CPAC’s attack on trans people: the canary in the coal mine
This is about the rights to life and dignity and the future of Democracy
In 2023, Republican state legislators are competing with each other to propose a wide variety of bills to stop “transgenderism,” a conservative expression to refer to trans people. So far, anti-trans bills have been multiplied by a factor of 4 compared to the previous year.
This coordinated attack escalated on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC is the most prominent conservative conference in the US). Daily Wire host Michael Knowles called for eradicating “transgenderism”:
“For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.”
Change the word “transgenderism” with “homosexuality,” “blackness,” or “Islam” if you must: the Republican Party is crossing yet another red line in the United States.
While Knowles has since clarified he wasn’t calling for the genocide of trans people, objecting to the news coverage, his audience got the memo: it’s open season on trans lives.
This all-in strategy on anti-trans discourse illustrates three undeniable trends in America:
i) a descent towards authoritarianism by conservatives in response to gigantic demographic changes which they know will ineluctably penalize them;
ii) the instrumentalization of the most marginalized, trans people, to advance this political agenda; and
iii) a complete misrepresentation of the trans experience to their audience.
As The United Nations Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity beautifully said in his opening speech at Sydney World Pride last week:
“We are fed to wide publics through processes that seek to galvanize political constituencies by eliciting easy moral outrage and a sense of moral panic. The result is the dehumanization or delegitimization of our communities through a loop in which it is irrelevant whether criminal charges exist: our antisocial nature is implied.”
This has nothing to do with the trans experience. I regularly speak to trans people and almost invariably hear them comment: “it was either I transitioned, or I killed myself.”
This calls for, at minimum some level of empathy or compassion. Whatever our beliefs or our understanding of gender identity may be, if someone tells us they are in immediate harm, we keep them safe; we don’t vilify them. This is particularly true when it comes to children. The rights to life and dignity are the fundamental basis from which all subsequent rights flow and should be our priority when accommodating the trans experience.
Anybody that grew up gay knows how utterly damaging it is to be constantly described as a threat to family, tradition, and society. We then spend our entire lives playing catch up. It is easy to translate this experience into understanding how anybody struggling with their gender identity will internalize this abhorrent political discourse.
As someone who was asked regularly in the past few years to bring “bipartisanship” into my analysis, I feel there is something specific about conservatism in America. Even with gerrymandered districts, the demographic tide is turning fast, and the Republican party has not adapted its political program fast enough. A sharp turn towards fascism is a question of political survival but also a means to protect the brand of capitalism Republican promote. Trans people are just pawns in a game centered on power and resources, which has nothing to do with them.
This is one of these moments when silence is violence. This is no longer about bathrooms, pronouns, participation in sports, puberty blockers, Drag Reading Hour, the New York Times trans coverage, or women-only spaces; it is about the life and dignity of trans individuals and the future of American democracy.
