Transmisia
About
Transmisia, from trans- (reference to transgendrity + -misia (noun form of the -mis affix meaning "wrong or bad"), is misinformation or misrepresentation of transgendrity. It often leads to anti-trans bigotry, and is often used for rage farming against transgender people.
It is a form of social stagnationism which has the net effect of needlessly working against equal social rights of transgender people.
As with any widespread form of bigotry, it often leads to abuse and even violence. This includes disproportionate denial of services to trans people, including shelters.
Vocabulary
- Transmisia is more often called "transphobiaA", based on -phobia meaning fear of transgender people, but such fear by itself only part of the problem.
- It often comes in the form of transnegation, which tries to frame trans people as deluded or "confused" -- basically denying their existence and their lived experience.
Pages
- /JKR: author J.K. Rowling has been a heavy promoter of anti-trans beliefs and sentiments
- /UK: anti-trans advocacy in the UK
Related
- Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters: a book
- TERF ideology heavily promotes anti-trans beliefs
- Truscum advocate a form of gender exclusionism which holds that physical dysphoria and a wish for medical intervention are both requirements for transgenderness.
- Rapid onset gender dysphoria: a questionable phenomenon often cited by anti-trans advocates as fact
History
As overtly religious arguments lost traction over the late 2010s (having shed most of their credibility during their war on gay people), social stagnationists reoriented their focus towards transgendrity and trans people, whose public visibility (and therefore acceptance) has lagged a few decades behind those of homosexuality.
A significant part of this trend has been self-identified feminists and "pro-woman" advocates (not necessarily feminists) who claim to believe that trans rights represent a threat to the safety of women and girls. Since these people do not represent the majority of feminists (or even the majority of cisgender women), the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminist" or "TERF" was coined to describe their position. (It should be noted that their views typically are quite anti-feminist as well.)
Another attempted positive framing of transmisia is those who refer to their position as "gender critical", which is another common element of TERF ideology. They are in fact not at all critical of gender, and use many arguments based in gender essentialism to enforce neotraditional gender roles.
The TERF branch of anti-trans advocacy most notably represents a growing political force in the UK, where trans rights have been well established for some time but legal improvements and updates are needed in order to accommodate improved understanding.
Advocates
People who promote anti-trans beliefs include:
- Alice Dreger
- Graham Linehan UK
- J.K. Rowling (see JKR): UK TERF, supports Maya Forstater, repeats myths
- Maya Forstater: UK TERF, repeats myths
- Paul McHugh: US; bad science; gender fundamentalist
- Ray Blanchard: US/CA; bad science; also says homosexuality is "not normal"
Examples
- 2018-04-05 Ankhassa@Twitter "There is no need for any other definition for a woman apart from "woman". Its a description which has been representative for thousands of years. As has "man". If it doesn't suit you why on earth would you claim be one?" -- The last tweet in a long discussion that began with a link to a YouTube video entitled "Transgender Women Aren't 'Women'"
Links
to file
Reference
- Wikipedia
- Social Justice Wiki
- Online Hate Crime Report 2020
- CWRE: Myths/transgendrity: popular myths about transgenderness
Related
- 2019/12/18 [L..T] Judge rules against researcher who lost job over transgender tweets Maya Forstater, a tax expert who lost her contract at the Centre for Global Development after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex, has lost her tribunal case.
- 2019/11/15 [L..T] Researcher defends tweets on trans rights at employment tribunal “Forstater tweeted that "men cannot change into women". She has argued that her "gender critical" beliefs should be protected under the 2010 Equality Act, and she has funded her legal challenge through the CrowdJustice website.” ...“She was accused of using "offensive and exclusionary" language in tweets opposing government proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow people to self-identify as the opposite sex.“
- 2018/01/15 [L..T] Arsonist TERF thinks trans women are immoral & should be beaten "I’m quite prepared to threaten violence because it seems to me that politically what they’re seeking to do is piss on all women. That’s what they’re doing for their personal gratification. There aren’t many of them, but what really offends me is the extent to which academia and political parties have listened to them in a way that they’re not listening to us as women." – Linda Bellos
- 2017/09/04 [L..T] The Purge Of Transgender People From American Life Has Begun “Five members of Trump's evangelical executive advisory board, including the founder of the Family Research Council James Dobson, signed the Nashville Statement. The Nashville statement dictated that transgender people should not be tolerated in society, and that anyone who tolerates them is not a Christian.”
- 2004/11/01 [L..T] Why We Stopped Doing Sex Change Operations “Those I met after surgery would tell me that the surgery and hormone treatments that had made them “women” had also made them happy and contented. None of these encounters were persuasive, however. The post-surgical subjects struck me as caricatures of women.”