i think we need to bring back those simplified diagrams and powerpoints explaining what being trans actually is. i'm so serious. people are becoming more transphobic, in poll after poll. rather than through simple education, people are learning about it through grifters and propaganda.
its increasingly just. not something even liberals try to fight back on. for them, the fight began and ended with gay marriage. we have "equality" now - hell, even on that, there's some backsliding on support.
its reached the point where i'm worried it will get worse before it gets better. people don't understand how our oppression works, how it impacts everything from health care to legal rights. they think its just a cute little issue about using the right pronouns.
meanwhile, the worst people in the world have spent years saying that 1) trans people aren't real, 2) they're either mentally ill or dangerous, 3) if they're suicidal, it's their own fault, 4) they need conversion therapy, not acceptance.
and that attitude IS catching on. desperate politicians turn their ire to us when they need free right-wing clout. all manner of influencers use us for clicks. we are frightening spectacles, not people.
and that has real consequences. it's not just "discourse" or "attitudes" - laws are written against us. rights to hormone treatment, legal self-identification and surgery are being stripped back in some places, even for adults. learning about us in school is taboo.
but that's not how it's covered - it's covered like epic clapbacks at delusional libs. or like a suicide epidemic brought on by nothing by our own Mentall Illness. or like we're coming after everyone's kids.
all of which to say, trans people's legal right to exist is being threatened. but it's overshadowed by culture war noise. so people don't see it as inequality or oppression. they see us as "discourse."
i don't think we can rely on the idea that it'll just "get better." the reason i think gay marriage was able to be "marketed" so effectively was because it was presented simply and understood as legal inequality. "this group can get married, this group can't." very easy for normies to understand.
there are good explanations of why we're oppressed in various ways, but they're often overly complex for a normie to understand. it has too many different schools of thought, too much theory attached. at its core, imo, it should really be framed like a freedom and bodily autonomy issue - people should have control over their own bodies, their own names, their own presentation. simple as that.
on an even more basic level, people need to know what being trans IS. but people kinda "stopped" spreading those explanations around in the trump era. it was this unspoken understanding that whether you like or dislike transness, you know what it is.
and i don't think that's true! i think very basic sex/gender understanding is lacking. i think that's why you frequently see the transphobic memes/jokes about archeologists discovering skeletons and clearly seeing what sex they "really" are. or just the common joke that trans people are delusional and think we have body parts we objectively don't.
so i think basic, super simple education on this issue is needed, as a starting point. because the label "transphobic" has very little stink on it. people DON'T know what being trans is, or they think its a weird mental illness or fetish - and in both cases, dangerous or delusional.
so yeah. things are not great. i think even a lot of trans people have given up on advocating for ourselves, because we're just trying to survive. we're tired. we're hungry. we're often homeless or low income. we don't want to be a debate. we just want to live.
but i think, for our own sake, we need to fight back.
and a way to encourage our allies to help with that, is to make it simple for them. i think many are afraid of "saying the wrong thing" in the myriad of complexities and theories surrounding the topic of gender, social constructs, identity, etc... so the dumbest guys in the room get the mic. because they're never afraid of offending anybody. they don't care if they're not educated on the topic.
but our RIGHTS don't need to be complicated. cis allies, you don't need to give 500 page dissertation on what a woman is - just start with explaining that trans people are a real, marginalized group who deserve the same control over our own bodies, identities and lives that cis people enjoy. that's it. focus on that.
just say something. please. we are so alone. don't let the transphobes be the only people who talk about trans issues in 2024.
