Of course I am biased, we all are
One of the comments left today on Reddit advised me to check my biases before I wrote about trans issues, which got me thinking about the nature of my writing and how I try to avoid speaking ex cathedra. I will hold my hand up and say that I do have my personal biases, and that I try my best to park those when I write about transgender topics, precisely because as a long in the tooth trans woman I have significant history with the trans community. It is a truism to say that there is no one pathway for a trans person to walk, and that each trans person is unique. This means that when I write or make videos about these issues I strive to only localise them within my own frame of reference and not speak for anyone else.
This makes finding any objectivity complicated, as if I make a declaratory statement, such as trans women are women, it comes freighted with social context that needs unpacking. Good writing, in my opinion, should never speak like the Pope issuing a papal bull ex cathedra, but instead should invite critique and discourse. Gender and sexuality are as multiplicitous as each person alive or dead, meaning that while a person can declare a personal truth, they can only observe a fraction of the sum total of human experience. Add into this the multitude of personal intersections, our upbringings, and the fact we each have our own unique map of the world, and trying to state objective truth becomes impossible.
Yes, of course 1 + 1 = 2, but when any of us try to pin down exactly what makes us, well, us, we run into the central problem that we can only build upon what we have experienced. I have tried to put in the work to check my personal biases, many of which have flowed from my Christian upbringing and middle-class English schooling. I do believe that it is up to me to educate myself, and where I fall short I need to learn and reframe the next time I write about issues. Getting it wrong is part of the process, but so is learning and putting in the effort to better understand.
Within the trans discourse, especially within the academic trans discourse, it is easy to lose sight of the wider community and the individuals who live in it. Most of my current reading and work has been focused on understanding the history of both the medicalisation/pathologizing of trans identities and looking at the British legal landscape for trans folk. There are plenty of times where I have had to check myself, asking is my personal history and lived experience getting in the way of a deeper understanding. Academic research on trans lives has trended towards the intersectional in recent years, but the historic literature has focused on white, attractive, middle-class folk who could afford medical treatment or to go through the courts. I must park a whole range of judgement calls to ensure that I am not biasing my academic writing.
This sounds obvious, but it does mean that often I end up in a more neutral space than I would otherwise would have steered myself. I am acutely aware that everything I write is subjective, but at the same time I try to extract most of that subjectivity to present a broader perspective. Being trans and writing about transgender issues places me firmly on the side of trans rights, yet it also means that I am increasingly sceptical of the pathologizing of trans bodies. The more I read and engage with the literature the more I have to park frustration and anger at the legal system and medical profession. That, and I have to set aside the cynical voice in my head that interrogates all trans related media to assess why, exactly, it was created and who the intended audience is.
It would be simple to say that all of this is easy, and that I always succeed. It is not, and I certainly do not. My biases creep in at the edges, though often in unexpected ways. I am forever checking and rechecking my use of semantics and language, for instance my use of trans folks has replaced transgender people both in my writing and day-to-day speech because I want to be non-binary inclusive. Likewise, I trend to use trans rather than transgender, as gender has freighted meaning in English beyond simple gender identity and gender expression. Such is checking my personal biases without deliberately stating I am to my wider audience.
Is it ever possible to be completely bias free and objective? I would argue no, not when it comes to the human experience. Indeed, I believe you do need to have certain biases in order to take a stand for what is reasonable and morally right. One cannot be unbiased towards fascism, extremism, and patriarchy. There are plenty of beneficial biases, it just happens that we chose not to call being an anti-fascist biased, at least in the circles I run in. That I check my inherent understanding of the world around me every time I write means I grow and develop, though also I want to provide as an inclusive space as possible to air ideas and spark conversation.
None of this is radical or new. Plato et al used rhetoric and discourse to explore the world, and philosophers have been doing the same ever since. What matters is that I make the effort to reduce and eradicate those biases that are harmful and prejudiced, ensuring that whoever reads my work can engage it over a bridge of hospitality. We all have biases, its what we chose to do about them that matters.
