#transcritical

Não é a gente que se identifica como algo ou não. É a sociedade, o patriarcado. Lésbica é uma posição material na sociedade. Não vem da minha mente, vem do que eu vivo. Se eu nascesse negra, não adiantaria eu dizer que sou azul pra opressão deixar de existir.

Não sou eu quem decide se sou mulher ou não: é o patriarcado. Não foi o ‘médico’, foi o patriarcado. O médico só identificou uma característica decidida nesse regime importante pra separar de que forma esses individuos serão explorados, nos produtos de seu trabalho e de seu corpo: reprodução e estupro no casamento, prostituição e demais. Produção de pessoas (que não terminamos de nos emancipar, se derem uma olhada em como os discursos aqui reproduzem o lugar de ‘cuidado’, ao se preocupar mais com outros grupos que consigo próprias).

Essa história de ‘genitalização’ só reproduz a idéia machista que vê mulheres como meros buracos.

Portar buceta significa muita coisa num regime de escravidão chamado Heterossexualidade Compulsória. Significa toda uma sorte de investimentos, de exclusões, é como Wittig chama, de “portar a estrela de Davi”1.

Eu tenho preguiça das políticas identitárias atuais, mas aposto em identidade enquanto vivência. E mulher é uma vivência concreta, não uma decisão da minha cabeça. (No entanto eu entendo considerar-se ‘lésbica’ não mulher como estratégia de lésbicas feministas para se visibilizarem dentro do feminismo, que apagou em nome duma política homogênea. Mas não acho que a idéia de lésbicas radicais ou de wittig era produzir uma política de identidade com a idéia de que ‘lésbicas não são mulheres’. Era apenas uma forma de gritar ao feminismo hegemônico e declarar a independência e autonomia políticas das lésbicas com respeito a um feminismo que as secundarizava, o que considero legítimo).

Não entendo por que tanta reprodução do que nos educaram pra fazer: por um lado pessoas que deixa de se enunciar na sua identidade lésbica porque se relaciona ou relacionou com trans, por outro alguém que comenta que ‘monossexualidades excluem pessoas trans’. Gente! Meu corpo minhas regras! Com respeito a nossas sexualidades tenho direito a excluir quem eu quiser, só me toca quem eu quiser. Não é discriminação! Assim como não é discriminação configurar espaços lésbicos, é estratégia de resistência, política e de ataque a toda essa merda.

Por outro lado, se assumem categorias despolitizadas inventadas por discursos sexológicos e psiquiátricos, como panssexual, e coloque o que quiserfobia. Caindo em individualismo: “a sociedade não decidirá o que eu sou”. Perdendo de vista o ponto da questão. Colocando tudo em termos de lutas sexuais. É preciso ver como surgiu essa colonização, onde e por que, por que as lutas feministas foram colonizadas por sexualidade. É dos interesses gays-masculinos, das agendas internacionais de Aids que patrocinam organizações feministas, é interesse do neoliberalismo. 2

Ser lésbica é mais que agarrar mulher. Ser lésbica é viver uma condição política, de desobediência e refugiadas políticas da heterossexualidade como regime político. Ser lésbica é mais que agarrar qualquer pessoa que não seja nascido homem ou que não se vista como tal, ser lésbica é as políticas e éticas de amor às lésbicas e às mulheres e criação de laços como forma de sabotar e destruir esse sistema.

Portanto, não é identidade simplesmente, é mais que mera identidade individual a conviver pacificamente junto a outras como pan, inter, trans, pomo, queer, bi, sado, whatever3. Lésbica não é oprimida/reprimida porque é uma prática sexual tão somente. Lésbicas são punidas, dizimadas e desaparecidas, censuradas e contra-propagandeadas porque são um coletivo em resistência e ataque à Supremacia Masculina. Ser lésbica é como Cheryl Clarke4 colocava: um ato político e coletivo (um coletivo) de resistência.

1 Monique Wittig, texto “Ninguém nasce mulher”. Peço que busquem ler Wittig como materialista, porque se faz uma leitura idealista de Wittig, quando ela diz que lésbicas não são mulheres, é em relação a um contexto específico do movimento lésbico com relação ao movimento de mulheres na frança. Recomendo o texto “Feminismo e lesbianismo Radical” da Frente Lésbica Radical francesa.

2 Para uma crítica ao conceito de fobia, buscar Sarah Lucia Hoagland: Mulher Povo Colonizado. Ela diz que esse conceito despolitiza e surgiu da psiquiatria, e que heterossexismo coloca a raíz políitca do problema. Celia Kitinzger tem um livro inteiro pra criticar a noção de diversidade sexual, e sua raíz histórica na tentativa da heterossexualidade compulsoria por meio da Psicologia e Psiquiatria, inventar o conceito de ‘orientação sexual’ para impedir que mulheres concebam a possibilidade de escolher mulheres. O livro se chama “The Social Construction of Lesbianism”

3 O LGBThjdwahjwdhjwahdhwa….

Mulher é uma categoria política, um grupo artificial, criado para ser explorado, 

baseando-se nas características fisiológicas que permitem explorar os produtos de seu corpo e trabalho, e criam a feminilidade que são as regras que essa casta deve observar e obedecer para não serem aniquiladas. Isso é gênero. Machos não vão sofrer essa assignação, somente as fêmeas sofrem a assignação de mulher que as identifica dentro dessa categoria, e a classificação é genital sim, porque o Patriarcado declara uma guerra contra esses corpos específicos. Não existe teoria feminista que não seja sobre os corpos das mulheres, por isso não podemos apagar essa materialidade e o foco sobre a realidade das mulheres e a importância dos seus corpos nessa teoria, destes corpos e de nenhum outro. É o corpo das mulheres que é alvo das políticas patriarcais. E foda-se a ‘dissidência sexual’ e a repressão da sua realização sexual e orgásmica, tem coisa muito mais grave acontecendo do que a repressão a essa gente poder ter barba e bigode e usar testosterona, dildo, filmar sua pornografia caseira. Agora tem mulher morrendo por aborto clandestino, ou tem mulher tendo um bilhão de filho, ou tem mulher sendo traficada, morta, estuprada. E sobre isso é feminismo, esse é o compromisso com as mulheres na qual a ética feminista se traduz.

