So first, I hate the words “transphobia” and “transphobe” but let’s save that for a footnote, or better yet another post (we’ll see if I can stop myself from rambling into that territory at the bottom of this). So setting that aside, I have noted that many, many people seem paralyzed with fear at the idea that they might do something which they consider reasonable, or good, or perhaps not good but a minor error which deserves no bad consequence, and despite the not at all truly bad nature of their conduct, end up labeled a “transphobe” or “transphobic”. They often cry out about their “fear” of being called “transphobic”. They positively scream about the injustice of it all:
Someone thought that I’m a transphobe, when really I just hate the idea of being inconvenienced in any way, except for all those ways that I am inconvenienced which I just accept as an unavoidable fact of life, like having to lie to my boss about how that watch is so cool and I wish I had one.
Me? I tend to belittle this fear because I can’t figure out what people are actually losing. Has one architect had to give up designing buildings for a living because of being called a transphobe on the internet once? Or, hey, here’s one that should be easier to find and will relate to the experience of more people than a career in architecture: has one fast food burger flipper ever lost the possibility of working in a burger flipping joint because someone on the internet called them a transphobe once? Does anyone have an example of that happening to even one burger flipper, among all the burger flippers in the world?
I mean, sure, I bet individuals have been fired from specific jobs for being an asshole at work, but not just because one hypersensitive person called them a transphobe once. The people who have lost their jobs were assholes multiple times, were asked by their bosses to knock it off, got chances to correct their behavior, and chose not to do so. That isn’t a matter of telling the truth one time using phrasing that was accidentally insensitive. And, moreover, if you went right back to work in a similar job down the street with people who don’t mind you repeatedly ignoring instructions from your bosses, even that (as a consequence for something much more than just saying an insensitive sentence and getting called a transphobe) isn’t exactly very consequential. Most of us would call it a learning experience. I mean, let’s say that someone did lose a job merely for getting called a transphobe once. What happened next? Did they get another job at the place down the street? Did it end their career? If you’re a qualified burger flipper who got called a transphobe on the internet once, did you really lose your life long dream of flipping burgers and dropping baskets of fries, or was there a burger joint down the street with a help wanted sign that never even asked the interview question you were dreading:
So, I like your experience, but before I hire you to flip burgers, tell me: have you ever once been called a transphobe on the internet by someone?
This really isn’t difficult stuff. People are constantly, and I mean CONSTANTLY, saying that they are afraid to speak truth because they might get called a transphobe. But that can’t be it, right? I mean, you could also get called an asshole, or an asshat, or a cretunkulus schnunk. What, specifically, are the consequences of being called a transphobe that are so horrible that people are literally afraid of saying true things on the internet? And if the consequences are so dire, why aren’t there any self help groups available to people who need healing resources but are afraid of people knowing precisely why they need healing resources? A “transphobes anonymous” if you will.
If you’re someone who announces in conversation that you can’t speak your mind lest you get thought of as a transphobic bigot, I have to ask: are you really so seriously afraid of anyone knowing that you were once called a transphobe on the internet that you would hide the fact? And are there any consequences at all serious enough that you might both hide the fact and want help? I’m not talking about forgetting mentioning that you got called a transphobe when someone asks you how your day went. I’m talking about concealing it even though you really want to or need to talk about it. Because, hey, if the consequences are severe enough that no one can know you were called a transphobe on the internet once, maybe someone should give me the contact info for that local chapter of transphobes anonymous. I believe in a just world. If someone is struggling, I want them to get help. So why don’t I know about transphobes anonymous when from all evidence there is a crushing, overwhelming need for help recovering from being called a transphobe on the internet that one time?
Please. I want to create a better world. Tell me of your homeworld, Usul the struggles of being called a transphobe. Let’s make a serious effort to determine what the consequences are, and what resources people need to recover. This is a desperately serious problem, I know. Let’s solve it together.
It reminds me of Jim Bakker’s old shtick where he was always saying there were people out there who wanted to kill him because he believes in the Bible. Oh, and by the way, please send money.
It doesn’t seem to matter what the specifics are. The professional pearl-clutchers are exploting a manufactured fear in order to get more money from their audience, and it seems to work.
To me, I think this is an example of what I’d call “stupider Christianity.”
Regular Christianity (viewed stupidly): Jesus was killed unfairly. Jesus is respected by many.
Thus, being persecuted unfairly gives a victim merit.
Stupider Christianity: I’d like merit, and I’m around Christians.
So if I say I’m a persecuted Christian, then I’ll receive merit. Almost no effort needed.
So claiming you got “cancelled” costs you nothing but gives you easy merit, in the stupid view.
No need to understand any specifics or stick with any boring facts.
I suspect it plays well with the conspiracy theory crowd. Some variation of, “If I told you what I know, Big Trans won’t let me finish my sentence. Oh, and by the way, please send altcoin my way.”; “Big Trans won’t let me publish all these op-eds! It’s just me against the machine, please send money.”; etc.
“Tell me of … the struggles of being called a transphobe.”
From https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-57853385:
—
“One of the lesbian women I spoke to, 24-year-old Amy*, told me she experienced verbal abuse from her own girlfriend, a bisexual woman who wanted them to have a threesome with a trans woman.
