The Reality of Gender: A Look at Transphobic Talking Points Gone Viral

Abstract

A response to YouTube videos posted by conservative YouTube channels which feature debates about transgender identities. This response addresses suicide attempt rates of the transgender population in the United States, how gender-related activism might replicate disability activism that has improved the lives of majority populations as a side-benefit of providing accessibility to minority populations, the restrictions of normative conceptualizations of sex, gender, and sexuality as described by the terms heterosexual matrix and bigenderism, perceptions of gender variation as unnatural, unhealthy, and illogical allowing for the continuation of gender-related violence, the alignment of traditional family values with compulsory heterosexuality and gender-based oppression, and a call for the challenging and the expansion of normative conceptualizations of gender to be taken on by cisgender people in order to disallow those who wish to preserve normative gender models from making transgender people into scapegoats.