Why the Trans Panic is Stupid (And Dangerous)

I’m a psychotherapist. By education, licensure, and by my heart, I am a social worker. This means that I pledge to abide by a code of ethics that require me to work towards social justice and endeavor to improve the lives of my fellow human beings.

Some of these values are:

• service
• social justice
• dignity and worth of the person
• importance of human relationships
• integrity
• competence

There’s no denying that the social work profession has a fraught history when it comes to white supremacy, but I stand by the values and ethics of my chosen profession. Indeed it is one of the biggest reasons I chose to become a social worker – I could always fall back on my cherished values when the going got tough, and decline to take actions in the workplace that contradicted my code of ethics. The social work value that stood out to me the most as I began my journey is definitely “dignity and worth of the person”.

To quote the NASW code of ethics:

“Social workers treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers promote clients’ socially responsible self-determination. Social workers seek to enhance clients’ capacity and opportunity to change and to address their own needs. Social workers are cognizant of their dual responsibility to clients and to the broader society. They seek to resolve conflicts between clients’ interests and the broader society’s interests in a socially responsible manner consistent with the values, ethical principles, and ethical standards of the profession.”

Central to each person’s dignity is to live a life that has value to them and to identify for themselves how they fit into the world and what is meaningful.  If a client, for example, tells me how important their religious faith is to their identity, I take that seriously, learn more about what it means to them, and keep that in mind as I work with them. It is the same when someone is of a minority group of whatever kind. Particularly as a cis white woman who comes from a relatively privileged background, having humility around other people’s experiences and perspectives is critical to being able to connect with my clients. 

So— trans people.

I’m of an age where I grew up hearing slurs against gay people routinely, without even understanding what they meant. I was a kid when the first openly gay character appeared on TV, and it was a giant deal when Ellen came out as queer. That all seems so quaint now! I took part in Gay Pride marches as a young college student in the 1980s, because as soon as I understood what “gay” meant I understood that there was nothing wrong with being gay and felt called to show my support for people who were being maligned and discriminated against. It didn’t hurt that I went to art school and studied with an extraordinarily diverse bunch of folks. I championed gay marriage when it seemed like an impossible dream, when even “liberal” politicians said things like “I was raised to believe marriage is between a man and a woman”. Ah, the bad old days that are threatening to become the current days again. 

I have known about trans people since the 1980s when I observed that a person in a group I was in had begun presenting as a different gender. I was curious, but minded my own business because honestly who cares? I think that an elementary math teacher I had was also trans, and remember being surprised that not only did we have a woman of color teaching in my super-white elementary school, it seemed obvious to me that this person was, or as my mind was able to conceive of it at the time, formerly, a man. I recall being mildly surprised by that but mostly surprised that nobody seemed to notice or remark on it. This teacher was warmly received and well-liked, I shudder to think what would happen today. 

Since those days, I have known quite a few trans people. Some “pass” and if one was not told that they were trans, one would not know. Other folks are more easily identified by their appearance as trans. I know young adults who were ambivalent about their gender identity as children (we used to call them things like “tomboys” when I was a kid, ain’t nothing new under the sun, folks!), and have settled happily into non-binary or trans identities. I know a few relatively older adults who have come out as trans in recent years and report enormous relief at being able to finally live as themselves, despite the difficulties that come with doing so.  

I probably know a larger number of non-binary and trans people than the average American, for several reasons – I live and socialize in urban communities with a lot of people in the arts and academics, I have always been open to people of different orientations and identities, and my psychotherapy is highly welcoming to queer folks. So, I know from my personal experience that trans individuals are just people like everyone else. It’s also true that trans people are a tiny, tiny minority of the population. 

In recent years, there has been a huge, hateful effort to (literally) demonize transgender people, to create hysteria, fear and hatred for people who are just trying to live their lives. This calculated effort to cast trans or other gender minority people as “groomers” and dangerous to children is infuriating and wrong, and mirrors previous (and unfortunately by some people current) claims that all gay people are child molesters. It conveniently focuses fear and attention of a group of people that are “others” which leads to persecution and violence against the members of that group for simply existing. It’s unfortunately been a very successful tactic to get people angry and upset and politically activated. 