Nunca vi movimento negro falar que raça é apenas uma ‘cor’ e reclamar que quem o faz, quem nomeia sua negritude, quem vê cor, está ‘racificando’ o movimento negro, e que ninguém é branco ou negro. Portanto parem de falar que estamos genitalizando feminismo ou que teoria feminista é uma teoria genital, é genital sim porque sexo importa, quem nasce com pinto nesse mundo patriarcal tá a salvo de muitas atrocidades gigantescas. Quem nasce com pinto na Nigéria não vai estar entre as 253 meninas desaparecidas, quem nasce com pinto em alguns lugares da África e India não vai ser casada aos 6 anos de idade, quem nasce com pinto em países do oriente médio não vai ter que andar com um pano na cara ou cobrindo todo corpo e até mesmo a visão, quem nasce com pênis não estará entre as possíveis vítimas de ataque de ácido e terá seu rosto desfigurado pra sempre, perdendo funções olfativas e visuais. Quem nasce com pinto não vai estar entre as desaparecidas em Juarez no México, pelas políticas de feminicídio. Quem nasce com pênis e é pobre não terá que vender seu corpo pra turistas aos 12 anos de idade durante a Copa Mundial este ano no Brasil, não será desaparecido nas redes de tráfico e prostituição. É muito dura a realidade dessa ‘genitalização’. Não peça pra eu divergir o foco do feminismo que é sobre as mulheres, e nenhum outro grupo mais, e pela destruição desses grupos enquanto categorias políticas para a liberdade das fêmeas serem fêmeas.1

So why is it that people say that all TERFs are anti-LGBT, violent, misogynist, ignorant, incompetent, prejudiced, bigoted, deceitful, and dishonest, as well as opposing human and civil rights for everyone?

This long post will discuss why. First off, it is important to understand that terfs and trans critical people are not interested in actual meaningful discussions.  They will not engage honestly, and frequently lie and use a wide variety of dishonest fallacies in the process.  

This undermines the process, as seen here:

Additionally, all TERFs — and Trans critical sorts — are deeply and fundamentally abusive.  This is usually because they themselves are abused, but instead of seeking to escape the cycle, they prefer to perpetuate it.  You can spot terfs and truscum being abusers through the use of this wheel of abuse:

Now, saying that doesn’t really mean much without understanding some of the other stuff that goes with it.  So let’s look at that:

Radical feminists who hate trans people ask for “sources”, but then ignore them and after that pretend like they were never posted. They will tell trans people to stay away yet actively go out and reblog from those same trans people and then claim the trans person is harassing them. They will send an anonymous post to trans people in order to entrap them.

And, most importantly, they never, ever, ever directly get involved with the actual content of a given post, and choose instead to attack the person writing the post.

Just a few of these people include folks like @appropriately-inappropriate, @never-obey, @pixienightmareguardian, @hello-missmayhem, @thisisafemblog, @terfect, @daisydeadhead, @plansfornigel, @drziggystardust, @feminist-foxxe, @transgender-harms-women, @yoursocialconstructsareshowing, @thebitchyspider, @hedonisticparadise, @evilfeminist, @lesbolution, @pornographicmeatnightmare, @delicately-interconnected, @goddessofstupidity, @justanothertraumablog,@sexoimporta, @radbabyradfem, and @mediumtrip. All of whom systematically, intetnionally, and gleefully are violent towards and abusive of trans people.

Are you tired of this? Do you want tumblr to be less hostile and more reasonable and rational?

These people ignore when they are given sources and information, and then deny they ever were given sources and information, and then complain about being given sources and information while calling them drivel, nonsense, and assorted other things meant to discount them.

In August of last year, I posted the first version of the violence against trans people post I have been reposting almost weekly ever since.

Since August, I have been asked roughly sixty times to provide sources. When I say I have, they laugh and say I didn’t provide sources. When I give links to materials, like the violence post, it is ignored or often erased from the reblogs, along with key parts of arguments or evidence.

To them, an argument from a trans person has no validity or merit unless it is backed up by a cis person. It takes a cis person who doesn’t like trans people to speak for trans people in their minds.

That is the how much they hate trans people. They will treat people who are recognized as experts, who are celebrated, as having less import or value than other people. Like those they claim to be resisting, they will do anything they can to deny validity, credit, or worth of those who in fact know more than them, because those people represent a threat to their creed.

They pat their pets, their servant trans people so harmed by their words they cannot tell kindness from cruelty any longer, on the head when they go after trans people, their well trained servant creatures who are just as desperate for validation as their less servile brothers, sisters, and siblings, but instead have buckled under the pressure, the oppression, and surrendered their spirit and soul.

That is how damaging their continuous onslaught of violence is.

They have neither moral nor ethical concerns here, either. They will lie, cheat, misrepresent, deceive, trick, fool, and then threaten those who oppose them. They will gang up on them, and they will do so half faced and without shame because they are that consumed by hate. All TERFs and trans critical people are anti-LGBT, violent, misogynist, ignorant, incompetent, prejudiced, bigoted, deceitful, and dishonest, as well as opposing human and civil rights for everyone.

They don’t want sources. They don’t want to protect women.

They want to harm women. They want to control women, police them, govern them, command them. It shows in their comments and ideas outside the fight against trans people.

Against trans women. Who are women. As women, the very word means they are adult human females. This merest statement is enough to send them into a mass attack on anyone of standing in their view who promotes such an idea that is a trans person.

The worst offenders to them, this collection of racist, classist, patriarchy enforcing, reality avoiding, ableist transphobes, are bi trans women of color.

Because those women always represent the worst. Those women always become the targets because those women have so many strikes against them they seem like easy prey.

Because those women are everything they claim they think women should be in terms of how they live in the world.

And that just adds to the offensiveness they cling to in their twisted creed, where there is no difference between a drag performer and a transitioned woman.

They choose to remain ignorant and incompetent when dealing with trans people because only human beings deserve being heard, deserve being seen, deserve being respected for who and what and how they are.

They do not see trans women as human beings.

They see trans women as objects or exercises. Abstract things. Walking falsehoods who ultimately need to erased and these days the favorite way they have of achieving that goal of genocide is to say that trans women won’t exist when gender is abolished, never once realizing in their ignorance that gender is the expression of sex in the social world.

Gender Abolition is based on the culturally intolerant notion that western imperialist ideas of gender are universal, and is an idea that promotes the ethnocentric colonization and oppression of other cultures and ways of involving gender, and is a direct call to the notion of manifest destiny that has so violently destroyed so much of the world’s resources. It is a fundamentally homophobic, transphobic, lesbophobic, biphobic, misogynist concept derived from extremism and a utopian idealism that ignores the lived experiences of other women, and the decades of work of women in non-western societies.

Male when used to describe a living, breathing person with a whole Self is using gender.

Calling body parts on groups of people “male” or “female” is using gender. Boobs and vaginas and penises are none of those things, yet they become gendered by social systems.

They still resist the fact that sex is a social construct, and they still claim they are not using essentialism when they talk about that feminine principle, that commonality of experience that women of color have consistently told them does not exist.

They deny that they have been violent to trans women, and they deny that violence has gone on for forty years. Because to them, it is not violent to ignore a person’s sense of self and cause them harm when they shouldn’t exist in the first place.

