🖙The Normie Trans Case Against Assimilation
I don't know if I would call myself a "normie," but I do relate to wanting to be seen as just a woman, and I also have a relatively conforming gender presentation1. I'm also white and grew up middle class. So I feel like I could at least theoretically do well under a bargain where binary trans people are allowed to transition, as long as we're fairly quiet about it, and protected against discrimination as long as we keep our end of the bargain. Sort of like Don't Ask, Don't Tell for transness, but marginally friendlier and applied across society. Nonetheless, I think this strategy sucks.
There's a strong moral argument against this, of course, and this argument is the most compelling. I happen to be trans in a way that I could theoretically assimilate or could even go entirely stealth, but what about people whose gender identity doesn't fit neatly into those categories? Why is my identity more valid than theirs? Why be satisfied with half measures?
One response to this is more reactionary: Being a "binary transsexual" is a real, scientifically valid phenomenon and being nonbinary isn't. This is bullshit, and I'm not sure I can convince these people otherwise, although frankly the practical argument should still convince them to shut up and support nonbinary people, if only for selfish reasons.
Another response is that it's easier to make strategic gains by starting with trans rights that are relatively acceptable. Sometimes this reaction is thinly veiled reactionary thinking, but some people genuinely believe this in good faith. Some people mix these together—I'd put Brianna Wu in that camp.
This argument doesn't hold up, however.
First, there's not a constituency for this view. If you look at a snapshot of public polling at any one time, you'll definitely find some people who support trans people on some issues but not others. But short of a handful of pickme trans people, trans people who've accepted their own transness but not others', trans people who've mistakenly decided this is the only way forward, and a handful of cis people who really care about trans women in sports for whatever reason, I don't think this group really cares that much. Obviously, sometimes your best option is a compromise that no one really likes, that's the definition of compromise, blah blah blah, but the compromise itself is not going to rally people to your side.
Take healthcare as an example. While people got excited about Barack Obama, the candidate, they didn't really get excited about Affordable Care Act. In contrast, people rallied around both Bernie Sanders and Medicare for All2. This isn't to downplay what Obamacare achieved. And if Medicare for All is ever passed, it will be less ambitious than the most exuberant slogans and wildest dreams3. But starting by watering it down is going to kill people's motivation. An expansive view of trans rights is going to get trans people excited in a way that "here's a compromise because our backs are against the wall" is not.
Second, even if accepting a compromise is what you eventually need to do, as a matter of negotiation strategy, your campaign shouldn't be for the compromise. If you want to build a bunch of high-speed rail, your spokespeople shouldn't be adding "and we'd accept regular rail too" to every quote they give to the press. If you don't want Medicare to be cut, your slogan shouldn't be "No cuts to Medicare! Although small cuts are not that bad; we'd agree to those if backed into a corner". That doesn't always mean you should push for the maximalist version of your vision 100 percent of the time, but you also don't want to unnecessarily cede ground. Unfortunately, minority groups' completely reasonable requests often get portrayed as unreasonable. Fortunately, activists have some leeway to be unreasonable. They should use it!
Maybe somewhere in the vast multiverse of possible political realities there exists a society where "binary" trans people could maintain a partial, but stable swath of rights by excluding nonbinary people, although I doubt it. But currently, we're in a country where cis gay people and cis straight women are also seeing their rights threatened (not to mention immigrants, disabled people, and people of color). It's not like there's a bunch of conservatives eager to protect a subset of trans rights if only the Democrats become 50 percent more transphobic. Sure, Trump voters who don't like trans women in women's sports but also oppose anti-trans discrimination exist, but they probably voted for Trump because they thought he would lower inflation.
Third, trans people benefit from a healthy, vibrant, and diverse queer community. Selecting some people as normal enough to be the face of the movement creates artificial divisions and makes it harder for these spaces to thrive. We all miss out on their community, their jokes, their wisdom, their art, their performance, their media, their selves.
Fourth, conforming in a conformist society is bad for you even if you would do basically the same thing anyway. Even if you never run afoul of societal conventions, the worry about it is a kind of a tax on you at all times. And there's the obvious risk that the bounds will tighten further and you'll no longer be safe.
Fifth, especially for younger trans people or those who have only "figured it out" recently, you may not actually know your identity neatly conforms to the current bounds. Maybe instead of being 100 percent "binary" transgender who always uses one set of pronouns, you want to experiment with other presentations or other sets of pronouns. Or maybe your next partner is nonbinary. Maybe your child is. Maybe your childhood best friend comes out as nonbinary.
Conformity feels a bit like a flood. Even if you live on a big house with a generous garden on a hill above the current high water mark, it will still circumscribe your life, hurt your neighbors, and bring your community to a halt. And there's always the worry the floodwaters will keep rising. Better to keep the flood out of the city.
Except for the part where I was assigned male at birth!↩
To be clear, I'm not saying more people like Medicare for All than the Affordable Care Act. I'm saying more people really like Medicare for All. A few Kaiser Family Foundation polls—see this article about Medicare for All and this interactive about ACA—I dug up suggest they've had similar popularity between 2017 and 2020. I also found a poll suggesting ACA is much more popular than Medicare for All, although I think that's at least in part because the question wording made Medicare for All seem more disruptive than it actually would be.↩
Although hopefully still ambitious.↩