Ten Extremely Bigoted Questions Most People Ask Anyway (including you)
No, you aren’t a bigot, but your POSITION on this is
Welcome to Dear Cisters, the column that’s more like Dear Abby than the Savage Lovecast. I’m your host Stephenie Magister, transgender writer/nerd/editor for award-winning and best-selling books.
(Go here for my memoir short about surviving Trans Conversion Therapy as a 90s trans girl in Mississippi. Thank you to Prism & Pen for publishing the story and helping me find the courage not to immediately take it down lol)
NEITHER OF US WANTS TO TALK ABOUT IDENTITY, OKAY?
People will swear up and down they aren’t a bigot. They’ll get blue in the face defending their honor. Their name. Their identity.
And you know what? They should.
This article owes just about every inch of gratitude I can spare to my friend and ally Jim for his help answering these questions. Check out his LinkedIn for his articles on mentoring and leadership.
Here are ten extremely common bigoted positions decent people hold.
The reason they’re so easy to miss? They’re just asking questions! Or as it’s called on the shallow web, JAQing off.
JAQing off is a form of inquiry that plagues all of us. We’re just curious! But our questions have an impact beyond our intentions.
A question doesn’t come out of nowhere. A question is based on certain presumptions. Assumptions. The things that make an ass out of you and me.
So when you read these questions? Think about the positions inside them.
SWITCHING UP POSITIONS ON YOU
Each position inherent to these questions fits a reasonable definition of bigotry, transphobia, enbyphobia, sexism, etc. etc. etc.
As we go through them, remember to separate a person’s IDENTITY from their POSITION. Anyone (including you) who holds these positions is in possession of a bigoted position. A bigoted feeling. An action that has a bigoted impact.
But that doesn’t make YOU (or them) a bigot. If it did, then we would ALL be bigots.
Here are ten extremely common questions that might reveal you or someone you know is at least a little bit bigoted.
QUESTION #1: Is everyone just a little bit bigoted?
I mean, maybe we all have bigoted positions. I find something about myself to confront every time I look in the mirror. Maybe you do, too.
Does that make either one of us a bigot? I’m not saying so for sure one way or the other. Labels are so…tricky.
But we can at least agree that if you hurt anyone, you didn’t mean for it to happen. You’re a good person.
And good people admit their flaws, right???
PS. The first person to argue holding any of these positions doesn’t mean they’re a bigot will be sent to the back of the snacks line.
QUESTION #2: Is it okay to hurt transgender people as long as I say I didn’t mean to?
Yeah, sure, I get it. You have no hate in your heart. You only want the best for anyone and everyone. You don’t see gender. Color. Orientation. To you, everyone is already equal.
Meanwhile, the people you claim to help keep begging you to STOP.
In some of these cases? The people begging you to stop are your own children.
What will it take for you to accept the terms of a trans person’s existence? Those terms are beyond their control. Those terms are beyond yours. To even attempt to violate them in service to YOUR preferences is inhuman.
Here’s one of my favorite phrases: “negligence equal to sabotage”
You may not intend malice, but that’s the impact of questions like this. That’s the impact of laws like those being passed in Kentucky, Texas, and even beyond the United States.
QUESTION #3: Shouldn’t leftists/liberals/democrats/Jesus be willing to compromise on trans issues?
Trans people are not going to wait.
Trans people are not going to surrender their rights.
Trans people are not going to compromise the safety of their very existence for the progressive agenda.
When you ask this question, you are not asking the leftists to give ground here. You are asking a marginalized population to give ground for something that was never within their control.
That’s who your questions hurt. That’s who your actions harm. That’s who your positions kill.
Not politicians. Not parents. Not siblings. The young trans kids who already live in a world that mostly insists they don’t deserve to exist.
That is why we are so strident on these issues. These debates do not happen in a vacuum.
Remember that trans people are already subject to massive amounts of social stigma and pressure all around their gender identity. Creating groups to segregate them due to their gender identity can only make this far worse.
The ongoing context is that most of the people making the same arguments about controls are actively harming trans kids in word and deed.
So when you join that debate with anything other than a full defense of trans kids and their rights, you are standing by or tacitly supporting that harm.
