No time for trans hate
The comes a point during online conversations about trans bodies where I have to drag myself away, touch grass, and wonder how in the world we got to this point. I have spent much of the last five years engaging with gender critical voices, dissecting why they believe what they do, who is fuelling their resentment towards women like me. My personal conclusion is that many of them are scared, desperate, and have no clue about the actual realities of trans lived experiences. Ten years ago when the first tendrils of gender critical discourse resurfaced you could see the point they were trying to make, a masked attempt at excluding bodies which they found unsavoury, claiming to be concerned and worried about women’s rights. Since then gender critical values have dragged in many old tropes drawn from racism, homophobia, and good old fashioned misogyny. No longer is it about concerns, it is an all-out attack on any form of womanhood that falls short of their precepts.
Writers such as JK Rowling and Kathleen Stock have doubled down on their vitriol because to pause, take stock, and potentially admit they were wrong is to admit that they have gone too far. They see the world through a jaundiced lens, a world where woman is their personal conception of the term, and that they have the moral right to impose those values onto everyone else. Now is their time to seize the high ground, except the high ground leaves…
