SOCIAL COMMENTARY

Transphobia is Not Rational

Against the social contagion

5 min read

Just now

As I was doomscrolling recently, I came across a really generic post from a transphobe about how we need to let kids be kids and how we need to put a stop to the apparent “social contagion” of transness sweeping across society. While we hear this point from a lot from transphobes and bigots in general, it got me thinking about how transphobes don’t even believe in it themselves. “Social contagion” in this context implies that people are pressured into identifying as trans through peer-pressure or seeing characters in media identify as trans — thereby making being trans into a trend.

When I say they don’t believe it, I mean they don’t even think we should let kids be kids.

If you actually look at how transphobes and people on the right talk about kids and parenting, they’re incredibly strict to the point of being almost dictatorial. Transphobes might say we should let kids be kids, but when kids want to experiment with things like certain haircuts associated with the opposite gender, parents instantly shut that down as being part of the apparent “social contagion” of transness.

The problem here is that even if we take transness being a social contagion at face value, then transphobes and conservatives don’t have an…