When Amy explained her reasons for not wanting to, her girlfriend became angry.
“The first thing she called me was transphobic,” Amy said. “She immediately jumped to make me feel guilty about not wanting to sleep with someone.”
—
Assuming, for the sake of this discussion, that Amy’s description of her experiences are accurate, the use of the word “transphobic” here is … complicated, to say the least. It would be good to hear your thoughts on “transphobia”/”transphobe”, as they probably speak directly to the example above.
@GG #4
Reading the article she makes it really clear that she sees trans women as men, so yeah, the transphobia is pretty clear cut there.
@4 GG
The BBC is not exactly a trustworthy place to go for a discussion of trans rights.
@abbeycadabra #6: For sure, but let’s assume that their reporting is accurate (in this particular instance) for the sake of discussion.
@Dauphni #5: “she makes it really clear that she sees trans women as men”
Can you elaborate on this in greater detail?
The article relates Amy’s observations about an individual’s physical characteristics, but physical characteristics are independent of gender. We don’t have direct evidence of Amy’s beliefs one way or the other, but it wouldn’t (seem to) introduce a logical contradiction for her to fully recognize someone’s gender while finding specific physical characteristics unattractive.
Put another way, can physical characteristics be intrinsically (un)attractive, regardless of the gender of the individual to whom they are attached?
@everyone, but GG please take special note:
GG’s comment #4 is respectful and asks for serious discussion. I’m happy to have it discussed.
However, it is a derail of this thread, which is about people declaring that they’re too scared to discuss trans rights for fear of being called a transphobe, which is an odd and empty statement. Sad you’re scared of a word. Hope you get over that, but it’s not my problem.
The story GG highlights is not one of someone afraid to discuss issues related to trans folks for fear of being called transphobic: Amy is right out there having her statements published at the BBC. It is obviously, completely, and overwhelmingly NOT what this thread was created to comment upon.
I am eager to hear of someone who got called transphobic on the internet once and then, as a result of being called transphobic on the internet once, had some horrible thing happen to them. Something like, “Oh, I was talking to some random person on the internet, someone I don’t even know, and I said something about trans people and got called transphobic. Then a couple people saw that I had been called transphobic and they spontaneously decided that they could never be my friend again, because I was called transphobic once.”
This very common tactic of announcing you’re deathly afraid of being called transphobic in the internet is obviously only a ploy to avoid accountability **unless and until** the people who say they are afraid of being called transphobic demonstrate that a person can do nothing wrong, get called transphobic on the internet once, and then have serious life consequences as a result.
I am still waiting for the people who scream their fear of being called transphobic at 150dB to detail the actual consequences of being called transphobic on the internet. The consistent refrain is that one hypersensitive trans person or hypersensitive trans advocate can come to an erroneous opinion and that opinion will be accepted as gospel with terrible ramifications for the person they label transphobic.
I think it’s bullshit, but this thread exists in part because I’m open to evidence. If that shit is really happening, absolutely anyone should feel free to detail that phenomenon here.
NOW WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY…
I expect this comment thread to return to a discussion of people who believe (or pretend to believe) getting called transphobic on the internet is a horrible fate, while the serious discussion of Amy’s story and any other follow on from GG’s comment and request for information can take place in its own thread on my new post, created just for that purpose. You can find that post here.
Twenty years ago I’d have agreed – getting called transphobic, or for that matter anything else, on the internet ain’t shit. It’s not like it’s real life, right? Surely no REAL consequences could flow from posting something on the internet and getting a response, however vitriolic, from some random nutter.
Six years ago, though, John Ronson wrote a book called “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed”. It’s no longer possible to pretend in good faith that getting criticised on the internet is something you can simply shrug off as trivial. People have been fired and lost their livelihoods. Anyone remember Adria Richards? And those people didn’t get called anything remotely as toxic as “transphobic”.
Right now, I would opine that there’s only one word you can have thrown at you that’s more terrifyingly toxic than “transphobic”, and that’s “anti-semitic”. It pretty effectively did for Jeremy Corbyn.
Now… I cannot, I concede, produce an example of someone who has lost a job, money or influence after being called transphobic. All I’m offering is that the examples above are evidence of an environment where that is not a ridiculous suggestion, but rather an entirely realistic scenario and one that anyone would be perfectly reasonable to consider when thinking about what to say online or in real life.
Yes. It is possible to state in good faith and all serious that getting criticized on the internet is something you can shrug off as trivial.
What you’re talking about are harassment campaigns, which are not trivial. Not everyone who gets called transphobic on the internet once ends up the target of a harassment campaign. Now, if people showed up saying, “I’m afraid of a targeted harassment campaign,” at least the thing they say they fear would be a non trivial thing. I would not trivialize such a fear, but instead ask, when has Pharyngula or FreethoughtBlogs ever been the source of a targeted harassment campaign? There are ways of addressing that fear, just like there are ways of addressing the fear of being killed by a great white shark attack off the coast of British Columbia: yes, those things happen, but
1) they’re rare, and
2) they don’t happen here.
