Exposing The TRUTH About the Anti Trans Alliance | TaraElla & Friends #3

TE: Welcome back to TaraElla and friends. This is perhaps the most important video I have ever made, and it could hold the key to the future of trans acceptance and trans rights, so pay attention, and listen with an open mind to the very end, before you come to any conclusions. Also, if you agree with me, and want to help improve trans understanding and acceptance, please pass this onto other people who may be interested.

Today, I need to talk about a situation I am very frustrated about: bad ideas rooted in ideological positions from various sides are preventing an honest discussion of trans issues, one that is rooted in real evidence and observation. This means a productive conversation is not taking place, and ideas are not being developed to advance the social acceptance and accomodation of trans people. To systematically explore this complicated situation, I will be interviewed by my friend The Clarifier, who is really good at clarfying confusing and entangled concepts.

TC: Let's start with this. What do you see as an honest discussion of trans issues?

TE: Basically, I am a trans empiricist. My ideas are similar to what is often called transmedicalism, but the emphasis is a bit different: the traditional transmedicalist view is often stated as 'you need dysphoria to be trans'. On the other hand, I arrived at my conclusions through empirical observation, drawing conclusions from the actual way trans people exist, and their lived experiences. And any honest empirical observation of trans people would yield the conclusion that the vast majority of trans people transition because they have severe gender dysphoria. The reason they need to transition is because they need to get the heavy burden of gender dysphoria off their lives, at least as much as possible, so that life becomes somewhat liveable. Therefore, understanding gender dysphoria and its effects is central to understanding the vast majority of trans lives.

THE MOST IMPORTANT FUNDAMENTAL POINT...

Any discussion of trans issues that doesn't center gender dysphoria simply isn't operating in reality, and won't solve any problems effectively. Gender dysphoria isn't the most pleasant thing to discuss, but any honest discussion of trans issues should be firmly centered on how to allieviate dysphoria, and accomodate people with dysphoria.

TC: And how do you see people with 'ideological positions from various sides', as you put it, affecting this discussion?

TE: As a trans empiricist, I base all my conclusions and solutions on the observable reality of trans people alone. Basically, I focus on what simply is there. On the other hand, the ideological people start with their ideological framework, and force fit the reality of trans people into their framework. There are three main groups here.

THE 3 IDEOLOGICAL GROUPS

Firstly there are people whose worldview doesn't allow for trans people to exist at all. These include religious fundamentalists, for whom 'God never makes mistakes' so trans people can't exist. This is why they resort to explaining transness as a mental illness, even though this view is no longer accepted scientifically.

Secondly there are the 'gender critical feminists', otherwise known as TERFs, but I prefer calling them 'gender critical', because this term accurately describes their ideology. As the name plainly says, it is a form of 'critical theory', i.e. Marxian or pseudo-Marxist theory, that is applied to the concept of gender, that is, everything related to biological sex that is cultural or behavioral rather than physical. Gender critical feminists believe all of gender, is a social construct that serves the patriarchal system, and should be abolished. This ideology leaves no room to acknowledge the lived reality of gender dysphoria in trans people, which is variously dismissed as a mental illness or the result of societal stereotyping. In this worldview, trans people are essentially making a lifestyle choice, and one that is not conducive to the radical feminist program of 'liberation', so trans people are the enemy.

Thirdly, there are the postmodern feminists, who basically share the same criticalist influences and fundamental worldview as gender critical feminists, including that gender is a social construct that should be abolished in its current form. However, the difference is that they aim to deconstruct gender by destablizing the binary, drawing from the ideas of the postmodern thinker Derrida. They see trans people as helpful to this process. Therefore, they appear to be friendly towards trans people and trans rights. However, their worldview still ignores gender dysphoria, and their dominance means that the trans narrative can't focus on gender dysphoria at all, so it still ends up hindering rather than helping trans people.

THE 2 UNHOLY ALLIANCES

Finally, these three highly ideological forces combine to derail the trans discussion, in what I call the 'two unholy alliances'. The first unholy alliance is between the transphobes, including the religious right, and the gender critical feminists. Their worldview is otherwise diametrically opposed to each other, but some of them appear to be joining forces just to prevent trans rights from happening. The second unholy alliance is not a conscious alliance, but rather a dynamic between postmodern feminism and the first unholy alliance, that means trans people are made to keep losing every argument needlessly.

TC: There's a lot to unpack here, but I would like to go into detail about the 'two unholy alliances'. Let's start with the first alliance. Who is involved in that alliance, and what effect does it have on the trans discussion?

