Trans

Some tentative thoughts about "the culture wars", transphobia, "schools as a site of grooming", et al.

Leftists generally seem to frame the “culture war” as coming from only one side: right wing bigots want to take back the social rights of gays and other sexual minorities in the name of the traditional family. At least that’s how trans rights is talked about by the left: as a sign of their goodness, as part of their agenda to expand “social rights” and inclusion, as the latest frontier in the quest to uncover and eradicate discrimination of any kind; anyone who objects -- regardless of what it is they have to say -- or even expresses reservations is said to be motivated solely by “hate” (according to many trans activists, they are undergoing a “genocide”). The conservatives and right-winger say the family, morality, and religion is under attack by the left.

I wouldn’t deny there is plenty of old-fashioned “homophobia” (of which, transphobia is related) expressed by the Right, particularly in the moral panic about “groomers.” On the other hand, is there really a serious political effort underway to roll back gay marriage or discriminate against LGBTQS? The “backlash” relates to a few specific issues that have mainly been pushed by well-funded liberal activists with support from some of the leading Democrats: gender transition for children; trans women in sports; and trans women’s access to spaces formerly exclusive to biological women such as locker rooms and prisons (some radical leftists get really riled up about that last one, even violently attacking feminists (terfs) who oppose female identifying male rapists being sent to women’s prisons, as happened recently in Oakland, CA).

All this is hotly debated in the bourgeois public sphere and the state legislatures. It's a trap to get involved in it from the point of view: what should the law say? What is fair in the conflict of rights between trans women and “cis-women” in weight lifting? The latter would say it deprives them of the right to show that biological women can be fierce competitors as long as the competition is equalized according to sex, while the former would say that their full recognition as legally defined women depends on biological sex advantages not being considered a factor (and if it isn’t, they might go k*ll themselves, so try to live with that on your conscience!) My impression is that the tide of public opinion is turning against trans women in sports, but it is interesting that in this case conservatives have become the loudest advocates for Title IX rules in favor of women’s sports, whereas not long ago they opposed them because they defunded men’s sports such as wrestling (the premise being that if there aren’t equal resources for women’s wrestling – and in this case there were hardly any women who wanted to wrestle – that constitutes discrimination, so men’s wrestling programs had to be ended).

What social conservatives are reacting to with what they call “grooming” is the educational practice of “social transitioning” which is required by law under Title IX rules under the Obama-Biden administrations in which schools are not allowed to inform parents that their child has chosen a new gender identity and requiring schools to accommodate the gender non-conforming child’s wish to express they/their (eh/er, ze/zer, etc. etc.) preferred gender. The assumption is that many of these children would be in danger from their families (probably not a bad guess!) and that public schools are there to provide children with a “safe space.” Really? School is about self-actualizing the will of kids to define themselves as they please without regard to the expectations and influence of the family that is otherwise responsible for their care and material subsistence? And their (pre) pubescent sexuality is crucial to this self-definition? And the role of school, as seen by some LGBT activists, is to teach kids about sex and gender identity (itself a controversial idea)? I guess this is now part of building self-esteem to become good bourgeois subjects.

Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that medical transition is now being recommended to more and more children at younger ages without parental consent (“rapid onset gender dysphoria” having suddenly become a disease diagnosis), with few guidelines and as little as a short interview; that things like puberty blockers can have serious health complications and side effects, along with being life-altering interventions that turn kids into lifelong patients of the medical system; and that these medical processes have been banned in many European countries because the evidence for their benefits is so lacking in comparison with potential harms, while the US is charging full steam ahead, no doubt with a money-making bonanza in mind (it is basically an elaborate form of cosmetic surgery, which is a big money-maker, unlike the rampant new childhood illnesses that are so uninteresting to medical researchers).

Without siding with those who “defend the family,” it's worth asking: what is the state interest here? The US State Department is even monitoring and ranking foreign countries on whether they make “gender affirming care” available. What’s so bad about “watchful waiting” to see if a child who expresses discomfort with their birth-assigned gender grows out of it (as many of them do)? Many state courts deny custody to parents who do not want to medically transition (and pay for) their kids sex changes. And most kids who are “gender nonconforming” later grow up to be gay (and that many of the kids undergoing these procedures are autistic or coming from abusive families themselves). This is supposed to be the harm that kids need state protection from?

Some gay people blame the “backlash” on “overreach” by “gender ideologues” (mostly the Ts and the Qs) who want to teach children that sex is a spectrum and that they can choose between different “sexed bodies,” etc. But it has become pretty mainstream, especially among liberal women, to take kids to drag queen story readings or even erotic dance shows. What is the point of this? It seems to be to expose them to unconventional gendered behaviors at an early age so as to take preemptive counter-measures against “heteronormative” ideas about gender which are oppressive in themselves, and that children must be given the freedom to choose from a range of sexually liberated lifestyles. Or what conservatives call “indoctrinating into the gay lifestyle” – which might be the best way to inoculate young people against the idea that the gay lifestyle is anything but a glittery swishy version of the shallow narcissistic competitive conformity of their “cis” peers. With the difference being that trendy liberals gush over trans people for being “bold and brave", whereas conservatives only see degenerate perversion and sinfulness.

Anyway, this is all a long winded way of saying there is more going on here than “family values vs tolerance.” The trans rights stuff is all relatively new and seems to have a coercive or weaponized aspect, forcing people to be tolerant of absurdities like “women have penises” and “men have periods,” etc. Gender is reified into an essence existing completely outside of sexual characteristics. One has to accept how others chose to think about themselves and behave accordingly, or else one is guilty of violent, oppressive discrimination. Most of the left-liberal people I know who say they are “pro-trans” don't seem to have reflected on the issue much at all and just use it as a cheap way to “own the chuds.” Nor have the conservatives I know given it much more thought than "men are men, women are women" and anyone who wants to make it more complicated than that simple common-sense truth is a mentally-ill, blue-haired gender ideologue. Both have an interest in imposing their conception and both posture as morally sanctified victims, although no one has heard of many cases of straight, cis males being dragged to death behind trucks simply for being that.

In any case, the whole debate ignores what the "precious little children" in schools and the family  are being raised *for*: life as wage laborers, soldiers, managers, or obedient citizens. In short, for their positions in the hierarchy of class society. It's striking how these debates always turn in a national direction; so Tucker Carlson always wonders: how can the USA fight a war with a military made up of performative gender queers? And trans activists will say: wars are mostly waged by drones operated from bunkers thousands of miles from their targets, so brute strength doesn’t matter, and besides, the all-volunteer military is desperate these days, so offering free sex changes is a good recruitment tool! And Trump/Putin/Hamas are transphobes so bombs away! What is not questioned here is the nationalist assumption and starting point underlying these debates.

In short: Conservative parents whining about the sanctity of the family do not want to recognize that they are basically subcontractors of the state who are required to raise the little ones to become its future human material, and they see the state as authoritarian for encroaching on their god or nature given right over their own human material which are also supposed to fulfill all their dashed expectations in life. Liberals see the state as an enlightened, benevolent influencer who has to sort out the sordid moral mess that is the family life of the masses for the sake of its future self-confident citizens. Or something like that. It's all so gross.

I am not very satisfied with my thinking about this topic, but those are my impressions and first guesses as to what’s going on. If anyone has additional thoughts, criticisms, or rebuttals, I would be interested to hear them.