Playing Word Games - How Anti-Trans Activists Lie
In today’s article we are going to look at how Anti-Trans Activists (ATAs) manipulate words, phrases and meanings in order to spread lies and misinformation about the transgender community.
Unfortunately there are so many different tactics those opposed to the existence of transgender people use that it would take a book to detail them all, so instead, we are going to look at one example, and pick that apart to show you the methodology used.
So, lets look at a claim that has been propagated recently, given the publicity over the who Keira Bell / Puberty Blockers legal debacle.
“Almost everyone going through puberty gets Gender Dysphoria. Its common to hate your body during puberty.”
This claim is:
1) Believable & Relatable - because most people have some discomfort with their bodies changing during puberty.
2) Completely false - It relies upon ignorance of what Gender Dysphoria actually is, and uses that ignorance to conflate it with a different experience that most people can relate to. This in turn then diminishes and undermines the experiences of those with real Gender Dysphoria - which is the actual aim.
What is Gender Dysphoria?
“Gender Dysphoria refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.
Gender dysphoria often begins in childhood, although some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later.”
Simply put - in order to experience Gender Dysphoria there has to be an internal conflict between who you are as a person and how you see yourself, and the gender assigned to you from birth.
ATAs deliberately interpret this as only a conflict caused by physical anatomy, when the reality is much deeper - it is a conflict caused by the interaction of identity with a combination of a large number of physical and social factors that intersect in multiple, unpredictable ways.
This also puts Anti-Trans Activists in a difficult position, because one of their foundational beliefs is that Gender Identity does not exist.
And as you can see, the medical definition of Gender Dysphoria hinges on the fact that Gender Identity not only exists, but is a fundamental part of the human condition.
If we take that alongside the original claim, we are left with the following:
1) If Gender Identity doesn’t exist as ATAs claim, then Gender Dysphoria doesn’t exist exist either, therefore the discomfort young people experience during puberty is not Gender Dysphoria.
2) If Gender Identity exists as the medical experts state, then Gender Dysphoria exists, and what young people going through puberty experience is not Gender Dysphoria because it is missing that deep internal conflict rather than just being discomfort with physical changes.
As is often found with ATA arguments and claims, they espouse a mutually conflicting worldview which does not hold up to any sort of scrutiny.
Identifying Anti-Trans Activist lies
As previously mentioned, there are actually too many lies to individually unpick.
Tactics range from outright lies, misinformation, hyperbole, misinterpretation of existing information and conflating issues to deliberately omitting key, relevant information.
All of them rely on ignorance, and as the saying goes, “A lie is halfway around the world while the truth is still putting it’s boots on”
However, there are some relatively simple steps that you can take in order to protect yourselves.
Assume everything an Anti-Trans Activist or obviously trans hostile person is telling you is untruthful from the start. This applies to both social and mainstream media such as the UK Press.
Use the following Shinigami Eyes extension for Google Chrome to identity trans-hostile people & information on Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Medium, YouTube, Wikipedia articles, search engine results, and all sites with Disqus comments.
Take whatever is claimed and do your own research. Ask yourself “where is the lie here, and what info am I missing?”. This is especially important if the claim seems to resonate with your own understanding.
When doing your own research, ensure the sources you use are trustworthy.
Omit sources that are trans hostile, including activist groups, hate groups and right wing religious groups.
If in doubt, ask. Find your local trans or LGBT organisation and ask them. Try to avoid asking on social media as ATAs often mask attempts to attack and abuse trans people online as “just asking innocent questions”.