James Deagle
3 min readAug 13, 2021

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First things first: In saying that declaring pronouns is "A simple step against Homophobia", you are conflating transgenderism with homosexuality. Not all people who identify as "transgender" are gay, and vice versa. In this sense, you are creating or furthering misunderstanding around not one but two distinct demographics, notwithstanding any statistical overlap or correlation between them. (It would have been more accurate to say, "A simple step against Transphobia".)

As for people who identify as "transgender", sometimes it's due to a medical/psychological condition (gender dysphoria), and other times it *may* be for other reasons, be it fetish (autogynophelia) or the influence of media, culture, or other social factors (rapid-onset gender dysphoria, or “ROGD”). Trans activists balk at and deny the existence of autogynophelia or ROGD because those conditions (if they truly exist) are inconvenient to the activist narrative, in that they hint at the possibility that sometimes a person is identifying as "transgender" for the sake of kicks, or because they have been influenced by external factors to identify as something other than what they really are, and that “transgenderism” is not always something you’re born with.

As for gender dysphoria (regular flavor), the jury is still out on whether or not it is a largely a passing phenomenon. (Some research says it is, some says it is not.) The push for immediate "affirmation therapy" over the "wait and see" approach with children experiencing any sort and any degree of gender confusion or doubt seems driven by activism over the genuine wellbeing of the patients. In other words, push for a "one size fits all" solution, lest you be called a "bigot". Furthermore, there is a certain amount of detransitioner denialism within trans-activism. (Yes, don't invalidate someone else's gender identity, unless it counters the activist narrative.)

As for my pronouns, I choose not to declare them not only because they are self-evident, but also because I see it as nothing more than empty virtue signalling. It's about as meaningful as corporations making their logos rainbow-colored once a year for the sake of pandering to the LGBTQ community. Declaring pronouns as a way of blurring the distinction between trans and non-trans people as a well-intentioned attempt at making the former feel more comfortable would be like a non-disabled person also declaring on social media, "I may or may not have prosthetic legs" in an attempt to make those with physical disabilities feel more comfortable. Neither my lack of declared pronouns nor lack of intentionally-ambiguous declaration about my level of physical ability are indications of "privilege" in any way. Dispassion in the form of an aversion to bandwagonism is not the same thing as "bigotry" or "privilege".

Unlike like other minority demographics, trans activists have gone from policing how others refer to trans people (which I can understand), to policing how others refer to themselves, and in some cases policing other people's dating preferences by labelling them "transphobes" or "bigot" for not being attracted to trans people, which if you think about it is an inadvertent call to homophobia, or at least the erasure of homosexuality and heterosexuality alike. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOqbwWymcTo)

Enough is enough.

I have zero ill feelings towards anyone who identifies as "transgender", even if I disagree with some of the activism that claims to represent them. (Not all transgender people are in full agreement with some trans-activism either, so I'm not alone in that regard.)

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