Being trans is not paedophilia
Stating the obvious is something that needs to be done on occasion. Trans people are not walking paedophiles for being trans, period. To even typing those words should never have to happen. Trans people are not groomers, sexually attracted to children, or doing sexual acts on children simply by living their affirmed selves. Being trans is not a threat to children simply for being trans. To insinuate that being trans is speaks as much to the power bullying of those who use groomer and other slurs as it does for the perception of trans folk in society. As child abuse has become the ultimate attack to use against any minority, the fact that it is the immediate weapon of choice for transphobes highlights the pernicious venom levelled against anyone who is trans inclusive or trans themselves.
In many ways I really wish this as all a dank meme, one which I could write a dark comedy about, highlighting the absurdity of those accusations. Yes, some trans folk are convicted of child sex offences, and yes, those are weaponised on an industrial level any time a trans person tries to defend trans rights. What goes unremarked is the insinuation that simply throwing trans paedophiles in the face of law abiding trans women. Every time I engage in trans discourse on the socials I invariably get a barrage of these posts, with people calling me groomer and much worse for standing up for trans kids. It angers me because I have seen first hand the impact of a false accusation has in real life. It angers me because my very identity is weaponised in a way that is repulsive and dehumanising.
Yes, misgendering hurts, being called a man is always an insult, yet want frustrates me more than anything is people like Posy Parker and exclusionary feminists believers who constantly push the paedophilic narrative. They do so in the fullness of knowing that it is red meat to their audience, knowing that the English-speaking world has had thirty years of drip fed anti-paedophile rhetoric in the media. Much of this is justified in calling out actual paedophiles, yet over the course of the last decade the mere whiff of being called a child sex offender has been enough to wreck lives. This is the tactic they use against trans folk, stoking the fires high enough that the smoke alone is enough to tarnish any trans person by dint of insinuation.
There is no equivocating with paedophilia, it is a heinous crime that must be delt with to the fullest extent of the law. Yet, for trans folk this justice is a sledgehammer of tainted association, used in a way that brushes every single trans woman. To be a trans woman in the English-speaking world is to face this barrage of abuse, accusations that are easy to rebut, yet impossible to fully wipe away. In the constant drum beat of groomers and worse a small stain sticks, casting doubt in those who buy into the exclusionary feminist rhetoric. It is transphobic in the same way those same allegations were against gay men, lesbians, Jewish men, black men, and Muslim men. Yes, a small fraction may indeed by sex offenders, but guilt by association has always been the far right’s weapon of choice against their minority targets. This is why exclusionary feminism is a right wing ideology, because it co-opts the guilt by association tactics of the right, wielding them like a drunk uncle with a AK47 at a Russian wedding.
I am sick of being on the receiving end of this hate speech, hate having to deal with it on a daily basis, and hate that those who use groomer and worse as insults fail to see the harm they are causing. Or, they are vey much aware of what they are doing but choose to act morally virtuous because they cannot see trans women as anything other than what they accuse us of. Either way, the reality is that it diminishes actual child sex abuse to the point that those who commit those crimes skate under the radar. If you cry something long enough at the wrong targets the actual criminals appear banal in comparison. You cannot scream and shout groomer and worse and expect everyone to take you seriously, though you will impact enough people for those folk to then target trans people with lethal intent. As has been happening with a steady drumbeat for the last decade. Anti-trans violence is fuelled by this rhetoric to the point that people are slaying trans folk simply for existing. In the dehumanising of trans identities trans folk are left as cattle waiting to be slaughtered. Less than human.
This is me yelling as I type, angry and frustrated. This is not some abstract slur that I can laugh off, something which I can roll with. It is deeply personal, ingrained into me that even being labelled a child sex offender in jest is still a serious accusation. Those who weaponise such language know the intent they mean, know that in using that language their goal is the erasure of trans people from the public sphere or worse. Trans women are not cattle waiting for the knife or gun, we are living breathing human beings with affirmed lives simply wishing to move through the world in peace. Fuck anyone who falsely accuses us of crimes we have never committed or will ever commit.