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Trans rights are always in tension
If you spend any amount of time on social media, in the archives, or reading the news it fast becomes clear that trans identities are a hot button issue. Indeed, along with Gaza and the climate crisis trans rights have become the issue driving much of the right wing agenda in the English speaking world. Historically there has always been an undercurrent of prurient anti-trans discourse, you only have to look at stories of female husbands, April Ashley, and any of the models who were outed in the 1980s to see that. What has changed is the explicit narrative that trans rights are at odds with women’s rights, parental rights, and the rights of those who cling to out dated understandings of gender and sex. Indeed, when you scrape back the vitriol, the thrusting of trans identities into the spotlight is both calculated and deliberate, a smoke screen for undercurrents of hate.
Trans identities have never been accepted in the Judeo-Christian world on parity with cisnormative understandings of gender identity and sex. To be trans has historically been treated as deviant, something in urgent need of correction by the State and communities at large. None of this is new or news to trans folk, it is written in blood in any history books on trans identities. In centuries past you could be executed for being gay, and cross dressing was seen as symptomatic of gay lifestyles, thus worthy of extreme…