It is not extremist to say that they are genocidal. It is a statement of fact, proven time and time again by their own actions and deeds and words.

Nearly 90% of the major arguments against the lives of Trans people can be traced back to the work of two women, one of whom popularized these ideas and in the process made the following statement:

 “I contend that the problem with transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence”.

Decades later, after multiple people pointed out that she was calling for genocide in that statement (echoing very similar words to all who have called for genocide), she defended herself by saying the following:

I want to eradicate the medical and social systems that support transsexualism and the reasons why in a gender-defined society, persons find it necessary to change their bodies.

Janice Raymond, in trying really hard *not* to be calling for genocide.

And failing.

She wants to eradicate the reasons why persons find it necessary to change their bodies. Which, chiefly, I will note, is transness. As the other things she wants to eradicate prove.  Hmm, No wonder she wants to eradicate them.

You cannot eradicate transness without eradicating trans people.

So in her defense of not wanting to engage in genocide is, itself, based in a search for genocide, born of her own ignorance and incompetence.

The medical and social systems she wants to eradicate are Medicine, Psychology, Psychiatry, Sociology, Biology, Social Work, most Humanities, LGBT organizations and rights, Pharmacology, and so forth.

So it isn’t only genocide she calls for in her book, but a complete destruction of critical human efforts over the last 10000 years.

That is, without question, radical. Just not in a good way.

She wants to destroy completely.  To put an end to.

She came awfully close. Her work was teh foundation for every exclusion of medical care relating to Trans people until 2014, and starting in 1983. To achieve that goal, she worked with notoriously anti-woman Paul McHugh and the iinfamous Senator Jesse Helms.

With the end of the exemptions for trans care that quote and were based on her work, we will see the Trans community rise like never before.

When a terf tries to say that she didn’t really mean genocide, keep in mind, these are her words up above.

Words she spoke in defense of her saying “I contend that the problem with transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence”.

They claim they want to debate "trans theory", but it is never a debate where violence is involved.

TERF, TWERF, twerp, whatever you want to call the people who use feminism as the shield and excuse for their prejudice and bigotry are no different from those who use religion as the shield and excuse for their prejudice and bigotry.

The arguments, the tactics, the methods, the lack of morals and ethics, the aversion and anxiety and animus, the whole of their efforts are the same, distinguished only and solely by the claimed falsehood they use to protect themselves.

It is all just being a dick.

Now, some folks wonder about this. They want the sources on their terms, they want people to do what they want when they want it, and if someone doesn’t do it then, in their way, then that person is suddenly less worthy.

This time, though, you can help. You can make sure that they understand they cannot ignore what they ask for, and you can help by insisting that instead of attacking the people, they do what reasonable people do, and attack the ideas.

Non-Physical Violence Against Trans Women is still Violence Against Trans Women

This is often ignored by TERFs and related people, who then proceed to badger me for “sources” in a fallacious and dishonest attempt to misrepresent, deceive, mischaracterize, or undermine the reputation and character of my person and my work, I am repeating this post until such time as they reach an awareness of the violence they engage in, and as it is long and requires what one individual described as a dehydrating experience, I am once again going to place it as a quote, so that it might help in watching them struggle with large blocks of text marked only occasionally with images, similar to that humorous description of the experience noted here.

In 2002, the World Health Organization complied a landmark study of worldwide violence. This was the The World report on violence and health.

Representing a consensus of experts and scientists, peer reviewed multiple times over, and acting as the new foundation of broader support and understanding of the forces involved in tracking harmful, violent behavior, the report made it clear that there is a far more universal form of violence which is just as deadly as the aforementioned brutality.

At this point, the WHO, a part of the medical and legal aspect of the United Nations, representing the vast majority of the nations, and principle informing body to the other well known aspect of the UN relating to Human and Civil Rights, is not broadly or widely disagreed with by professionals, although often lay people, uninformed or misinformed by such trite and false aphorism such as the “sticks and stones” childhood rhyme, remain unaware of the violence they are engaged in.

That childhood rhyme, as well, is a statement of defiance, an utterance of the bullied to the bully, the oppressed to the oppressor, the victim to the abuser, a statement that they will no longer be hurt by those words because they can no longer be hurt by them — the scars are grown thick and calloused.

Two kinds of violence in particular are discussed at length, especially as they affect the lives of people in minority populations. These are psychological and deprivation/neglect.

Psychological violence includes and consists of the exclusion – or ostracism – of persons, and the application of stigma and societal efforts to deny them human dignity. So violence is also a core aspect and a major part of denying people their human and civil rights. This includes the violence of microaggressions (Sue, Derald Wing; Capodilupo, Christina M.; Torino, Gina C.; Bucceri, Jennifer M.; Holder, Aisha M. B.; Nadal, Kevin L.; Esquilin, Marta. Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implications for Clinical Practice. American Psychologist, v62 n4 p271-286 May-Jun 2007), developed out of the work of Dr. Chester Pierce, and further added to later by Mary Rowe. Microaggressions are a core concept in Critical Race Theory, and were brought into the mainstream of Feminist efforts and are often noted by Radical Feminist scholars such as Dr. Watkins, better known as bell hooks, in their critical race theory lensed approaches to feminism, which is directly oppositional to the sort of Radical Feminism, seen a colonialist, imperialist, white supremacist, and classist, and even admittedly so, given the background and privileges of the author and her advisor, who both drew heavily on their Catholic background and understanding in their work.

Deprivation/neglect consists of various forms of interpersonal, institutional, and consistent patterned violence that does not fundamentally include and consider the existence of trans people. This is called Ciscentrism, which is the normative pattern and the primary Axis of Oppression that trans people face, just like White Supremacy (racism), Patriarchy, Ableism, and so forth dominate other axes of oppression and are related form that work in tandem to oppress groups of people at a societal level. The effects of Deprivation and neglect all stem from the denial of basic human dignity, in this case, the most fundamental of which is recognizing that trans women are women, trans men are men, and as women and men, they are also female and male, since in English (and most other languages) those concepts are linked inextricably and creating separation is actively engaging in hostile action towards trans people. Trans people, as a rule, suffer multiple times higher than statistically normative rates of issues, and the only group that matches them, within the margin of error, are the adult survivors of child abuse and neglect.

What are some of the effects of this lifelong deprivation and neglect?

Poor physical health. Several studies have shown a relationship between various forms of household dysfunction (including childhood abuse) and poor health (Flaherty et al., 2006; Felitti, 2002). Adults who experienced abuse or neglect during childhood are more likely to suffer from physical ailments such as allergies, arthritis, asthma, bronchitis, high blood pressure, and ulcers (Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes, 2007).

