Sometimes Outrage is Called For

 

Look, I avoid outrage-posting, because we live at a time in which outrage has been turned into a terrible currency, generated to glue us to our devices with indignation, which in turn generates polarization and despair.

But there is something worse than outrage, and that is the pooh-poohing of actually outrageous things.

This week, the US Supreme Court issued the terrible US vs. Skrmetti decision, holding that it is fine for states to ban trans youths from accessing as gender-affirming care he exact same medications and procedures that cis youths can and do access all the time to affirm their (cis) gendered comfort in their bodies and put off puberties that have started when they are not ready.

A large 2022 public health study found that accessing gender-affirming care reduced trans youths’ suicidal ideation by 73%. And trans adults who had accessed puberty blockers in youth have a reduced risk of suicide across their lifespans. There have been multiple related studies, but the Supreme Court said there wasn’t enough research to prove definitively that trans-affirming medical care provides benefits (ignoring what every major medical association has said). The Court also ignored the fact that all research studies on trans health that were being conducted in the US have been defunded this year by the Trump administration as “promoting gender ideology.” Ugh.

News of the Skrmetti decision has felt devastating to trans people of all ages, as it can be used to further erode trans rights for all of us. But it’s been a particular gut punch to trans youth, who have been declared in half of the US states to be deluded. Those state laws declare the proper treatment for that “delusion” to be requiring teachers and doctors and counselors to misgender them, and for any doctor or counselor who tries to provide them gender-affirming care to face legal punishment. Trans youth already face the highest levels of school bullying and parental rejection, which makes their risk of suicidal ideation terribly high—and now they face this decision on top of that burden.

On the same day that the Skrmetti decision was released, the Trump administration sent notice to the Trevor Project, which provides the suicide prevention services to LGBTQIA+ youths through the federally-funded 988 National Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, to stop work. So trans young people thrown into despair by the Skrmetti decision will find the suicide hotline that is supposed to offer them aid cancelled in the same way as their hope of access to medical care.

That is terrible, as many people I’ve pointed this out to agree.

But I've also personally received substantial "oh calm down" feedback and seen a lot of the same on social media about the cancelling of the Trevor Project hotline. Here's some of the things I've been told or heard:

"This is misinformation. Nobody targeted the Trevor Project specifically; the cuts are just part of a cost reduction across the 988 service and the service will still be there, just streamlined a bit."

"This is old news from months ago. It has nothing to do with some coordinated attack on trans people. You're putting unrelated random old and new stories together and catastrophizing."

"I think cutting the Trevor Project from the national suicide prevention hotline is appalling! But in case you didn't notice, the Trevor Project serves LGBT young people. Where is your outrage about the gay and lesbian youth? Why do trans people insist on making this all about them?"

This pushback is quite disheartening, because this is absolutely a case in which outrage is appropriate. Yes, leaked documents from the Trump administration earlier did state that a cut to Trevor Project services would be coming, but the stated date was in 2026. The administration chose instead to send the stop work notice much earlier, on the day the Skrmetti decision was released—and that is no coincidence. Here is what Rachel Cauley, the spokesperson for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, had to say about it: the Trump administration will not “grant taxpayer money to a chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by ‘counselors’ without consent or knowledge of their parents.”

Trivializing a suicide hotline as a “chat service” is vile and reprehensible, as is implying that the staffers aren’t truly counselors but something else—presumably “groomers” with malicious goals. But the fundamental message is the worst part. This spokesperson is literally saying that it is better to let trans kids kill themselves than to treat them respectfully in their identified genders.

Think about that.

And yes, this is specifically aimed at trans youth, as the Trump administration announcement states that the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline will “continue to serve LGB+ youth” after the termination of the contract with the Trevor Project, under its general 988 line, using its regular hotline staffers. And yes, it is absolutely true that this is bad for cis sexual-minority youth, who are losing the counselors specially trained to help them. But the administration is explicitly saying it will serve LGB youth but not trans youth, because supposedly there is no such thing as a trans person. And it is hoping by acknowledging the existence of cis sexual-minority youth to get cisgender LGB adults to be motivated by self-interest to distance themselves from trans people (most of whom are themselves queer, mind you; only about a quarter of people who have gender transitioned identify as straight or heterosexual). Please, cis members of the Pride community—don’t let them divide us and set us at one another! Because the bigots are definitely focusing on trans people’s rights now, which must be recognized—but they’ll be focusing their destructive aims at cis queer folks in due time.

