Your children will be next

Anti-LGBT+ panic and its tired scare stories are back in a big way and they haven't changed their tune a bit

One of the things I find odd about the current pearl-clutching nonsense around trans people is how familiar all of the rhetoric is. Anyone claiming to care about LGBT+ issues and equality should recognise the arguments in play almost immediately. This should be especially true for those of us within the LGBT+ community.

Less than a decade ago I was being told, or regularly overhearing, bigoted sound bites like "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve", or "Backs against the wall when they're around." I was just entering my teen years when Section 28 was repealed. The argument for Section 28 should also sound very familiar; "We have to protect our children from the influence of homosexual ideology and from predators and pornography in the classroom."

All of these things implied gay people were dangerous sexual deviants that could corrupt the innocent youth. Arguments we rarely apply to the people statistically most likely to be predators in our society: heterosexual cis men.

From my own life, the current paranoia about trans people in changing rooms and public loos is hauntingly similar to the very things that were said to me in school when I was outed as bisexual. Other children were quick to taunt me about whether I should be allowed to use the same facilities as them, as if not being heterosexual also meant I was devoid of basic human decency.

Many might claim that we've moved past that unflattering chapter of our country's history. We've even pardoned and apologised to Alan Turing now so we should get over it and move on. Nevermind that apologising to someone your country institutionally abused to death is a rather empty gesture. The symbolism is nice I suppose, but like those in our community under attack now, Turing would have found more use for that apology and empathy while he was still alive.

So I can only watch in disgust as I see these same boring inventions from the same sordid, filth-minded, bigots doing the rounds again. Only this time, to attack trans and gender non-conforming people in our society. Having this spear-headed in government by someone who should be one of our own is also revolting. But if the right-wing have taught us anything over the years, it's that bigots will always be able to find token people from marginalised and minority groups willing to turn traitor for the right price.

So here we are again. On the front lines of yet another battleground for basic human rights. We've won before and we will win again. I just wish that people would stop and think about the future posthumous apologies that they'll have to make for the people who won't make it this time. There is always a human cost to war, even culture war.

This is because the arguments are designed to do what they were always designed to do: Create barriers to public life and excuses for discrimination. I could throw my anthropology credentials in here to talk about why trans-exclusionary ideas about human behaviours and biology are nonsense, but it's all already been said by people with even more expertise than me. I also have no intention of letting bigots set the rules of engagement.

No one should need to justify their existence.

It should be obvious that unmolested access to public facilities is a requirement for any person to live a normal, dignified life. This is a truth that goes beyond gender. It is the demand of every person in society. To deny this to anyone based on arbitrary characteristics of their appearance or perceived bodily functions is the very definition of discrimination.

Plus, it needs saying that if you find yourself sharing values with people like Elon Musk and Andrew Tate, alarm bells really should start ringing. This was the biggest red flag for me when it came to the building blocks of the current trans panic. If you don't smell a big stinking rat when you find yourself agreeing with open misogynists, homophobes, conspiracy cranks, and groups that think all women should be illiterate, barefoot, and pregnant, then something has gone very wrong inside you. One of these things is not like the others, and you should start evaluating why and how you've ended up on the same team as people who think being anti-fascist is bad, and emotional expression and rainbows will turn children into devil-worshipping perverts.

The trans panic is a well-worn exercise in scapegoating and distraction; turning a harmless group of people whose needs and rights have nothing to do with you into a big scary social battleground. The genital inspection police and the media moguls mainstreaming them want you to forget about the billionaires tearing up your rights and quality of life by encouraging you to exhaust yourself getting mad at a bunch of people you probably don't even know because they... what? Need a wee? Want adequate medical care? Don't think a children's author should have international sway over their human rights? Excuse me for not thinking these basic needs are the equivalent of the sky falling down upon our heads.

I have some more personal thoughts about why people find these long-debunked tropes suddenly so compelling again, but I think they'll need their own space in a separate post. In the meantime, I encourage you to fight the real enemy, and support trans people. Especially, when you're being told not to by a person on a private yacht smoking a cigar like a gloating Bond villain.