The Myth of Grassroots Transphobia
An analysis of social movements driven by hate
Since (and even before) the recent UK Supreme Court ruling regarding trans women, I’ve seen a lot of talk from transphobes in which they portray themselves as a movement.
This isn’t exactly anything new when it comes to reactionary political movements, they always like to portray themselves as the underdogs.
Nigel Farage also does this by constantly making appeals to the working class, but as soon as you dig even a little bit below the surface, you realise that this is nothing but a facade. For example, he went to a very expensive private school and has supported right-wing causes that disproportionately harm those at the bottom of society. He even mini-budget. Even more recently, workers’ rights and supports this current Supreme Court ruling.
Returning to transphobes, though, the simple fact of the matter is that there is no true grassroots support for anti-trans policies, and it is a cause that is fundamentally of society. We don’t even have to look particularly far to see that this is the case.
Even during the build-up to the , which saw Liz Truss become leader of the Tories and Prime Minister of Britain, trans rights were at the forefront of the discussion, with the candidates being asked questions surrounding trans people. Grant Shapps, to his credit, was the only candidate who didn’t seem to bother tapping into transphobia and instead took the attitude that we should “” and not get into a US-style culture war.
Unfortunately, this didn’t stop the fanning of the flames of transphobia that we would see over the course of the last two years of the conservative government. Liz Truss, though her premiership was short-lived, that she was not on the side of trans people, and even after her, Rishi Sunak would constantly mock and demean trans people as a means of courting support.
Even the Labour Party, which brands itself as a progressive party and people often think of them as such, is not progressive at all on this issue. Keir in favour of the recent Supreme Court ruling, and even before that, was more than happy to toe the line of transphobia in order not to upset the likes of Joanne Rowling and Helen Joyce.
With both major parties having united on this issue, it’s already absurd for transphobes to paint themselves as underdogs. Yet it gets worse.
One thing that we also know, because it has been discussed extensively by people, including myself, is that a large driving force of transphobia in and how they cover trans issues. Britain’s leading newspapers and channels are more than happy to have people like about trans people, but you almost never see trans people on to advocate for themselves in a positive way.
Even the supposedly progressive or left-wing papers in Britain, such as the Guardian, over the years. They rarely feature articles that are from actual trans people or that advocate for trans rights against the sort of reactionaries that I’ve mentioned here.
Sure, there are the odd articles here and there that support trans people, but they do nothing to change the overwhelming media landscape that brews transphobia in Britain. Transphobes, contrary to how they portray themselves, have the entire political and media establishment on their side.
You can see this when you look at marches or protests on both sides of the matter. There were in London and across the UK against the Supreme Court ruling and , attended by thousands of people. In spite of the odds being against trans people, there is massive popular support among the people for supporting trans people and trans rights.
On the other hand, when you look at marches or gender-critical people, they are oftentimes only attended by a few dozen people at most. Despite the massive support from politicians and the media, it rarely translates to people actually turning up to specifically gender-critical or anti-trans events in the real world.
This doesn’t even get into the support that transphobes receive from literal billionaires like Joanne Rowling I must say that when you look at how both of these incredibly wealthy and influential people are major proponents of anti-trans politics, it is incredibly hard not to see transphobia as something forced upon us by societal elites.
At the end of the day, the reason why transphobia cannot be a grassroots movement is that anti-trans people and groups do not challenge anything at all. Not only do they enjoy the full support of the political and media establishment, but their entire movement is centred around not challenging the ways we think about gender. They will always be on the side of the elites and the status quo.
