Transphobia Is Transphobia, Even When We Like To Pretend It’s Not
Editorial By Lyra Bordelon
Throughout the past legislative session, I wrote a near weekly bill round up, looking at the bills sponsored by our local delegates. Each time, the Todd Longanacre-sponsored ban against transgender women in sports, ranging from middle school to college, caught my attention. Given the interest of our Republican supermajority in transgender issues this past legislative session, I wanted to take a look back on the way the bill was discussed, and not discussed, here in Greenbrier County.
In several places, I called the bill transphobic, an adjective that brought some criticism my way.
Why was I “editorializing” in news round ups?
I would like to publicly acknowledge the time I spent debating with myself and other writers if I should use that language.
Transphobia is fear, dislike of, or prejudice against transgender people. Does this bill contain the fear, dislike of, or prejudice against transgender people?
In a social media post, Barry Bruce incorrectly said “keeping men out [of] women’s sports” was the goal of the bill. A recent AP report could not find a single lawmaker who could provide a real example of this happening anywhere in the country. The National Collegiate Athletic Association and the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission had policies allowing trans girls to compete in place for years before these bills emerged.
Longanacre was actively aware of the message it was sending, saying he was “referred to as a ‘bully’ and a ‘bigot’ for sponsoring this Bill” without bothering to learn why.
“This bill would not discriminate against transexual [sic] individuals playing sports as they may still play on the male teams,” Longanacre wrote. Forcing someone without teenage boy levels of testosterone to compete against teen boys with testosterone would actively put the trans athlete at a disadvantage.
The Greenbrier County Republican Executive Committee attacked critics of the bill, stating that “this is a common sense bill in perilous times.”
Perilous indeed, but for who? There are currently no known trans youth in sports in Greenbrier County, despite there being trans youth in Greenbrier County.
Governor Jim Justice said he would “proudly” sign the bill before doing so. In a later interview, he falsely claimed there were only 12 trans kids and teenagers in the state and cited his gut reactions as a coach as his evidence.
The bill itself is intentionally dismissive of transgender lives, calling transgender women “biological boys,” a common dog whistle intentionally designed to mislead the public.
I am sympathetic to those that don’t understand the biological facts of many transgender lives. This is most people. I also hesitate to explain these facts, placing them in the news, drawing physical attention to people minding their own business.
The bill does not acknowledge the reality of biological differences between these women and the gender they were assigned at birth. It only mentions transgender men and boys in passing, a common omission of half the trans population.
Dismissing facts, trusting feelings, the legislature barreled forward and Justice signed the bill. If the facts on the ground don’t matter, then the message is the only thing that does.
And what was the message to one Greenbrier County teenage trans boy, who is not public with his identity? The language games played by those for it and against it taught him about himself and how people in his home view their transgender neighbors.
“[It’s like Greenbrier County and West Virginia are saying] let’s get behind these ignorant people taking away the euphoria of being around other people you feel valid with,” said the teenager. “If a trans female is playing on a female team, I’m sure that’s something that’s very enjoyable to them. When I hang out with a guy that sees me as a guy, it’s just amazing. Pure happiness. And they’re taking that away.”
The message can even accidentally be there from those supporting trans youth. Senator Stephen Baldwin took a stand before the bill’s passage, unsuccessfully appealing to the better nature of the legislature and Justice before the bill was passed, but pay attention to the words that get used and the message those kids hear.
“Half of trans kids strongly consider suicide,” Baldwin said in a floor speech during the bill’s debate. “What I understand from talking to folks that have lived through it is that it’s because they don’t feel like they fit in. … They are not included in anything other kids are included in because they’re so obviously different. … [Jesus] hung out with sinners and outcasts,
people that the world shamed and ridiculed.”
After voting against the bill, Baldwin was attacked on social media by those making arguments against the very idea of transgender people, not against the pre-bill state policies on inclusion in sports. He noted the bill was passed “even though we have no incidents, even though we have a policy in place” to use “vulnerable kids as political pawns so political groups and parties can put out attack ads based on silly bills like this trying to win elections.”
In this, he is correct. The Family Policy Council of West Virginia issued a press release, stating transgender people are “confused” about their sex and that the “Family Policy Council worked very hard behind the scenes with the House sponsors and with the State Senate sponsors.” FPC President Allen Whitt said, “The bizarre vote by those state senators will be an issue during their next Republican primaries.”
“It feels like the government is stacked against you when all these things happen because they just keep approving these things, taking a step backwards,” said the anonymous teenage boy. “There are people my age that are suffering because of these laws – being transgender is hard enough already. A lot of self-hatred, self-denial, and when they finally feel comfortable to go out and express themselves, do what makes them happy, [there’s this]. … I’m just scared that, in them passing this bill, it’s going to get progressively worse.”
Could West Virginia, like Arkansas, ban the best medical practices helping trans youth , despite a veto from a Republican governor? This would be against the guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and American Osteopathic Association.
Could, like Texas is attempting, West Virginia make administering or consenting to a child’s use of puberty suppression treatment and teenage use of hormone replacement therapy abuse in the state code ? Able to let the state physically remove a child from their parents for affirming them?
Each of these possibilities would do damage. Just the policy conversation has an effect, as every transgender person I know has told me, with negativity rippling towards them from the misinformed public.
