There was a rather upsetting post recently that attracted a lot of apparently non-LGBT+ people with bad opinions. I’d like to remind everyone that “bee kind” includes not accepting, normalizing, and ignoring transphobic opinions and beliefs. We’re all together in this.

Here are some bad opinions I saw:

  1. “People need to be educated, and you’re not going to change their minds by becoming hostile.”

The first thing that’s obviously wrong with this is that it makes the people targeted by LGBTphobia appear to the the ones who are “overreacting” or being “hysterical,” but there’s more…

Certainly, education needs to happen, and patience is a virtue. A valid example of reasonable education to expect would be “I go by they/them now.” What education should not need to include on the part of the LGBT+ person is a defense of one’s validity as a human or one’s existence. Most people who think that it should point to examples like Daryl Davis, and I mean … good for him, but that’s not an example we all need to or even can/should follow. For many LGBT+ people, it can feel like a contant battle to live and be accepted. Expecting us to address every bad-faith argument or misguided belief on the part of LGBTphobes is … honestly, that’s just an offensive opinion in and of itself and very dismissive of reality.

  1. “[Famous person] literally did the bare minimum to support gay people, so I doubt they’re transphobic.”

Okay, first of all, I can only facepalm so hard before it creates a black hole that consumes the fabric of reality, but you said patient education is a thing we should do, so here it is: There are many, many people who claim to be “allies” while only supporting select groups within the LGBT+ spectrum. The reason I put “allies” in quotation marks is that these people are not allies. We are all in this together. You can’t be an ally for me, a cis gay person, without also supporting trans people. These are my siblings, my community too, and we should not tolerate it. Likewise, the LG people I’ve met who don’t support the BT+ don’t belong in this community. Full stop.

So no, supporting the LG is not really possible without supporting the BT+. Sorry, not sorry.

  1. “They’re from a different time.”

Absolutely one of the worst arguments I’ve ever heard, and I say this as a Gen X-er. No. Just no. There has never been a time in my life that transphobia was acceptable. Perhaps it was sadly normalized in certain times and places, but it has never been okay. If anything, it’s even more important to speak up in those times and places when and where bigotry is seen as “normal.” It’s even more important then to be an ally.

And my 80+ parents are not transphobic in the least. It’s so easy to understand the basics of what it means to be trans that there is not even the shadow of an excuse.

I really don’t think vapid and pointless arguments like those above should be allowed in a space that’s supposed to be a safe and validating community. I understand some of these people may be well-meaning non-LGBT+ people, but it’s exhausting having to address the gish gallop of absolute nonsensical attempts to make transphobia seem okay. It is NOT okay, and we shouldn’t pretend that it is.

I even saw some people arguing that excluding trans people isn’t transphobic. That’s how unhinged some of these people are.

So TERFs and other transphobes stfu challenge 2023.

EDIT:

Thank you to everyone who responded with understanding. I think it had to be said. At first I wasn’t sure it was my place since I’m not trans, but I know how exhausting it can be. They did the same thing to me back in the day. It’s a silencing tactic. “Gish gallop” is the term that comes to mind.

But I’ve had a few ugly trolls in the thread behaving just as described in my post. I will report each and every one of you 💛

I’d like to remind anyone who takes issue with this rant to send your hot takes directly to my attorney where they belong. Thank you for your cooperation.

    • frog 🐸@beehaw.orgEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      From what I’ve observed, all too often curiosity about trans people (which comes from a place of ignorance) regularly is misread as transphobia (especially when the curiosity is worded in accidentally transphobic ways - a lot of cis people with little knowledge of trans people genuinely don’t have the right vocabulary, and that gets misinterpreted as transphobic rather than just a lack of knowledge). Questions about trans lives regularly get a hostile “it’s not my job to educate ignorant people, they should Google it” response. If @t3rmit3@beehaw.org had responded to their wife’s cousin with an angry “it’s not my job to educate you!”, the result would likely not have been as positive as the conversation they had.

      I always approach questions about trans stuff with an initial assumption that it’s made in good faith and comes from a place of curiosity. Those acting in bad faith reveal themselves pretty quickly, in which case I shut the conversation down. But more often than not, people are ignorant but curious, rather than malicious and hateful. So I absolutely agree with t3rmit3 on that front. Very little beats the human touch of having a real conversation with someone.

    • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
      4·
      1 year ago

      What @frog said is spot on in regards to my wife’s cousin; the first thing he did when he saw the pride flag was go, “haha gay” because he’s and edgy teen. And when we were talking later, he absolutely sounded like a right wing anti-LGBT+ troll, because he didn’t have either the vocabulary or mindset to do otherwise. But he was asking questions earnestly.

      There is tons of ‘casual transphobia’ in young male spaces (and casual bigotry in general), and someone has to be willing to wade into that bog if we want to pull those kids out of it. I’m not saying that has to be you or any other person in particular -not everyone can or should put themselves in that position- but if all transphobia is universally only met with hostility, even when the context of the conversation might otherwise hint that this is not someone who is a lost cause, it will drive those people further into the clutches of the Right.

      That is why I brought up the lack of a Left-oriented outreach pipeline for young men; they’ve been ignored by the Left for long enough that their spaces are very hostile to LGBT+ people in general (looking at my fellow gamers), but we need to start clawing them back, and that has to start with not immediately treating them as lost causes worthy only of derision when they exhibit transphobia.

      Many of them are just parroting the language and behavior of the spaces they occupy in order to fit in, not actively choosing or attempting to be transphobic.