Compassion Over Comprehension
Three weeks ago, Nex Benedict - an Indigenous gender non-conforming teenager from Oklahoma - died one day after being attacked by three girls in the school bathroom. The bullying had been going on for months, and on the day of the attack, the school failed to call the police or an ambulance. Students last week staged a walkout over the ‘pervasive culture of bullying at the school, with little accountability.’
Nex Benedict was 16.
On both sides of the Atlantic, trans people are - quite literally - under attack. Hate crimes in the UK are at an all time high. And in the USA, the Human Rights Campaign last year declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people, for the first time in its history. How can it be possible that our so-called developed nations, in which so many LGBTQ+ rights have been hard-fought and won over the past 25 years, are slipping into a dangerous climate of fear and intimidation? And why is it that the most vulnerable members of the queer community are the ones being targeted with hate and derision?
These transphobic attacks - from Nex Benedict in Owasso, Oklahoma, to Brianna Ghey in Warrington - do not occur in a vacuum. They are the result of years of normalisation of transphobic sentiment and fear mongering, whipped up and normalised by mainstream figures who wield enormous power and influence. As I have noticed in my own DEI work with clients, transphobia - unlike racism, homophobia, sexism - is often openly expressed and proudly stated. The J.K. Rowlings and Susanne Moores of the world would have us believe that expressing what they describe as ‘gender critical’ views (often a euphemism for naked transphobia) is somehow taboo. And yet it has never been more dangerous to be trans, and those that campaign against trans rights are louder and more powerful than ever.
Take Chaya Raichik - the far-right activist behind ‘Libs of TikTok’ who mounts campaigns of harassment against school districts. A queer teacher from the Owasso School District (where Nex Benedict was attending school, as it happens) resigned in 2022, after her account targeted them over their social media videos expressing support for the LGBTQ+ community. Raichik was recently appointed to the Oklahoma Library Media Advisory Committee, having visited the state only once. Apparently all the harassment and campaigning for LGBTQ+ book bans uniquely qualifies her for this influential position.
Those who whip up fear of trans and gender non-conforming people, who position transness as some kind of emergent epidemic (when trans people have always existed), who position trans rights as a danger to women’s rights, have blood on their hands.
The root of transphobia is, of course, fear - and ignorance is a breeding ground for fear. As women’s rights and protections are being eroded, the hunt for a scapegoat has found its target in the trans community. This is a deliberate distraction. From the Barbados Slave Code of 1661 (which successfully dismantled the solidarity between Irish indentured servants and African slaves, by legally codifying Black people as ‘chattel’), to today - divide and conquer is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Pitting one marginalised group against another with even less power is a powerful diversion tactic which prevents scrutiny of the systems of power which oppress us all.
Of course, the mere existence of trans and non-binary people makes some uncomfortable, because they represent a rejection of the gender binary - a structure we are socialised to view as innate and immovable. But we all have a choice; we don’t need to understand another human being’s identity and experience, in order to have compassion for them. As the brilliant gender non-conforming artist and writer Alok Vaid Menon eloquently puts it:
“So people will say I don’t understand. Why do you need to understand me, in order to say that I shouldn’t be experiencing violence. That equation we really need to interrogate. What lack of empathy is there in that statement, to be like ‘I just don’t get it.’
‘I don’t get it’ becomes a shield for ‘I am ok with you being exposed to violence.’ So we need to name that bluff out loud. It’s never been about comprehension, it’s been about compassion. Because here’s the thing, you suddenly have the time to learn the things that you prioritise. But when it comes to gender non-conforming people, it’s ‘I don’t really have the time, that takes too much time.’ You don’t have the compassion. Let’s be honest about it.”
[This quote is from Alok’s guest appearance on the Man Enough podcast. The full episode is well worth your time. It’s mind-alteringly good.]
Audre Lorde famously said, "There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives." The struggle for trans rights is not in conflict with the struggle for women’s rights - in fact, the opposite is true. As anti-trans women gleefully tear down trans people’s right to gender-affirming care, they open the door to restrictions on the bodily autonomy of cisgender women too. As we normalise bodily intrusions and interrogations, Black women and girls bear the brunt of these demeaning abuses of power.
It’s ironic that Nex Benedict’s attack occurred in the bathroom - a location that’s become the nexus of the trans panic. A so-called sacred ‘women’s space’ has been positioned as a zone in which nefarious ‘male bodied’ characters might lurk, with intent to harm (never mind the fact that trans people have been peacefully using our public bathrooms for years, without issue).
This terrible tragedy is one further illustration that it is trans people who are the most vulnerable in these spaces, and they deserve to be protected.
Last Season’s podcast episode ‘TERF Wars’ discussed the urgent necessity of allyship and solidarity with our trans siblings. As cis queer people, we delved into how the gender binary impacts us, as well as the responsibility we have to use our privilege in spaces where we have it, to fight for trans rights and liberation.
So if you haven’t already, please go give it a listen.
