Donald Trump's victorious White House campaign exploited transphobic myths, fear, and prejudice. his adTargeted trans athletes in women's sports, gender-affirming medicine, and the use of new pronouns.
So anyone who objects to these practices is transphobic, right?
Wrong. All these issues are or should be debated. And if you dismiss people who question you as bigots, you're becoming a form of bigotry yourself.
Let's be clear: transphobia is real, and some people think it's fair to label statements on the subject as transphobic because they're so creepy, discriminatory, and misleading.
I'm looking at you, Donald Trump. During his campaign, he repeatedly claimed that schools were sending children for gender reassignment surgery without their parents' consent. ”There are several places, your boy goes to school and comes back as a girl” he said in October.
That is a lie and a hateful lie. Not a single child has undergone surgery at school. Additionally, even in states where gender reassignment surgery is legal for patients under 18, it cannot be performed without parental consent. Other types of care for trans minors, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy Parental consent requiredtoo.
Of course Trump knows all this. The only reason for telling these lies is to incite hatred against transgender people and their defenders.
But that doesn't mean everyone who questions medical intervention for transgender children is a hater. In the most comprehensive scientific review of puberty blockers and other hormones, British pediatrician Hilary Cass writes that the evidence for their beneficial effects on children's mental health and well-being is: I concluded that there is.extremely weak. ”
Indeed, some critics argue that there are problems such as: Weaknesses in Cass's own analysis. That's natural. The science on this topic is still in its infancy, and there is much we don't know.
Research on trans athletes is similar, but we still don't have a clear answer. arecent researchA study funded by the International Olympic Committee found that trans women athletes' hand grips, a common indicator of overall strength, were stronger than their peers who were designated female at birth.
However, the same study found that trans female athletes (all of whom had undergone at least one year of treatment to suppress their testosterone levels) had lower lung function, jumping ability, and cardiovascular fitness than cisgender female participants. It turns out.
So these issues are complex. That's why we should resist blanket bans.Gender-affirming care for minorsAnd even moreTrans women athletes on women's teams. At final count, each act was banned in half of America's states.
But that's why we need to be open-minded about these questions and avoid demonizing people who give different answers than we do. You can't learn more about a topic if you stop discussing it.
That's especially happening on college campuses. At the University of Pennsylvania, where I teach,Trans women swimming champion Leah ThomasShe told me that she should have been allowed to play on the women's team, but that she was not going to share that thought with anyone else. The risk of being harassed by the “T-word” or transphobia is simply too great.
Never mind that some trans female athletes question whether they should compete against cisgender women. 'I only want to win if I know it's fair,' says transgender female long-distance runnerandy taylorShe spoke out in 2021 worrying that the years she had lived as a man had left her in a position of inadequacy.
What about the pesky issue of pronouns? Again, President Trump's campaign ad used the baseless phrase “Kamala is for them, President Trump is for you” to disparage transgender people.
But that doesn't mean we should require everyone to state their “preferred pronouns” or that those who refuse this ritual are bigots. I don't ask students to tell me their pronouns. Because I think it's annoying. If you would like me to call you by a specific pronoun, please email me and I will say I will. (And since I'm the professor, the rest of the class will follow my guidance.)
My approach may be wrong, but I'm happy to entertain critics of it. That's how we learn.
But if they call me transphobic, no one will learn anything. There's enough hate out there already. There is no need to add more to it in the name of resisting it.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools and eight other books.
