Transphobia and the intelligence apparatus of the right

I gave a five minute talk as part of a panel I was on today at a conference discussing transnational far right movements. This is that speech.

You’re no doubt aware that trans people are the subjects of a moral panic in the United-States and in the UK.

This year in the US, Republicans have introduced hundreds of bills to eliminate anything that makes trans people visible. The dog whistles are access to washrooms, inclusion in sports, access to hormone therapy, etc. Racism is inextricable here as cisgender black girls and women are disproportionately having their gender scrutinized and these same politicians and talking heads pair their transphobia with fear mongering about Critical Race Theory.

In the UK, the media ecosystem from the Economist to the Daily Mail have been voraciously transphobic, as is the current tory government and its new Prime Minister, Liz Truss. The moral panics have been around the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, which would have reduced the obstacles to update identity documents, as well as access by trans women to gendered spaces, and healthcare for trans youth – especially around the charity Mermaids and the Tavistock Clinic.

In Canada, there’s been four distinct movements for anti-trans organising over the last decade.

From the 80’s to the early 2010’s, the Christian Right was a key opponent of gay and trans rights. Inspired by the likes of the Moral Majority in the US, groups such as REAL Women of Canada, Focus on the Family Association Canada, and the Campaign Life Coalition were founded. By the 2010’s they were largely powerless outside of Catholic schools and religious circles, with the Conservatives using them as cover to oppose trans rights in Parliament.

The second discrete movement followed the neo-nationalist wave of the mid-2010s that saw Brexit, Trump, and Bolsonaro. Militant white nationalist European hate groups saw chapters founded in Canada including the Yellow Vests and Soldiers of Odin as well as federal parties like the People’s Party of Canada. Again, racism and transphobia are bound. In 2019, members of these groups violently attacked Pride events in Toronto and Hamilton, harassed children and families at a Pride story-time event here in Ottawa, and disrupted gatherings of sexual and gender minorities across the country. The pandemic and cessation of in-person activities served as a mild reprieve.

A third distinct movement emerged starting in 2019. A series of organizations purporting to defend sex-based rights, at times calling themselves “gender critical” or “TERFs” were founded in the UK to oppose the GRA reforms. Comparable organisations were rapidly created in Canada, such as the LGB Alliance Canada, caWsbar, and Gender Dissent. They served as a secular intellectual cover for conservatives seeking to purge trans people from society. This movement also has an in-person presence that is active here in Ottawa.

The fourth movement emerged out of the “Freedom Convoy” that coalesced in winter 2022. Made up of white nationalists who found an audience when they opposed pandemic safety measures, they needed a new cause after their termination. They settled on opposing gender diversity and trans people, likely inspired by Republicans in the US making that a legislative priority. Among organizations here are Save Canada, Diagolon, and Freedom Fighters Canada.

The climate in which these movements have operated has changed. Gender diversity is greatly more accepted now, but another change is social media.

Trans people have always had a way to find each other. Connection gave us representation, depicting our joy, celebrating our bodies, and showing us possibilities in an environment devoid of it. The advent of social media platforms like YouTube, Tumblr, and TikTok further expanded on this by making content accessible to everyone; creating more opportunities for self-discovery and community.

But this very life-saving access also gave bigots unprecedented access to us, turning these platforms into an open-source intelligence tool and vehicle of the far-right. Libs of TikTok has used it to fill the comments and DMs of countless gender diverse youth with hate, force teachers out of jobs for being welcoming, threaten staff at hospitals delivering care to trans youth, and push white nationalist militants to attack Pride events. Kiwi Farms has used it to doxx, swat, and harass, resulting in the killings of at least three trans people.

This intelligence is being exchanged between different types of fringe groups, such as TERFs and the alt-right. From there it can be platformed by more mainstream conservative outlets such as FOX News in the US, The Post Millennial here in Canada, or The Times in the UK. It can further find its way to liberal institutions in the name of airing both sides. Each step amplifies the number of people incentivized to harass the victims.

Social media has removed the geographic boundaries that restricted the far right, and has lowered the bar of who can be targeted so it’s not just public figures anymore, but teenagers sharing a happy moment. It has denied a last refuge of transphobic harassment for many, their rooms, their homes.

Dispensing with social media is not an option. So I come here wondering what can be done to incapacitate the far right’s newfound intelligence apparatus and its ability to do harm without relying on the state.

Notes

While at this event, I talked to a young person who told me that he had been at this year’s drag story time at the NAC with his partner. While there, a group showed up and harassed the young families calling those there “groomers” and “pedos”. The staff removed the bigots, who then placed themselves outside the window holding up a pride flag with a big “X” on it. The curtains were then drawn.

This account was corroborated by two other sources. A similar disruption happened in 2019 when those attending the story time at that year’s Capital Pride were also harassed.