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Because most people don't actually know any trans people, and find unfamiliar things to be weird and scary.
But also because terrible people have weaponized those feelings for personal political gain. Most people probably wouldn't give a fuck, even if they found them weird, if talking heads weren't stoking the flames of bigotry.
Trans people give conservatives feelings in their pants and scare and confuse them. They lash out in fear, hatred, and self-loathing.
Conservatives use fear to manipulate their constituents as their primary means to rally support. A minority scapegoat many of their supporters don't know in person, like trans people, are easily demonized by politicians and clergy to pretend trans folks are pedophiles and sex assaulters projecting their own party and priest crimes, it's the same thing they try to do with fear mongering homosexuals as a previous scapegoat to distract and deflect from their awful policy privileging the wealth class and harming poor and middle class people, they need someone to blame for their own awful behavior and choices.
I'm a southerner. Take what I'm about to tell you as close to the grain of the problem as possible, because it is.
Here's the thing. 9 times out of 10, a Southern man is going to meet a lone trans or gay person, have a pleasant experience talking to them and go about their day, they even make friends with the person, spend years talking to them, send gifts, become family members, etc.
But you know what?
Behind closed doors, it's "fuck those trannies", "not in my schools", etc. My mom does it, her sister does it, my dad did it. It's hypocrisy at an extreme level while also ignoring it at an extreme level.
"Well I have gay friends... I'm not homowhatzit"
THEY'RE TEACHING WHAT!?
"Double Standard" might as well be the tagline for the entire South. They'll protect their religion and the expectations put on them by their parents and social norms on a general level across the board, while still shaking hands and eating cake with their lgbtq+ buddies.
Just remember any southerner is one thought from God away from stabbing you in the back at all times, because no matter how close you get to them, even as a family member, that book and the expectations behind it means more, was beat into them more, every day since they were born until you met them.
Your favorite search engine -> "bless your heart meaning" and good luck navigating the waters.
I thought this was pretty universally known in the US because I'm not from the US and never been further south than NYC when I did visit, but even I have seen it in some movie and immediately picked it up based on the tone and connect. I mean it was pretty much "he said something incredibly stupid" -> "oh bless his heart" between some southern grandmas
Might've been Big Mommas House, might've been something else entirely.
It's a failure of empathy. People hate and/or fear what they don't understand.
They can't empathize with someone not feeling right in their own skin like that, so all their rationalizations for things like "why would they want to use that bathroom" end up stemming from what they have left, which is unsavory intent, making them threatening.
It seems like it's always projection with these fascists.
They are the ones whose "party" is full of violent sexual predators. They will never bring up the monsters (including their "president") on their own "team".
As someone who grew up in a conservative household in a deep red state, I think that part of it is that a lot of people are letting Lizard Brain dictate their response to transgender people.
Let me give you a personal example. A while back, I went to a social dance, and there was a trans woman there. Before the dance starts proper, the couple that runs it will teach a dance lesson, and we rotate partners while that's going on. Eventually, I was rotated into being her partner. For some background, she was obviously early on in her transition; she still looked like a dude in a dress, she didn't quite have the appearance down yet. But she gets huge props for not only having the bravery to go out as herself, but doing it in fucking Arkansas.
So I rotate over to her, and it dawns on me that she's trans. In my head, Lizard Brain immediately starts screaming. "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! THIS PERSON IS OBVIOUSLY A DUDE IN A DRESS, HE MUST BE UP TO SOMETHING IF HE'S DRESSING AS SOMETHING DIFFERENT THAN WHAT HE IS! RABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLERABBLE"
Keep in mind, where I grew up, you just didn't see trans people, and even now, it still tickles that primal part of my brain that was trained to be uncomfortable around people who aren't white and straight.
The difference between me and many of the people I grew up around is that I recognize that it's happening and try to tone Lizard Brain out when it starts screaming. A lot of other people listen to it and don't care that the person that it's screaming about is exactly that: a person.
Excellently said!
The only thing I have an issue with, and it's a small issue at that, is:
Keep in mind, where I grew up, you just didn't see trans people,
You most assuredly did see them. You just didn't realize it because they were forced to hide who they really were.
This is so real. It takes a LOT of effort and time to train this out. If someone isn't willing to go through that then it makes sense that it would fester.
I had lots of times when i was younger learning about queer culture when i got mad at things. Especially after an overly polite and patient person took the time and effort to explain something to me. Unlearning hate is painful. Learning to liberate yourself is painful.
I think a lot of people feel that pain and decide to run from it and double down on the hate because that way they don't need to learn and change or pry open their mind to an alternative.
Then there's the whole fear of conflicting with your own community as a factor.
A brave, vulnerably nuanced answer. Suspicious... what are you planning?
Hating gays isn’t cool anymore and will get backlash even from conservatives.
Trans people are the new gays in this sense
I figure racism will stick around long after transphobia is out of style.
