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#transphobia

29 posts25 participants1 post today
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The more I watch them in action, the more it becomes clear to me that the inversion of civil rights language and protections is a foundational aspect of the methodology the Trump regime is using to transform America into a fascist dictatorship with open nazi characteristics. While I think this write up in the Guardian could use a bit more blunt honesty about the white nationalist nature of the Trump administration's strategy here, but it still does a pretty good job of looking at all the ways the regime is purposing one (itself white nationalist) SCOTUS ruling to turn sixty years of civil rights legislation into a weapon against the very marginalized people it was written to protect.

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/m

Trump administration exploits landmark civil rights act to fight schools’ diversity initiatives

"Linda McMahon, the education secretary, has described the investigation as part of the administration’s effort to “reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination”. But civil rights advocates have denounced them as vague, likely unlawful and a betrayal of the spirit of the civil rights protections they purport to invoke.

“What we’re witnessing is an administration that is working very hard to turn civil rights laws against” the people trying to faithfully implement them, said Maya Wiley, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “It’s really an effort to say, ‘If you don’t do what we tell you, we will turn our considerable power against you’.”

I think the facts here pretty much speak for themselves; weaponizing Title VI and IX of the 1964 Civil Rights act to fight bogus "anti-white discrimination," seize control over educational institutions to protect a US-backed genocide in Gaza, and persecute trans (primarily women) people is a gross, fascist perversion of the entire purpose of those laws and I have no doubt that doing so actively delights the cracker nazis running the Trump administration. Forcing a white nationalist framework onto American life through the very same mechanisms that were installed to fight rampant white supremacy in our society is the ultimate fascist troll job, and the "how's my ass taste" aspect of this initiative is probably just as important to the regime as its actual efforts to create a de facto white ethnostate through these methods.

Furthermore, I think it goes without saying that using one single SCOTUS decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, to argue that the government has a legal responsibility to enforce white nationalist policy over every aspect of American life and education, is a ridiculously broad, crassly dishonest interpretation of the law that should in no way be given credibility by anyone who isn't a fascist. This isn't Simon Says, the clearly stated purpose of the Civil Rights Act matters here too, and going full "the card says Moops" in response to this objectively disingenuous nazi bullshit is a cowardly failure of civic responsibility by the media, education institutes, and every part of the American establishment that isn't directly fighting Trump's inversion perversion of the Civil Rights Act.

Finally I'd like to point out that this is yet another example of the way Trump's entire fascist agenda amounts of "governance by nazi conspiracy theory." The entire basis of the administration's argument that they can, and need to use Civil Rights law to protect white, straight, Christian men, is rooted in fascist conspiracy theories about "reverse racism," "gender ideology," and "white genocide" - none of which are real, or actually happening in our society. This is a consistent pattern now in how Trump rules; the regime states fascist conspiracy theories as fact, acts on those conspiracy theories as if they were actual crises-level emergencies, and then seeks reprisal against anyone who opposes their attempts to govern as if these fascist conspiracy theories are true.

The Guardian · Trump administration exploits landmark civil rights act to fight universities’ diversity initiativesBy Alice Speri
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"Defining sex as narrowly as this court has done is dangerous because it traps people (most especially women) in stereotypes fixed in the amber of the present day. To that end, Fields shares something quite concerning that needs to be quoted in full. In short, she identifies a political change to the wording of the legislation—one she was forced to make—which the Supreme Court seemed to rely upon in coming to their judgment:

'The inclusion of the word “woman” in the pregnancy and maternity provisions was contentious – we were well aware of the possibility of a trans man with a GRC becoming pregnant. The drafting was eventually determined for political reasons, and reluctantly implemented by officials on the basis that the purposive approach to statutory interpretation, together with the explicit provision in the GRA that a GRC does not affect parenthood, would give the right result should a case ever be brought by a trans man in this situation. However, it is true that this undermines the coherence of the drafting and I fear that this anomaly played a significant role in the approach taken by the Court. This highlights the danger of allowing politics to influence legislative drafting – something we should continue to guard against as the implications of this judgment are worked through and any amendments to ensure the law works as it should are contemplated.'

When one relies on a politically biologized definition of women, you open the door to legal perversities. And that does appear to be what happened here. Instead of neutrally describing pregnancy—as a sex equality approach would demand—a political decision was made to, in the text of a law that binds peoples’ lives, describe pregnancy as a defining property of womanhood; a social, lived gender as much as a sex."

— The Potemkin Feminism of "Sex-Based Rights", liberalcurrents.com/the-potemk

Liberal Currents · The Potemkin Feminism of "Sex-Based Rights""Sex-based rights" are a Potemkin feminism that commit us to a theory of objective sex where there is something special about your very biology that entitles you to special treatment not deserved by others.
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"Paragraph 221 of the ruling reiterates this idea, once again saying that discrimination is “proportionate” where a “reasonable objection” is made to their presence “because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance.” Suddenly, gendered appearance matters a great deal for defining gender, in a way that relies on wholly subjective judgment.

Far from introducing clarity, this ruling suggests that—by law—transgender men in Britain are two sexes at once: whichever one circumscribes their rights the most will be the legally salient one."

— The Potemkin Feminism of "Sex-Based Rights", liberalcurrents.com/the-potemk

Liberal Currents · The Potemkin Feminism of "Sex-Based Rights""Sex-based rights" are a Potemkin feminism that commit us to a theory of objective sex where there is something special about your very biology that entitles you to special treatment not deserved by others.

"But the absurdities pile up even further. Much attention has rightly been given to the way that this ruling fixates luridly on transgender women—we are, after all, at the heart of much moral panic about trans people around the globe. But the ruling spared some thought for transgender men, as well, and the implications there are as dark as they are bizarre.

