Transphobia is a Form of Denialism
We have to counter Holocaust denial, and also transphobia
Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, has recently made transphobic noise. Looking up his bio, I saw he once wrote a book, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (2000) co-authored with Alex Grobman.
Immediately I was curious: Why and how would someone with deep knowledge about why not to discredit Jews and deny our persecution decide that it is, nevertheless, a brilliant idea to discredit trans people? (Since I am both Jewish and trans, the question arises to me with this parallelism.) I procured a copy of the book to see what insights I could glean from it.
Here are an assortment of observations.
Holocaust Deniers Make Intricate Arguments
In Denying History, Shermer and Grobman examine the actual claims put forward by Holocaust deniers.
“…most Holocaust deniers are very knowledgeable about very specific aspects of the Holocaust — a gas chamber door that cannot lock, the temperature at which Zyklon-B evaporates, or the lack of a metal grid over the peephole on a gas chamber door — so that anyone who is not versed in these specifics cannot properly question and answer their claims.”
