« Education and Rewarding the Wrong Things | A Litany Of Fun Aliases » |
Like just any other conspiracy-minded movement, anti-transgender activists have come up over time with a plethora of insider phrases, jokes, symbols, images and even colour schemes to talk about their ideology and the subjects of their bigotry in public channels with plenty of winks to each other.
Many of these "dogwhistles" (the term for something that the public can't detect but members of the movement can) exist in profiles, and like bumper stickers are anywhere from subtle to garish, and many of them show up in posts and images.
Anti-transgender activists are relentless online, often posting links for each other to massively comment on, or "brigade", especially if any public body or celebrity or domestic violence shelter comes out in support of transgender people.
This is an incomplete collection of them, and this will likely be a work in progress, since they pop up with new ones over time, and explanations of their origins may take a while to source.
Some of them are highly indicative of anti-transgender ideology, some overlap with phrases and practices used commonly elsewhere but may merit a second look.
Use of any of the following is highly indicative of an anti-transgender profile:
Dictionary definitions used symbolically against trans people, from a campaign by an extremely rabid anti-trans activist, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull
There are some really strange Freudian "theories" that are beloved of anti-transgender activists because they invalidate and sexualize being transgender
To normalize not having to "guess" peoples' pronouns and embarrassing people with differing gender presentations, it has become a modern form of politeness to include pronouns in signatures by all sorts of inclusive people in a 'Spartacus' move. Anti-transgender activists and right-leaning people think this practice 'ridiculous' and make fun of it
Anti-transgender activists hold up the simple division between sexes learned in grade school not just as an introductory observation, but as a law to invalidate transgender people
Cis is to trans as straight is to gay, and is not used as a slur, but claiming it is invalidates the way trans discourse talks about non-trans people
Anti-transgender activists love to ask questions just for the sake of arguing, and one of their favourites is 'Define X'
Some gays and lesbians are anti-transgender. Some of this is built-in prejudice, but some is from hostile campaigns whose purpose is to split the LGBTQ+ communities from each other
Getting rid of 'gender' so that they can tie people to sex and invalidate trans and nonbinary people, but phrasing it like they are brave to do so
Gender, when it incorporates anything other than strict lines of male and female, allows for transgender people, and so ironically terming it dangerous or ideological to denigrate it or claim there is something to fear about it is another way to undermine transgender people
Purposefully and obtusely exaggerating and making fun of transgender identity
What bigotry wouldn't be complete without some sort of "replacement theory" like racists use, even if gay and lesbian identification has actually increased?
Anti-transgender activists reserve words of disgust and invalidation for the surgeries some transgender women undergo and words of societal ownership and tragedy for the surgeries some transgender women undergo
There comes a moment as someone starts believing more and more anti-transgender rhetoric where they suddenly 'realize' that transgender people, or activists, or ideology, is the worst thing in the world, and the anti-trans community have a term for that
Leaning on a "fairness" narrative and partnering with conservatives, anti-transgender activists push the idea that trans women need to be excluded from playing on women's sports teams, but this ends up with trans girls being segregated and shamed in gym class at school. Sometimes based on misunderstandings of current inclusive restrictions, but more often based on assumptions, stereotypes, presumptive anger about things that don't actually happen, and outright bigotry.
Also of note: few advocates seem to actually care about or watch women's sports
Anti-transgender activists lean on purity and sex essentialism and accusations of perversion to push segregating trans women into unsafe spaces - "anywhere but here" - and to maternally call home "deluded" trans men
Anti-transgender activists take great pains to invalidate transgender identities, including using the wrong gendered terms or highlighting the chromosomes of the person in question
Anti-transgender activists are often offended at inclusivity in menstrual products which make them less embarrassing to use for trans men, some intersex people, and some non-binary people. Even if the inclusivity is on the side. Often, for some reason, trans women get blamed
Similarly to the anti-gay "recruitment conspiracy", anti-transgender activists presume that transgender people must "recruit" to keep up their numbers, misquote statistics about transgender kids changing their mind, or imply that parents must be getting some Munchausen By Proxy thrill about 'transing' their kids, all in violation of everything pediatricians know about trans children
Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminist or TERF was a term coined by a brand of anti-transgender second wave feminists - some wear it as a badge of honour, some claim the use of it is a slur
Anti-transgender activists sometimes like to imply that transgender 'activists' are like the Men's Rights Activists
Plenty of anti-transgender activists invalidate transgender people by reducing trans peoples' experience to 'wearing a costume' and building on that misinterpretation to take offense at it
There are numerous people who have contributed greatly to anti-transgender actions or discourse. Any time they are taken to task for this, their offence is trivialized and anti-transgender activists will put up hashtags in "solidarity"
Anti-transgender people have invented new sexualities that specifically exclude transgender people by fiat
Cryptic images and iconography abounds
The following may depend on context but are definitely more common with anti-transgender advocates:
The following may depend on context - radical feminism tends to be exclusionary of trans women, women of colour and sex workers, and conservatism tends to be angry about deviations from the norm:
Having a Harry Potter house in their hashtags is not always indicative, but it can be found with some frequency in the profiles of anti-transgender people.