Tag Archives: transphobia

canada, International

Community Action: Anti-Trans Speaker with Ties to Soldiers of Odin and Proud Boys Set to Speak in Vancouver on June 23

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By Jeff Shantz

The University of British Columbia appears to be at it again. Mere months after hosting far-right speaker Ben Shapiro, and agreeing to host far-right figures Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern—an event that was eventually cancelled after community mobilization and outcry—the elite Vancouver university is going ahead with a talk by an anti-trans activist, Jenn Smith, with various ties to far-right groups like the Soldiers of Odin, Proud Boys, and Culture Guard. He event is scheduled for the evening of June 23, 2019. Smith has even used Soldiers of Odin as “bodyguards” at preceding events.

Smith’s talk is directed against the British Columbia educational system’s LGBTQ2-inclusive and supportive program SOGI 123 (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity). Smith, “a 54 year-old transgender identified male” who uses his identity to target the trans communities is slated to speak as well against “transgender ideology” and “transgender politics.” Smith has stated “that men cannot be women (and vice versa), no matter how much they pretty themselves up.” Transphobic, anti-trans politics, have been long connected to contemporary far Right movements and viewpoints.

In response, UBC says it will rely on the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the colonial police force that was recently involved in the racial profiling of a Black graduate student at a major academic congress on UBC’s campus). The RCMP is itself a force of settler colonial domination and white supremacy. Many people are not made to fee safe by its presence. This is in addition to the threat posed by the far Right groups who have accompanied Smith previously. The perspectives being pushed by Smith make communities, schools, and workplaces more dangerous and threatening, especially for transgender students.

As was the case for the Shapiro and Molyneux and Southern events, Smith’s scheduled appearance is being opposed by UBC Students Against Bigotry and other community members. Community outrage managed to get other scheduled Smith talks cancelled at Douglas College in Metro Vancouver and Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia.

Donald Trump, Uncategorized

Trump’s Transgender Gaslighting

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By Gleb Tsipursky

President Donald Trump signed a directive on August 25 following up on his earlier tweets that he “will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military.” Whatever you think about the decree, the spin from the Trump administration about it amounts to the gaslighting of the transgender community.

Consider the terms of this order. It prevents any new openly transgender recruits from joining the armed forces. It also orders the military to evaluate the status of currently-serving transgender soldiers and potentially get rid of them as well in line with Trump’s original tweet: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is putting together a group of experts to study the matter. Transgender troops decried the order, saying it will create “complete inequality,” in the words of one. The director of the LGBTQ advocacy group Palm Center said that Trump is “pull[ing] the rug out from under a group of service members who have been defending our country.”

Any reasonable person can see that the decree blatantly discriminates against transgender individuals, meaning treating them differently and worse than others. Yet the Trump administration explicitly denies this reality. According to the official briefing the press on the directive, it did not represent in any way discrimination against transgender individuals. The official stated that Trump will “continue to ensure that the rights of the LGBTQ community” are protected, and is not going back on his campaign promise in 2016 to “fight for” that community.

Why make statements that are so clearly false? There is no doubt that the directive discriminates against transgender people, so what explains the blatant lies?

This type of deception falls into the category of gaslighting, a psychological manipulation that aims to create doubt about the nature of reality. Often occurring in abusive relationships, gaslighting is so harmful that victims often report that the impact of this manipulation is worse than the original offense. It can make you doubt your reality, grow confused, vulnerable, and uncertain, unable to fend off the manipulations of the perpetrator and even fall into accepting their reality, known as the gaslight effect.

Trump’s administration has used gaslighting extensively as a psychological weapon. Denying reality creates confusion and uncertainty, a highly useful outcome since the victims of the gaslighting are unsure about what to do next. Should they expend their resources demonstrating the obvious truth of reality, or should they focus on addressing the problem at hand?

In this case, the transgender community is the target of Trump’s gaslighting. The issue they face is whether to address the blatant lies coming from the White House about the decree, or emphasize fighting Trump’s discriminatory actions.

The solution is to make the gaslighting tactic itself unacceptable. Political and social science research shows that trust is vital for healthy democracies. Citizens in a democracy have a basic expectation of their public officials being trustworthy, in their words and actions. In return, citizens comply with laws, pay taxes, and cooperate with other government initiatives. In comparison to a democracy, an autocratic state bears a much higher resource burden of policing to make its citizens comply with its laws. When political leaders act in ways that destroy trust – as the Trump administration is doing through misleading statements and outright lies – people will increasingly stop complying with laws and paying taxes.

While Trump is making short-term gains for conservatives, he is undermining the stability of our political system as a whole. No one – liberals nor conservatives – want the chaos and disorder that would result from the destruction of trust. All can recognize the terrible dangers posed by such denial of reality to our democracy.

Even worse, other politicians, such as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, are adopting Trump’s tactics. For instance, Christie ordered a number of state-run beaches in New Jersey closed on Friday, June 30, 2017, yet he used a closed state beach in Island Beach State Park for himself and his family on July 2, 2017. At a press conference later that same day, he was asked about being on the beach during the time of the beach shut-down order. In a classic example of gaslighting, Christie said “”I didn’t get any sun today.” When Christie’s spokesperson was shown the pictures, the spokesperson responded “He did not get any sun. He had a baseball hat on.”

Christie’s use of gaslighting to justify corruption and abuse of power points to the normalization of gaslighting within our political system. Only by coming together in a nonpartisan manner to call out such lies and commit to truth can we hope to make gaslighting unacceptable and preserve our democracy.

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Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is the author of the forthcoming The Alternative to Alternative Facts: Fighting Post-Truth Politics with Behavioral Science. One of the lead creators of the Pro-Truth Pledge, he is a professor at Ohio State and President of the nonprofit Intentional Insights.