The Threats Facing Transgender News and Analysis (and what we can do about it)

Illustration: Getty

The whole Internet media landscape is changing dramatically, and that has repercussions for media coverage of trans issues as well as transgender content providers. Trans journalists and activists have to adapt to these changes, if they are to serve the LGBTQ community and contribute to the coverage of trans issues.

By Jack Molay

There are several reasons for why such writing is important.

First of all trans people - including  journalists, activists and LGBTQ organizations - need up to date information and analysis regarding transgender issues in order to (1) put up a defense against anti-trans activists and policies and (2) build a learning arena for trans people and their allies as far as the topics of identity, life journeys, social and cultural challenges and politics go.

I would argue that if you are at war, intelligence gathering and sharing in of outmost importance, and right now the transgender community is under continuous attack.

Secondly transgender media may provide important input to cis journalists and media, and it this way help trans people get the message across to a broader audience. 

The importance of the web for trans people cannot be overrated. Before the internet most trans people had extremely limited access to information about gender identity and gender dysphoria. There were newsletters and zines, for sure, but if you wanted to get access to them you needed to know they existed. 

The Encyclopedia Britannica  - once considered the best encyclopedia around - had zero entries on queer and trans issues in 1942. What this epitome of knowledge told LGBTQ people was that they did not exist. So yeah, trans web visibility is very important, and especially online, as this is the main source of info for many closeted, questioning and isolated gender variant people.

Traditional media is failing

It is baffling to see to what extent cis journalists fail to include trans voices in their reporting, while transphobic TERFs and right wing extremists are given a lot of space. I guess this is part of an overall systemic pressure towards upholding the status quo, in this case traditional gender roles  and power relationships. 

Sites Covering Transgender News

Photo: Getty

What are the best sources of transgender news and analysis, given that traditional media so often fails in its coverage of transgender issues? Here are some really good ones.

I have gradually over the years expanded my transgender news curation and coverage, having now several social media accounts and sites where I share transgender news.

For me there are five basic principles for selecting the headlines that apply. I would like to present:

• Transgender news and articles written by trans people for transpeople.
• Transgender news and articles from LGBTQ sites and LGBTQ friendly media.
• Relevant content from other media, to the extent it is helpful for trans people and allies trying to keep track of relevant developments.
• Trans and related queer news and articles from all over the English reading world, beyond the US and the UK. (I have still not found a simple solution to presenting content not written in the languages I know).

Finding Authenticity Within Gender Dynamics

For generations, rigid gender norms have forced people into predefined roles,  at considerable psychological cost to those whose identities or expressions did not fit. In spite of the current cultural and political backlash, those constraints have weakened in  parts of the world. Joanna Santos reflects on that shift, arguing that the challenge is to give people the freedom to discover who they are.

By Guest Writer Joanna Santos

From the moment we are born we are slotted. For millennia we were taught (with rare exceptions) how to behave, dress, gesture and play without being given much choice. This is largely still true today despite the cultural progress we have made over the last few decades. 

Photo: The Gender Spectrum Collection, Alyza Enriques

Conditioning children

We inflicted rules on children rather than respect their inclinations because society ran on preset expectations rather than on basic rationality. The comfort of high predictability was preferred with most people acquiescing rather than honour instincts which would have led them in other directions. 

The enforcement of these rules were particularly harsh on children who were born different. The gap between their authenticity and the imposed regulations was then left to fester and remain an unfulfilled wish which, in some cases, deeply impacted the psychology into adolescence. 

It is what we eventually defined in the early 20th century as "transsexualism" (which eventually became generally known as suffering from intense gender dysphoria); a condition whose worst suffering lay in the suppression of natural instinct. 

The natural mosaic which is humanity allows for the development of beings which are the product of a combination of many factors. In the parts of the world governed mostly by open minded and compassionate people we have wisely decided not to stifle their authentic selves. This despite their journeys butting head first into conventions that instill fear in society's ignorant. 

On how to handle transphobic trolls online

Some tips on how to handle transphobic haters in social media.

Below you will find a snapshot of some comments from my blog's comment inbox. There are hundreds of these entries made by a mentally unstable individual who thinks that teaching me about trans issues will make a huge difference.

(I think  she overestimates the importance of this blog, but let us leave that aside for the moment.)