Poor mental and emotional health. In one long-term study, as many as 80 percent of young adults who had been abused met the diagnostic criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder at age 21. These young adults exhibited many problems, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide attempts (Silverman, Reinherz, & Giaconia, 1996). Other psychological and emotional conditions associated with abuse and neglect include panic disorder, dissociative disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, anger, posttraumatic stress disorder, and reactive attachment disorder (Teicher, 2000; De Bellis & Thomas, 2003; Springer, Sheridan, Kuo, & Carnes, 2007).

Social difficulties. Children who experience rejection or neglect are more likely to develop antisocial traits as they grow up. Parental neglect is also associated with borderline personality disorders and violent behavior (Schore, 2003).

Juvenile delinquency and adult criminality. According to a National Institute of Justice study, abused and neglected children were 11 times more likely to be arrested for criminal behavior as a juvenile, 2.7 times more likely to be arrested for violent and criminal behavior as an adult, and 3.1 times more likely to be arrested for one of many forms of violent crime (juvenile or adult) (English, Widom, & Brandford, 2004). THis one is particularly disturbing given that of late several TERFs on tumblr have taken to passing around a study and using it as proof that trans women are “male socialized”, which is an ostracizing argument, violent in and of itself, but in doing so, they are arguing that the victims of their historic, 40 year old pattern of abuse, noted by the publication of Dr, Raymond’s book which popularized their arguments, is a directly contributing cause of that violence through the ongoing and persistent abuse and neglect of trans people as children, which a significant number of them oppose the treatment of. That is victim blaming, and is ultimately contributing to the bullying an rape crises that are going on in the US at present.

Alcohol and other drug abuse. Research consistently reflects an increased likelihood that abused and neglected children will smoke cigarettes, abuse alcohol, or take illicit drugs during their lifetime (Dube et al., 2001). According to a report from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as many as two-thirds of people in drug treatment programs reported being abused as children (Swan, 1998).

These are further divided into Interpersonal and Community forms of violence, which then means that violence can be noted in 20 distinct forms by which it can happen.

They developed, out of that, a definition of violence that is as follows:

“the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”

The Bolded portions are what this post is going to focus on here.

The typology established distinguishes four modes in which violence may be inflicted:

physical;

sexual

psychological attack

deprivation.

It further divides the general definition of violence into sub-types according to the victim-perpetrator relationship.

Self-directed violence refers to violence in which the perpetrator and the victim are the same individual and is subdivided into self-abuse and suicide. This demonstrates that suicide and self-abuse are directly caused by external forces which drive an individual to this sort of violence.

Interpersonal violence refers to violence between individuals, and is subdivided into family and intimate partner violence and community violence.

The former category includes child maltreatment; intimate partner violence; and elder abuse, while the latter is broken down into acquaintance and stranger violence and includes youth violence; assault by strangers; violence related to property crimes; and violence in workplaces and other institutions.

Assault is predominantly physical in terms of the way most people think of it, but it is also, as the image above demonstrates, non-physical, as is common especially among bullies and those who engage in domestic violence, which sets the stage and creates the opportunity for more physical violence by excusing that physical violence and establishing a pattern of blamelessness for the perpetrator and blame and fault for the victim.

Collective violence refers to violence committed by larger groups of individuals and can be subdivided into social, political and economic violence.

When speaking about the ideology itself of a certain kind of radical feminism, this is kind of violence that the ideology, notably structured by the book written by Janice Raymond under the watchful tutelage of Mary Daly that popularized and more widely disseminated the popular opinions and stereotypes of trans people (conflating them with performance artists) that to this day are used by anyone who opposes the human dignity, and therefore the human and civil rights of trans persons, as tools of violent oppression and direct violence, relying on established institutional violence in a system that is centered around and focused on the lives of Cis people, in order to further these ends.

See where it says power?

Cis people have that. The systems that operate in this world are created without consideration, thought, inclusion, attention, or concern to the needs and lives of trans people.

When you see Someone attacking trans people, they are usually using that institutional power.

When someone says trans women are men or male, that trans men are female or women, that non binary people don’t exist or that the pronoun choices of someone are stupid, all of that…

All

Of

That

Is the use of institutional power.

Those things are done with intent when folks are attacking trans people.

So we have the intentional use of power.

This is actual, as well, and it is against both an individual and a group.

And the effect of that is perpetuating the ongoing psychological and social harm.

So, it isn’t a joke, it isn’t made up, it isn’t playing around.

It literally is violence to call a trans woman male or a man, to use the wrong pronouns,not make arguments based on the idea that they are not women, and so forth.

Michigan women’s music festival is bring violent. TERFs are being violent. The media is being violent. The representations of trams women by men who are acting is violent.

It is violence.

There is no but, no well, maybe, no if. This isn’t an abstract talking point or some hypothetical mental exercise.

This is not even up for debate.

It is violence.

This isn’t a thing one can disagree about honestly, for that matter.

That is why I say things are violent. That is why I say people are being immoral and unethical.

Do not ask a trans woman to be nice to someone being violent towards them.

Doing that tells everyone you value people less than your beliefs.

One of the more pervasive forms of this harm is exclusion — more formally described as Ostracism. Kipling D. Williams is one of the foremost researchers in this area of study, which has been ongoing for many years. Using thoroughly vetted methods, he has noted some startling factors that arise directly out of ostracism itself — with or without verbal derogation or physical assault (that means insults and related microaggressions).

Note that: without any sort of physical violence or even the use of slurs, there is violence done by the act of ostracism.

When one is ostracized, physically, the body receives such stimuli in the same way it receives a physical blow. That is, in controlled or uncontrolled situations, the act of ostracism, but itself, is felt by the body int he same way that a physical attack is felt.

The body reacts to them the same, with the physical blow simply involving more effort on the part of the body to heal, while with the nonphysical attack, the healing takes much, much longer.

“Being excluded is painful because it threatens fundamental human needs, such as belonging and self-esteem,” Williams said. “Again and again research has found that strong, harmful reactions are possible even when ostracized by a stranger or for a short amount of time.”

In his work, Dr. Williams has identified three stages of dealing with ostracism. The first stage is simply being ostracised. For trans people, the signals of ostracism come in many forms. Most of them have to do with aversion or anxiety about trans people or transness in general — that is to say, transphobia.

Transphobia is the anxiety, aversion, and/or animus, singly or in any combination, towards trans people or Transness.

Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to trans people or Transness. It includes prejudice against trans people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom.

Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual,statements made by trans people. It also includes not wanting trans people in the restroom.

Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing trans people from being In the restroom by law or policy.

Transness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does not conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to a variance between their physical sex and one or both of their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity.

