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Matty's avatar

Eliza, I’ve enjoyed following you and reading your work over the past few months and this is one of my favorites so far. When you convince trans people (or anyone, really) that there is a bogeyman around every corner, everyone starts to look like a bogeyman. (Bogeyperson? Is that more inclusive?)

I think your point that “trans rights” has become synonymous not with actual rights but with this intense need to control people’s speech’s and expression (and who we sleep with, something I find so abhorrent) is so important and cannot be overstated. I am generally pro-decency—call people what they ask to be called; however, I’m not pro-consequence—lose your job, get banned from the platform—over a refusal to use made up neopronouns. Maybe there are a few trans people who are in such a fragile state that using the wrong pronouns might cause them to melt into a puddle on the floor, but I can’t help but wonder if much of the rage over “misgendering” is reflexive, learned, or downright performative.

To that point about the trans rights movement seeking to control thought and speech, I think that ended up being the thrust of the 2020 “racial reckoning” here in the U.S. What started as this real moment of collective effervescence and consciousness over the ways racism still pervades fizzled into this intensely individual witch hunt, trying to prove everyone had racism in their hearts, making these absurdly abstracted, associative claims about how innocuous comment A invoked the symbolism of racist thing B and therefore person C was clearly racist, and we must collectively shun them, get them fired, ruin their lives. It is the death knell of social movements to try and control speech and thought—the winners are not the oppressed people in question but the grifters like Robin DiAngelo and Ibram

X. Kendi who seize on a moment to peddle their snake oil to help you fix your alleged thought crimes.

Here in the U.S., as hardcore conservative lawmakers actually engage in poorly crafted legislative overreach and use trans people as a pawn in the culture war to rile up their base, trans activists continue to focus their ire on the liberals and LGB individuals who actually care about their wellbeing. But if you question plainly obvious phenomena like the spike in young transitioners, the puberty blockers that are handed out like candy, the clear correlation between mental health challenges and the self-proclaiming of trans and non-binary identities, or, god forbid, you don’t want to fuck a trans person, you become the monster.

Thank you for your work.

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Perry James's avatar

Excellent article. Your insights are always spot-on. After reading this article, it is hard not to think of the transgender movement as a dishonest cult. They are not just trying to control the behavior of the public, but the behavior of their own members. And the fact that they vilify any person with a different opinion just shows how weak their ideas and arguments are.

As a gay person, I find this paranoia among trans people to be somewhat irritating because gay people have come in for much more persecution over the centuries -- and all because homosexuality is mentioned in the Bible and the Koran. If trans people are finding that people dislike them, it may have to do with the fact that they are making themselves so visible, and because their demands of society are so ridiculous. There are still countries in the Middle East which are executing gays.

But I think it is only the activists who are this dishonest. Most trans people are more reasonable than the activists are. But the fact that trans activists have to control their members just shows how unhealthy the movement is. It shouldn't be a movement at all. It really is nothing more than a mental state (like homosexuality) which some people need to deal with.

Of all the people writing about the movement, I think you are the most insightful. But how do we get more people to read your articles? I suspect that the only people who are reading your pages on Substack are the people who already agree with you.

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