What is Bigotry Anyway? | An Asian Trans View

This is the second part of my response to the ContraPoints video on JK Rowling. This time, I will focus on Natalie's arguments about what bigotry is, and why I disagree with her views here. In case anyone is confused, I want to make it clear that I am not accusing Rowling of bigotry at all, rather, I am responding to the video's arguments about bigotry.

From what I understand, Natalie was making an argument that the way most people understand bigotry, i.e. as intolerance and hate, is too narrow. She even referenced Taylor Swift's video You Need To Calm Down and its focus on haters to make the point. Instead, Natalie made the case that people engage in bigotry because they feel threatened by changing power dynamics, rather than because they are haters.

Now, I don't deny that is sometimes true. During the civil rights movement, for example, racist people became even more racist in reaction to civil rights. However, broadly reducing the cause of bigotry to discomfort around changing power dynamics is very ideological. It is ideological because it reduces complex emotions and behavior to be all about power and privilege. The problem with ideological paradigms is that they detract from understandings based on empirical reality, and all its nuances. They hence make us less able to effectively deal with the issue at hand. In the worst case scenario, the wrong ideology can cause a wrong perspective on things, leading to maladaptive solutions that only exacerbate the problem.

Another argument Natalie made was that sometimes people engage in indirect bigotry by disguising political conflict over people's civil rights as intellectual conflicts. Again, I don't deny that actually happens sometimes. For example, in a last ditch attempt to stop gay marriage, some people argued that gay marriage was not needed because everybody only had the right to marry a person of the opposite sex; that gay people didn't want to marry a person of the opposite sex didn't make the status quo unfair. Sounds very intellectual, but clearly argued in bad faith. However, not every situation is like this one. More commonly, even when people argue against civil rights reforms, they do come from a place of genuine concern, whether we like it or not.

The problem with holding the aforementioned view about intellectual debates surrounding civil rights is that it would lead to treating other people's arguments in bad faith by default. That is, if they do not agree with a civil rights reform you support, there would logically be no reason to see them as anything but bigots out to prevent people from getting their rights. By extension, there would be no point in reasoning with these people. I think this attitude is really unhelpful; it is indeed the reason why the trans debate has gotten so toxic. For example, it is true that JK Rowling doesn't agree with us about certain trans rights reforms, at least at the moment. However, if you take her arguments in good faith, I think it's clear that she is coming from a place of misunderstanding rather than hostility. And given the lack of understanding of trans issues in the general community, I think there would be more people in Rowling's position than many people realize. Therefore, what is need is dialogue, education, and a sincere attempt to resolve the concerns people have. After all, this was how gay marriage was won, so there's a pretty good case for following this playbook.

Finally, I also want to talk about the point Natalie made about how bigotry is often embedded in tropes, like the so-called TERF talking points that come up again and again in trans debates. I don't disagree that those talking points have been quite harmful for trans people. However, the problem is, if you assume that everyone who raises those talking points are anti-trans, you would end up assuming hostility when there is none. Again, this relates to the lack of understanding of trans issues in the general public. People who understand trans issues, like you and me, would of course strongly disagree with those ideas. However, many other people may have picked up TERF arguments from somewhere, and found them reasonable on the surface. If the trans community automatically turned these people away, they would only be driven further and further into the arms of anti-trans forces. Indeed, I'm worried that this might be what is happening with Rowling. As I said repeatedly before, when you are a misunderstood minority, the most dangerous thing you can do is to turn otherwise neutral people against you.