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There are no normal trans people
This is hyperbole, though based on the fact that how do you even begin to establish who is normal and who should be rejected from that label. There is a renewed strand of normative trans politics which is seeking to remove itself from what it perceives as leftist trans radical activists. The only problem with this is that this “centrist” clique is by definition exclusionary, seeking to police the in and out crowd, just like the gender critics they seek to appease. This group of mainly middle-class white trans women with comfortable jobs, see what I did there, believe that the panacea to right wing hostility to trans people is to exorcise the radical elements. This, they hope, will stop the creeping transphobic legislation right at the white picket fence before the State agents come knocking for them. Can you spot the problem here?
These cliques are born out of fear, in the desperate attempt that their pick me attitude will halt the forest fire before it burns their comfortable lives to the ground. Yet, they forget that it is the radicals and outsiders who were and are the ones driving the visible anger and pushback against the fascistic polices burning trans rights to the ground. The cliques also forget that in the eyes of those they seek to appease there are no “normal” trans people, just a long que of trans people to exorcise with the white picket fence trans folk merely towards the back of the line.
Hannah Arendt lays out in Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem the dangers of appeasing oppressors to the point of selling out your own community. The fascist right seeking to erase trans rights have plenty of Eichmanns who will seek to exploit and expropriate trans people and their people. Once states enact anti-trans legislation trans people feel they have no choice but to flee, in the process being fleeced of property and money. The same exploitation was deployed by National Socialists to strip Jews of their wealth. White picket trans people are not immune to this.
This all feels like the People’s Front of Judea versus the Judean People’s Front, especially when it comes to the internal purity politics. I get that middle class white successful trans people are afraid of losing their rights, but chucking the less fortunate and well off under the fascist steamroller is not the answer. Fear is a powerful…
