A nice debunk of the transphobic trope of ‘lesbian erasure’ (overland.org.au)

submitted 11 months ago by alex@jlai.lu to c/lgbtq_plus@beehaw.org

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[-] Kwakigra@beehaw.org 33 points 11 months ago

The pointless persecution of trans women by people whose lives would be no different if they didn't bother with their bigotry campaigns never ceases to confuse me. Why go through all the trouble just to screw over a stranger? Surely their sadism can be satisfied in some other less harmful way?

[-] WalrusDragonOnABike@kbin.social 23 points 11 months ago

For some, if they admit that gender isn't fixed, they'd have to admit they waste so much of their live not transitioning. Sometimes its easier to double down when you're wrong for so long.

For some men, its probably mostly about sexism. They have so little going for them personally that they latch on to things like "being manly" (or "white pride") to compensate for their insecurities. If "men" choose to be women, then that's seen as an attack on the superiority of being a man and to maintain the exclusivity, you also can't allow "women" to become men but at least "women" wanting to be men supports the belief in superiority of men. One reason why trans women are demonized more than trans men by some transphobes.

For some women, its probably similar to how some minorities because even more prejudiced against some other minority that is seen as even "worse" than them to join with the majority. Like racism against black people by Irish when they weren't considered white or homophobia among racial minorities.

For others, its just parroting their bubble.

Some, just because they expect to be able to get away with it.

[-] gromnar@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago

I may well be wrong and too naive, but I think the hate is in many cases rooted in the scary idea that they could find them attractive. And so they signal that "it could never happen to them" and that they are doing it to protect other, weaker people.

[-] WalrusDragonOnABike@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago

True, that too. But that's partly an issue because they don't see them as their gender to begin with and are also homophobic. And homophobia generally also ties back into sexism.

[-] drwho@beehaw.org 18 points 11 months ago

Because they enjoy it. That it screws over a stranger means much less chance of facing any blowback for it.

Don't think police procedural villain, think school bully that never grew up and their actions make more sense.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 11 points 11 months ago

The Right has always imitated the rhetoric of the Left in order to push their viewpoints once people stop engaging with their ideologies directly, including using right-wing minorities who will claim being discriminated against by the Left if they are called-out for their own anti-minority rhetoric.

I won't speculate on the personal reasons the people in LAG have for collaborating with ideologies that in actuality hate them as well, because I think there are actually a lot of different potential reasons (e.g. being just plain bigoted, hoping to be left unharmed as 'one of the good ones', somehow believing that their societal acceptance is actually more threatened by trans people than conservatives, etc), but it is always sad to see, because I feel like they often deny their own oppression in order to do it.

[-] frog@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago

I feel like they often deny their own oppression in order to do it.

My suspicion is that they're not denying their own oppression, but are in fact acutely aware of it, and are either lashing out at others in order to win approval from their oppressors (the same way sometimes the victim of bullying will start bullying others so the bullies become their friends), or they are misplacing blame for their oppression. The thing that made me suspect this are people like JK Rowling, who are themselves the victims of abuse at the hands of cis men, and they're incorrectly perceiving trans women as being cis men looking to perpetuate further abuse instead of recognising that trans women are not their enemies but are in fact potential allies. Although Rowling is a straight woman, I can well believe that lesbian women can fall into the same line of thinking if they've had bad experiences with men: they simply cannot believe that someone could have another motive for transitioning to female other than creeping on lesbians. They end up with right wing beliefs because the right is better at offering simple black and white solutions to problems, and better at finding a target to blame, which is appealing to those who are hurt, angry, and scared.