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| A heart shape with the colors of the trans flag. Image source. |
There's something a bit off in the way that American society has been talking about trans issues. It's the way people have wildly different opinions on the question "do trans people really exist?" and this affects their entire perspective on trans issues, and yet nobody is stating clearly their position on this question.
Conservatives believe trans people don't really exist. Seriously, they really believe this. If you don't get that, you won't be able to understand what conservatives' goals are here- and how dangerous and harmful their proposed policies would be.
On the "progressive" side, I'm really unhappy with Democrats for not putting forth a clear message that trans people exist and deserve to have rights, just like anyone else. Why is this being talked about like it's just some political "issue," that voters may have various feelings on, and Democrats are waffling about, trying to decide what "strategy" to use? Why aren't Democrats talking about the fact that trans people are people, who just want to live their lives like everyone else- they are real people, they really exist, and so they should have their rights protected.
As for the people who feel they are "in the middle" on this issue- I don't know what that even means. To try to talk to someone about their opinions on health care or sports or bathrooms or whatever, it's impossible to get an actual understanding of their position, if they don't clearly state whether or not they believe trans people exist.
When I say "trans people exist", I'm defining it like this: There really exist people who thrive when they are able to transition and live as the gender they want to be. There really exist people for whom social transition (changing name/pronouns/clothes) and/or medical transition are life-giving. There really exist people for whom transition is medically necessary- rates of depression and suicide are very high for people who want to transition but can't. For some people, transition is genuinely a good thing, and so of course they should have the right to do it; they should have the right to live a life where they can be happy and thrive. Society should recognize that this is a real thing, a normal part of the range of human diversity, rather than treating them as a threat and making overly-controlling laws about who's allowed to use what bathroom.
Conservatives do not believe this. They believe there are only two sexes, and whichever sex God made you, that's the one you are supposed to be. Staying in your gender role as God intended is how people live their best life. If somebody *thinks* they're trans, if somebody transitions, it's always a bad idea- even if they're happy in the short term, it's not really what's best for them. What's best for everyone is they stay in their "natural" gender role that God gave them.
The orange antichrist's executive order says, "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality." These people literally believe trans people do not exist. Every law the MAGAs are making is based in this foundational belief. Sure, they start by claiming they're concerned about children being too young to transition, or whatever, but don't be fooled- they're not okay with adults being trans either. They really believe trans people do not exist.
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I know this because it's just like how they used to believe gay people didn't exist
In the early 2000's, evangelical Christians believed gay people did not really exist. *I* was an evangelical Christian and *I* believed gay people didn't really exist. When we talked about gay people, it was always about how they're pushing their "homosexual agenda" on society, to destroy marriage, to recruit kids to the "homosexual lifestyle," etc. We talked about it like it was an "issue" that we had to push back against, to get those bad gay people to knock it off and stop being gay or whatever. It was a big scary issue out there- not something that any of us could relate to, not something where we might actually know real people who were gay, and know them to be good people.
It was in 2009, when I went to Urbana (a big Christian missions conference for college students) and saw Christopher Yuan speak, that I was first truly hit with the realization that gay people really do exist. (Really? Christopher Yuan? He's one of those gay Christians who believes gay people should just repress themselves and never date or anything...) I saw the reality that there really are gay Christians, and they are doing their best to follow God, just like I was. They weren't trying to "destroy marriage" or do any of those bad things I had heard.
Around that time, in the gay Christian community, there was "side A" and "side B"- side A means you believe that God accepts same-sex relationships, side B means you believe gay people are required to be single and celibate. Sides A and B are for the Christians who believe that gay people exist- there is also another perspective, which I sometimes saw referred to as "side X", which is basically just being hateful and talking about gay people like they're this disgusting evil "issue" rather than real people. (And honestly, as a straight person I don't think I should be allowed to take a position on side A vs side B- straight people should be side not-telling-other-people-what-to-do-with-their-personal-lives.)