In sum, we can’t spend our lives in a continuous state of outrage, scrolling on our phones. That’s bad for our mental health, yes—but it also deadens people’s impulse to feel outrage when something egregiously abhorrent happens. We see how that has manifested this week, in people reacting to news of the cancelling of the Trevor Project’s national suicide prevention hotline services on the day of the Skrmetti decision. “This is misinformation! You’re catastrophizing by connecting unrelated new and old news items! This is a case of narcissistic trans drama demanding attention when all LGBTQ+ young people are equally harmed!”

Something truly hateful happened this week, and it is important that we treat it as outrageous—because outrage should push us towards action.

 

On Bots and Trolls Spreading Transphobia while Pretending to be Leftists

 

This is a photo that appeared in the NY Times today in the coverage of the Supreme Court hearing on a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors. (Just over half the states have passed such bans in the past few years, though a number of those are not yet in effect while lawsuits take place. Some of these states--like Tennessee--have made it impossible for adults to legally gender transition as well, by banning changing one's gender marker on a driver's license or birth certificate.) 

Considering this photo, what I want to point out is something I've heard basically no discussion of in the mainstream media, and that is a core tactic being deployed by those opposing trans people's civil rights. There are three main such groups that are real: politicians and influencers who generate outrage for attention, clicks, and votes; transphobes motivated by hate; and foreign nations who deploy social media bots to say provocative things in order to promote division among Americans and weaken the country. But there's a fake fourth group that you find all over social media, and portrayed in big media events like the protests outside the Supreme Court today.

And that fake group is "concerned leftists." Often social media posts state that they are being written by a "lifelong Democrat" who feels compelled to speak up because the party has gotten lost and gone too far. Then that "lifelong Democrat" asserts something outrageous as truth, like "Kindergarten teachers are sending children for sex changes!" This is intended to horrify centrists. Another claim is aimed at progressives: that gender transition is a nefarious rightwing plot to convert gay and lesbian youth into straight people. 

You see both of these forms of propaganda in this photo in the NY Times. Two pre-printed signs read "STOP TRANSING GAY KIDS." And another preprinted sign you can partially see claims that the protest group is "DEMOCRATS AGAINST PUBERTY BLOCKERS."

I am not saying that TERFs do not exist--cis women who espouse a radical feminism for cis women only, and who frame anyone who has or had a phallus as inherently evil. But realistically speaking, they are a small group. This contrasts with what social media threads on trans issues often look like, where it appears that a majority of people opposing trans rights are "lifelong Democrats" and "LGB people" who just have to speak up as the voice of reason, before trans rights renders Democratic politicians unelectable or erases the (cis) gay community.

This is tactical. It is an attempt to convince people on the left that vast swaths of their fellow-travelers oppose gender transition. It is an attempt to move the Overton window to make overt transphobia seem the "normal" position on the left. And its effectiveness can be seen in how little it is noticed and discussed--even though it's hardly new. For example, an organization that played a key role in rolling back the rights of trans youth in Britain is the "LGB Alliance." Supposedly, this is a group of cis gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals who believe gender transition is a mental illness, and one that endangers the existence of LGB people by destabilizing sexual orientation. In fact, the organization is allied with neo-Nazi groups and American anti-LGBT groups, and says opposing same-gender marriage isn't homophobic. Oh--and a poll of people who joined the organization found that the vast majority of the members were straight. It's classic false-flagging, hiding the wolf in sheep's clothing.

As for the NY Times, they keep publishing opinion pieces in exactly this vein, by people who present themselves as LGB progressives who feel morally bound to take a stand against trans rights in the name of sanity, protection of the vulnerable, and preserving the future of the Democratic party. Ugh.

It is important for cis folks on the left to be aware of this tactic. Don't just take it at face value when you read some social media comment that a person spewing transphobic statements is the "lifelong Democrat" they claim to be. Don't believe that there is some huge movement by the cis gay community to ban gender transitions. Do be aware that there are trolls and bots trying to make you believe that you are behind on the trend of people like you reassessing their acceptance of trans folks.

It is important for all of us to be aware of how we can be manipulated!