Angles of Attack, Avenues of Resistance

Fascism and Patriarchy won't stop at policing trans bodies and trans identities.

I haven’t been sleeping well, lately, as I’m sure is true of many Americans. If you asked me why I think that is, the best I’m gonna come up with is to sort of gesture broadly at All This Shit that’s going on. Maybe I should start a betting pool as to which circumstance that’s outside my personal control is harming my mental health the most.

Is it the new Federal Government’s constant attacks on my identity and active hostility to my existence?

Is it the fear that said Government might just bring about financial collapse and the ruin of all I’ve built and saved over decades?

Is it the increasingly erratic weather as a symptom of a looming climate catastrophe?

Maybe it’s just the creeping malaise of coming to understand that I live in a nation that’s increasingly hostile to sane and compassionate existence.

Yeah, this is some next level “let me count the ways” Shakespearean shit right here.

All this preamble is basically letting you know that in my heart of hearts there is a structure and outline to this post, but for various and sundry reasons, I might fail to produce a truly structured piece of writing this afternoon.

What I want to explore is the ways in which trans people are facing attacks on our identities, our bodies, and our fundamental sense of reality, with the ultimate goal of noting a Niemoller-esque warning to those who think themselves immune to the tomfuckery of the current world political climate. First they came, etc. etc., it’s been quoted to death lately.

Of course they’re starting with the kids. One, because kids under 18 simply don’t enjoy the legal protections of their adult LGBTQ+ peers. Kids are, to at least some extent, at the mercy of parental control. If said parents are violently opposed to LGBTQ+ rights, then LGBTQ+ kids are in trouble. Government attempts to curtail HRT and access to gender affirming care are truly aimed at the most vulnerable among us.

There’s a knock-on effect, of course. Making trans kids go through a cis puberty all but ensures that they will have a harder time transitioning as adults. All the things that could be avoided by something as simple, harmless, and reversible as puberty blockers are hurdles that will have to be surmounted later. (Go ahead, ask me how I know.) And of course, those same hurdles are constantly and viciously weaponized against trans adults. Any hint of masculine features in a trans woman draws out the deranged screeching about “men in dresses who want to watch women pee”. Any hint of femininity in a trans man brings up infantilizing, patronizing faux-concern from the brigades of fake feminist “solidarity”. Surely, they crow, you’re just confused by all this gender ideology and you’re really just a tomboy.

I hear that term “gender confusion” tossed around a lot, and I’m really starting to think that it’s to some extent deliberate. They need us to be seen as unsure, confused. They need the persistent specter of detransition to gloss over the damage that they regularly do to trans people, because then they get to be the good guys. They’re not bigots, oh mercy no. They’re just saving us poor confused transes from our own misguided ideas, no doubt ideas that were put there by some shadowy conspirators who want to turn the kids trans for… reasons? I’ve heard everything from Satanists who are offended by purity to the jews globalists who want to reduce the white population by sterilizing kids and making them gay. (Don’t tell them that there are BIPOC LGBTQ+ people too, it will only further confuse and enrage them.)

I could write a whole extra rant about the constant allegations of grooming that get pointed at queer folks (and apparently, specifically trans people these days). I have, in the past, done precisely that. It’s so weird to me how easily their logic breaks down and the bigotry shows through.

It goes something like this.

“I have no problem with you people being trans (unlikely, but do go on), but stay away from the kids. You trans people are grooming them to be trans.” (This is usually followed by impotent keyboard warrior threats of physical violence, because of course it is.)

Let’s examine, shall we? You have no inherent problem with my transness, but if a kid grows up to be trans, you’re gonna get a righteous rage-boner when you beat me to death? Honey, where do you think trans adults COME FROM?

I suppose it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what trans people are, and what being trans entails. I swear, if I was involved in even half as many drug-addled gay orgies as these people assume I am, I’d have neither time nor energy to write this blog. For the people who make this argument, being transgender is inherently sexual, especially being a trans woman. The poverty of thought that leads to these assumptions are crushing. By this argument, telling a kid it’s OK to be gay, or trans, is synonymous with recruiting for sex abuse. Obviously, for people who say this shit, they are NOT okay with adults being trans. But they always have to preface their illogic with that disclaimer, because thankfully, being a complete and total regressive bigot is still considered uncouth, at least in some circles.

(Go see some awesome comics on pinkwug.live)

So, I think it’s clear that they want to police our bodies. They frame puberty blockers and HRT as poison, and gender affirming surgery as mutilation, in an attempt to keep us from them. The logical end-point of this policing is first and foremost a vast uptick in physical gender dysphoria. Plenty of studies have shown that keeping trans people from changing their bodies to match their experienced internal gender leads to, let’s just say, undesirable outcomes. Well, undesirable if you want trans people to be alive and healthy. (We’re all clear that TERFy platitudes to the contrary, the bigots don’t actually want that, right?)

But let’s look at a hypothetical world where gender incongruence can’t easily be assuaged by hormones and surgery. Oh, wait. Did I say hypothetical? Nah, I meant historical. As in, the USA when my mom was a teenager, for example. Back in the 60s, cops regularly arrested people under so-called “masquerade laws” if they cross-dressed in public. The standard was three articles of clothing of the opposite gender.

So, in a world where bodies could not easily be changed (and let’s be real, it’s still not “easy” by any stretch of the imagination), the state monopoly on violence and incarceration was regularly turned on people who failed to conform to an arbitrary dress code. I’ll note that by those standards, my trip to Trader Joe’s for eggs this morning would have gotten me thrown in stir. Nothing provocative, nothing sexual, just the standard wardrobe of the unassuming middle-aged woman that I am.

