Transphobia, antisemitism, and the far right

I believe that in the 2020s, transphobia has come to serve the function that antisemitism did in far right conspiracy theories of the early 20^th century. Against the possibility of Twitterpocalypse, I have captured some threads about it from there:

Blyth Crawford — May 2021

Something that basically everyone who’s spent any time on far-right social media is aware of is that transphobia is one of the biggest narratives pushed by the far right. But so often this goes unexamined, so here's a quick thread on far-right transphobia.

The far right often adheres to really stringent gender roles i.e. men = warriors & wage earners and women = the domestic realm. Often this is based in “traditionalism” and a desire to return to an idealised “simpler age” where men and women had strictly defined roles.

To extremists, trans people are seen to violate their ideal of strict roles, and the concept of gender fluidity is seen to threaten their stereotypical world view of what men and women “should” be like. Often the “concept” of transness is seen by the far right as a by-product of modernity and of the corrupt modern age which deliberately seeks to undermine the traditional familial structure, and threaten (white) Western culture. Often transness is referred to as an “ideology”, framing trans people as part of a political agenda, and falsely suggesting that being trans is a choice. This alleged “agenda” is seen to wish to stop men from being "masculine" and women from being traditionally "feminine".

In more extreme far-right circles this "transgender ideology" is seen to be controlled by Jewish people, fusing far-right transphobia with traditional far-right antisemitism.

Commonly, the far right also frames children – the paradigm of innocence – as the most “at risk” from this so-called transgender ideology. They suggest children are preyed upon by “trans-advocates” who push them to surgically transition at a young age against their will.

This is really clearly exemplified by the legal battle between Anne Georgulas and Jeffrey Younger over custody of their transgender daughter, which in 2019 became a huge flash point for the far right. Younger (the girl’s father) denied his daughter was trans, claiming her mother was forcing her and wanted to immediately “chemically castrate” her. His custody campaign spread wildly throughout far-right social media where fundraising campaigns for Younger were promoted.

The idea that children are targeted by “transgender ideology” is partially based in a fundamental misunderstanding of how gender reassignment surgery works. Transphobes claim that children are at risk of being “mutilated” or forced into “irreversible” hormone therapy.

However, this is far from the case. Gender reassignment journeys begin with many consultations with medical professionals and the process of beginning hormone therapy or getting access to surgical options (if they are wanted) can take years. Hormone therapy also simply delays puberty to give a young person time to make the choice that is right for them. It is reversible.

Also, not all trans people will choose to surgically or medically transition.

The idea that children are forced to surgically transition at a young age is therefore a myth perpetuated by the far right to frame transgender people as evil and preying on children, and a tool to help extremists recruit more followers to their cause.

Transphobia is such a powerful tool for the far right because unfortunately it has been part of mainstream political discourse for some time. It is a major conservative talking point, and is also a cause taken up by some on the left. In the same way that, for some, misogyny is what initially sucks them into the far-right, extremists seek to harness the popularity of transphobic narratives to recruit “normies” into their movements and into escalating extremism. Therefore far-right transphobic narratives are often a more extreme reflection of the discourse that already exists at a more mainstream level, and allows them to attempt to attempt to gain more followers.

In our recent report, we highlight that extremists have attempted to capitalise on the appointment of Dr Rachel Levine by the Biden administration, as an excuse to ramp up their transphobic propaganda and recruit newcomers. Groups like the Proud Boys have used Levine as a symbol for their transphobic hatred, and have deadnamed her repeatedly, refusing to recognise her gender identity, and sharing photos of her prior to her transition.

This shows that groups like the Proud Boys, which claim to be accepting of homosexuality (although this claim is super dubious), still have particularly acute anxieties about transgender people, and view transgender people with a particularly intense hatred.

Why is this important? Not only is it necessary to understand far-right transphobia because it’s one of the biggest ways the far-right recruits newcomers, and we cannot counter this without first understanding it.

But also, trans people are at a disproportionate risk of violence, and of suicidal ideation. In 2015 98% of trans people who had experienced 4+ instances of discrimination and violence in the past year had thought about suicide. 51% attempted it. Trans people are also being targeted by anti-trans bills in multiple US states, and in the UK where plans to enable trans people to legally assert their identities were scrapped in 2020 after pressure by transphobic groups.