Because no middle class white kid ever sat their parents down and said "mom, dad... I'm black"
I would love for you to be right. If you're in the US, though, voter data doesn't seem to support that.
It would be amazing to live in a country where half the populace agreed that my son has the right to simply exist in peace but I don't think we do anymore.
They're conservative. The whole name is based on the principle that they want to maintain the old way rather than progress. I think it stems from fear of a changing world. The old world with the old rules provided safety, it was understandable, the rules were clear, and the rules didn't hurt them. Now some people are "attacking" their world, their rules, everything that offers them safety and understanding. So they feel attacked.
It's the same thing, but with another subject every time. Whether it is women getting rights, which threatens their safe world with clear gender roles. Or gay people, who threaten the simple rules like "boys love girls", "in order to be successful, get a job, marry, and get kids". Or non-white people getting rights. What if they vote for things that "we" don't want? What if "they" ruin the world that "we" got so used to.
Trans and especially non-binary people are just the next group in line that threatens their simple world. When men are people born as men and women are people born as women, it's way easier to force people into the traditional roles. The old rules still work, "boy marries girl, gets kids". And when they speak out about their "concerns* they are (rightfully) called out for it. So they become defensive and start doing whatever they're doing now.
Because of tropes like https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CreepyCrossdresser from movies like Silence of the Lambs, Dressed to Kill, and Psycho. It puts the idea of men dressing like women as a means of tricking women to attack them into the collective unconscious.
Because Trump spent $19 million on transphobic ads during football games in battleground states. Because they need a Boogeyman to rile up their base.
It doesn't have to make sense. You might as well be asking how can the KKK hate people of color or how can Nazis hate Jewish people.
I'm going to be an apologist for conservatives for a sec, just for the sake of giving out my theory of mind of these people.
I think this all happens mostly due to the stress trans people are inadvertently causing their parents. When your kid comes out of the closet, this will happen to a parent regardless of how liberal-minded they are. Even if you have no problem with the concept, your kid being trans brings about new kinds of threat scenarios you never had to think about before. If you're a sensible, smart and handsome person like I truly fucking am, you can process it in a few years and come out as not being a 100% asshole towards the issue.
But if your reference group is republican church goers, there's a high probability that such a person just simply does not have the mental or social toolset to process it in any sensible way. They will construct a toxic viewpoint for this issue, strengthen it from outside sources and then start to spread that toxicity.
Yeah my mom talked to me about her mixed feelings when I came out. On one hand she saw I was no longer miserable and was extremely happy about that, but on the other hand she was terrified. I lucked out, she’d gotten involved as an ally to the trans community before I came out to her (and I believe she was actually surprised when I did), but yeah she was very scared for me.
Funny enough one of my first thoughts after realizing I was trans was “fuck my life isn’t going to be easy”, so at least the concern for my safety was something we shared lol
If my kid was trans, the only stress it would cause is thinking about how much medical bills we might have.
But I don't have expectations for my kids that I'm imposing on them, so maybe I have less to process.
I think this all happens mostly due to the stress trans people are inadvertently causing their parents. When your kid comes out of the closet, this will happen to a parent regardless of how liberal-minded they are. Even if you have no problem with the concept, your kid being trans brings about new kinds of threat scenarios you never had to think about before. If you’re a sensible, smart and handsome person like I truly fucking am, you can process it in a few years and come out as not being a 100% asshole towards the issue.
I feel like it's more the opposite problem. For the parents, trans people are a vague boogeyman. They've never meant a trans person personally, and they're constantly told that trans people are just waiting to jump them in the bathroom, or at sports, or all sorts of other things, so they've never had to contend with someone they know being trans.
If it was simply stress or threat to the kid, it wouldn't really explain the reaction to disowning them, since most of those aren't about the treatment that their kids would receive for being trans.
I think you're close to the root of it. The need for a biological legacy is strong no matter any affiliations. Having "non-conforming" children threatens that legacy.
For the groups that inflate this drive, that's all there is. That's the only purpose. No "we as a species".
For the rest of us it might be a little disappointing at the prospect of no grandchildren. But we know that it's ultimately not our decision. And the same outcome could happen regardless of any "conformity".
Yeah, I did certainly want to be able to do something that would've made my child not trans, but I couldn't figure any way to do that so there was just nothing to even try. Also in the same vein on several occasions I wondered whether I had caused this by some action or inaction which is just pointless rumination.
Some of the more delusional churchgoers think they can change these things because they think they have a wizard on their side.
Nazis do this dumb thing where they go "hey that small and therefore relatively defenseless group (badassness of individuals aside) is the cause of all our problems, let's kill them to solve everything!"
Surprisingly, it never works.
So they do it again with somebody else, and somebody else, and somebody else, until everybody on earth is killed by nazis or somebody stops them.
As for why anybody is dumb enough to fall for it in the first place...it's anybody's guess.