The persons who most commonly engage in this sort of violent activity, this violence against trans persons, and who are part of the system that encourages transphobia at both an interpersonal and community level (thus fostering greater violence and perpetuating the violence itself as part of an effort of genocide, justified through the call “I contend that the problem with transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence." as promoted by Dr. Raymond in her bestselling book that has been noted as hate speech and that is often cited and referenced both directly and indirectly by those who oppose trans lives, rights, and liberties) are called Cis people.

Cisness is the state of awareness or condition in society of someone who does conform in a majority of aspects to the way their society or culture sees them as behaving and living in relation to their culture’s social construction of physiological sex, usually due to an alignment between their physical sex and both their social sex identity and/or internal sex identity. It exists at the same level as awareness of self, and it is, itself, an awareness.

Others have to do with aspects of social permissiveness — the things that one is allowed to do as a member of a particular class of persons and the things that others are not allowed to do as a result of not being in that class of persons.

This permissiveness is readily tracked in three ways, each of which applies as part of a whole:

Innocence: I am not looked to as the cause of problems in a social group.

Worthiness: I am presumed worthy of a social group’s trust and wealth.

Competence: I am expected to be skillful, successful, and autonomous.

This particular aspect of permissiveness is often referred to as Dominant Class Privilege.

Dominant class privilege can be tested using a five step test:

Membership: I am a member of a social group that is dominant through no action of my own, nor through being mistaken for a member of that social group.

Stigma: I do not have stigma attached to me along that axis of oppression

Innocence: I am not looked to as the cause of problems in a social group.

Worthiness: I am presumed worthy of a social group’s trust and wealth.

Competence: I am expected to be skillful, successful, and autonomous.

Being mistaken for something does not make one that thing.

Privilege is not lost: it is denied, it is taken, it is blocked. One cannot lose it, one is simply denied access to it, and that denial can only happen when one is removed from ones cultural milieu (thus changing who gets what privilege) or by not actually being a member of that social group that is privileged. Benefiting from privilege is not the same thing as possessing that privilege.

This is how privilege works; it is the antithesis of stigma. To understand privilege, you must understand stigma. The effect of Stigma is Ostracization, and so the act of employing stigma against a stigmatized population is an act of violence.

In the case of Trans people, the Dominant Class is persons who are not intersex and who are not Trans — that is, persons who are otherwise typical and common, the majority or persons in the world. These people are referred to as Cis persons.

These persons may find themselves dealing situationally with perceived membership in the class of trans and/or intersex persons, but they are not actually within those categories. This is called an intersectional blocking of privilege.

The messages that trans people are told are often about there being something wrong with them are part of Stigma. They also receive messages about how what they are doing is wrong, or about how they are behaving is wrong, and when those messages are combined with the ones they have received all their lives and internalized – taken into themselves – these message serve to reinforce and often mirror the idea that something is wrong with them.

When trans people reach out initially, those first tentative steps they take only with people they trust in ways that they find almost impossible to do with other people, they ask some variant of the question “what is wrong with me” or they state, bluntly, “there is something wrong and I need to fix it” and they are referring to themselves.

This is the power of stigma – an unseen mark that connotes the lack of value and unworthiness of a person.

Social stigma is the extreme disapproval of or discontent with a person or group because of being different in some way, that are perceived, and separate them, from other members of a society. Stigma is then applied to a person, by the greater society, who differs from their cultural norms.

Stigmatized people see others in three distinct ways:

the stigmatized are those who bear the stigma;

the normals are those who do not bear the stigma; and

the wise are those among the normals who are accepted by the stigmatized as “wise” to their condition

The wise come in two forms:

Active wise, who speak out to effect change in the stigma; and

Passive wise, who remain socially silent.

Stigmatization involves dehumanization, demonization, threat, policing, aversion, shaming, and sometimes the depersonalization of others into stereotypes. Stigmatizing others can work as self-esteem enhancement, control enhancement, and anxiety buffering, through comparing oneself to less fortunate others, and so increase one’s own subjective sense of well-being and one’s self-esteem.

Policing other women can only ever serve the oppression of women. Policing is an act of oppression, an effort in service to ideology over humanity, a moment of support for the patriarchy.

The radical feminism of TERFs on tumblr is built on policing other Women, structured around anti and negatives, and in fact and truth is a means of division in service to patriarchy.

Consider that for a moment.  People actually benefit from the act of stigmatizing others, emotionally.  It isn’t rational – but people, by and large, are not rational beings.

This is part of why it is noted that Trans women, specifically, are eroticized, being exotic in their perceived natures, and so objectified, as women, but are also treated as the objects of ire more broadly. They are objects of desire as Women, and objects of Ire as Trans people, a particular combination that exists only for trans people, and does apply to a lesser extent to Trans men and non-binary/GNC trans people as well.

Stigma can enter into a person when they live with it for a great deal of time.  It becomes a part of the way they think about themselves, about things related to themselves, and become s a part of their goals.

Passing is an example of internalized stigma – it serves within the community to act as a manner by which the stigma experienced by trans people can be avoided through “fitting in” – that is, meeting the expectations and following the rules of the broader culture and oppressive structures.

Being an Ally is often expected to involve being an Active Wise, and when an Active Wise fails to fully understand the nature of the stigmas, or errs in including stigma in their own actions, they are often the targets of ire, which serves to unintentionally convert them into passive wise, when such anger should be seen as a loss of trust and a call and appeal to do better and improve.

The second stage of dealing with ostracism is Coping.

Coping usually means the person being ostracized tries harder be included. The way they do that may vary. For example, some of those who are ostracized may be more likely to engage in behaviors that increase their future inclusion by mimicking, complying, obeying orders, cooperating or expressing attraction. Others may seek to connect with persons who are similarly ostracized, creating an Affinity Group (or in-group), and possibly even advocate for changes to the social norms. In yet other cases — and in particular if there is something that gives them a sense that they are being ostracized by a larger group, or they gain the sense that it isn’t possible to gain inclusion, or they come to feel or be told that they have little control over their lives (such as by being told that their knowledge of themselves is invalid or untrue, as frequently happens with Trans people when they are told they are not women), they may turn to provocative behavior and even aggression, such as when this happens between two groups that are oppressed under two different axes of oppression — especially when there are aspects of situational membership shared.

“They will go to great lengths to enhance their sense of belonging and self-esteem,” is how Williams describes it. However, ”At some point, they stop worrying about being liked, and they just want to be noticed.”

This can lead — especially among competing out-groups — to internal warfare and the creation of ideologies and statements of outright hostility. This is the collective and interpersonal violence noted previously.

