The anti-trans unicorn

There’s a small group of people live off of harming trans people.

It can be lucrative. Jordan Peterson was making at least $55,000 a month for writing things like “[non-binary pronouns] are at the vanguard of a post-modern, radical leftist ideology that I detest, and which is, in my professional opinion, frighteningly similar to the Marxist doctrines that killed at least 100 million people in the 20th century.” Abigail Shrier got the #15 best selling book on Amazon for her book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters“.

I call the Petersons and Shriers of the world anti-trans unicorns.

The science is in: biological gender is more diverse than previously appreciated, not everyone fits in a given society’s gender norms, and discriminating against people for how they look is harmful. So few credible medical associations and researchers now disagree with this premise that conservatives are starved for outlets to legitimize their bigotry. So when someone comes along with a fancy title that seemingly validates their prejudice, conservatives throw money and opportunities at this newfound unicorn. In the English-speaking world where there are countless conservative media outlets and where many of these anti-trans unicorns amplify each other, baseless fear mongering can end up eclipsing informed voices.

There’s only two requirements to be a unicorn. First you need to be against letting trans people be. Then you either need to have held a job that makes you sound like you’re educated or be trans. Indeed, being trans does not preclude you from being ignorant, especially when you’re being love bombed by people who depend on that ignorance.

Unicorns base their fears off of what they imagine trans people to be like. They can obfuscate their ignorance by laundering their transphobia through either obscure terminology (Peterson’s approach) or by leveraging the apparent credibility of other unicorns.

Take Shrier’s book. Its Amazon description says it was named Book of the Year by the Economist and claims it “analyzes the evidence regarding rapid-onset gender dysphoria“. Sounds well-researched when in fact, its namesake and core thesis is based off of a single paper about trans youth that never collected data from trans youth. The paper instead surveyed parents from online groups dedicated to rejecting these youth like 4thwavenow (billed as “safe place for gender-skeptical parents and their allies“) and Transgendertrend (“We are an international group of parents … who are concerned about the current trend to diagnose ‘gender non-conforming’ children as transgender.”) From this the paper’s author concocted a condition called Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria where cisgender girls are confused into thinking they’re trans. Conservatives blew up this one paper to the point that there’s now over 20,000 hits for “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” on Google and Shrier turned it into a bestseller.

It’s only a matter of time before the next anti-trans unicorn emerges. The conservatives are hungry and hurting trans people has never been so profitable.