Transphobia should be given far greater academic attention and should be recognised as a key part of security discourse as it is such a major tool used for recruitment by the far right, yet on the whole, it often goes undiscussed. Of course, I’m not claiming our recent report is the only one to ever highlight this issue! In 2019 SPLC observed that transphobic threats from white nationalists were escalation, and I would recommend this as essential reading on the topic. However, in general far-right transphobia is deserving of far greater attention. This thread only covers (some of) the basics of extremist transphobia, but I really hope this is something that will be given more recognition in the future in the field of security studies.

weary mourner — Oct 2021

sigh

deep breath

rubs at the bridge of his nose

Maybe you should research trans communities in Berlin during the 30s. Not a picnic but for the time trans people had a measure of freedom back then. It was certainly better in Germany in the 30s for trans people than it was for trans people in the US during the 30s.

1. No.
2. The Nazis saw queer existence as a manifestation of Jewish “corruption” & a Jewish “weapon” against the German people. This is inseparable. You cannot isolate their transphobia from their foundational antisemitism.

As a Jew I am extremely irritated by every aspect of this Discourse, because I can already feel the claim coming - indeed saw it claimed in this thread — that we’ve somehow paid too much attention to Jewish victims or that the Nazis did not have a special bias against Jews.

Which is, of course, The Point of the whole rhetorical tool — it’s designed to exploit bad-faith rhetorical tendencies on here where “Bad person says X, not Y” & then the foes of Bad Person immediately radicalize themselves into “actually Y is far more important than X & fuck X”.

Which, when you've wielding the Holocaust as a tool — and exploiting the seething left-wing resentment about coverage of the Shoah — is designed to goad people into Shoah erasure & antisemitism to isolate them from “normies.”

Remember, and I will say this for the N^th time:

NAZISM IS NOT INTERSECTIONAL, IT IS CONSPIRATORIAL.

Nazism sees all the “corruption” of the world as the product of a few demographics viewed as masterminds.

that makes the hirschfeld book burnings make even more sense. target a wedge group, that they viewed as “proof of a spreading corruption” or some other horrible justification for their crimes.

That’s the thing, friend: you’d assume that, because you’re a reasonable person whose approach to this is “pragmatic” and utilitarian, & wants to acknowledge intersectionality. You have it backwards. To Nazis, queer people are a symptom of Jewish action.

Now — and this is an uncomfortable topic — Nazism generally imprisoned non-cishet men and trans women on a systemic scale. They were sent to the concentration camps, but not necessarily (to my knowledge) the death camps. But that’s hardly “Nazis were OK with queer folks!”

(Apparently he Nazis didn’t target queer cis women or trans men under Paragraph 175 for at least a significant period, but they were still totally socially ostracized and faced persecution at home. And those who were sent to the camps suffered horribly.)

It is never a pleasant topic to debate “who had it worst under the Nazis” because honestly you’re going to piss somebody off. I’ve obviously got some biases here, because in my opinion it’s a bad idea to apply notions of “fairness” here. But being goaded into that minefield is a blunder. And it’s a pretty blatant ploy to try to push somebody who means well into that territory.

I dunno one day when I feel real self-destructive I’ll tweet more about this, but for now: look, just don’t, OK? Don’t even get into the terrain of “well the Nazis targeted (x) first / more / etc.” Just don’t. It is ground with no victory, and you’re really just gonna piss Jews off.

I’m hardly endorsing their monstrous pseudoscience. I’m not trying to deny antisemitism is the original bigotry or that the Jewish people the worst consequences of Nazi hatred. A roughly equal number of other people died in the Holocaust too, they had hatred to spare.

Please don’t do this. I know you mean well, mate, I really do. I know you’re trying to ensure Everyone Has Their Day of Grief. But when it comes to Nazis, their atrocities toward some demographics — Roma, Sinti, Jews — were above and beyond the already-horrific cruelties they doled out to others.

That’s part of the unique horror of Nazism — you have “ordinary” levels of already-damning evil towards marginalized and occupied victims, and then you have the places where they went into the realm of the borderline demonic, where the impact of their crimes still echoes today. How’s somebody to possibly give everyone their fair moment and spotlight of grief when faced with that?

sigh

And there it fucking is. There's the inevitable person minimizing the primacy of Nazi antisemitism.

Motherfucking A-! Excuse me I’m just gonna primal scream here a bit. Please can we retire the “everyone thinks the Nazis hated Jews but ((they)) don’t want you to know that akshually they targeted (insert demographic here) first / as many victims / etc”? Please?