#institutional transphobia

[enbycrip]

The Cass Report demonstrates a truly ridiculous ignorance of literally *anything* to do with not only trans lives, but basic medical treatment protocols.

You *cannot* do double-blind tests where an intervention very clearly has distinct observable effects. Medicine also frequently does not do double-blind tests when doing so would be a) basically impossible, and b) inhumane. It’s particularly common to measure efficacy of an intervention by follow-up and statistical analysis where children and young people are concerned because experimenting on kids is so fucking unethical.

The report is treating reports following established medical protocols as though they are some kind of pseudoscience. Literally the only reasons for this are either a) an ignorance of basic medical and research procedures so profound as to show an utter unsuitability to be involved in reporting on anything to do with healthcare or b) blatant disingenuousness to find an excuse to discard the results they don’t want to acknowledge. Which also renders them deeply unsuitable to report on anything to do with healthcare.

They have used to existence of nonbinary people as an excuse to deny under-25s transition care, treating our entire identity as some sort of adolescent identity crisis. As a 40-year old nonbinary person, I can only say how *utterly* this betrays a profound ignorance of trans culture and identity and/or a commitment to patriarchal and colonial gender norms so profound they are utterly unwilling to dive into the easily-available evidence of adults all over the world with nonbibary identities today, and the anthropological and historical evidence of cultures all over the world with an understanding of gender outside the binary.

And the recommendation that transition should be forbidden to people with mental illness or neurodivergence only betrays how deeply and profoundly transphobia is entwined with disableism. There is a line which literally says “transition did not affect manifestation of symptoms of autism spectrum disorder”. As if this was remotely relevant to anything other than pathologising both transness and neurodivergence.

It of course also attempts to ignore the reality that millions of British adults are seeking neurodivergence diagnoses through the NHS and being turned down or stuck on waiting lists that can easily be *seven* years long.

I am sick with fury and fear, and trying to mute my own reactions because I have a dissertation draft due in tomorrow I *need* to work on.

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

Someday there's gonna be a gender-bender manga where a character, like, turns to the proverbial camera and says something like "Did you know that even with a pill that magically transforms your body (or whatever), Japanese law requires that you be surgically altered so that you don't have functioning gonads before you're allowed to change your gender in the family register? I thought that was interesting" and just that alone will make it 9006% more transgender than whatever "but I'm a guy"-internal-monologue-every-five-minutes nonsense is popular this week.

[nasty-garden-rat]

they've just banned trans healthcare for youth in Utah and I literally want nothing more rn than to go back to my old high school and tell every trans kid that it's gonna be ok. i hope the gsa's going strong, their insta hasn't updated since june....if it weren't for the openly trans kids when i was in high school i would be so so different i just want these kids to know they're gonna be alright

[theblockedtomb]

if you make posts about, e.g., trans men being seen as the worst of both men and women, denied the right to speak on either experience, and tag it as transandrophobia or something similar, you are making it very clear that when trans women talk about their experiences you either do not listen or do not care. Trans women also experience these things. It's not because you're a trans man. It's because you're trans. I know you're trans because you're a man but that's not the point, the point is all trans people are treated like this. Unless they either go stealth or gain high levels of social acceptance. Guess which subgroup of trans people that's easier for.

[trans-cuchulainn]

obviously take into account tactical voting for your area and do whatever you need to do to kick out the tories, but if you're in a complicated area where there isn't a clear tactical option, this is a thorough way to compare parties' stances on various options and work out what you're most aligned with

i'm only partway through it but occasionally there's an option that seems so cartoonishly evil that i can't believe it's real so i'm guessing that's probably the tories...