Back then, there were many Christians who did not use the term "gay" but instead said "same-sex attracted" or "struggling with same-sex attraction." Nobody *really was* gay- this same-sex attraction was just a temporary condition that had come over them, perhaps because of childhood sexual abuse, or maybe they didn't bond with one of their parents well enough, or whatever other trauma had happened to them- and what they really needed was to heal from that trauma. Then they would become straight.
Seriously, even side-B gay Christians- these are the gay Christians who have committed themselves to never dating, never having sex- got hate from straight Christians because they identified as gay. The idea that being gay was an actual real thing, an actual real identity- many straight Christians could not accept this.
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The "Joan or John" article from The Gospel Coalition
In 2014, conservative Christian site "The Gospel Coalition" published an article called Joan or John? by Russell Moore, which presented this hypothetical scenario: Suppose you're a pastor, and someone (Joan) comes to you and says she recently became a Christian, and she wants your advice with a hard question. See, actually she used to be "John" and she transitioned. But now that she's a Christian, she sees the error of her ways, obviously- but what should she do now, in practical terms? What does repentance look like for trans people?
This question sounds very reasonable from a conservative Christian perspective. It's completely premised on the assumption that trans people do not really exist. But WOWWW when this was published in 2014, trans Christians and allies had A LOT OF THINGS TO SAY about it.
This question could only be dreamed up by someone who has no idea how hard trans people have to work to access gender-affirming medical care. No idea how it feels to finally be able to transition- how life-giving it is, how right it feels, the joy that comes with it. Dreaming up an imaginary trans person who says "transition was just a silly thing I did because I wasn't following God, I guess now that I'm a Christian I'll just undo it." [my paraphrase, not an actual quote] This question only makes sense in a universe where no one really is trans. Where there exists NO ONE for whom transition is a good thing. And yes, of course conservative Christians believe that's the world we live in. God made you a man, so you'll only truly be happy living as a man.
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Regret
Conservatives make a big deal about transgender "regret." They're even directing the National Institutes of Health to come up with some research that shows transition is bad and causes people to regret it.
Statistics show that the number of people who regret transitioning is a very small percentage- smaller than the regret rates for other medical procedures which nobody is making into a big political issue. But still, there are a few, and conservatives make a big deal about it.
Here is how conservatives imagine this goes: When people say they "regret" transitioning, they are saying, "Oh my goodness, how did I really believe that nonsense that a man can change into a woman? How was I so brainwashed that I actually believed that? Now I finally see the truth, that the best thing for me- for everyone- is to just be the gender I was assigned." They're imagining what it would take for someone to convince *them* to transition, and how bad it would be for them.
Coming from the perspective "trans people don't really exist," this is what they imagine "regret" looks like.
But in reality, "regret" can be a lot of different things. Some people de-transition because they want to transition but they lose all support from their family- this rejection makes it feel like transition is impossible, so they make the difficult decision to go back to presenting as their assigned gender. Or, some people know that they're not cis, so they think they must be a binary trans person of the opposite gender- but later they find out that nonbinary is also a thing, and feel that fits much better. Or maybe someone identifies as a trans woman or trans man, and has the assumption that this means there's a checklist of medical procedures they need to go through in order to transition- but later they decide, actually, they don't really want to do all of those. Transition was presented to them as a one-size-fits-all thing, but then they decide that's not exactly what they want. Some people have regret because they have a bad experience with a particular doctor.
Rather than proving that trans people don't really exist, regret and detransition show how important it is that people understand their full range of options. Gender is an even bigger spectrum that we think.
But it's so hard to talk about regret at all, because people will jump right to "trans people don't really exist."
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Pretending to be trans as a "social experiment"
As another example of the vast difference in perspectives on the question "do trans people exist" and how nobody explicitly states their position but it affects everything: Here's a video from Kat Blaque, Josh Seiter's Fetish Was NOT A Social Experiment. It's about how this guy named Josh Seiter told everyone he was a trans woman, as a "social experiment" (and posted a lot of videos on social media that were kinda bizarre, like saying that trans woman should get prostate checks from gynecologists, or something along those lines, I don't remember the details) and then later revealed that he's actually not trans. And this is supposed to prove something. Like prove how wrong people are to accept trans people, or something? Fooled them, haha!
