I’ve got a new post up at Genspect:
There’s a painful gap that stretches between what trans activists mean when they talk about acceptance—or self-acceptance or authenticity—and what those terms actually mean. These concepts undergo a botched transition when they’re translated into the language of gender identity.
Yet these counterfeits cling to the resonance and moral authority of the originals: it really is healing to accept yourself and to be accepted by others as you are. We understand acceptance to be a precious social good. Trans activists tap into this resonance to sell a very different idea of ‘acceptance’: to be accepted and accept yourself as what you are not.
Of course, this ‘acceptance’ is conditional. The path you must follow is a narrow one, with sheer cliffs on either side. As @lacroisz put it: “[you] have to keep going deeper into being trans to continue getting it.” Margaret Singer Thaler—who devoted her career to researching cults—observed that “the group says in essence, ‘ We love you because you are transforming yourself,’ which means that any moment you are not transforming yourself, you are slipping back.’”
In gender land, self-acceptance and authenticity go hand-in-hand with a process of transformation that involves rejecting yourself and changing everything about yourself: your name, your body, your self-presentation, but also your expressions, your gestures, your personal history, lest you give yourself away. When transition ‘works,’ we say that someone ‘passes’: the facsimile gets mistaken for the real thing. From mastectomies and phalloplasties to ‘neo-vaginas’ and ‘facial-feminization’ surgeries, everything is in the process not of becoming something new but of producing an ever-more convincing facsimile.
To the young person who doubts whether transition is the right answer, the community responds: keep going. You’ll get there eventually.
Eliza, I love the way you wrote this. You have such a delicious analysis of this issue, amd way with words.
Somewhat similar to how you phrased it, when someone asks me, "Why not let them be who they are?" I reply, "Be who they are? Or be who they aren't?"
"They have a legal right to believe whatever they wish, and to state those beliefs. Those are their First Amendment rights. However, they do not have the right to tell those of us who disagree with them what we must believe or say. Those are OUR First Amendment rights. I would gladly defend their rights to freedom of thought and speech, and I expect them to defend mine."
Thank you for another great post.
When are you going to write the definitive book about this topic? I'd buy it.