Labour in the UK and Democrats in the US have embraced the anti-trans panic manufactured by their opponents to get votes. It won’t work.
I referenced this in a previous post, but one of my observations after years of transphobic harassment is how they’re always parroting someone else. The words are never their own.
Transphobia through time
Previously transphobes emulated the mockery and disdain depicted on television and film. From the 1990s through to the 2010s it seemed like every Hollywood comedy had a “tranny” joke.
These days they’re mimicking the transphobia that’s inundating social media driven by conservatives. Across the anglosphere conservatives have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to scapegoat trans people for votes. The climate is so openly hostile that as I write this in the mid-2020s, American officials have taken to using the “tranny” slur when discussing how to eliminate trans people.
Liberal politicians embrace the hate
Now liberal politicians are embracing this rhetoric and its associated manufactured panic too.
In the UK, Labour has continued the systematic campaign to purge trans people from society started by their conservative forebears. This is a reversal for both parties who a decade ago advocated for the inclusion of trans people.
In the US, Democrat hopefuls are running anti-trans ads and repeating the fear mongering of their opponents. This after American politicians had already introduced over 1,000 anti-trans bills last year. Like Labour, this is a flip from recent support.
The flip demonstrates this isn’t about any conviction, it’s purely about the prospect of drawing votes. Labour and Democrats saw conservatives use this recipe to gain support and thought they could apply it too.
It’s as foolish as it is cruel.
Obergefell v. Hodges
The moment we’re in can be traced back to Obergefell v. Hodges in the US. That’s when Republicans realized that the anti-gay panic was losing steam and pivoted to trans people. They even kept the same arguments. It worked: courts gave them wins and news their coverage.
Following the Republican pivot, Canada saw the rise of Jordan Peterson and other prominent transphobes. Ostensibly they were opposing C-16, but Jordan Peterson’s popularity was being driven and funded by American conservatives. The National Post for its part did its own anti-trans shift in keeping with American peers. Provinces across Canada introduced anti-trans laws and policies on the very niche topics Republican strategists had told their firms to focus on. The UK flip echoes a similar post-Obergefell timeline.
I don’t want to pretend like transphobia is an imported problem. What I will say is that borders around the media we consume are more linguistic than geographic, and that anti-trans hate cross-pollinates the anglosphere. I noticed a marked shift in who transphobic politicians and opinion writers in Canada were emulating after Obergefell v. Hodges.
Cognitive surrender
This sudden embrace of anti-trans rhetoric won’t work for Democrats and Labour. They miscalculate who conservatives were soliciting with this hate.
For most voters, trans issues rank last on the list of things they care about. They might oppose trans rights when surveyed on dog whistles but they aren’t the type to sound off on Facebook about pronouns or Thanksgiving dinners.
That requires emotionally stunted conspiracy theorists and that’s the audience conservative strategists have been targeting. The ones who will get so worked up they’ll champion conservative messaging and push others to vote.
The thing about conspiracy theorists is that they’ve outsourced their thinking to their in-group on Facebook and Fox News. It’s complete cognitive surrender. If the in-group goes after puberty blockers for trans youth, so do they with complete conviction. If that flips tomorrow, so do they with complete conviction.
“Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia“.
No argument can convince them because they don’t listen, merely wait to parrot something else. That’s why they jump topics when presented with facts and aren’t phased by contradictions.
Those kinds of people exist on the left too but anti-social conspiracy theories are particularly prominent on the far-right.
Self-defeating
That’s why liberal political consultants pushing anti-trans rhetoric won’t deliver favourable results: the emotionally stunted conspiracy theorists that it would appeal to consider conservatives to be their in-group not them.
All it’ll do is give bigots reason to vote conservative for being more anti-trans, while alienating the liberal voters who either know a trans person or support the party’s former inclusive (at least in name) identity.
It’s as self-defeating as it is morally bankrupt.
And another thing…
I’ve heard a few trans people defend the cynical embrace of anti-trans rhetoric on the grounds that voting for conservatives would be worse. That it is incumbent on trans people to vote blue (Democrats) no matter what; and should conservatives come in it will have been their fault.
I say to them I only have sympathy for disaffected trans people. As Labour has demonstrated, anti-trans rhetoric should be taken at face value.
Politicians have already decided to discard trans people’s votes when they decided to discard their lives. The onus for change isn’t on the victims of this rhetoric.
The pragmatic option is known to all. Shut up and let trans people grieve. They’ll do what’s right for them.