Transphobia was, I hope, the last of my bigotries. I was otherwise a fairly open-minded christian, voted in favor of legalizing gay marriage etc. Sorting my beliefs out, I came to "Everybody should be free to do what they want among informed, consenting partners so long as it does no harm, BUT.." /1
...And then I couldn't articulate the objection to trans people that I felt in my mind. I knew I was championing secular government, but I still viewed the world as a christian, and so I thought transness was either contrary to one's eternal soul or accusing god of making a mistake of a person. /2
This was all abstract. I knew I needed more information. I believe I found some old tweet threads by Casey Explosion and videos by Contrapoints that are no longer available but were very illuminating. Trans testimonials really changed my perspective. /3
I didn't know any gender non-conforming or trans person, my change of heart all happened at a distance. Good thing too, because I'd probably end up with a massive savior complex where I'd inadvertently do more harm than good by obsessing over them and trying to make amends for my past bias. /4
Since then I have voted for the Citizens' Initiative that led to Finland passing a new gender recognition law in 2023, I've raised money for the Trans Justice Funding Project, and donated to a number of other trans charities, including Mermaids on Hbomb's DK64 streams. I do what I can. /5
So why do I care? What my bias didn't let me see is that trans people... are people. Empathy is the value that got me into church, and to grow in empathy I had to leave the church's way of thinking. I have since met trans people, so I know they are in fact normal people (or unusually cool.) /End