“My name is Marjorie Roper, I am a transgender woman, and I spent my first 24 years growing up in the beautiful state of West Virginia,” Roper wrote. “But today my heart breaks with the news of this transphobic bill that has just passed there. …The passing of this bill is dangerous and targets our most vulnerable youth! Transgender individuals are made target of severe and all too often hate crimes, the youth and people of color being the blunt end of the attacks. Even prior to this bill being passed, I myself was subject to multiple assaults, sexual, domestic, and otherwise in the state. As early as eight years old these verbal, mental, and physical attacks left their scars. Creating barriers for our transgender youth in sports will ultimately hurt their mental health, and put them in dangerous situations, this can lead to a life that no one deserves. I ask that the community come together and bring attention to this, fight back! Use your voices! Our trans youth need you to stand tall for them. … We are the ones scared, all we’re doing is trying to fit in and be comfortable.”
“It breaks my heart, really,” said Joobi Kashola, a local to Greenbrier County. “To see people who probably have never even spoken to a trans person enact legislation that affects our rights. But what really gets me is that there’s never any attempt at compromise. People will bring up a single point and use that as justification to just throw the whole thing out, and in this case even go so far as to make laws against LGBTQ people. … But these people don’t want to help the LGBTQ community, they want us to go away. As we can see they literally have zero interest in playing ball with us.”
This is not a debate worth having, yet here we are. Much like the civil rights for African Americans, the gay marriage debates of the 2000s, most of the United States has already decided to protect these citizens. I applaud Baldwin’s speech looking to protect these kids and Phil Kabler in the Charleston Gazette-Mail describing the bill as “despicable.”
Is it transphobic to incorrectly call trans women “biological men,” begin the legal process of stripping trans people of rights and best standardized medical practices, use them as a wedge issue to win elections, block out their voices, and do it “proudly?”
The answer is yes.
The bill, and all of this, is, at its core, transphobic.
For those that find themselves defensive after reading this, I ask that you consider why. If you, as an individual, are capable of understanding your gender, why would someone else not be able to?
What language games do I want to play?
I’m calling on editorial boards across the state to consider what I’ve just laid out. To follow Baldwin’s final call and air on the side of kindness. Please do this by calling bigotry and transphobia what it is and moving toward celebrating difference, rather than shaming, pathologizing, and ostracizing it.
Especially if this re-emerges in the next legislative session.
Author’s Post Publication Note: When asked what my favorite piece of the year was by my editor, Matt Young, and Aaron Coleman, one of the guys that bring you this paper everyday, the choice was obvious. This is the editorial that brought me back to The West Virginia Daily News, though not directly.
As West Virginia and the country took away rights from transgender people this year, with a media racing to platform people that don’t know anything about transgender health, I attempted to give voice to three local transgender people in a debate about transgender lives that never bothers to simply ask the right people.
At least, at time of publication in May, that’s what it seemed like. In reality though, the editorial gave voice to four – I am one of those transgender people. I am a transgender woman, disaster though she may still be. I know those people because they are my community, and they are some of the most brilliant, resilient, and powerful people I will ever know.
Names. I’ve legally changed mine to Lyra Brooke Calliope Bordelon. Lyra is my name, full stop. If you mess it up, I won’t get mad, just correct it and move on. Y’all might have noticed a recent byline change – this is why. I use she/her pronouns because, simply, they are correct.
Even with the wild changes that I have going on – for example, I’m currently doing the socialization process of middle school adolescence for the second time at 27 – two things haven’t changed.
First is that I’m still here, covering councils, courts, parades, and whatever happens to come up – email me your story tips at lyra@wvdn.com. I’m grateful for the community that has mostly embraced me with open arms. The few notable exceptions to this have been pretty funny, in all honesty, but don’t be that person. They tend to end up with egg on their face.
Second is that transgender people’s freedom is still actively under attack by right-wing forces obsessed with us, always citing obviously incorrect information in order to strip of us the little legal protections we have. If this is you, I beg you to consider one question – what dog do you even have in the fight for us to be left alone to live our lives?
Good thing the Civil Rights Act exists and we are, as of 2020, covered by it, some cases still pending. I’ll also note that one such case fights against a WV law that forbids Medicaid and PEIA insurance from covering life-saving healthcare for, and I checked, no reason. That means the West Virginia government is currently and actively taking away my access to healthcare, my right to control what’s best for my body, my ability for my doctors to make informed health decisions, right now. It’s not hypothetical.
To the parents of local transgender kids – our community doesn’t want to “make your kids trans.”
We want your transgender kids to survive.
Here’s what you actually face when they come out to you – either you’re supportive and your relationship improves, you’re not and they’ll resent you for years for no reason but you, or they’re dead, often by their own hand. Please choose wisely. The last happens more often than it should.
There’s no hidden option where they’re not trans or where they’re “converted.” That’s nonsense. Even if they find out they’re wrong later, that’s up to them to discover, not for you to decide. Often, when they’re “wrong,” it’s not because they’re wrong, but because their communities made their lives unlivable in response to them coming out.
I’m still calling on editorial boards, representatives, and the people we live side-by-side with “to [name] bigotry and transphobia for what it is and, moving toward, [celebrate] difference, rather than shaming, pathologizing, and ostracizing it.”
Wild that ever could be controversial in the first place in the “land of the free.”
– Lyra Brooke Calliope Bordelon, local reporter
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| Greenbrier Valley Pride’s first event in June 2021. |