The example most readily found of this is the way that TERF’s engage with Trans people. At this point, after 40 years of open hostility between the two out-groups, they are constantly engaged in a series of escalating aggression and provocative behavior. This is most notable in the way that Terfs call trans women men and then say Kill all men, and the way that trans women say die cis scum. While both are acts of violence done by each side against the other, it should be noted that the trans response to the consistent, 40 year pattern of outright hostility that was sparked and established by the publication of Dr. Raymond’s hate speech laden book, “The Transsexual Empire, the Making of the She-Male”, which is also the point at which the slur she-male entered the public lexicon, as documented by its etymology in the popular usage, thus meaning that Radical feminists also contributed to the fetishization that Dr. Raymond was, herself, claiming to be in opposition to, by providing a readily recognizable term for the Porn industry that she still opposes to this day.

All of which comes to a head in the incredibly hostile statement “kill yourself” which is a direct act of violence with an often deadly outcome.

When ostracization continues for a long time — decades, in this case — the third stage, called Resignation, is reached. At this point, many simply give up.

“This is when people who have been ostracized are less helpful and more aggressive to others in general,” says KD WIlliams. “It also increases anger and sadness, and long-term ostracism can result in alienation, depression, helplessness and feelings of unworthiness.”

Trans people, as a general rule, are in the third stage for the most part. This is particularly true for those who transition as adults, but still applies in many situations to those who transition as children. The long term effects of ostracism are incredibly damaging to people, as a whole, and all major pediatric organizations look at it as a form of child abuse and neglect — for good reason.

The issues that face the adult survivors of child abuse and neglect are massive and potent ongoing social issues that are merely exacerbated by the constant interpersonal and community attacks that trans people experience from TERFs.

As I’ve noted previously in discussing how to identify transphobia and the argument of ostracism that is the male socialization argument, these attacks are harsh, critical, dehumanizing, overt acts of violence that are based in the presence within a Dominant Class and are founded on the principles of Ciscentrism, which is opposed by Transcentrism. I discuss some of the specifics about how this oppression is engaged in various posts such as here, here, and here.

Williams says “Endure ostracism too long and they’re depleted. You don’t have it in you to cope, so you give up. You become depressed, helpless, and despairing.” Even memories of long-ago rejection can bring up those feelings.

His work, widely cited and broadly available, lays out the foundation for the manner in which trans people are actively and intentionally harmed through acts of violence that include microaggressions, psychologically damaging verbal attacks, and active efforts at exclusion and using existing stigma and shame against trans people in both externalized and internalized varieties, preying on low self esteem and insecurities of trans people (in particular, those going through the crisis point of transition, which is an incredibly fragile time and is, itself, an act of overt and fundamental hostility to another person during a time of incredibly personal and psychological vulnerability), and acting as if in concert with larger forces (such as those on the religious right and those within patriarchy) to create a powerful and potent mix of violence that has the appearance of being socially sanctioned in an environment where such behavior is not only tolerated, but often encouraged (social media).

This is the violence against trans people that is often talked about — it need not be a clue by four to the skull to have the same effect, and indeed, when combined with the life history of such experiences, it makes it an outright act of cruelty, inhumane in its force, and absolutely an act of violence.

How To Spot A Transphobe (and transphobia is violence)

Here, in a new, expanded edition of four easy lessons, is how to spot a transphobe.

Transphobes are known for their ignorance, incompetence, dishonesty, violence, bigotry, prejudice, immorality and lack of ethics, but sometimes spotting the things that make those points true can be tricky.

So here are 50 Ways to spot a Transphobe.

Lesson one:

1: If they think that cis has something to do with liking your body

2: If they think that cis has something to do with the clothes you wear or makeup

3: if they think that being trans has something to do with liking your body.

4: if they think that beings trans has something to do with the clothes you wear or make up

5: If they think that cis is a slur

6: If they think that gender is not composed of three to five distinct elements

7: If they think that being trans is a mental illness

8: If they think that being cis is a bad thing.

9: If they think that cis privilege has anything to do with someones’s sex or gender

10: If they think that biology says that trans women are male.

Lesson Two:

11: If they think that the points above are limited just to trans women, since we are talking about trans folk. Note that these are exemplars based on actual ideas held by people who hate trans people, and so the assertions are equally valid for all trans folk along the spectrum.

12: If they make an argument against trans women that features the idea of “male socialization”, yet never note the way this argument relies on racism because they don’t understand how it does so.

13: If they think calling a trans woman a man or male is not violence. Bonus: they are not only ignorant, they are also violent.

14: If they ever say ” it’s not like i ever go out of my way to message anyone ever and trigger them intentionally”, and pretend like their stuff doesn’t show up in tags or is reblogged or is said in public on tumblr since tumblr is a platform designed intentionally to make things visible to other people.

15: If they think that “gender abolition” is not a dog whistle for genocide of trans people.

16: If they think that bodily autonomy is great for women, but bad for for trans women by arguing that trans women have no place in the pro-choice movement.

17: If they are against sex work and never speak about how trans women of color are driven into it by the same forces that drive cis women of color into it and at the same ages.

18: If they think that trans women cannot be lesbians or that trans men cannot be gay men.

19: If they think that despite holding any of the items in this list they are an ally of the trans community.

20: If they argue that trans women represent a danger to cis women.

Lesson Three:

21: If they disagree with the term Cis.

22: If they think that Transness is a mental illness named gender dysphoria

23: If they argue that gender is a social construct but argue that sex is not a social construct.

24: If they argue against unisex restrooms because of risks associated with trans women.

25: If they argue for female only space instead of cis only space (these are two different things)

26: If they say they don’t hate trans people but use arguments that rely on seeing trans women as men, not only are they ignorant, they are also violent and hypocritical.

27: If they think that the treatment for trans children isn’t based on decades of research and study by experts in pediatric care.

28: if they think that Transness has always been a mental illness when it wasn’t introduced until after homosexuality was removed.

29: If they they think that trans women are just homophobic gay men.

30: If they say that trans women are not women because womanhood is not a feeling or identity

Lesson Four:

31: If they don’t agree with Trans Theory and think trans theory is the stuff from lesson one.

32: If they say things like cis privilege has something to do with a person’s “mode of presentation”

33: If they say things like “How can I, as someone who doesn’t subscribe to gender politics and does not have a gender identity, be “cis”?” Right before describing themselves as cis people.

34: If they say terf is a slur

35: If they argue for separate but equal like trans woman/ cis woman restrooms

36: If They say that a trans woman Ina relationship with another woman is “straight”

37: If they get upset at the idea of a women’s space including trans women

38: If they think that trans men in a women’s space is ok

39: If they think that when people say they are being essentialist, they leap to the conclusion it is about biological essentialism and never think about what the person says routinely.

40: If they make a habit of being violent, dishonest, prejudiced, bigoted, aversive, anxious, incompetent, ignorant, immoral, and unethical when it comes to trans people.

Lesson Five:

41: if they post any quote from Sheila Jeffreys, Julie Bindel, or Janice Raymond on their blogs without pointing out how they are all deeply transphobic

42: if they think that it is reasonable for trans people to engage in dialog with people who are violent towards them but refuse to acknowledge that violence.

