This is a very pop-cultural explanation that looks specifically at a few random bourgeois actors and their interactions with traditional and social media. I think a better explanation for why TERF island is so transphobic has less to do with New Atheism (i.e. Dawkins et al.) and JK Rowling (who are symptoms of the underlying problem rather than the source). It has to do with the fact that the UK is fundamentally a dethroned world superpower. The UK lost all its colonies and became a vassal of the United States, and for a while was just an appendage of the EU. The same thing that is behind British transphobia is the same thing behind Brexit. It’s the same old reactionary “we used to be a REAL country. We used to be an EMPIRE. But now we have FALLEN FROM GRACE and we need a nonconformist scapegoat to blame for our current geopolitical irrelevancy!” And what better scapegoat than trans people, who have been undergoing a civil rights struggle similar to the struggles of other marginalized groups. When a marginalized group is actively undergoing a civil rights struggle in a dethroned empire like the UK, they become a convenient scapegoat for why the country is no longer powerful. This is especially true of trans women, who are seen through a transphobic lens as “biological men who refused the call to be masculine revanchist imperialists.”
TL;DR transphobia is just another genre of “the west has fallen, billions must die”
EDIT: Not “just” since transphobia exists outside of empire, but it takes on that flavor in the imperial core
That’s a great explanation that’s much more big picture, as I recall some of the #FBPE libs were even blaming Brexit passing on the left being too PC and pro-trans, thereby aggravating the leavers too much.
Plus the situation for trans people is getting worse in the US as its standing in the world declines. That also explains why the UK is furthest ahead in its transphobic crusade.
CW: Discussion of transphobia
This is a very pop-cultural explanation that looks specifically at a few random bourgeois actors and their interactions with traditional and social media. I think a better explanation for why TERF island is so transphobic has less to do with New Atheism (i.e. Dawkins et al.) and JK Rowling (who are symptoms of the underlying problem rather than the source). It has to do with the fact that the UK is fundamentally a dethroned world superpower. The UK lost all its colonies and became a vassal of the United States, and for a while was just an appendage of the EU. The same thing that is behind British transphobia is the same thing behind Brexit. It’s the same old reactionary “we used to be a REAL country. We used to be an EMPIRE. But now we have FALLEN FROM GRACE and we need a nonconformist scapegoat to blame for our current geopolitical irrelevancy!” And what better scapegoat than trans people, who have been undergoing a civil rights struggle similar to the struggles of other marginalized groups. When a marginalized group is actively undergoing a civil rights struggle in a dethroned empire like the UK, they become a convenient scapegoat for why the country is no longer powerful. This is especially true of trans women, who are seen through a transphobic lens as “biological men who refused the call to be masculine revanchist imperialists.”
TL;DR transphobia is
justanother genre of “the west has fallen, billions must die”EDIT: Not “just” since transphobia exists outside of empire, but it takes on that flavor in the imperial core
That’s a great explanation that’s much more big picture, as I recall some of the #FBPE libs were even blaming Brexit passing on the left being too PC and pro-trans, thereby aggravating the leavers too much.
Plus the situation for trans people is getting worse in the US as its standing in the world declines. That also explains why the UK is furthest ahead in its transphobic crusade.