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On the Receiving End, It’s Obvious: Anti-Trans Discourse Is Contradictory
I can rattle off several dozen contradictory demands and expectations
One day, during college or a bit after — 25 years ago, or maybe only 20 — I was pondering the various contradictions that were packed into anti-gay rhetoric. I was most familiar with what came from Christian leaders allied with the Republican Party in the United States. I thought it would entertaining to present them as a comic strip.
I still have the panels on a few sheets of paper. I’ll show you a couple, but I should warn you that I didn’t know how to draw. (I still can’t draw, and I’m grateful for stock images.)
My language in the panels was strong, but that’s part of the lesson here. If the language were gentle and civil, we’d be more likely to calmly point out the contradictions and reject the whole framing, but when the language is designed to shame people, we spend time dealing with the emotional impact and have less energy to observe the illogic.
The contradictions of anti-gay language are double binds. A double bind means you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t; more specifically, it means you’re supposed to do something you’re simultaneously forbidden to do, or people ask you to attempt something that obviously…
