Earlier today, I read a piece by M. Gessen, a New York Times columnist, on the Republican attacks on trans rights in the US. It makes various observations about attitudes held toward reproduction —in particular trans and intersex people’s. I do not have anything to comment in that respect, other than that I’m disheartened by our society’s cruelty.
Instead, I wanted to write a bit about a comment that, unfortunately, I read under that article. I think it’s unwise to view comment sections in general, and I find that especially true of journalism online. We all make mistakes, and I hope I don’t make that one again.
As I write this, the top comment, liked nearly 2400 times, reads:
At the risk of oversimplifying a complex situation, my view is the average American is willing to accept that trans individuals have the same rights as the rest of us and should not be discriminated against with respect to jobs, housing and employment. However, this does not seem to be sufficient for many trans individuals, who want “rights” that do infringe on the rights of others. The best example is the insistence that trans women be allowed to compete in women’s sports. […] Life involves choices and sacrifices, and the inability to be able to compete in women’s sports seems like a reasonable price to pay for being comfortable in your gender identity and having all of the basic rights one is entitled to in this country.
The average American may claim not to condone housing and employment discrimination, but this discrimination exists because hoards of Americans are willing to engage in it nonetheless. In the US and around the world, trans people are killed, humiliated in political ads, denied access to healthcare, and subjected to continuous harassment in person and online, among much more. The commenter’s input to this discussion is concern about fairness in sports.
Although a meager recognition is made of the fact that trans people are not a monolith —“many trans individuals” —what there isn’t is an explanation of why this, even as a position held by some, should be relevant to anyone’s decision to support trans rights. Neither is it justified that this view —that sports should be segregated invariably not by sex but by gender —is popular enough to deserve mentioning in the first place.
Instead, the commenter hinted at other examples of trans people having a vision for equality that amounts to an ‘infringe[ment] on the rights of others.’
The intention might have been to explain, rather than justify, the fact that so many people have a negative attitude towards trans rights. In reality, it’s likely a display of the reasons for its author’s own apprehension.
Either way, it warrants sadness. It might not be a new phenomenon for people to see the rights of others as a threat, and this kind of rhetoric is not limited to that comment specifically: it is replicated throughout the most-liked ones. Today, I was reminded of how easily we are prepared to make our minds up on subjects not only with a lack of information and understanding, but with a lack of empathy.
If trans people could choose to live in a world that is less profoundly turned against them for the cost of not being able to play sports with people of their own gender, I promise you they would.