while it is easy to dismiss + ridicule statements like this as “ignorance,” we cannot neglect how ignorance is a political organizing strategy. it isn’t neutral or passive, it is conscious + strategic. ignorance is cultivated, organized, distributed, + indoctrinated. ignorance generates + stabilizes differential meaning: whose bodies matter, whose pain matters, whose lives matter, whose deaths matter.
this is a concerted effort to divert responsibility away from white supremacy, patriarchy, and christian supremacy. these ideologies work precisely through diversion — scapegoating vulnerable “others” be they trans/queer/Muslim/disabled as “the problem.” condemning others becomes a performance of innocence.
in the past few years there have been dozens of anti-trans legislations introduced at the local, state, + federal levels demonizing trans people as a “threat,” all the while white cis men are left un-scrutinized, we get bashed + die + people don’t care. they murder + people don’t care.
this situation is not natural, it is produced by the distribution of meaning which is formed by the distribution of ignorance.
so yes there are mental gymnastics being done, but these are choreographed routines. well-rehearsed + repeated because they work. rather than dismissing instances like these as “ridiculous,” we have to name + strategize against these tactics. moral crises of “the decline of traditional family” + “the rise of gender ideology” are conjured as a red herring such that white supremacy can reproduce itself. this is part of why LGBTQ issues have + will always be about race in this country.
