Here are five ways to fight transgender activists in everyday conversation:
- Reject jargon
Avoid nonsense terms such as “cisgender” and “non-binary.”
Be wary of terms that are used to assert a metaphysical truth claim, i.e., “gender identity.”
In political debates, do not use pronouns that contradict biological reality.
- Refute misnomers
When you hear someone mention the “Don’t Say Gay bill,” offer its real title, the Parental Rights in Education Act, and explain what it does.
When the so-called Equality Act is championed as necessary anti-discrimination legislation, explain that it would redefine sex to include gender identity and destroy women’s sex-based rights and protections.
- Puncture euphemisms
Unpack euphemistic terms such as “gender-affirming care.” Be specific and matter-of-fact. Double mastectomies for adolescent girls. Sterilizing cross-sex hormones. Vaginoplasty, which involves removing the testes and inverting the penis. Phalloplasty involves grafting tissue from the arm or thigh and constructing a pseudo-penis out of a tube wrapped in transplanted flesh.
- Correct mischaracterizations
There is no “ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports.” Athletes identifying as transgender remain free to compete in sports that correspond with their sex. Really, there are bans on male athletes in female sports and vice versa.
Likewise, there is no “ban on health care for transgender children.” Children identifying as transgender have the same access to medical care as every other child. What’s really being banned in some places are unsafe medical experiments on minors.
- Showcase harms
Transgender activists present individuals who they allege have suffered due to a failure to meet activist demands. First, we need to debunk these allegations: Transgender ideology is what causes harm, not the refusal to cooperate with it.
Second, we need to showcase these harms. Detransitioners rushed into irreversible treatment. Female athletes denied fairness in sports. Vulnerable women forced to share prisons or intimate facilities with men. Have real-life examples handy.