by @mayaofspring, crosspost
One thing we trans people notice in the UK as we look around is that to a large extent we’ve lost a large chunk of people in positions of power, also known as the “elites”. On the other hand Terfs have largely executed their elite takeover well.
It is not true that everyone has turned against us; many institutions remain sympathetic to us, and while they often remain cautiously silent, many others speak out. However the spring of opinions to follow has shifted into the anti-trans camp. It used to be that the best common anti-trans argument would be “trannies icky”, against which the people more in the know would signal “we’re tolerant and sympathetic, unlike the unenlightened masses”. Now the anti-trans camp comes to battle prepared, with research of varying quality, and accuses the pro-trans side (not entirely unfoundedly) of woke groupthink. So they’re coming across as “grounded in reality” in comparison and now the initiative is on their side, while those outlets that remain pro-trans seem to do so defensively and with few good answers.
The elites, as defined by the group whose opinions have disproportionate influence on government and society, come in many ideologies, but a large chunk of them tends to prize liberal values like autonomy, tolerance, sympathy, and fairness. The initial pro-trans argument was largely won on those grounds: sympathy for those afflicted by gender dysphoria, bodily autonomy, and tolerance for other (“I don’t understand but I will support you”). As happened in the meantime, the trans argument has shifted towards identitarian oppression; while the anti-trans side has hijacked the fairness impulse by pointing towards sports, and sympathy by painting trans women as monsters invading women’s spaces and focusing on detransitioners.
And the anti-trans side also plays the Overton window shifting game well. As the “no trans people, ever” view keeps gaining more legitimacy, their direct political advocacy is a lot more centrist-tailored. An instructive example is the Sex Matters document urging for sex-at-birth data collection by the state. It does not say “trans people should all die”; instead it twists itself into saying “It is a forward-thinking, human-rights-respecting way to grant transgender people privacy over their sex data”.
In this sense an attempt to regain the elite opinion is a worthwhile goal. While “medical transition makes sex mutable” is a good backstop against the advance, the pro-trans argument has to recentre the values likely to be listened to, like aforementioned autonomy, tolerance, and sympathy. Making people uneasy with confining us to the accident of our birth.
This point isn’t about being elitist in the sense of “elites are worth more”. It comes from the sense of pragmatism that, no matter what shape a society takes, there is a class of people with disproportionate impact, whether in setting the terms of the discourse, or whether in directly setting the direction the institutions take.
An open question is how to accomplish that while being badly outfunded. The money floating in LGBT orgs was largely diffuse and a small fraction of it went to causes making a difference for trans advocacy, while religious and convervative groups smelled blood and heavily focused on the anti-trans cause as somewhere they could win. It’s even worse now with a billionaire’s full backing.
To be researched further:
by @mayaofspring, crosspost
The interim guidance presented by the EHRC was not just overreaching in their interpretation of the judgment, setting off alarms and mobilising trans people to fight back, but they couldn’t even get it to be completely within the confines of the law, leading to Good Law Project successfully forcing some walkbacks already. While the anti-trans project will still probably largely succeed, it is one area in which they overplayed with some potentially risky (to them) consequences.
If I had to think of the most effective strategy for anti-trans to outwardly follow, it would be to apply “salami tactics”. Keep slowly tightening medical and legal gatekeeping. Draw a boundary between “true good trans” and “fake bad trans”, leading the former to believe they’re fine, and then keep shrinking the “true good trans” set. At no point cause an enemy mobilisation or significant questioning of the legitimacy of the institutions captured by you.
Instead EHRC has overstepped. Tangibly speaking 900 people showing up to the mass lobby in the Parliament, 50 thousand responses to the consultation, Good Law Project pressing successfully, MPs writing an open letter questioning EHRC’s legitimacy; less tangibly the mobilisation in trans circles seems high given the alarming developments. And they’re not discriminating between “true good trans” and “fake bad trans”; you can be impacted either way as long as people find out you’re transsexual.
When it comes to medical gatekeeping, that also until recently has been getting tightened rather gradually. But now that GPs refuse prescriptions seemingly randomly, the fact that the medical system serves none of us has been made clear to all of us.
Could it be that they will come back to the gradual tactics? Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson has been confirmed as the next EHRC chair, and she could be smarter about it. Or the direct eradicationist impulse could still remain stronger.
In the end they have made it clear for us that we’re in the same boat that they’d like to drown. And that we need to rebuild the self-reliance and shared structures, as none of us can truly assimilate and rely on the society and the state anymore, at least as far as the United Kingdom is concerned. Hopefully this realisation can plant the seed of our eventual return.