Consider this paragraph from the ruling:

'236. On the other hand, a biological definition of sex would mean that a women’s boxing competition organiser could refuse to admit all men, including trans women regardless of their GRC status. This would be covered by the sex discrimination exception in section 195(1). But if, in addition, the providers of the boxing competition were concerned that fair competition or safety necessitates the exclusion of trans men (biological females living in the male gender, irrespective of GRC status) who have taken testosterone to give them more masculine attributes, their exclusion would amount to gender reassignment discrimination, not sex discrimination, but would be permitted by section 195(2). It is here that the gender reassignment exception would be available to ensure that the exclusion is not unlawful, whether as direct or indirect gender reassignment discrimination.'

What the plain text suggests here is that even though—by dint of their own ruling!—transgender men are legally women, they cannot participate in women’s sports if they look too manly or have taken testosterone. So trans women must be excluded from large swathes of society because they are supposedly men, and trans men must be similarly excluded because they are trans."

— The Potemkin Feminism of "Sex-Based Rights", liberalcurrents.com/the-potemk

Liberal Currents · The Potemkin Feminism of "Sex-Based Rights""Sex-based rights" are a Potemkin feminism that commit us to a theory of objective sex where there is something special about your very biology that entitles you to special treatment not deserved by others.
Continued thread

I am frequently in contact with religious groups with my work with #Homeless and #unhoused persons and fighting #hunger
and my #mentalhealth issues of #Depression and #anxiety put me into close contact with so many marginalized people.

I'm a cishet male. I'm mixed white and Asian. I fight for #IndigenousRights #BIPOC #LGBTQ #Immigrants #Minorities and that puts me in direct odds against #racism #Bigotry #xenophobia #homophobia #Transphobia #Fascists #Nazis and in turn, #Religion

MORE ->

Sorry to be a broken record about this, but #gender based #censorship makes NO SENSE (except "because #patriarchy"). It doesn't happen often, but what keeps me going in my seemingly-fruitless endeavor to raise awareness about and hopefully change the bs status quo of "female - looking nipples" getting banned online and in public as "sexually explicit nudity" but not "male-looking nipples" is when someone comments to me "you know, I never really thought about topless inequality before, but now that you've pointed it out, you're right--it IS sexist and doesn't make sense!"

See how quickly Terf Island turns on a minority, all Minorities are seeing it and are afraid.

The Straights won't stand up for us in enough numbers, the haters will get away with this and us Queers will be forced back into the shadows at a Billionaires request

theguardian.com/business/2025/

The Guardian · Barclays to bar trans women from using its female bathroomsBy Joanna Partridge

Not In Our Name: #Feminist #Academics and #Educators Speak Out Against #Transphobia We call on all trans-inclusive feminist academics and educators to sign this #statement docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI

Google DocsNot In Our Name: Feminist Academics and Educators Speak Out Against TransphobiaWe call on all trans-inclusive feminist academics and educators to sign this statement: ‘Not In Our Name’ We are non-trans feminist academics and educators. We write in support of trans rights, trans wellbeing and trans inclusion. The harmful Supreme Court ruling states that women and men are defined by their ‘biology', by their ‘sex at birth’. The extreme interpretation of this ruling by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) suggests that trans women and trans men should be restricted in their access to workplaces, schools, sports and services, excluding trans people from using the facilities of their gender. Anti-trans campaigners say they want to exclude trans women from women’s spaces in order to protect cis women. We do not need protection from trans people. We need action against sexual harassment, rape, domestic violence and everyday sexism. We need policies that guarantee women get equal pay for their work, affordable childcare and the eradication of childbirth-related deaths. And we need the state to stop the violence that trans people face at the hands of cis men and cis women. We need to stand together in defence of everyone's bodily autonomy, gender expression, reproductive rights, and individual freedoms. We cannot have a state or society that checks people’s genitals when they go to the toilet, go to work or school, play sports, access healthcare or use facilities. We unequivocally reject the idea that women can be defined by their biology, a claim which is neither feminist nor scientific. For centuries, women have fought for the right to do, wear and be what they want to be. It is essentialist and patriarchal to assert that body, genes, chromosomes and reproductive capacity make women (or men). Feminism teaches us that our body does not determine our destiny, and nor should legislation, policies, or society's expectations. Trans people are being used as scapegoats and a distraction from the problems that we actually face in society. This is an attack on trans people and will further inflame transphobia. When the Supreme Court ‘clarifies’ (cf. Supreme Court, 2025, pg. 76) what a woman ‘is’ they enforce the idea that all women need to conform to a singular, racialised and ableist model of femininity. We want our feminism to be vibrant and intersectional. Trans and non-binary people are part of us. We support all people to be free and safe to express themselves without fear of prejudice or harm. As educators and academics, we have a duty to care. We must strive to make education a safer, more inclusive and equitable space for everyone. We stand with our trans and non-binary colleagues and students. We fight for everyone’s right to be educators and educated, without prejudice or harm. We are not victims. We welcome trans people. We demand that trans people are able to live their lives safely and with dignity. We believe that trans women are women and trans men are men. The Supreme Court ruling is not a victory for feminism; it is a victory for patriarchy. And when the patriarchy wins, everybody loses. This ruling does not speak for us. Not in our name.

"Trans men are legally women, the UK high court ruled, but they won't be allowed to attend women's rape crisis groups... because of their male appearance."
BUT
"The guidance goes on to advise “associations” that a men-only or gay men-only association should not admit trans men (biological women).”

Again, FUCK YOU UK!

lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/uk-hum