Perhaps If You're a "Of Course Trans People Can Be Trans, But...." Type, You Should Front the "Of Course" A Little More
I mean, that's the most important part, right?
Lia Thomas, the transwoman swimmer who had great success in collegiate competition, has been effectively ruled ineligible to participate in women’s international swimming competition. This has, predictably, led to a lot of rejoicing among a certain set of people. I have said before that this issue always strikes me as a controversy in search of a problem; fears of transwomen dominating elite women’s athletics are simply not consistent with reality, where transwomen competing at all are very rare. Public opinion, however, seems firmly against transwomen’s participation. To me, the essential point here is that this issue is of little practical importance to the large majority of trans people; less than 40% of trans and gender nonconforming people are trans women, and the vast majority of those are not competitive athletes at all. I’m aware that I’m not going to convince anyone of anything on that particular score. I do wish though that there was more engagement on the most essential question - whether we recognize the right of people to identify with a gender other than the one they would traditionally be assigned and to do so in peace.
One of the commonplaces you see in debates about trans rights and trans issues is the preemptive declaration that someone respects trans people and their rights. This very often precedes a list of problems that they have with trans people and their rights. Let me be clear in saying that I don’t think this is disqualifying in and of itself - my whole career has been waged in the space of “Yes, but….” You have a right to say “yes, but.” I do feel, though, a little at sea with this stuff at present. So many people declare a vague support for the right to be trans before being relentlessly critical of “The Trans Agenda.” (I like to imagine that printed on a three-ring binder that you can only access by opening a metal cabinet on a submarine by turning two keys simultaneously.) And while I at least understand some of the core complaints, I don’t really understand the dimensions of what people want, at this point, as it pertains to that preemptive statement that of course, adults should be free to be trans. Clarity could be useful. In particular, what part of “of course, but” is more important?
I think of Joe Rogan in particular in this regard. Rogan will frequently begin any discussion of trans rights by insisting that he doesn’t have any personal animus against trans people, before complaining about all the problems with trans rights for a half hour. Here he says that people should do whatever makes them happy before suggesting that being trans has spread through social contagion and indoctrination. I don’t think those things are necessarily contradictory, although the idea that being trans is a fad has always seemed pretty ridiculous to me. (Also, good news! If it’s a fad to be trans, then the fad will inevitably pass, and you won’t have that problem anymore.) And, you know what, I actually do believe that Rogan does not hold particular personal enmity towards trans people. I’m sure part of him sincerely feels that way. It just so happens that, because of his unusual psychology, he’s able to hold that view and make that caveat right before giving a virulently transphobic guest the floor to say whatever they want for three hours. This is far from a novel perspective (including from me), but
Rogan has never seemed motivated by explicitly reactionary feelings
He platforms reactionaries at a pace so much higher than he does left-leaning people that the show’s impact is fundamentally reactionary
Regardless of what motivates him, personally and emotionally, there genuinely is a lot of talk on his show that many people find transphobic. Of course he and his guests have the right to think and express those things, and you and they have a right to object to that characterization of transphobia. However, he remains a good example of this question of proportion and emphasis. He’s someone who reflexively expresses support for the right to live with a trans identity but treats that part as a parenthetical, as something that can just be established through brief assertion, while criticism of trans people is given all the time in the world. But the basic right to express one’s preferred gender identity is vastly more relevant to actual trans people or those who interact with them, on a day-to-day level, than so many of the offshoot controversies that power culture war.
Rogan’s “open mind to all, open microphone mostly to right-wingers” reality speaks to this divide, between the essential human freedom that protects trans people and their identities and the endless morass of rarely-meaningful controversies. When much of your guest list rejects basic trans rights, and you have Rogan’s… suggestible interviewing style, you’re going to get a lot of opposition to trans rights, even after a brief caveat that trans people should have the freedom to live the way that makes sense to them. Here’s a guest list that floats around sometimes:
This kind of taxonomy is always going to reflect ideological biases, and specific names are debatable. I do think this particular tweet reaction is pretty funny: the Weinsteins, Dave Rubin, and Tim Pool I would call irrefutably right-wing at this point, while Weiss and Tim Dillon are not categorically conservative but are relentlessly anti-left in their work. Mike Malice, Sam Harris, don’t really care, I just think they’re mostly wrong about everything. Russell Brand is probably uncategorizable, although his recent endorsement of Donald Trump will certainly brand him. Either way, the point remains that Rogan has a lot of guests on who are ideologically neutral at least as far as the show goes (the ancient aliens types) and a lot of guests who hold conservative social positions and few who hold liberal social positions. The result is a socially conservative show, even though it’s hosted by a gay-friendly weed-smoking agnostic.
I want to argue that a lot of people out there, including a lot of you, operate in this space - I do sincerely believe you when you say that you don’t hate trans people and think they should be free to live their lives; I also think you should stop treating that fact as some quick preamble before you talk about what you don’t like about the trans movement. I’m asking you to front the basic right to be trans, at least sometimes.
I will repeat these essential points.
In American society we have the right to call ourselves whatever gender we wish, and to use whatever pronouns we wish, thanks to the First Amendment. (That’s a good example of why it’s the best amendment.)
In American society we have the right to refer to others in accordance with their preferred gender identity if we so choose, including their preferred pronouns, again thanks to the First Amendment.
In American society we have the right to wear clothing traditionally associated with the other gender and to engage in other forms of gender expression such as the use of makeup, thanks to a panoply of overlapping personal and privacy rights.
In American society we have the right to have sex with whoever we want, so long as that sex is consensual and our partner is of-age and otherwise capable of consenting, thanks to Lawrence v. Texas and the Fourteenth Amendment.
In American society we have the right to marry whoever we want, provided they’re an unmarried individual adult, thanks to the Fifth Amendment, Obergefell v. Hodges, and the Respect for Marriage Act.
What a country!
Being trans is not a right that needs to be established legally because those legal protections already protect the right to exist as a trans person. But the right to live as a trans person needs to be defended because that right still remains vulnerable; there are many places in the world where trans people risk death just by existing. I understand that it’s easy to look at the liberal hegemony in our media and arts sectors and assume that trans rights are an essentially settled question. But as conservatives are fond of pointing out, elite opinion and broad public opinion are very often out of step with each other. Since that’s the case, I think it would be useful for the “adults are free to be trans, but I don’t like transwomen in sports/youth gender medicine/transwomen in women’s bathrooms” types to emphasize the part before the comma, every once in awhile. I’m not asking anyone to change their minds on any specifics, here. I’m asking for some of you to actually act like the initial “of course” is as important as the “but.”
Some people, meanwhile, genuinely don’t think that adults should be allowed to live with their preferred gender identities, although what the specifics of a law against such behavior would look like, I don’t know. And I do think there are people out there who might want to consider that possibility. Personally, I wish that all of you supported the right to define one’s own gender and live safely as you do so. But I think clarity is important in democracy, and if you just think that trans people are freaks and that Jesus says you can’t be trans, it’s better to have that all out in the open. I understand that there’s a layer of people out there who avoid directly socially conservative positions because they’re déclassé. But everyone should be clear about where they stand, and those who have a visceral opposition to trans people should just be that. And if you say “of course, but” whenever this issue comes up, I want you to just be who you are, too - but I want you to be it all the way.