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Notes -
Does ‘transphobic’ have a definition other than ‘objects to trans ideology in any way, regardless of how anodyne’?
I mean I say this as someone who is proudly opposed to transgenderism and homophobic in the actual, literal sense- it really doesn’t seem like the terms ‘transphobic’ and ‘anti-lgbt’ draw any distinction between ‘you should have to be AFAB to be on a woman’s powerlifting team’ and ‘homos and trans should be hanged from construction cranes’. Obviously there is a distinction, but part of the point of using those particular snarl words is not making it.
The word tansphobic itself is already part of the whole stupid CW game. It is obvious that homophobic or transphobic means something else compared to let's say arachnophobic or claustrophobic.
In general you have to identify this whole ad-hominem weapon used in culture war. Your opponents are either evil (racists, white supremacists etc.) or crazy (you say it because you are hurt) or stupid (you do not have PHD). Or ideally combination of all of these. Saying that you are transphobic achieves at the same time medicalization of your view and it also makes makes it evil. You can often see it applied in various lefty spaces like sneerclub, Contrapoints himself uses it a lot.
I want to give them half credit, my reaction to seeing a trans-identifying male is not unlike that to seeing a spider. There are also rational parts to opposing them too, while spiders are beneficial, but there certainly is some similarity in the instinctive response.
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