TE: I think that, basically, the first unholy alliance is ultimately built and maintained by people with a political agenda. These are often political conservatives looking for a culture war program that could boost the electoral fortunes of conservative parties like the US Republican Party. Given their absolute hostility on issues like abortion, the religious right and gender critical feminists wouldn't naturally come together to work out an anti-trans program. The glue to this alliance is thus conservative political operatives with an eye on the next election, hoping to replicate the anti-gay marriage wave of the 2004 US elections. They even draw in some rational atheists who normally have no symapathy for religion or radical feminism at all!

The result is an internally inconsistent argument against trans people that looks rational on the surface. I mean, the coalition includes rational atheists who simply have an inadequate understanding of the science behind sex and gender, as well as religious fundamentalists who wouldn't care what the science says anyway. It includes religious conservatives who uphold traditional gender roles, as well as radical feminists who want to completely abolish gender roles. As a result, their argument against trans people looks like a mix of over-simplified eighth-grade level biology, plus radical arguments supporting gender abolition, as well as conservative arguments against gender abolition, essentially both sides of the 1970s culture war at the same time. The internal contradictions are easily exposed if one simply tries.

TC: If it is so easy to discredit the arguments of this unholy alliance, then why has it not happened effectively yet? I mean, conservative operatives promoted the idea that gay marriage would be the end of family values, but that was easily debunked, and gay marriage support increased quickly after that. Can't the same happen now in the trans debate?

TE: Of course debunking the first unholy alliance is the way forward. But we need to get past the second unholy alliance first! I would even go so far to argue that, the only reason the anti-trans alliance hasn't crumbled under its own contradictions yet, is because postmodern feminism is essentially holding it up. Therefore, postmodernism is basically the biggest barrier to trans acceptance, even as it pretends to be trans friendly. The only reason why the anti-trans alliance makes sense in the first place is because they all see trans people as the representation of an illogical and reality-denying postmodern phenomenon. If you replace the postmodern gender ideology narrative, and replace it with a scientific narrative centered on gender dysphoria, their whole alliance would crumble. For example, rational atheists are mainly skeptical of trans people because they see it as an illogical postmodern thing, a scientific perspective would convince many of them to stop being anti-trans. The discussion of this science would also drive a big wedge between the rationalists committed to science on one hand, and the religious right plus the gender critical feminists on the other hand, who aren't that big on science in the first place. Similarly, using the existence of gender dysphoria to argue against gender being a social construct would effectively put a wedge between the conservatives, who uphold the idea of gender being biological, and the gender critical feminists, whose whole ideology is to deny this fact.

In other words, if a trans narrative that centers gender dysphoria, as well as the clinical evidence and scientific theory that supports it, is allowed to take center stage in the trans debates, it would blast the anti-trans alliance wide open, probably resulting in its various factions fighting each other instead. However, postmodern feminism and its associated postmodern 'gender ideology' would not allow this to happen, simply because it is protecting its own ideological doctrine. Remember that postmodern feminism basically shares a lot of the gender critical worldview too. It's why it wouldn't allow the gender critical worldview to be effectively challenged by trans empiricists. It simply cannot allow liberal scientific empiricism to discredit the criticalist worldview in the first place. Postmodernists may say they are trans friendly, but in reality they are also effectively shielding gender critical feminism from the most effective attacks. This is why some transmedicalist people like to say that postmodernists are effectively TERFs. Because they are effectively very similar. And they would also rather the TERFs win than allow trans empiricism to prevail, even if it means delaying trans acceptance.

TC: So what do you think should be the way forward from here? How can trans people win this?

TE: I think the answer is simple, but not easy. Firstly, we need to return to a trans discourse that centers gender dysphoria. The justification is simple: it is clear from simple observation that most trans people transition because of gender dysphoria, so it is the root cause of the vast majority of transness in this world. Therefore, only a trans discussion that centers dysphoria would be effective in helping trans people. Any debate that occurs on the level of ideology and not reality can only detract from the goal at hand.

Secondly, we need to have a seat at the table to present our view. We need to have a voice in mainstream media, there is simply no alternative to that. The reason why trans people keep losing right now is because all of the three components of the unholy alliance have much more mainstream media representation than us. We need to demand change, and try every way to change that. Remember, attitudes to gay people and gay marriage only started to change with media representation. It's time we demand that trans voices that represent the real lived experiences of trans people be heard. While there seems to be some media representation of trans people in recent years, almost none of them focus enough on dysphoria. This is ridiculous, and really needs to change.