JazzG I think people would be less concerned if womens rights weren't be infringed.
As I was sort of alluding to above, in the past homosexuality used to meet with this sort of mentality.
Here is a pretty salient wiki article on the so-called "Lavender Scare".
Below is a quote from the article that, to me at least, resembles the sort of social and institutional environment that anti-trans campaigners would like to achieve for trans people.
It is a bit of a wall of text but I think it's worth the read.
Both homosexuals and Communist Party members were seen as subversive elements in American society who all shared the same ideals of antitheism, rejection of bourgeois culture and middle-class morality, and lack of conformity. They were also seen as scheming and manipulative and, most importantly, would put their own agendas above others in the eyes of the general population. McCarthy also associated homosexuality and communism as "threats to the 'American way of life'." [Homosexuals and communists] were perceived as hidden subcultures with their own meeting places, literature, cultural codes, and bonds of loyalty. [They] were thought to recruit the psychologically weak or disturbed [and] many believed the two were working together to undermine the government. David K. Johnson notes that without an idealized traditional American moral fiber, any citizen could succumb to immoral temptations such as homosexuality; and they could ultimately be seduced by communism. The association of homosexuality with communism proved to be a convenient political tool to develop and implement homophobic discriminatory policy throughout the federal government. It was easy to convince a Congress dictated by a communist containment policy to respond to the perceived homosexual menace because they were already viewed to be not only subversive social elements of American culture, but subversive political elements. Homosexuality was directly linked to security concerns, and more government employees were dismissed because of their homosexual sexual orientation than because they were left-leaning or communist. George Chauncey noted that: "The specter of the invisible homosexual, like that of the invisible communist, haunted Cold War America," and homosexuality (and by implication homosexuals themselves) were constantly referred to not only as a disease, but also as an invasion, like the perceived danger of communism and subversives.
We would probably agree that no one mainstream puts this kind of view about gay men any more … it is deranged and harmful, isn't it? Funny how it wasn't so long ago people found it completely normal.
The hostile environment for trans people
The much-desired environment is one in which trans people are socially barely tolerated, and there's a refusal to integrate them with harmony into institutions (government, defence, leadership roles) and public spaces, meaning it's a constant battle to do basic stuff like, I dunno, go to the toilet without facing harassment.
These anti-trans folks will of course flip the "sensible switch" if they're challenged, saying stuff like "so long as they keep to themselves we don't care", but that's not really true, is it?
Things that aren't actually happening
Anti-trans campaigners are largely raising hell about things that aren't happening, or at least social phenomena that are cherry-picked to the extreme. Like "trans women intruders in public bathrooms", or "trans women gold medallists" …phenomena with a bare handful of data points in a world of 8 billion people.
These things are pretty much phantasmal, made up bullshit.
Think of it as being like media pundits making shit up about Arsenal. Pundits make it up because they know that as far as trans stuff goes, a lot of people are a bit like Spurs fans who enjoy reading hateful bullshit about Arsenal. They get their rocks off on it. "Oooh, they're in our bathrooms groping our ladies!" "Oooh, they're corrupting the yoof!" "Oooh, a man can't get pregnant, ha ha ha!"
For example: there are way, way more professional athletes who are doping cheats than there are AMAB trans women trying to qualify for the Olympics. We all know this.
For example: the currently leading "trans women are ruining women's sport" news article in Australia is actually about a lawsuit against an anti-trans campaigner who was quite literally stalking a teenage trans girl at all her public sports events. This person was being chased off by this trans girl's teenage friends who quite naturally thought "Who is this fucking weirdo stalking our mate?"
As another example, as with gay men historically, trans people and especially trans women are far more likely to be the victims of assault in public space than its perpetrators, and are more likely victims than either cis women or cis men.
Thing is, that kind of assault is nothing to be concerned about if you're anti-trans. An anti-trans worldview effectively condemns trans people in advance to extra social violence and thinks it's fine.
Are you a modern day McCarthyist?
My questions to people who buy into the anti-trans hype would be:
- Are you sure you're not just buying another cardboard cutout moral panic?
- Do you properly know any trans people and do they resemble the caricatures you hear, think, and talk about?
- If one trans person is harmful, would that be a basis on which to determine mores, policy or law?
- Can you think of anyone who isn't trans who causes the same harms you're so worried about? Why aren't you talking about them?
- Are you sure you buy into the "binary biological sex" metaphysics of "gender critics" even though it isn't well supported by science or the manifestations of human biology in any human society in history?
- Who actually benefits from the massive effort to collectively invent "trans" as a category that it's fine to inflict harm on, exclude, etc?
