The New Homophobia

This might be incoherent

It's hard to talk about this for myself as a trans woman, and especially for cis gays, as liberal queer ideology has taken over the discourse, but it's worth having more queer people speak up about it so we can develop a language for it that leaves things open to good-faith debate.

I'm not against blockers to delay puberty until someone is old enough to develop an informed understanding of themselves, but it's definitely the case that kids are overexposed to a monolithic queer culture that puts frivolous acts of expression on the same level as life-altering changes to your social and physical self. A decade ago things were pretty different—you'd seek out an online community and read a lot of Q&A, stories, and _advice on psychoanalyzing yourself responsibly_, which I don't see much of anymore in trans spaces.

It's not just cis gays, but many trans folks as well, who are seen as regressive for having opinions divergent from what you see on progressive new media, Twitter, etc. Talking about something like this, or defending pronouns as something defined by others that can't be "wrong", or even something as milquetoast as signaling my disinterest in being invited to orgies, will get me at least a confused look from your typical urbanite queer, and possibly get me called a transmisogynist. For a gay man's perspective, Tim Dillon has spoken about this a lot, and folks like him are much more common than you might think.

One thing I definitely disagree with the author on is the idea that the current wave is about abolishing gender, in contrast to previous waves focused on sexual liberation—for one I don't get a "sexual liberation" vibe from the era of gay marriage legalization, and for another I see the present movements more as sexual-accelerationist, i.e. exploring sex and gender with such fervor that they're eroding its social utility and finding new ways to preclude healthy development of relationships and communities. Younger trans folks I've been with are so sexually liberated that it turns into narcissistic hedonism and you can't even be sure they're in the room with you when you're having sex.

Oh boy. One of these articles. From the title I was expecting "the new homophobia" to refer to the striking parallels between 20th-century homophobic propaganda and modern-day transphobic "concerns", but no, I was not to be so lucky. Anyways, here's a rundown of some of the worst parts of it.

> Activists who favor medical intervention often ask these parents a morbid question: "Would you rather have a trans daughter or a dead son?" But the real question should be, "Would you rather have a trans daughter or an effeminate gay son?"

This is a question we know the answer to, though, based on how many trans people have stories of how their parents asked them "why couldn't you just be gay?" Plus, the point of the original question is that parents don't get to choose whether they have a trans kid or not, they only have the choice between supporting their child and neglecting them.

> Speaking recently about these issues with a LGBT mental health specialist—one among many who have serious concerns about the hastiness of medical transition for youth in the U.S.

There are lots of people with "concerns" about medical transition being given out hastily without proper assessment, but never any evidence that such a thing is happening. I see lots of complaints about how difficult and time-consuming it is to get hormone therapy, including drugs that can be gotten in one appointment for non-gender-related purposes. As for wait times for appointments, I found this nice little tidbit on the UK's Gender Identity Clinic website: "We are currently offering first appointment to people who were referred in: December 2017" [ https://gic.nhs.uk/appointments/waiting-times/ ]

> activists who push a regressive, anti-liberal agenda that reifies gender stereotypes

This is just a lie. A blatant, obvious lie. Any statement like this immediately discredits the one making it. The transgender community is inherently accepting of all gender expressions and experiences. I'm kind of having trouble expressing how wrong this is. There was a post a little while back that went through some LGBT-accepting spaces about a man who started growing out his hair, taking hormones, growing breasts, eventually looking to any stranger like a fully gender-conforming woman, who still confidently saw himself as a man. The comments were nothing but respect and acceptance (and awe at his "chad energy"). That's what the community is like.

Same here, though I’m considerably older than you. We might both be in a bubble though.

That last line is the key, isn't it?

Sex used to(?) mean something. People were exposed to each other, vulnerable, sharing themselves. It was even intensely powerful, in the sense that new life might actually spring out of it.

But this is basically treating another unique, unrepeatable human person as a toy, and not even an exceptional one.

I can't help but think we've lost something important and are that much the poorer for it.

Is the liberation to live one's life in pursuit of the next orgasm really worth it if we have to lose what sex was to get there?

"I was a bit surprised to see how most people I interact with over the age of 40 or so (my parents incl.) are pretty stubborn about referring to people based on what they consider right"

Well, I'm 51. I don't think a man who takes hormones and gets operated on is actually a woman, and I'd rather not be forced to be complicit in a lie by referring to him as "she". By normalizing transgenderism society is encouraging a lot of young people to irreversibly damage themselves.