Disarming transphobia
Jacob Lemay, aged 7, with his parents, looking through family photos from before his transition, Massachusetts, 2017. Photo by Jewel Samad AFP/Getty
Jacob Lemay, aged 7, with his parents, looking through family photos from before his transition, Massachusetts, 2017. Photo by Jewel Samad AFP/Getty
Jacob Lemay, aged 7, with his parents, looking through family photos from before his transition, Massachusetts, 2017. Photo by Jewel Samad AFP/Getty
is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri. They received their PhD in social psychology from the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Their research is strongly multimethod and wide-spanning: in general, they focus on ‘common knowledge’, narratives, extremism, and processes related to group identification.
I owe an apology to anyone who knew me between the years of 2016 and 2018, when I somehow found a way to derail every conversation into rambling about how bad it was about to get for queer and trans people across the globe. The fact that – ultimately – I was proven right doesn’t detract from how annoying that had to be! I was fixated on the new websites where people ruminated upon the increasing numbers of youth coming out as transgender, arguing that this couldn’t be normal, that there had to be a nefarious cause, and that young people were being ‘brainwashed’ into thinking they’re trans by medical professionals, social media and peer pressure. Such websites, including Transgender Trend, 4thWaveNow, and Youth Trans Critical Professionals, were known to conservative news outlets, who cited their posts as evidence that young people seeking transition care represented an epidemic caused by the influence of a cult and egged on by a liberal medical establishment. These youth couldn’t really all be trans. Rather, these online circles insisted the new wave of trans kids had a form of gender dysphoria induced by society itself.