[hanna-lulu]

i’ve been comparing the usa now to germany circa the late 1930s and it is not a favorable comparison.

let’s see what we’ve got:

increasing antisemitism

increasing transphobia

increasing ableism

continued oppression of indigenous peoples

laws being introduced to ban gender-affirming care and remove children from their homes if they are allowed to live as they wish

books being banned for having honest and age-appropriate portrayals of race/racism and queerness/homophobia

pushing maid (medical assistance in dying) on people with disabilities and even people who are just poor (this is more in canada but i’m including it here anyway)

a right wing that is seen as ridiculous and absurd, yet is somehow still managing to hold onto power while liberals/leftists laugh it off as if they’ll run out of steam

it’s important to note that in the 1930s, when hitler came to power, the international community thought he was a joke. his overblown rhetoric was silly, his history was laughable, and nobody took him seriously. they thought it would all blow over. also, he wasn’t saying anything that a lot of people didn’t secretly agree with. antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and racism were widespread throughout europe and the usa, and a lot of people had less of a problem with what he was saying and more with how he was saying it. (think kanye west’s antisemitic comments, which joe rogan did attempt to stop him from making so blatantly, but didn’t actually disagree with.)

the first medical and educational facility for gender affirming care was in berlin. did you know that? the institut für sexualwissenschaft (known variably in english as institute of sex research, institute of/for sexology, or institute for the science of sexuality) was founded in 1919 and headed by magnus hirschfeld, who was both gay and jewish. he helped build a library in the institute that was dedicated to the topics of gender, eroticism, and same-sex love. the research undertaken there regarded sexual health of all people, gay, transgender, and intersex, as well as counseling and treatment for alcoholism, gynecological issues, venereal diseases, contraceptives, and more. sexual reassignment surgeries were performed successfully there. the goal was to help those who were suffering because they could not live as who they truly were and to educate the common people, because people fear what they see as different, what they cannot understand.

you won’t find the books in that library today. they were burned as part of the nazis’ campaign of terror and censorship. in 1933, 6 years before world war 2 officially broke out, the institut was broken into and looted by the deutsche studentenschaft (aka the german student union). young adults who had spent their formative years surrounded by hateful rhetoric were accompanied by a brass band as they destroyed this oasis of understanding and knowledge. hirschfeld himself had fled germany years before, as he had been targeted numerous times by nationalists/far right “activists”.

berlin once had a thriving queer community. germany was a home to many jews, my own great-grandparents included. my great-grandmother’s younger brother had a learning disability. their home turned on them out of fear and ignorance, the people told by their leaders that other human beings were not really human, but degenerate filth. my great-grandparents escaped with their lives. many– my great-grandma’s brother included– did not.

the concentration camps that imprisoned and killed so many jewish, queer, and/or disabled people (as well as romani and political prisoners, and japanese-americans IN THE USA) are not consigned to the past. our prison system disenfranchises those who are placed in it and uses them for unpaid labor. refugees are caged for daring to hope that our country– the so-called “land of the free”– would take them in when their homes turned on them. indigenous people are ridiculed and attacked for wanting to help our planet heal and for asking to conserve the land that was stolen from their ancestors. almost a hundred years since the holocaust, and we still haven’t learned.

don’t look away from this. it’s not going to blow over. those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and we are already experiencing a resurgence of fascist beliefs and rhetoric.

write to your representatives. VOTE. protest if and when you can. show them that we are HERE and we refuse to be written out of the history books, banned or burned away. we are human beings. we live and love and deserve to do so with dignity.

and if appealing to your humanity isn’t enough, remember this poetic version of a quote by german lutheran pastor martin niemöller, an early nazi collaborator and antisemite who later changed his views and opposed hitler’s oppressive regime:

“first they came for the socialists, and i did not speak out–

because i was not a socialist.

then they came for the trade unionists, and i did not speak out–

because i was not a trade unionist.

then they came for the jews, and i did not speak out–

because i was not a jew.

then they came for me– and there was no one left to speak for me.”

there is always another enemy in fascism. anyone who is different will eventually be a target. white supremacy is poison, and fitting the mold of a “perfect citizen” cannot keep you safe. queer infighting and pushing down people who you find “too weird” will not stop the people who hate all of us. to the far right, we are all wrong to our very cores. solidarity in the face of oppression is the only way to survive, live, and thrive.

[rollerska8er]

britain is a now a country where politicians split hairs over whether their policies are causing suicides rather than not implementing policies that might cause suicides

[newsfromstolenland]

The Lempkin Instuite for Genocide Prevention is worried about the genocidal nature of all these anti-trans bills in America. https://www.lemkininstitute.com/statements-new-page/statement-on-the-genocidal-nature-of-the-gender-critical-movement%E2%80%99s-ideology-and-practice

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention voices its concern over the growing number of laws introduced in the United States that target transgender individuals and the transgender community.

