How to make the Trans Community Respected Again | An Asian Trans View

Today, I want to sort of respond to the latest Blaire White video titled 'This is Why the Trans Community Isn't Respected', and elaborate on some of my own thoughts on this matter. As I understand it, Blaire is worried that trans acceptance in mainstream society is going backwards because the trans activists have the wrong messaging. She also suggested that we learn from the gay marriage and gay adoption movements. My regular audience would know that this line of thinking is something that I totally agree with; indeed, I have been strongly advocating for this since two years or so ago.

Like Blaire, I have also been worried about the way trans acceptance is going nowadays. Blaire has only been openly trans for several years, and yet even she feels the decline. As for myself, I felt more accepted back in 2007 compared to now, so you know how bad it is! And it's sad because, you know, everything I do here, I'm doing for the trans community, my fellow trans people. It feels weird that I even have to say this, but nowadays, everyone seems to be using the trans community for some kind of agenda, and it leaves us with the consequences. Indeed, I think it's akin to a moral crime to use such a misunderstood minority for your own political agenda. My point is, if you don't really want to help with the practical improvement of trans lives, please don't pretend to be an ally and use us for your political program. To all you people using trans lives to promote your talking points of deconstruction, Foucauldian postmodernism, the Macusean Great Refusal, the 1960s style revolution and so on. As a trans person suffering the consequences, I've really had enough of it!

I think there's still time to regain that respect, to avoid the spiral downwards. It all starts with the trans community itself. Many well meaning trans people have tried to get rid of the bad faith actors, to get the trans conversation back on track. I mean, we all still disagree to an extent, it's like how I don't always agree with Blaire, and Natalie from Contrapoints doesn't always agree with my views either. But we can all see there's something wrong, and something needs to change. However, this is where bad faith actors use cancel culture to silent critics and forcibly shape the agenda. Anything any well meaning trans people say, any well meaning criticism to get the community back on track, the bad faith actors will try to cancel us for this or that. You either get with their program, or they cancel you. Again, everything I say and do, I do it for the benefit of everyday trans people. But I still have to live in fear of the cancel culture mob. It's sad, but it's true.

As for what we can do, honestly, I've felt at a lost for some time now. I've even begged the trans community to listen to Jordan Peterson back in 2018. Like, I definitely disagree with what he says about trans rights and Canadian Bill C-16, I have no illusions about some of what he said being harmful, but what he said about thinkers like Foucault was spot on. We can't let the Foucauldian anti-truth and anti-science cult use and derail the trans community. Peterson might not have been the perfect messenger, but the trans community is the biggest victim of Foucauldism and radical critical theory, so I thought Peterson and the IDW could be used to help get the trans conversation back on track, ironically. It would at least get us back to a conversation that is based on the objective, scientific truth, centered around the practical needs of trans people, rather than some philosophical argument. You know, being trans is a reality, not some philosophy. Needless to say, my efforts to build that bridge failed badly, because too many people were obsessed with the idea that Peterson was anti-trans.

So, where do we go now? I guess we need to do two things. Firstly, let's have a trans rights agenda that is focused on the needs of everyday trans people. Blaire mentioned employment and housing in her video, and I think that's exactly where the attention needs to be focused. As I said in my comments about Elliot Page last year, I really don't care too much for the trans actors, athletes, models, and so on. Not when we don't even have equality in employment and housing. Forget about all that glitz and glamor, that don't help us too much. And even forget about the pronoun wars, because that's only a dead end. The day we get equality in employment and housing is the day we get dignity as a community. Therefore, I think the trans conversation should be centered around what reforms can be done, to improve the situation with employment and housing. And then we need to win over hearts and minds to achieve those reforms, like the gay marriage and gay adoption movements did.

The other thing is, we need to promote another trans narrative. You know, one that is not automatically combative, one that does not automatically assume bad faith in people who disagree with us. The more extreme activist circle has an advantage here, because they shout the loudest. But if we could, in some ways, add our voices to the conversation, real voices of real trans people, then we could change the tone of the conversation. I'm trying my best to put my views out there, but other than that, I still haven't found a way to get our voice into the mainstream yet. I mean, I'm not that popular unfortunately. Blaire seems to be much more popular, yet I'm surprised that even she hasn't been able to exert much of an influence in the broader trans conversation. I mean, when some trans activists were all out trying to cancel JK Rowling last year, Blaire and I were on the same side, defending Rowling's right to free speech and calling for reasonable debate, but it was a lonely side to be on. I wonder why Blaire's one million or so fans, who generally agreed with her position, didn't speak out more. Perhaps it's all because we're so scared of cancel culture coming after us. If so, then what we need might be more examples of people speaking up. That's why I keep providing my point of view, in the hope that it will give confidence to more people to speak up over time.