Now, modern medicine hath wrought some changes upon my body. I’m still 6’4” (193 cm to you folks who use sane weights and measures), and I have a pretty deep voice. But I also have some bona fide curves thanks to HRT, and the shape of my face has changed quite a bit. It’s possible that you might not instantly clock me as other than a very tall woman. And ultimately, I think that’s what the reactionary culture warriors fear the most: ambiguity.

Our non-binary, agender, and gender-fluid siblings are, of course, on the front line of this battle. Not being an enby, I can’t really speak to their lived experience, but I know that their existence makes the conservatives DEEEEEEPLY uncomfortable. How do I know that? Because when they fail to sow division between cis-het allies and queer folks, they fall back, and try to sow division between LGB queer folks and the T’s. And when that fails, they try to create acrimony between binary trans folks and the various iterations that fall under the non-binary umbrella. It’s a bit like the 90s again. Oh, they say, of course they don’t mind yuppie white-picket-fence professional gays with money. We’d be totally tolerant of them if it wasn’t for those flamboyant, lisping queens and leather daddies in assless chaps down on Folsom. And of course, lesbians are cool (just look at all the girl-on-girl porn we love so much), but they’re scared shitless of big butch dykes on loud motorcycles.

Isn’t it a little telling that the lightest scratch on the surface of these time-worn respectability politics flakes away the veneer of politeness to show that once again, it’s ALL about policing the gender expression of other people? Back then, the party line was that gays were OK as long as they took a serious run at acting straight when anyone’s looking. Now that trans issues are front and center (thanks so much for that, Heritage Foundation), it’s getting increasingly obvious that all of this comes down to creating rigid gender roles, complete with societal duties, and making sure everyone conforms to them.

As always, the reality of ambiguity kills these conservative arguments deader than Margaret Thatcher. They insist that gender is binary and fixed, but nature belies this. They insist that gender is inextricably tied to biological sex, and study after study proves this false. They loudly insist that biological sex is strictly binary (hell, they’re trying to pigeonhole the diversity of nature by executive order!), and again, the facts dispute this most simplistic of takes. Nothing in nature is a rigid binary. We can define one into existence with language, but that language is inadequate and inaccurate. The best they can do is insist nature follow their stunted classifications, and when that inevitably fails, they retreat to lies, threats, and violence.

Every argument that I’ve ever heard against the existence of trans people rests squarely on these false and mistaken assumptions that nature fits neatly into the linguistic categories we use to describe it. Every such argument falls apart when it’s even lightly poked by a biologist, a neurologist, a psychologist, or, heck, even a humble organic chemist that happens to be trans, and thus disproves their false dichotomies just by getting out of bed in the morning. (That’s me. I did that. You’re welcome, world.)

Our resistance must come in multiple forms. There’s no one-size-fits-all antidote to fascism, homophobia, and bigotry. Certainly we need to lean on our lawmakers. Maybe if we lean hard enough they’ll stop licking oligarch boot long enough to hear our concerns. We need to stand up to violence and bullying, both at the national level (Ukraine and Canada both showing strong examples these days) and at the personal level. Remember in every interaction with oppression that silence sides with the oppressor. I’m throwing this out to any of the cisgender and straight folks that read this. TRANS PEOPLE DON’T HAVE THE NUMBERS TO RESIST WITHOUT ALLIES. I can stand up for myself, but I can’t stand up for every trans person. I’m one human being, and I can’t be everywhere. If you see bigotry, even if it’s “none of your business”, YES IT FUCKING IS YOUR BUSINESS. First they came.

This is not my original idea and I couldn’t tell you where I first heard it, but there is one easy (and reasonably painless) thing that allies of trans folks can do, if they want to, and it has some tactical and strategic advantages, which I’ll get into. But here goes: cisgender folks, use your pronouns. Add ‘em to your email sigs, put them in your resume. There’s an assumption among the rightwing riffraff that only queer weirdos use pronouns. Hell, some of them claim not to have any pronouns of their own. (Yeah, let that one sink in for a second… mindblowing, no?)

There’s no need to co-opt anyone’s gender identity, but if you’re comfortable with being referred to as “they” or “them”, you can toss those in too. Maybe you’re a cis woman, but if you put “she/they” as pronouns, congratulations, you get to share the spotlight in some small way with trans people. If you’re a dude, “he/they” works (so long as you’re legitimately comfortable with those pronouns). The point is kinda twofold. First, it legitimizes the use of pronouns and pushes back against the rightwing meme that using them is somehow weird and woke and unwholesome. But it also creates on some level, the very ambiguity that seems to be pure poison to the bigot crowd.

They predicate their certainty on the idea that “they can always tell” (hint: they can’t), and being constantly presented with seemingly “normal” people who may or may not be trans will, I’m sure, drive them to distraction.

There are plenty of other things you can and should do if you live in a nation so obviously threatened by incipient fascism. Direct activism, politics, mutual aid, plumbers in green overalls, but that one’s dead simple, and can be done with little to no effort. And if enough people do it, it makes trans people a bit more of a moving target, which I think we’d appreciate.

The subtitle to this post contained a subtle hint that this is not JUST about trans people. As we’ve seen during the escalation of the trans bathroom moral panic, any woman who is seen as insufficiently feminine is subject to violence and anger within the paradigm of patriarchal control. Any insufficiently masculine man is likewise a target. In their quest for a true end to all sexual ambiguity, trans people are just the most obvious beachhead. If they succeed in driving us underground (and they won’t, not as long as I’m still sucking breath), policing the gender expression of cis people is next on their list. Welcome to the golden age of gender panic and neo-McCarthyism. Doesn’t matter who you are, really, if you’re not a bootlicker, you’re next on their list.