Did you intend to hurt people with trans experiences? Almost certainly not!
But if you’re a good person, I’d argue you’ll at least admit that despite your good intentions, your position on this DID hurt a trans person.
Don’t argue whether it hurt a trans person. A trans person is telling you it did! The first step is to acknowledge the impact of your position.
You’ll admit that it continues to hurt trans people.
You’ll admit that if you continue to hold your bigoted/transphobic position, it will be trans people who continue to pay the cost.
You’ll admit that to continue asking this question, you’ve accepted hurting trans people is worth it if it gets you what you want.
QUESTION #4: Why am I not allowed to bring up legitimate concerns with trans people before hearing them out?
No one has ever heard this question before, so let’s work through the analogies together.
If I join a debate on police shootings and the first thing I do is bring up justified shootings, how would you feel?
Now consider that for the analogy to be fair, you’d have to tweak it a little.
When you leap to bring up justified shootings, you make it more likely someone at that very meeting is going to get shot WITHOUT justification.
That’s what it’s like for trans kids everywhere they go. It’s a dynamic that requires all of us to shut up and listen to the people affected. Just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean it isn’t affecting someone else.
There are trans people, for example, in every online space you participate in. You should be posting with them in mind.
You can absolutely make your points on corner cases AFTER prioritizing their defense first (and if the audience seems receptive). But first?
Don’t ignore the Elephant in the room. The bad guys are in the middle of these debates trying to hurt trans people. Your first job as an ally is to call out the bad guys and, well, to be a fucking ally.
QUESTION #5: Why do trans people yell at me when I tell them there are good arguments for cis vs trans people to have equal rights? WTF?!
Because your argument is proposing a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist.
This is where I’m so glad you let me clarify what I’m saying BEFORE you hit Reply. (Since I can’t predict the future, it could also be the moment I regret not turning off the comments lol)
There are not trans people vs cis people. There are people who have had transgender experiences and people who have not. And even those people probably have had transgender experiences.
Because what exactly is a transgender experience? While the EXPERIENCE of that differs from person to person, I define a transgender experience loosely as (it’s my house, let me speak) a misaligned or dysphoric aspect of your gender that requires gender-affirming care.
(acknowledging of course that this definition is not true for all people with transgender experiences)
For example, many cisgender women follow the exact same gender-affirming-care procedures as women with trans experiences.
The difference? The cis women don’t qualify their experiences as transgender. Or if they do, they don’t feel dysphoria in a manner that makes the “trans” label applicable.
But otherwise? Every woman goes through a transition. We all do. Men do, too!
Yep, even the cisgender bros transitioned. Some of them…gasp…even take hormones.
We all go through a time where we must determine how our gender manifests outside of us. Sometimes, that manifestation is in near perfect alignment with how we were raised, how others perceive us, and how we perceive ourselves.
Other times, it’s so out of step that the person needs gender-affirming care. Be that therapy, HRT, surgery, or any other procedure that may currently be classified as “transgender.”
So for you to start off by saying you have a really good argument for why trans people should have equal rights to cis people?
WTF …do you even hear yourself? The question itself is bigoted.
Regardless of whether a person finds an argument persuasive, there are ZERO worthy arguments for why people with trans experiences should not have equal rights to those without trans experiences. PERIOD.
QUESTION #6: Did I win the argument if a trans person refuses to debate their rights and safety with me?
For you to argue whether people with trans experiences should have equal rights presupposed that there are worthy arguments that they shouldn’t.
There aren’t.
There will never be an argument for why people with cis vs trans experiences should not have equal rights.
Why are you wasting your precious time on this planet arguing about this?
We all appreciate how much effort you put into formulating your argument, but the next time you encounter a tranphobic position? Be that yours or someone else’s?
The best thing you can say on my behalf is: “That position hurts trans people.”
Especially if that’s you!
If they start to argue with you about whether holding a position that hurts trans people makes them transphobic?
Leave them alone. That’s not what you said. That’s not what you meant.
You described the IMPACT of their position.
If they keep arguing, you can walk away. There’s no point in talking with someone who won’t respect four simple words: “That hurts, please stop.”
Because if they won’t stop?
Not only is there no point in talking to them. It’s probably dangerous.
