Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality

by Helen Joyce

There is a precedent for precisely such a societal shift: that in attitudes towards homosexuality over the past half-century. And many transactivists, analogising transphobia with homophobia, confidently expect history to repeat itself with gender self-ID. But for several reasons, I do not think it will. The first is that genuine transphobia – disgust or animus towards trans people – is far rarer than homophobia was fifty years ago. What is usually meant by the word – objection to gender identity overriding sex – is nothing like homophobia, and hence not likely to shift for the same sorts of reasons. The public polling discussed in chapter 11 suggests that people who oppose gender self-ID do not usually do so because they object to trans people as such, but because of their assessment of what is at stake for themselves and everyone else. The second is that increased trans visibility will not have the same effect as increased gay visibility. As more gay people came out, starting in the 1960s and continuing through the AIDS crisis into the 2000s, straight people gradually realised two things: that gay people were just like everyone else apart from their sexual orientation, and that their orientation was no skin off anyone else’s nose. Seeing and meeting more trans people may indeed encourage understanding and empathy. But when it comes to the ideology, rather than the people, it will only encourage hostility. The more males compete in women’s sports, the more obvious the unf...