The Evil Trans

Just are very being is a threat to them… we have a secret agenda; it is so secret that even I or any other trans person don’t the agenda.

What Precisely Do Transgender People Threaten?
Recent research explores the link between the gender binary and transprejudice
Psychology Today
By Karen L. Blair Ph.D.
September 24, 2018

New research has attempted to better understand the circumstances under which individuals feel threatened by gender nonconforming behavior. In general, we know that people tend to respond negatively to individuals who do not adhere to the gender binary—that is, the notion that there are two sexes, male and female, and that whichever sex you are should clearly dictate your gender and gender role behaviors as either a man or a woman. If a person is biologically male but behaves in stereotypically feminine ways, we can call this gender nonconformity within a cisgender individual (i.e., someone whose biological sex is the same as their gender identity). Similarly, a transgender individual (i.e., someone whose sex identified at birth does not align with their gender identity) can be seen as gender nonconforming simply by being transgender.

Researchers at St. Louis University sought to determine which of these two types of gender nonconformity would be viewed as more unsettling to those who value the gender binary. While it is possible for anyone to stray from the gender binary in small or large ways, often transgender individuals seem to be perceived as a greater threat to binary views of gender than gender nonconforming cisgender people.

Kristin Broussard and Dr. Ruth Warner proposed that one reason for this might be that transgender individuals can be perceived as simultaneously transgressing the gender norms of BOTH binary genders. For example, a trans woman (i.e., someone assigned male at birth who now identifies as a woman) is transgressing male norms by identifying as a woman, but also may be seen as transgressing the norms of being a woman by not appearing feminine enough. Indeed, other research has found that transgender women are particularly at risk for prejudice and violence due to society’s general tendency to police femininity and to punish transgressions of misplaced femininity.

In the 2015 U. S. Transgender Survey the report said,

Visual non-conformity is a risk factor in causing anti-transgender bias and its attendant social and economic burdens.

In other words someone who cannot integrate into society is going to face more discrimination, harassment, and violence than someone who you cannot tell is trans.

The researchers focused on a notion referred to as “distinctiveness threat.” According to Social Identity Theory our social identities, or the groups to which we belong, help us to define our personal identities. To the extent that the boundaries around the groups that are important to our identities become blurred, we may experience distinctiveness threat. In short, the uniqueness of who we are as an individual comes under threat when the boundaries around group definitions that we use to define ourselves shift or become malleable.

When I was in grad school we had to read Elliot Aronson The Social Animal and write a report on a chapter, the chapter I chose was the chapters on Conformity which also was about not fitting into society and how society pushes back if you don’t fit the norms. I wrote…

I believe that Aronson had several theories in mind when he wrote the chapters on Conformity, some of the factors are; wanting to belong, wanting to be accepted, the need to be part of the social group and the need to be wanted. All of these factors interplay on one another to produce a strong desire to conform to what we believe that our family, friends, and organizations or groups that are a part of our daily lives. Some of our worst fears are not being loved or not being liked or to be left out in the cold to fend for ourselves.

So the researcher in the Psychology Today article looked at that from a different direction; what causes people to push you into boxes.

The article goes on to say,

Across the three studies, they found that, in general, participants reported liking gender conforming and cisgender individuals more than transgender and gender nonconforming individuals (e.g., masculine women, feminine men). Participants also viewed transgender and gender nonconforming individuals as more threatening to the boundaries defining what it means to be a man or a woman (i.e., greater distinctiveness threat). However, it was gender-conforming transgender individuals (i.e., feminine transgender women, or masculine transgender men) who were viewed as being the most threatening towards gender boundaries. As Broussard put it, “it is likely that conforming transgender individuals (because they can ‘pass’ as their authentic gender) are especially threatening because they provide some evidence that there are more than two binary genders, or that [one’s] binary gender can be changed.”

In other words, if you strongly believe that there are only two sexes and that those two sexes always create two genders, and that it is not possible for someone to change from being one gender to another, being presented with a masculine trans man (someone who was identified female at birth) who visually and behaviorally is indistinguishable from a cisgender man, may be a very jarring experience that challenges binary beliefs about gender. Furthermore, gender conforming trans individuals may elicit distinctiveness threat because if you yourself are a man and hinge a great deal of your identity on being a man, what does this piece of your identity really mean if someone born female can ‘pass’ as being just “as much of a man” as you? Thus, the more an individual strongly believes in the gender binary, the more threatening transgender individuals (especially those who ‘pass’) are to that individual’s own personal identity as either a man or a woman.

Finally, it is important to emphasize that the connection between a transgender individual’s gender expression is not responsible for eliciting the prejudice of others. Rather, transprejudice stems from an internal process in which the person holding the prejudice experiences a threat to an aspect of their own identity, and thus lashes out against trans individuals as a means of trying to reaffirm the boundaries surrounding important aspects how they define their identity – in this case, their gender.

I also think that there is an element of homophobia there for men. If they see a pretty woman and try to “put the make” on her and it turns out to be a trans woman, I think that the guy worries that other men might think he is gay. Also it might cause him to question his own sexual orientation.