Also you’re ignoring the fundamental problem, which is that people show up on FtB and announce in advance that they’re going to say fucked up shit but we can’t call their fucked up shit transphobic (or racist, or whatever) because they are terribly afraid of being called transphobic on the internet and this impinges free speech, therefore, for the sake of free speech, people who dislike transphobia are not allowed to speak.
This is a real thing, a real tactic that people really do. Right here on FtB. Meanwhile, I don’t know of anyone whose soul was crushed because they got called transphobic on the internet once.
In fact, it’s a bit outrageous that you’re deliberately conflating being called transphobic with targeted harassment campaigns. The OP literally made clear **huge multiples of times** that I’m talking about getting called transphobic on the internet once. You coming in here and saying, “But targeted harassment campaigns exist,” is like the theist saying that they can prove god, the atheist saying, “What the hell? There’s never been a proof of god,” and the theist replying, “It is no longer possible to pretend in good faith that LOVE does not exist, and GOD IS LOVE.”
God is not love. Targeted harassment campaigns are not the same as getting called transphobic on the internet once. And the people who insist that no one can call them transphobic when they show up on FtB shouting transphobic bullshit are anti-free speech cowards and/or deliberately lying to disarm their rhetorical opposition.
People who want to comment on trans issues are just going to have to suck it up and take the same risk that I do when i comment on trans issues and risk getting called a destroyer of western civilization, oh, and also risk targeted harassment campaigns, assaults, and death threats, which, in my case, have actually happened.
Indeed. And precisely equally, not everyone who makes a weak pun privately to their colleague in the audience of a technical presentation at a programming conference has someone earwig on that conversation, photograph them, tweet what they said to thousands of followers, then get escorted out of the conference and subsequently fired from their job.
Precisely as many times as PyCon had been, right up until the moment that it was.
These things are rare, yes, but the shark attack analogy is on one level a good one in that part of the reason these rare events scare people who should man up and read the statistics is that they are, crucially, unpredictable. It’s the nature of viral actions on the internet – anyone who can predict precisely what is going to catch the imagination of the hive mind isn’t posting here, they’re sunning themselves on the planet they ordered from Magrathea with the profits of their knowledge. The shark attack analogy falls down because a good way to avoid shark attacks is to stay out of the water, but you can’t “stay out of the water” on this unless you want to live like the Unabomber… or assiduously avoid making any comment on these subjects that might in its most unsympathetic out-of-context reading get your ass fired. The complaint in the article isn’t “I don’t get to say fucked up in shit in comment threads on blogs without consequence”, it’s “I’m feeling pressure to do things I’m not comfortable with sexually, AND the current atmosphere limits my ability to even bring it up for fear of being ostracised”.
I don’t think that is the fundamental problem. Those people can go screw themselves. The fundamental problem is people like the aforementioned Amy who only even discussed the subject at all (presumably) because she was surveyed, and was clearly reticent about doing so, and should be, because having expressed what she’s attracted to (and, crucially, not attracted to) physically she’s been written off as transphobic 5 comments into this thread. And fuck it, maybe she is, maybe she’s not, it’s almost irrelevant to the general point.
Relatedly – do you even get a choice what you’re attracted to? I’m a cishet white bloke, and I’ve been attracted to all sort of women in my time. Equally there are a whole bunch of things I *could* list that simply turn me off immediately. I have no sense that those are choices on my part. Call me bigoted for those preferences? I can only shrug. Bigotry as I understand is CHOOSING to hate people for something they can’t control. It’s not finding that you feel no loinal stirrings when you look at someone because of something they might or might not be able to change. But that’s a different thread again, I think.
I’m not. I’m saying any single accusation of transphobia, just like any single accusation of anything, has the potential in a post-Adria Richards world to go viral and ruin your life – to become a targetted harassment campaign. Ffs, Ronson got a whole book out of it. You’re implying, also, that when Adria Richards sent that tweet she was deliberately initiating a Targetted Harassment Campaign with the intention of getting the bloke fired. I don’t believe that for a second. She couldn’t have predicted the effect her comment would have. And transphobia happens to be the accusation du jour, second only as I say to anti-semitism right now in its toxicity.
I know, and it’s deliberately setting an impossibly high bar – I see the point. NOBODY, you’d think, could possibly complain about ONE hostile response online. Adria Richards posted ONE hostile response online to a comment that wasn’t even made online, wasn’t even made in public, was made privately to the person sitting next to the commenter. And that cost the person who said it AND the person who commented on it their jobs. That’s the world we live in. You can absolutely say “that hasn’t happened here”, but if you’re honest you’ll concede you have to add the word “yet”. As you in fact do concede in your final sentence.
Absolutely 100% agreed. Right behind you. No argument. Bollocks to those people.
I think sonofroj does not have a very good case, but the broader reality is that self-image is important to people. People spend *a lot of money* on having an image for others to engage with that they like.
My issue is that the “I don’t like being called a transphobe” excuse will come out *even when such has never been said*. The sensitivity on the topic goes beyond the natural desire to not be made to feel like a bad person by direct language.
“I think sonofroj does not have a very good case,”
I’d be interested to know what you think the weakness is.