha” attempts, at least, please. 

He proves nothing by only citing comments in the future. Perhaps he was attempting to make the point 

that the sentiment was out there? Even that stretch falls flat, as the comments he cites are quite 

reasonable, levelheaded expressions of disappointment with the lack of accessibility in the game. Not

much "outrage" going on here.

OK, next up: Hypocrite tackles the “game journalists are bad at games” point. He starts of by saying 

“We know game’s journalists are biased against difficulty because of this tweet from one journalist 

saying he’d stay away from Cuphead”, and then he goes through like, a few examples of people

working in games criticism who were bad at other games?

To get that 2nd point out of the way: no, a couple of games writers being bad at a couple of other 

games proves nothing, and has nothing to do with Cuphead. You’re gonna need to cite people being 

bad at Cuphead to make this point, which, of course, he never does.

Ryan Bloom's tweet is pictured here from Hypocrite's video.

Right, so, about that tweet he cited earlier. He cites one Ryan Bloom, the chief editor at a website titled

"Gaming Illustrated." What's funny about this is that I went through the site itself, and only found a
couple of articles that talked about Cuphead. What's in Your Box: Cheer to Greg is an article that says
Cuphead "lives up to every single bit of hype it built" and "Cuphead is a must have". Another article, 
Cuphead E3 Preview: Disneyesque Death Trap, gives it a "best of E3 award" and the author claims
they "can't wait to play it". This doesn't seem to be a site biased against Cuphead, in fact, it's 
praised it quite highly. Not a brilliant example of "biased journalists".

Alright, so, finally, the final point of this video, and if you could see me typing this out, you’d see me 

giggling in anticipation. I, Hypocrite makes a, how shall we say, very silly mistake here, one that reveals 

to us that he has barely looked into this issue at all.

His point here comes directly from the argument before, that games journalists are bad at games. He 

then takes an offhand comment from Shaun about “beating the game fairly easily”, and extrapolates 

from this that the real outrage from Gamers is that journalists are making a somewhat easy game 

sound much harder, and lowering the bar for the medium as a whole. And I quote: “It's not good enough
to say 'well, this game's really f***ing hard but that's OK, we like it anyway' if the game isn't actually
that difficult."

If you know anything about Cuphead, you are probably giggling just like me at this. He has 

fundamentally misunderstood this entire debacle. This whole outrage was about “Games Journalists 

are bad at games, Cuphead is hard, how will they be fair to it?” Cuphead, is, pretty universally, known 

as a hard game. That little comment Shaun made? That was a joke leading into his next statement, 

where he sarcastically talks about how it qualifies him to talk about it. You want more concrete proof 

that capital G Gamers think it’s hard? Here’s CheekiScrump referring to the game as difficult:

Obviously he's a bit off the mark here.

And I hope this speaks for itself in the end. This counterargument that I, Hypocrite has made fails to

look at the full issue, and is based of extreme amounts of extrapolating to shape the issue into

something he can use better, in his head. He misunderstands Shaun's points. He provides barely 

relevant evidence to his own points. And overall, he has crafted a very scattered, pointless video, that

proves nothing and is a great case study in how not to refute an argument. 

Thanks for reading, everyone. If you liked this stuff, I may be doing more, so look forward to that. 
Anyway, I hope you have a lovely day, and take care.