by Penny Robo
With worrisome regularity, certain people seem to be under the impression that there’s a nefarious cadre working to further trans interests, a powerful and shadowy organization seeking to shut down radfems, traditionalists, and other “gender critical” fuckhats and the like.
I wish these interpretations could be explained away as some profound misunderstanding or the like, but I think we’re all aware of what’s going on: that our struggles being closely tied to a separate and insincere movement, operating out of sight, inherently damages our cause.
The problem, of course, being that they seem incapable of defining the force they claim exists, can’t seem to sort out examples of events they say were influenced, and at every opportunity they fail to explain how a marginalized and vulnerable group could possibly wield or express the type of power they attribute to us.
They love for us to ignore how other social movements were similarly maligned as nefarious, how trans people have actually been actively excluded from organizational and historical roles they worked to create, and ultimately how such conspiracy theories almost uniformly revolve around a desire to maintain ignorance: they don’t construct conspiracy theories over things they don’t like they already have to deal with, only things they don’t like that they could otherwise ignore were it not for societal progress.
Aka “These people are ruining my game of ‘If I Can’t See You, You Don’t Exist’ and pointing my finger at a specter permits some measure of plausible deniability in my regressive views.”
When you see minorities and oppressed people fighting for equality you’re not witnessing the workings of a shadowy cabal, and when you see our voices being taken seriously you’re not spotting the fruits of secretive machinations… you’re seeing society’s concept of decency moving past you. Our agenda is worn on our sleeve for all to examine and, with luck, adopt in the interest of bettering the world we live in.
No group on the right side of history has to resort to fabricated stories or omitted truths to garner support; that’s reserved for those upholding ideals that harm, that perpetuate injustices, and normalize inequality as a secret virtue. ■