It’s ironic that the hysteria around “protecting children” from receiving gender affirming medical care, that the child’s parents and doctors agree on, comes from the same people who aggressively want to keep the government out of their children’s healthcare. But they want to pass laws to prevent other parents from accessing the care they believe necessary for their kids.

Anti-trans propaganda has convinced gullible people that large numbers of children are being “surgically mutilated”, without parental consent, which is absurd. These are the same people who still believe that there are litter boxes in schools for the furry kids. There are many, many more breast surgeries on cis boys to reduce breast tissue, a “gender affirming” procedure to be sure, than there are on minors born female having mastectomies to transition genders. There are also more breast augmentations done on teen girls for cosmetic reasons and I don’t know of anybody furiously objecting to that. The numbers quoted to inflate the story of children being mutilated also include surgeries done to correct deformities that still fall into the category of gender-affirming care. The use of hormone therapy or puberty blockers also falls into the category of medical intervention, but it seems that the hysteria over the trans agenda and children doesn’t take that into account but instead focuses on (debunked) stories of underage hysterectomies and “chopping off penises”. 

There are stories about people who de-transition and regret having used medical procedures to transition, and that is tragic. If there are instances of inappropriate use of medical care or pressure on children socially to transition, that is obviously wrong and would need to be addressed case by case with the providers and families.

However, a June 2021 study found that “the vast majority [of de-transitioners] reported that their detransition was driven by external pressures.”

“Frequently endorsed external factors included pressure from family and societal stigma. History of detransition was associated with male sex assigned at birth, nonbinary gender identity, bisexual sexual orientation, and having a family unsupportive of one’s gender identity”. I wonder how many of those detransitioners would not choose to do so if they had support in their transition. 

Anti-trans activists are using such accounts to fan the flames of hatred that result in things like bomb threats to children’s hospitals, terrifying innocent staff and patients and disrupting all kinds of medical care to children. This is not “protecting the children”. Nor is threatening teachers with legal action for allowing a student to use a name of their choice, or threatening librarians with prison for letting kids read books that nobody would have thought twice about 40 years ago. Hell, I read Flowers in the Attic in middle school and I turned out ok.

Everyone knows that the real “groomers” and those committing sexual abuse crimes against children are stepfathers, mother’s boyfriends, cousins, uncles, brothers, fathers, clergy of countless denominations, coaches, teachers, and trusted family friends. Usually, but not always, straight-presenting men are the perpetrators, whether they are abusing children of the same or opposite sex. There is certainly abuse perpetrated by female relatives and authority figures, as I certainly know from my work as a trauma therapist. I have never in my almost 20 years of practice had anyone report that they were abused by a trans person. Most abuse of children happens in the home, not in public bathrooms. From pre-adolescence onwards through adulthood, I experienced harassment and threat from boys and men of all possible descriptors. 

It’s notable that people who seem obsessed about the dangers of “gender ideology” to children seem uninterested in actual threats to children such as gun violence which is shamefully the number one cause of death among children and adolescents in the US. Or how grievously underfunded agencies are that support children in foster care. Over 12 percent of children lived in poverty in this country in 2022, and I suspect numbers are worse now with the cuts to nutrition benefits and healthcare for children. It seems if people really cared about children, they would be more worried about millions going hungry and without medical care, or having a robust system of child protective services for kids who are actually experiencing abuse in the home and community. 

The idea that there is a “trans conspiracy” to eliminate gender in our society, that is Satanic or whatever, is so painfully dumb and hate-fueled. The insistence that there are “only 2 genders – male and female” is simply incorrect from a biological perspective. Men have dressed in women’s clothing forever, and vice versa, and suddenly the idea that a child might see a drag queen and become queer is supposed to make sense? I’d point to the fact that my generation grew up watching Bosom Buddies on tv, saw Harvey Coleman in drag on the Carol Burnett show, watched the movies Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, heck even Bugs Bunny liked to wear a dress from time to time. Nobody used to worry about this. The trans panic is manufactured outrage, with dangerous consequences. Trans people are people trying to live their lives, and it’s gross that some are using this small and vulnerable population to gain political advantage and stoke fear and violence. Violence against trans people is up, as some shocking examples have recently shown. We need to do better as a society in accepting the dignity and worth of our fellow community members.