‘Transgender Movement’ Letter is Offensive Nonsense

Monica Shieman’s letter about “the transgender movement” is some of the most offensive nonsense I’ve had the displeasure of reading, as a transgender person who was assigned female at birth, a group that Shieman ignores in favor of baseless fearmongering about trans women and transfeminine nonbinary people. I highly doubt Shieman knows any transgender people, both because the letter completely misunderstands how being transgender works and because I would not associate with anyone with such hateful views.

Shieman talks about trans people’s genders as “alter egos”, contrasted with “natural gender”, which is exactly backwards. When trans people transition, we are expressing our natural selves. If anything is acting out a false alter ego, it’s attempting to live as our assigned genders.

Transgender people using facilities appropriate to our identities harms no-one. Shieman is making up boogeymen to justify bigotry. Trans people are orders of magnitude more likely to be harassed or assaulted in bathrooms than to assault others. Forcing trans women to use men’s restrooms, however, puts them in actual danger. Gender policing causes substantial harm and doesn’t help anyone.

Furthermore, framing trans rights and women’s rights as opposed is simply wrong. We all suffer from sexism, sexual assault, and attacks on our bodily autonomy. Some of the most outspoken feminists I’ve met are trans women, including on issues that do not directly affect them, such as access to abortion. We are on the same side, and it benefits all of us to work together to fight injustice.

To the non-trans people who condemn transphobia, thank you from the bottom of my heart. To my fellow trans people, particularly the trans women and nonbinary transfems who are the primary target of this particular reactionary backlash, know that we can make it through this together.

–CL Cady, Castro Valley