We are Committed to Fighting Anti-Trans Disinformation

 by Feliks Eskilson, He/They, Client Program Coordinator and Facilitator 

It’s a rough time to be transgender (trans) in the US. It’s not that it hasn’t been before, but these last few years have made it particularly difficult (especially if you live in a “red state,” and even more especially if you’re under 18). Trans rights, and queer rights in general, are under attack to an alarming degree. More than 500 bills targeting the rights of LGBTQIA+ people were introduced in 2023. And seeing the direction things have been going, there’s so much at stake for queer rights in 2024.

So much of this recent wave of trans panic stems from disinformation about trans and queer people. In recent years, our facilitators have had to field more and more questions about how we address gender, trans people, and sexuality as a whole. Sometimes this comes from a place of genuine curiosity. More and more often, however, we get questions from parents, teachers and students that are rooted in transphobia. The people asking often use pseudoscience to justify their transphobia. The “facts” they are using are often wrong, distorted, or biased, and perpetuate harmful misinformation. 

Educating ourselves on how to combat anti-trans disinformation is hugely important. My ask of you is to read the resources I have shared and pass them along to everyone you know. We can’t change everyone’s mind, but knowledge is power and by working together we can start to shape the world into a place that is not just accepting, but supportive and joyful for everyone. We know there are trans and queer kids at every school our facilitators teach in, and they deserve to know we have their back. We cannot stop fighting for a better world.

RESOURCES:

Junk science, distortions, and outright falsehoods fuel anti-trans rhetoric, which in turn fuels gender-affirming care bans. Here’s how to spot and dismantle the disinformation.

Researchers stressed that anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation is part of a larger reactionary conservative movement.

Dr Meredithe McNamara, an expert in gender-affirming healthcare and adolescent medicine at Yale School of Medicine, says such claims ignore the “reality” that trans healthcare has a long history in the US and beyond. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center has addressed the perils of pseudoscience by analyzing the anti-LGBTQ+ groups and actors that twist the language of science in order to attack the medical consensus that clearly supports LGBTQ+ affirming health care and resources to counter anti-trans narratives and extremism.
the links below can be found in this resource guide