Anti-trans hostility in the US has become a staple of the Republican Party’s election strategy and is clearly being used to stoke voters’ fears of a changing world by raising the specter of a malevolent polluting force tied to liberalism, cosmopolitanism, and democracy.

The Lemkin Institute believes that the so-called “gender critical movement” that is behind these laws is a fascist movement furthering a specifically genocidal ideology that seeks the complete eradication of trans identity from the world.

Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

[enbycrip]

There is no way under any interpretation of the law that this is a reasonable or legal use of emergency powers.

Apparently Joloyon Maugham is looking at how to challenge this. Anything I can do to support them, I will be.

Every cis person should be as utterly terrified by this as trans people are. If this can be done for puberty blockers, it can be done for birth control pills. And the people lobbying the Tories about this are the same far right groups trying to get the Pill banned too.

[quixoticanarchy]

I'm glad to see the oklahoma queer community rallying around nex benedict and holding vigils and sharing grief and such but I'm struggling to tell where we go from here "do something" "take action" "this has to change" "this can't happen again" ok how do we affect the internal culture of schools that let their students beat other students to death and then suspend the victim. there's a lot of us here who want to protect trans kids but how, what does that mean, when it's both other adults and other kids who put them in harm's way? possibly we can vote out one republican or two, idk how generous I feel, but how to undo all the laws, all the education curricula, all the rhetoric, all the lobbying, all the ingrained hate? I want this place to be livable and I don't want to cede ground by leaving but I know so many people who want to leave. I know so many others who don't or can't. I want us to keep us safe, but. how.

[gender-trash]

thinking about her...

[crossdreamers]

How JK Rowling and her supporters try to get people forget the Nazi persecution of trans people

Over at YouTube Caelan Conrad talks about the recent controversy surrounding J.K. Rowling and her soft denial of a nazi war crime. Caelan takes a closer look at the Twitter feud and the impact it has on Rowling's reputation.

(Video embedded above)

It seems to us that what JK Rowling and her supporters try to achieve by belittling the Nazi persecution of trans people is that they fear that this fact will make people associate trans people with gay people, Jewish people and others persecuted by the German Nazis.

This will lead people to sympathize with trans people and find transphobes - who repeat arguments made by Nazis - less likable. We would guess that JK and the TERFs fear this truth as it negates their narrative about trans women being oppressors of women and not victims of hate activism themselves.

If you want to learn more about the amazing Berlin queer and transgender culture and the trans research done by Magnus Hirschfeld, read out articles:

How the Nazis destroyed the queer and trans culture of Berlin

Magnus Hirschfeld's Theory of Transgender Intermediaries

Magnus Hirschfeld's Understanding of Transgender People

The Transgender Passports of 1930s Berlin

How Magnus Hirschfeld Shaped the Pro-LGBTQA Struggle

Magnus Hirschfeld and his queer friends in Berlin. Hirschfeld is No. 2 from the right.

[oldandabnormal]

the only way i read articles from the New York Times (FTFNYT) is via dissections like this one. The closing paragraph:

The New York Times is once again doubling down on transphobia, providing distortions and half-truths. An in-depth investigative look into the parents’ rights movement would have been eye-opening, but this isn’t that. Likewise, an honest examination of the question of why some public schools decided that the best interests of children are served by allowing youth to socially transition regardless of their parents’ wishes would be useful and illuminating, and of course including parents’ reactions would be necessary there. But this isn’t that either. Instead it is a misleading, one-sided picture that will leave the Times’ readers less informed, and more primed to participate in the ongoing moral panic about transgender youth.

[wakewithgiggli]

This is a must-read for anyone who cares about trans people, and everyone else who is reachable.

[specialmouse]

lgbt people need to stop thinking in terms of black and white and by that i mean stop thinking our oppression as directly analogous to the oppression of black people by white people it's not the same !

[audible-smiles]

do you think we’re (in the USA) heading towards karyotyping all kids at birth, to determine the sports team they play on and the bathroom they use at school? because that would be wild; the general public is simply not prepared to learn how common Klinefelter Syndrome is.