Click on image to read.

She (I am pretty sure this is a TERF) clearly believes that if I accepted her simplistic understanding of sex and gender, I would see that she is right. 

I would stop defending trans people and join her in her war against "gender ideology". She is the smart one. I am the one misled.

Trolling is not an invitation to a real discussion

If you have ever tried to engage in a discussion about trans issues with a transphobic troll, you will know that it leads nowhere. 

You will make a serious argument based on facts,  research and real life experience and they will present some fringe pseudoscience or fake statistics to beat you. 

You will prove that that the transphobic paper has been falsified by more reliable experts and they will bring up another. If that does not help, they will present hearsay, anecdotes and myths as facts.

No, Vlad, defending trans people does not weaken pro-climate policies

Vlad Vexler, who is normally known as a well informed and sensible political commenter, now wants to sacrifice  the defense of trans people to save the climate movement. A nonexistent problem becomes trans erasure in a new video.

Vlad Vexler is a Russian born British philosopher, political analyst and YouTube essayist, best known for his commentary on  Putinism, democracy, populism, authoritarianism, political philosophy and culture. In the video he is talking to Rupert Read, a British philosopher, environmental campaigner and public intellectual. [Update: The video has been taken down].

Are trans people scaring good people away?

It is a bit disturbing to see two cis white men talk intellectually about sacrificing Black and trans people on the altar of  climate change victory, as if these were somehow completely different topics, and not the end result of a coherent and systemic world view that makes the exploitation of both nature and people seem natural and benign.  

In an article over at Resilience, an environmental and social-change publication run by the Post Carbon Institute, the two of them put it this way:

'Second, calls to “center the Global South” translated into expectations that Western participants should express collective guilt, defer to non-Western voices and adopt hyper-‘progressive’ immigration positions that command relatively little civic support across the West. Third, a similar dynamic emerged over trans rights, with members often expected to affirm contentious claims – for instance, that trans women are indistinguishable from biological women across all contexts, including sport, prisons and debates about male-on-female violence. As a result, even those broadly supportive of racial justice, global justice and trans rights could feel excluded unless they endorsed the approved formulation.'

No one says that trans women are indistinguishable from "biological women" (which is a dubious and unscientific term in itself).  What trans activists and their supporters are saying is that trans women are women and that they should be given the same human rights protection as everyone else. They should have the same right as everyone to live their lives in peace and with the same liberties as everyone else.

Indeed, given that trans people represents a small marginalized group targeted by fascists and fundamentalists, pro-democracy humanists have to pay special attention to their needs. What extremists  do to their favorite scapegoats, tell us  a lot about their overall strategy for achieving hegemony. 

Every argument made in this paragraph reflects the anti-trans movement's attempt to dehumanize and scapegoat trans people.  None of the "problems" presented in the article reflect serious, real, on the ground challenges for the climate crisis movement, as I see it.

Vlad even plays the "I like trans people, but...." card in this video, promising to defend trans people in the future. He would have had more credibility if he had made a knowledge based, compassionate, defense of trans people first. 

Vlad Vexler and Rupert Read

Supporting trans people does not undermine  support for green politics

The MAGA regime is not persecuting trans people because it makes them popular. 

The fact is that the great majority of Americans sympathize with trans people, even though some disagree with some policies. (Nor do they like the extreme violence against immigrants.) 

What Pakistan's LGBTQ community can teach us about destructive trans separatism

Pride Pakistan points to the way transgender separatists have caused immense harm to other trans and queer people. We see the same phenomenon in Western countries.

I believe we need to include all of the world in the transgender conversation, which is why I have tried to share stories from Asia, Africa and Latin-America  in my social media channels (which are - let us admit it - dominated by people from North America and Europe).

In a recent article Pride Pakistan discusses more recent event in Pakistan's LGBTQ community, with a focus on what I would call transgender separatism.

Facing extreme transphobia from religious fundamentalist authorities some trans activists try to distance themselves from the rest of the queer community in two ways:

1. Transmedicalism. They argue that true trans people are some kind of intersex, and that all policies had to be based on "biological sex" (which, in their minds it seems, seems to include themselves, but not any other trans people).

2. Homophobia: “Being transgender is a medical condition recognized by Islam, but being gay is a sin prohibited by the Quran.”