43: If they think “cotton ceiling” is about forcing lesbians to have sex.

44: If they reference “Gender Identity Watch” or “OWL”.

45: If they talk about “redefining woman” the same way folks talk about “redefining marriage”. .

46: If they talk about gender as if it is not the way that society deals with physiological sex.

47: If they use phrases like “womyn born womyn”, “women born female”, or a half dozen other variations of the same thing.

48: If they think that Laverne Cox is a misogynist or that Janet Mock thinks positively of molestation of children.

49: If they argue that male socialization only affects males.

50: If they think that saying die cis scum is a threat.

Lesson Six

51: describes themselves as Trans critical

52: Say that Transness is a medical condition

53: Say that Dysphoria is required to be trans

54: Saying that disliking trans people is a legitimate response to their behavior of expanding and strengthening misogyny through their glorification of gender. 

55: saying that trans people need to be nicer to trans critical people and other transphobic people

56: Argue that Gender Critical is different from trans critical

57: Claim misogyny cannot be engaged in against trans women

58: “Trans Theory” is responsible for perpetuating patriarchal gender systems

59:Sex is not a social construct (when used in reference to any of the above, it is an intellectually dishonest attempt to devalue the lives of trans people)

60: “I hate trans people”

Note:

Any single one of those things is proof that the person involved has no idea what they are talking about and is actively engaged in worrying about the risks of, feeling disgusted or sickened by trans people or things around transness, fears being around trans people, or harbors an intense dislike of trans people.

All of which are forms of transphobia, an irrational mindset that affects their ability to accurately and honestly deal with the larger world around them.

Transphobia comes from one or more of three distinct mindsets: Aversion, Anxiety, and Animus.

Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Example: getting agitated by the idea of a trans woman in the locker room.

Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Example: not wanting a trans woman in the locker room.

Animus is a strong and intense dislike. It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Example: trying to stop a law passed using the argument that a trans woman might be in a locker room, or that trans women as a class are a danger to women.

So any of those thing, either individually or in combination, is what makes up transphobia.

People saying the 50 things noted above are ignorant of that, and ignorant as well of their own transphobia, and so think that what they are saying has some sort of value critically. Since none of them are true, there is no critical value in the statements, since they are essentially making shit up as they go.

****WARNING*****

Transphobes are dangerous. They are violent, they are dishonest, and they are both immoral and unethical. Confronting Transphobes often leads to gang attacks on Tumblr, and so it is not recommended that you confront a transphobe directly, unless you have the stomach and time for it.

This is brought to you by the woman that these transphobes think runs a whole bunch of different sites online, is a “rape apologist”, is a “War Criminal” and a “murderer”, “cult leader”, “creature”, and whom they really hate seeing. Seriously.  They call this wife, mom, grandmother, veteran, sociologist and psychologist all those things and more — like “man”, “ugly”, and more.  Doubt it?  Let’s demonstrate some of it:

They advocate for child abuse despite is being unethical and denial of medically necessary care:

They create spoof accounts like “broni dorsay” or this one, and steal my property to put up so that people think it is me:

Oh, and don’t confront them, even to be nice to them, as they respond to even basic courtesies with vile language:

Remember, they are talking about a woman:

And all of the above are the *nice* things they say. The really bad stuff they hide from people who don’t follow them.

So now you know why it is that people say that all TERFs are anti-LGBT, violent, misogynist, ignorant, incompetent, prejudiced, bigoted, deceitful, and dishonest, as well as opposing human and civil rights for everyone.

It is because it is absolutely true. And they prove it, constantly.

Transphobia is aversion, anxiety, or animus, singly or in any combination, regarding trans people or transness.

Aversion is things like being disgusted, in opposition to, identifying something as repugnant, and exhibiting strong feelings about this. Aversion is the desire to avoid, the act of arguing to avoid or reduce encounters. It includes being unwilling to listen or accept factual,statements made by trans people. It also includes not wanting trans people in the restroom.

Anxiety is distress, worry, concern, and overt anxiousness about something or someone that is strongly expressed in physical, literal, or metaphorical terms. Anxiety is worry, concern, or anticipatory ideation relating to trans people or Transness. It includes prejudice against trans people, such as worrying about what they do in the restroom.

Animus is a strong and intense dislike. It involves devaluing the lives of people, erasing their dignity, opposing their civil and human rights, denying them the ability to mark themselves,and outright harm to them. Animus is intense dislike, easily distinguished by overly concerned and reactionary language and violence, in any form. It includes agitating in the interest of preventing trans people from being In the restroom by law or policy.

So any of those thing, either individually or in combination, is what makes up transphobia.

Examples of Transphobic Statements

People who mutilate themselves like transgendered (Animus)

Transness is a mental illness. (Animus)

Transness is a medical condition (Anxiety)

I do not feel safe having male socialised trans women in my space. (Aversion, Anxiety)

Cis assigns a gender to someone. (Anxiety)

Transwomen are biologically male. (Animus)

Trans women are men (Animus)

Trans men are traitors (Animus)

trans politics enforces gender and gender roles by reducing womanhood to a stereotype made up by males. (Animus, Anxiety)

If we include gender identity protections in this bill, it will be harder to pass (Aversion, Anxiety)

The second you become pregnant you are a woman.(Animus, Aversion)

There are many other examples, readily found in pretty much any attack or pretend “Criticism” on trans lives or in any post that deals in trans issues coming from someone who proclaims themselves “trans critical”. There are several more examples below.

The concept of Trans Critical, itself, is based in Aversion derived from Anxiety and supported by Animus, so it is a fairly easy to spot examples.

Common Tactics used

One of the most common tactics employed by transphobic people is to look for a statement that triggers a non sequitur argument, is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises. In a non sequitur, the conclusion could be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. An example of this is the statement:

"I dislike penises" is not a sexual orientation.

The statement is wholly true, in and of itself, Sexual orientations are not “likes penis, doesn’t like penis, can like penis, and doesn’t care about penis” because that doesn’t work. 

However, often the response to such a statement will be “you support forcing lesbians to like dick”, which has nothing to do with the statement itself, but has much to do with the character of the messenger (ad hominem), and brings unrelated concepts to the premise (which is the factual and true statement).

This is commonly called derailing, and is a particular form of dishonest and deceitful tactic that employs a wide variety of dishonest and deceitful actions. In the example above, the dishonest derai is joined by the dishonesty of the ad hominem, and is also a strawman argument (asserting something that isn’t contained in the original premise or first statement), thus combining three distinct acts of dishonesty into a single sentence than in and of itself is not true (and so a lie).

Derailing, at any time, is an automatic “loss”, because the act of derailing is an act of arguing in bad faith.

Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is double mindedness or double heartedness in duplicity, fraud, or deception.

It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.

The expression “bad faith” is associated with “double heartedness”, which is also translated as “double mindedness”.

A bad faith belief may be formed through self-deception, being double minded, or “of two minds”, which is associated with faith, belief, attitude, and loyalty. In the 1913 Webster’s Dictionary, bad faith was equated with being double hearted, “of two hearts”, or “a sustained form of deception which consists in entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings, and acting as if influenced by another”.

The concept is similar to perfidy, or being “without faith”, in which deception is achieved when one side in a conflict promises to act in good faith (e.g. by raising a flag of surrender) with the intention of breaking that promise once the enemy has exposed himself.

After Jean-Paul Sartre’s analysis of the concepts of self deception and bad faith, bad faith has been examined in specialized fields as it pertains to self deception as two semi-independently acting minds within one mind, with one deceiving the other.

Some examples of bad faith include: a company representative who negotiates with union workers while having no intent of compromising; a prosecutor who argues a legal position that he knows to be false; an insurer who uses language and reasoning which are deliberately misleading in order to deny a claim.

Reasoned discussion is not possible with someone who is acting in bad faith, and ends immediately.

THis flow chart outlines that process:

Bad faith is where one or more of the first three steps in the flow chart are not true.

In the previous example about derailing, the act of derailing, itself, is an act of not being willing to follow basic principles of reason, as honesty is a fundamental aspect of those principles, and so the person making that derail is indicating, at the very start, that they are not interested in a conversation, and are, instead, interested in attacking and engaging in a violent and abusive manner.

  ****WARNING*****

Transphobes are dangerous. They are violent, they are dishonest, and they are both immoral and unethical. Confronting Transphobes often leads to gang attacks on Tumblr, and so it is not recommended that you confront a transphobe directly, unless you have the stomach and time for it.

They will actively seek to destroy your character and reputation, they will accuse you of all manner of things — including murder, being a war criminal, being a class A hacker, having 500 blogs, being other people, a stalker, a rape apologist, a 60 year old linebacker, and that you make them feel like drinking bleach, just to touch on the surface of some of the more recent things that have been said about people.

So you must be strong when responding.

Responding to Anxiety, Aversion, & Animus

The best response to Anxiety, Aversion, & Animus is to provide examples of how the statements are any of those three things.

Cognitive Biases are often deeply embedded in Transphobic statements, particularly when Animus is involved, as Animus alters the fundamental ability of the individual to perceive things clearly.

Focalism - the tendency to rely too heavily, or “anchor,” on one trait or piece of information when making decisions – is widespread, relying primarily on the basis of their perceived natural order. “biology arguments” such as “but biologically they are male, so” tend to ignore wider considerations like compassion, human dignity, and human and civil rights.

The Backfire effect – when people react to disconfirming evidence by strengthening their beliefs — is also frequently encountered, and indeed, is evidence itself of the strength in the Animus.

The Belief bias – an effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion — is often noted among those who frequently profess or describe belief as a fundamental aspect of their opposition. This is not religious belief, though it can be, this is the sort of belief one is referencing when you say “I believe”.

Confirmation bias – the tendency to search for, interpret and remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions — is rather obvious after only a few exchanges, and is particularly widespread among “TERF” types and those professing to be Trans Critical.

Most importantly, all of these arguments are marked by Conservatism – the tendency to insufficiently revise one’s belief when presented with new evidence.

This is very important, as the individuals often do not realize that they are engaging in that conservative belief. To support their views, biased as they are, they will often rely on a handful of fallacies.

These fallacies are, in and of themselves, acts of dishonesty and deception, and are based in irrational thinking (which is to be expected when one is dealing with aversion, anxiety, or animus, since persons embracing such are fundamentally irrational).

The five most common versions of these in my experience are the following:

Strawman - This is where someone misrepresents someone’s argument or statement to make it easier to attack. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone’s argument or statement, it’s much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate. Example: After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenceless by cutting military spending.

Incredulity: This happens where one found something difficult to understand, or are unaware of how it works, or made out like it’s probably not true. An excellent example of this is the notion that sex is a social construction — despite it being known to be such for decades and an accepted part of scientific discourse, they will refuse to acknowledge it, treating biology as inviolate, even though it is one of the sciences most affected by cultural shifts (see racism). Complex subjects like biological evolution through natural selection require some amount of understanding before one is able to make an informed judgement about the subject at hand; this fallacy is usually used in place of that understanding.Example: Kirk drew a picture of a fish and a human and with effusive disdain asked Richard if he really thought we were stupid enough to believe that a fish somehow turned into a human through just, like, random things happening over time.

Appeal to Nature, where it is argued that because something is ‘natural’ (biology, as an example) it is therefore valid, justified, inevitable, good or ideal. Many ‘natural’ things are also considered ‘good’, and this can bias our thinking; but naturalness itself doesn’t make something good or bad. For instance murder could be seen as very natural, but that doesn’t mean it’s good or justifiable. Example: The medicine man rolled into town on his bandwagon offering various natural remedies, such as very special plain water. He said that it was only natural that people should be wary of ‘artificial’ medicines such as antibiotics.

Purity Fallacies are where they make an appeal to purity as a way to dismiss relevant criticisms or flaws of an argument or statement. In this form of faulty reasoning one’s belief is rendered unfalsifiable because no matter how compelling the evidence is, one simply shifts the goalposts so that it wouldn’t apply to a supposedly ‘true’ example. This kind of post-rationalization is a way of avoiding valid criticisms of one’s argument. Example: Angus declares that Scotsmen do not put sugar on their porridge, to which Lachlan points out that he is a Scotsman and puts sugar on his porridge. Furious, like a true Scot, Angus yells that no true Scotsman sugars his porridge.

Loaded Question or Statement. Here they ask a question or make a statement that has a presumption built into it so that it can’t be answered without appearing to be uncaring, uninterested, supportive of a taboo, or similar act. Loaded question fallacies are particularly effective at derailing rational debates because of their inflammatory nature – the recipient of the loaded question often feels as if they are compelled to defend themselves and may appear flustered or on the back foot. Example: Grace and Helen were both romantically interested in Brad. One day, with Brad sitting within earshot, Grace asked in an inquisitive tone whether Helen was having any problems with a drug habit. A frequent example as well is “well, what about the poor children in (insert your country of choice) who are starving — if you care so much about this, why don’t care about them?”

There are many other logical fallacies that are frequently used. You can study them at this link , and learn them at your own time.

Above all, remain calm, and understand that their goal is to hurt you. TO hurt your feelings, to hurt your confidence, to hurt your reputation and self esteem, and all of its is for the sole purpose of making you shut up and go away.

They are bullies. And that is what they seek.

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