It Is No Longer Possible for Me to Be Apolitical.
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Until recently, I strove to make my writings apolitical because I teach Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) courses focused on LGBTQ+ issues as a freelancer. Not wanting to alienate potential clients, I have always concentrated on the science of queer topics and interpersonal interactions. I can’t do that anymore because the times won’t let me.
When I started, people would listen politely or pretend to. Today though, people will sign out of meetings and announce that they are doing so whenever the science I present contradicts their political stance. In the past, I would distribute a link to a survey after presentations to receive feedback about my performance. That stopped when someone leaked the link to an anti-trans group that flooded my survey with 1s and hateful speech invalidating the results. Comments on my Medium page often consist of anti-trans rhetoric and accusations of things I’ve never done or beliefs I do not hold.
Frankly, I don’t mind the comments on my writings. They are more often than not a reminder that anti-trans posters have a lot of weird beliefs, and for some reason, they can’t spell very well. The things they say are comical. They’re trying to be mean, but I find it impossible to take them seriously.
More concerningly, right-wing politics have turned decidedly against transgender children. Doctors have devised a protocol to help these kids live their best possible life, supported by years of research. This research shows that being trans isn’t a psychological problem but simply a way that people can develop due to neurology, endocrinology, and genetics, and that trans kids know their gender from an early age. It is this protocol that the far-right has targeted. They are trying to make it illegal to help these kids. They are investigating the parents of trans kids for child abuse for following the best practices that researchers took decades to develop.
They’re not stopping with kids. Missouri has a bill that will ban trans adults from receiving gender-confirming care. Mississippi’s Attorney General’s office has argued in court that the courts should uphold their ban on transgender care because of the SCOTUS decision reversing Roe v. Wade.
