The Real Transphobes Are The Ones We Made Along The Way

I. TERFs are shitbags

I didn't really know what a TERF was or why anyone cared for a while. If some minority of women didn't think that some women were "real" women, how was that different from any other form of dumb gatekeeping? As usual, enlightenment came in the form of a blog post --

If you ever visit a racist internet forum or user group or whatever, you’ll notice that they do the same thing. They talk about every single gruesome crime committed by a black person or an immigrant or a Muslim, anywhere in the world. They seek these out [...] [in] TERF blogs, a large share of the content is - yep - circulating gruesome, horrifying, and detailed accounts of random crimes or acts of bullying committed by specific trans people. [...] Doing this warps your intuitions. It is possible to target any group of more than a few thousand people with this tactic, it tells you nothing, and it’s bad.

TERFs don't just do the usual shitty gatekeeping thing -- they actively practice blood-libel. That's basically all I need to know about them. They've outed themselves as horrible people who deserve contempt. Maybe in a time before social media, that would have been the end of it.

II. Universal Guilt

Societies tend to be in favor of guilty people being punished and innocent people being left alone. This is all well and good normally, but some groups want to really dominate everyone. Millenia ago religion came up with one of the simpler mechanisms of control -- universal guilt. It starts with Original Sin, sure, but that's too abstract for the common folk. The real money is in making normal behavior "deviant." The more powerful the drive to do the "evil" thing is for everyone, the more power the church has. Once you make sexual attraction itself a sin, you've really got 'em by the balls.

Governments picked up on this. It's very inconvenient having citizens you can't threaten with imprisonment at any time, which is why it's impossible not to break some law simply by living a normal life. The more impossible it is to not break a law while trying to live, the more power the government has. Then the government selectively enforces the law based on how much you've annoyed them.

This is also the reason there are words you can't say. Much of the purpose of having such shiboleths is for the creation of victims. It gives the punishing organization control over people's lives. And the more such words are things people feel driven to say, the more power the organization has.

III. Outrage Junkies

I'm not going to re-examine the guts of the social media mob, it's been so extensively documented that there's nothing for me to add. Self-righteous rage is addictive, and many people need someone new to hate and destroy every week to keep their endorphins going. The bigger the target, the stronger the rush. And a juicy fall-from-grace narrative that allows people to get in on a plunge from truly outlanding heights... well, that is a prize you don't get every day.

Enter JK Rowling. Rowling has a long history of championing progressive causes, from women to minorities to the queer community. She's among the most famous people in the English-speaking world, and a billionaire, and has used that fame and wealth to advance the causes of progressives. It would be quite a scandal if she was a Secret Nazi.

Rowling has never displayed hatred of trans persons. (Yes, she fears cismen as a class, but I think such fears are largely legitimate) She hasn't participated in bloodlibel showcasings of trans criminals, nor of dehumanizing speech. The worst one can say she's done is prioritized outreach to ciswomen, and expressed fears that safe spaces for women could be phased out for gender-neutral spaces instead.

I don't think there is anything wrong with someone prioritizing helping other people like themselves who have had the same struggles in life. No one can help everyone, and many people are motivated to help minority groups which they themselves belong to. This is fine, and common. Very few people complain that scholarships for black people don't accept applicants who aren't black. Or that support groups for immigrants don't support people who aren't immigrants.

I think it's unfortunate that bathrooms are the defacto safe-spaces we have for women in public areas, but if there is a social goal of providing such safe spaces for women (both cis and trans), then they must prohibit men from entering (both cis and trans). I am aware that it's debatable if such safe spaces are needed at all.

What Rowling is "guilty" of is using words that are tabooed. Of (most recently) pointing out (correctly) that our society used to have a word for "people who menstruate" and now such a word no longer exists. And being flippant and salty about it.

IV. Creating Frankenstein's Monster

Because certain people are so eager for their outrage porn, when Rowling has uttered tabooed words before, they were quick to denounce her as a transphobe and a TERF, and spread the word as quickly as possible.

It's obvious that Rowling's first missteps were, as is normally the case, the missteps of someone who thinks that merely being a good person and being allied with progressives will offer some protection. "These people know I'm not evil" is a common mistake of someone questioning official dogma they think might be wrong.

It's been a while since then, with a few outrage cycles. The noteworthy part of this latest situation is that in her response post, Rowling cites TERFs and repeats some TERF talking points, despite not being a transphobe herself.

As has been pointed out before, when good people censor the truth, then the only place people who want to know/say the truth can go is forums held by bad people. If one was never allowed to say "Black criminality rates are higher than the US national average" one couldn't follow that up with "due to government-aided impoverization and the legacy of racist policies." If the only place one could go to even utter the question "Why are black criminality rates higher?" was the forums of racists, the only answers one would find is "because black people are inherently bad."

If the only place one can say anything in the vein of "I'm uncomfortable with governments treating a cisman who says the words "I'm a woman" as a woman for policy purposes" without being turned into a pariah is in TERF forums, then one will go there to say it. As surely as horny teens will fool around regardless of how evil sex may be in the eyes of God. And once in the forums of the TERFs, one is going to be assaulted by their vile sewage.

This is the stupid, stupid cycle of wokeism. The thought-lines must be kept pure, so deviation is met with exile, and exiles are subsequently exposed to drowning oceans of hate-mongering and bloodlibel. The justice mob ruins lives AND makes society worse by their own metric. But hey, at least they feel really good while doing it.

Frankly, I'm relieved that Rowling appears to have remained mostly trans-friendly, with a possible blindspot regarding safe-spaces. I think she has a strong heart, and she'll ultimately resist the hatred spewed by the TERFs. But man, what a horrible thing to do to someone. Way to go, Wokes.

V. Why Bother?

I pondered for some time about whether to write this at all. I lost one of the most important relationships of my life by publicly & repeatedly opposing woke dogma a few years back. Usually the price of speaking up isn't nearly that high, but there is a social cost every time, and a lot of stress.

In large part it goes back to pedophile priests.

When I was an atheist activist, I was outraged by pedophile priests and the cover they got from their parishioners. Not just The Church. I couldn't believe how much ordinary people would just not say anything about it. It wasn't their business. Their priest was fine. Why involve themselves in this mess that wasn't their fault?

I think maybe it was unfair of me to expect church-going people to denounce pedophile priests. They aren't to be held accountable for someone else's actions. But I never could get over the silence. It still angers me.

I don't want to be the person who is always silent. Who sees denunciations I think are unfair, but leaves it alone because it's not my business. That's how everyone ends up thinking everyone is a woke-ist, when most people are not.

To call Rowling a transphobe is to devalue the word to the point where it's not useful in fighting actual hate. Those calling her such are outrage-porn addicts that don't care what damage they do as long as they can get their next hit. Don't be like them. And if you see something like this happen, if you can afford to take the hit, dropping even just a "I disagree" helps. :)