You Got Played, Girl

 On March 19, 2024 the United Conservative Party of Alberta held an event that they called "Let Kids Be Kids" (spoiler alert:  it was an anti-trans/anti-2SLGBTQ/anti-SOGI/"parents rights" rally in reality).  

They brought in a transgender woman from Lethbridge to speak to the transgender case.  I don't know this person, but from their answers to the questions put to them, they clearly lack both research and clinical knowledge in the domain.  Being transgender does not mean that one has spent time in the academic and clinical literature relevant to this domain, and this is a problem.  

Her stated purpose was to engage in dialogue, but quite frankly, she got played.  In a 2 hour long event, she was allocated a grand total of 10 minutes during which the host asked them questions that she had to respond to.  The rest of the 2 hours was given over to opening comments, and presentations by some of the most dishonest players in the Alberta "parental rights" movement - and their presentations destroyed any semblance of "goodwill" and "open dialogue".  She got played for a patsy. 

Let me explain: 

Collective Punishment

Ever since Pierre Poilievre opened his mouth and declared that Trans Women need to be banned from washrooms and locker rooms, there's been a steady increase in the amount of violent rhetoric aimed at the transgender community.  

In the midst of the above article, Senator Marilyn Gladu is quoted as follows: 

Gladu said trans women should not be allowed in women’s bathrooms or change rooms because “there have been incidents that have harmed women and young girls. And so we need to make sure that, you know, that’s not going to happen.”

To me, this reads like a variation on the "what about women who have been traumatized by violence from men?" argument.  It's largely a bad faith argument, because on so many different levels it misrepresents transgender women in particular and it ultimately infantilizes women by implying that they can't possibly be in the presence of a former male in such situations.

I frequently see unfounded claims that “transgender women exhibit male violence patterns” as part of the justification for this, and that is then used to argue that the entire class of transgender women should therefore be excluded.  This is deeply problematic reasoning.  

The second line of reasoning I see levelled at transgender women is the idea that allowing transgender women into designated female spaces will enable predators to come in and attack.  There is scant evidence that this is a thing, and considering that transgender women have been accessing female spaces for decades, it’s a bit hard to see how this is going to change now.  Besides, actual sexual predators aren’t exactly likely to masquerade as their prey - that would be a symbolic emasculation of themselves. 

A third line of reasoning is the idea that there are plenty of women who have been traumatized by abuse perpetrated at the hands of men.  Again, this comes around to a framing issue, and one that needs to be addressed relative to a population analysis. 

All of these are problematic from a number of perspectives, primarily in that they generally start from a perspective that because a transgender woman was designated male at birth, they are intrinsically a threat.