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Trans and gender-diverse identities and lives are undeniable; to deny them is to rewrite history and to engage in behaviour which is bullying and abusive."
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As the global “anti-gender” movement takes hold, there has been a proliferation of anti-trans voices. These voices are generally on the political right, and it is politicians, faith groups, parenting and school bodies, and sometimes medical and psychological professionals, who have coalesced into a broad movement which aims to defend and protect a set of ideas which is antithetical to trans and other rights (including, for example, access to abortion and comprehensive sexualities education in schools).
Who gets to speak for a marginalised group in society?
As McEwan and Narayanaswamy note, the anti-gender movement centres the “family” (indeed a particular version of the family) as a key institution to be protected, citing social and economic arguments for the preservation of a particular ideology. This movement is organised, and “[t]here is a growing network of self-styled think tanks funded by anti-gender movements that use mainstream knowledge validation tools, including peer-review articles, policy briefs and webinars, to disseminate anti-gender messages in a range of global development spaces, including the UN system. These efforts are shrouded in the twin cloaks of ‘neutrality’ and ‘rigour’, rendering anti-gender messaging harder to refute.”
A recent example of “neutrality” and “rigour” has been seized upon by anti-gender and anti-trans advocates: the Cass Report, an independent review of gender identity services for children and young people in the UK by Dr Hilary Cass. Right-wing voices in the UK have called the report a “voice of sanity” and suggested that the report calls for an end to puberty blockers. As trans activist Freddy McConnell has noted, the report does no such thing. But it has been weaponised by anti-trans advocates because it suggests caution in our approach to young trans people.
In fact, there are many good things in the report, notably, says McConnell, its criticism of long waiting lists for gender identity services, the lack of broader mental healthcare provision, and the lack of autism awareness and assessment. Further, Dr Cass notes that the review is not about “undermining the validity of trans identities, [nor] challenging the right of people to express themselves, or rolling back on people’s rights to healthcare. It is about what the healthcare approach should be, and how best to help the growing number of children and young people who are looking for support from the NHS in relation to their gender identity.”
One significant criticism of the report is its exclusion of trans service users and trans healthcare experts from the review process. This, we argue, is a sign of trans erasure. How has it become legitimate to speak for trans people (and their allies) and to erase the legitimacy of their voices?
Trans erasure happens in at least three ways.
Firstly, many in the anti-gender movement deny the reality of trans and gender-diverse identities. They do this by asserting the primacy of the sex binary and denying ideas of gender identity. They invoke religious and other arguments which declare these diverse identities to be incompatible with the faultless “plan” of a higher being – the “God does not make ‘mistakes’” argument. They cherry-pick their science, misrepresent the science that exists, or set a scientific standard for research which would be unethical to conduct. With no evidence, they assert that young people are schooled and coerced into trans identities, the implication being that they are “not really” trans because such a thing does not exist.
Secondly, trans-critical voices centre and highlight data on “de-transitioning”, and even co-opt some who have de-transitioned into the anti-gender movement. Of course, people do de-transition. While the numbers suggest this is rare, the presence of de-transitioning does not invalidate trans identities and experiences. Indeed, some who have de-transitioned have said as much.
Thirdly, our final focus for this briefing, the anti-gender movement and trans-critical advocates speak for trans and gender-diverse people in ways which would be completely unthinkable in relation to other social movements and phenomena.
We are calling this out for what it is: patronising, undemocratic and unethical. This is not a benign process; it is an insidious strategy to write out of science and history the immutable fact that trans and gender-diverse people exist, always have done, and have a right to treatment and care.
And to be heard.
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When would it ever be acceptable to centre white voices in anti-racism work, to ask white people to adjudicate on whether an experience was racist, or to have “white-only” panel discussions on slavery, colonialism and apartheid?
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Let us make some parallels. When would it ever be acceptable to centre white voices in anti-racism work, to ask white people to adjudicate on whether an experience was racist, or to have “white-only” panel discussions on slavery, colonialism and apartheid? When would it ever be acceptable to centre male voices on the question of sexual violence experienced by women, to insist that the #MeToo movement should be run by men, or to have men-only webinars on rape and sexual violence?
When would it ever be acceptable to discuss LGBTQI rights without having LGBTQI people in the room, or to discuss the long history of homophobia and transphobia without consulting LGBTQI people? Or discussions about disability rights, the rights of people with albinism, or the rights of indigenous people which did not centre these communities?
This is never acceptable. And yet the anti-gender movement and its adherents do this over and over again. They speak for, over and against trans and gender-diverse people. Partly, they justify this through the denial of trans identities, or they cloak their sentiments in “concerns” about health. Yet they seldom engage with trans and gender-diverse people, because to do so would open the door for empathy, compassion, understanding and acceptance.
This is about power. To exclude is to diminish, disempower and erase. To include is to lay oneself open to the possibility of a change of heart, to broaden and deepen one’s definition of “humanity”, and to surrender deeply held convictions which, when challenged, lead to a crisis of meaning.
It is morally, ethically and democratically wrong to exclude the voices of people who live on the margins, to speak for them. Trans and gender-diverse identities and lives are undeniable; to deny them is to rewrite history and to engage in behaviour which is bullying and abusive.
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This opinion piece was written and endorsed by the board of the Professional Association for Transgender Health South Africa (PATHSA).
See also:
Die bevordering van gendergelykheid onder kinders: ’n onderhoud met Elma de Vries
Die transgender kind en skole se grondwetlike verpligting teenoor leerders
’n Krities-narratiewe begripsverheldering van biologiese aspekte van die transgenderverskynsel