QUESTION #7: How do you voice concerns about trans people without getting lumped in with the transphobes?
You are confusing a person’s identity with their position.
Your position can be transphobic even if “you” are not.
Your position can be transphobic even if based on facts.
If you’re a progressive/liberal/reading this article, you probably got red (or green) in the face every time a friend or family member refused to acknowledge the racist impact of their position or behavior. They don’t identify as a racist — what a horrifying label, eh? — so the conversation ends there.
Labeling your position as racist or transphobic or whatever isn’t to indicate malice on anyone’s part. It’s to indicate that regardless of your intentions, your position has transphobic effects that hurt actual trans people.
Most racists don’t host shows on Fox News and run around with Tiki torches. They’re normal, decent people who never move beyond questions of IDENTITY. They get so caught up in whether they are a good person that they never find out what comes next.
Deciding you’re a good person isn’t the end of your journey. It’s the beginning.
Bigotry isn’t some seed to find and eradicate in us, never to be found again. You get rid of it in one way, you discover it remains within you in an undiscovered form. As even those of us among the most marginalized have discovered, there are always others who experience oppression in ways we never knew we took for granted.
That process never ends. New kinds of people and the ways in which they are oppressed manifest all the time. But that’s not a bad thing. It is, as the tech boys say, a feature. Not a glitch.
There is no switch to flip that instantly transforms you into a different or better person. Jesus can connect you to your worthiness (I personally pray to Gwen Stacy), but it’s up to you to cultivate that worthy person day by day.
QUESTION #8: Is it okay to propose a solution that hurts trans people if it protects cis people?
Imagine yourself sitting down with a ten-year-old girl so consumed with thoughts of suicide her entire life that she’s now ready to do it. She thought participating in activities with the other girls would help. Give her a sense of belonging and community. But you told her she has to play with the boys.
You worry letting her play sports with girls who haven’t had those experiences will hurt those girls. You worry that because the suicidal girl was born with body parts or a hormonal profile that reminds you of a boy, the cost of her playing with other girls is too high.
You accept that a trans kid begging for death isn’t desirable — but it’s acceptable if it hurts girls who haven’t felt suicidal for the same reasons.
You need to figure out how to explain your solution to those people. Watch one of them hold the knife, or the gun, or just a blank stare in their eyes.
Listen to that little trans girl beg just to play a game of soccer with the other girls.
Now tell her you just can’t let her. Even if it costs that girl her last breath.
QUESTION #9: Why do people keep yelling at me whenever I’m just asking questions about how to protect cisgender people?
It’s clear from your background (whoever you are) that you don’t do anything transphobic on purpose. I’ve known you long enough to see you’re a good person.
It’s also okay for people (not necessarily you) to admit they don’t have experience with trans people and they want to understand them more.
But you specifically?
You are centering the wrong group of people in this discussion. The debate is not about the minor hypothetical harm that might come to cis people in some unknown future. It isn’t possible to ask these questions in a vacuum. We have to think about the trans people this affects TODAY.
This line of questioning should only be in the context of centering trans rights. Placing the safety of cis women at the front of the conversation is the rhetorical version of punching down.
TRANSGENDER SOAPBOX RECOMMENDS: DAVE CHAPPELLE ONLY TELLS HALF THE TRUTH
It’s not about who deserves safety more than anyone else. It’s about people with identifiably transgender experiences having just as much safety as the people who don’t have those experiences.
It’s about the most marginalized group of people in America and the undisputed and well-documented harm this group is subject to every day.
Centering cis women in this discussion is unintentionally transphobic and causes real harm to people with transgender experiences. Including cisgender people!
QUESTION #10: Why does everyone keep yelling at me whenever I try to protect cis women?!
The idea that cis women need protection from the existence of trans women is stupid.
By even asking this question instead of any other, you are focusing on the 0.1% of the issue. It’s the same as voter fraud. The one trans woman who attacked someone. The justified police shooting.
The other 99.9% you aren’t talking about is kids dying. Every day.
So when you focus on that 0.1%, you should be aware that you are tying your horse to a wagon that kills people.
FOR AN EXPANSION ON SEVERAL OF THESE QUESTIONS:
The end
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