And Kat Blaque, the youtuber who is discussing this, was like, so his friends accepted him as trans, and then... lol joke's on them? Huh?
Yeah, if somebody told me "I'm trans" and then later told me actually it was just a "social experiment" and they fooled me and I should feel bad, I too would be like "? I don't get it."
But secretly I do get it. From the perspective of the conservatives who believe trans people don't really exist, this reads like "I fooled you into thinking a man can identify as a woman, lol that's such obvious nonsense." But for those of us who believe trans people really do exist, and feel that the fact of trans people existing is just self-evidently true, it's like... "Why wouldn't I believe that you're trans, if you tell me you're trans? Some people really are trans. That's a real thing. So it's certainly plausible that *you* would be trans."
For people framing this as a "social experiment," it's not about "you believed *I* was trans, lol, joke's on you" but "you believed *people can be* trans."
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We need to take "trans people exist" as a starting point when talking about any of these issues
When debating about bathroom bans, or sports, or gender-affirming care for minors, or any of these issues, the fact that trans people really exist should be a foundational premise, explicitly stated. There really do exist people for whom transition is the right thing, it is life-giving, it is medically necessary. There really do exist people who were assigned male at birth, but find they are much happier living as a woman, or vice versa, or as a nonbinary person. This is a real thing, and of course people should be allowed to transition if it's a good thing for them- and they should be treated as normal members of society who deserve respect and have rights.
When considering any of these questions, treating them as real people who have rights. Not some scary "issue" that can be forced to go away if we just ban enough things.
And I suppose there are some people "in the middle" of trans debates, whose position is "I want to help the people who really are trans, but now it's gone too far and kids are getting all ~confused~ about gender, and pressured into transitioning when it's not the right thing for them." I don't know what to make of this either. Are kids *really* being pressured into identifying as trans and/or transitioning? Obviously there is no shortage of right-wingers claiming this is true, but these are the same people who think trans people don't actually exist at all- obviously untrue, I have met trans people who told me how life-giving it was to transition- it is extremely easy to find trans people saying this! (If you need links- here, here, here, it's really not hard to find.) So I don't really believe any claims these right-wingers are making about this.
Perhaps there are some isolated incidents of people hearing a teenager saying "I don't get what gender is" and then deciding "You must be trans! Let's rush you off to get hormones and surgery right now!!!!!!" (Not that they could *literally* do this, because there are many hoops to jump through to actually get hormones and surgery...) In which case, don't do that! If anybody really is pressuring kids, well, stop it! But I really don't believe that's a common thing that's happening.
I think, if you believe that no one actually is trans, then it comes across as "pressuring them" to even talk about it in front of kids like it's a real possibility.
And if someone really is questioning their gender, what they need is more resources and information. They should talk to people who have had similar experiences. There's a whole range of gender identity and gender expression- being exposed to more diversity will help people to understand what's right for them. (Of course, if you believe no one actually is trans, then talking about gender diversity just muddies the waters- people should just be pushed harder into their assigned gender role, that's what's right for everyone.)
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Conclusion
Every "trans issue" you see in the news right now has 2 completely different interpretations- if you believe trans people exist, you will view these issues in one way, and if you believe trans people do not actually exist, you will view these issues in a completely different way. In either case, the conclusions follow quite logically from the initial assumptions about whether or not trans people exist. But all the discussion and debate I see about this has people talking past each other, talking about totally different things, because almost no one is explicitly stating whether they believe trans people exist. Start with that! They obviously do exist! Trans people are trans because they actually are trans, not because they want to be creepy in women's bathrooms or anything ridiculous like that. They exist, and they should be treated fairly and have their rights protected just like anyone else. Start with that, and everything else becomes easier.
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Related:
Everyone is missing the point about these "parental notification" laws