A few bad people who hate others because they think putting others down means they win picked a fight on the playground. They got other people on the playground to join them because they yelled the loudest and some kids thought that the louder you yelled, the more right you were. The people they were yelling about just wanted to be on the playground too, but the yelling people didn’t want them on the playground, so despite the fact that they didn’t want to, the people being yelled at played a competitive game against the people who were yelling.

After a long long long time (LOTS of sleeps) the yelling bad people won against the people they were yelling at.

The yelling people didn’t know what to do then. They only knew how to be angry and they couldn’t find anything else or anyone else to yell at and people were starting to leave their team because all the excitement was gone and there wasn’t a competitive game to play anymore.

So the bad yelling people panicked and started randomly picking other, smaller groups of people on the playground to yell about. They made up things about them and told lies.

It didn’t work at first, and they tried telling lies about lots of different groups of people one after another, and eventually they started picking on some people who were JUST different enough that some of their old yelling teammates who got bored and left believed those lies and joined the yelling again. There was SO much yelling and it was so much louder that it was impossible for anyone near the yelling people to hear the truth.

And that’s how we got from “abortion as an issue” to “trans people as an issue”.

I think most of the other comments are overthinking it.

Sure the bigots will come up with ‘reasons’ but I genuinely think it’s mostly guys’ fear of accidentally having feelings for someone who has or even had a penis: They don’t want to be ‘fooled into being gay’ like it’s contagious.
Even one of the slurs they use is “trap” - as though the intent of being trans was to catch innocent cis straight men off guard and corrupt them.
(Of course in reality being anything but upfront would likely just get the trans woman murdered, but so could being upfront. And the bigots think people choose it.)

There is no valid reason to dislike trans people. There is no valid reason to care if someone is trans. There is no valid reason to treat trans people differently.

You can substitute any color, religion, and culture for the word trans too.

I think it’s really just as simple as they are different and people just don’t like things that are different. Compounding the fact is a lot of people don’t have any first hand experience interacting with a trans person and so believe what theyre told through their favorite media source.

Donald Trump is a bully. Bullies like hurting people. They find someone different who can’t fight back, and attack them first. They try to get other people to hate those who are different and can’t fight back. Donald Trump is a bully who has decided trans people are different from others and can’t fight back. He manipulates other people by getting them to attack trans people too

The main thing that’s being thrown around is that all trans women are sexual predators, just like how all homosexual men were in the media in the 70s. now, like then, only half the people involved actually matter, because trans men/lesbians screw up the debate.

one thing i heard a while ago that resonated with me is that the “natural order” people seem to believe in “rank” men higher than women. it’s the classical “women are supposed to be meek and stay at home” bullshit. so, in a world where gender is sex, is fixed at birth, and gender roles are also fixed, trans women (or, to use “their” vernacular, men choosing to present as women) are intentionally devaluing themselves. if you are indoctrinated into the value belief, this action is completely illogical and unnatural.

there are two ways out of that philosophical dilemma: either you take a good look at yourself and reassess your own values, or you conclude that these people must have some nefarious purpose to their actions. they must all be molesters, or pederasts, or both, and they’re using their presentation as a disguise to get close to weaker people in order to take advantage of them. again, the existence of trans men and lesbians completely invalidate this, so they are ignored.

the fact that, as the “weaker” sex, women are constantly preyed upon anyway, and trans women more so than average, just doesn’t register, because in this world trans women are “men” and therefore can’t be preyed upon. the fact that it takes several years to go through a full transition and get a gender recognition certificate is entirely irrelevant because these people just dress up and then rape women (you know, unlike men).

the entire argument falls apart as soon as you think about it for more than five seconds, but it fits very well with the religious outrage that pops up ever so often.

Because they are such a tiny AND unprotected minority, they are fairly easy targets for othering / discrimination.

[ I am not condoning, just informing ]

Hate is learned.

It’s the ‘ick’ factor, plain and simple. The “culture war” is all about giving idiots a group of people to hate so you can win their votes by oppressing that group. Most of the world is cis, and most cis people never spend a second of their lives thinking about how their experience isn’t universal. So when they see a trans person just living their lives, they’re more apt to be judgmental than curious: “Obviously, if that person’s lived experience is different from mine, there’s something wrong with them.”

Trans people are easy to scapegoat because they’re a minority and their very existence challenges the narrow worldview that most cis people possess. They’re a godsend for evil people looking to oppress people for power.

Ironically, I think it’s actually rooted in the same cause of what makes trans people exist in the first place. Identity, who you are, is core to… well, who you are. It’s important. And gender is important to who you are. Not being who you are hurts, a lot. It can hurt so much that it can drive someone to suicide. We know this— this is the whole reason that accepting trans people is important, right? Not doing so can literally kill them in this way.

So is it so strange that non-trans people hold the same depth of conviction about keeping their same gender? “Oh, but why can’t they just accept that other people need to align their mental gender with their biological sex?” Because they don’t understand or believe that this is what is happening. Really. You know the thing where not having these thing aligned can KILL you? Well, they view being trans as actively CAUSING this state, deliberately inflicting it on someone. And that social pressure and acceptance of trans people is encouraging and/or driving more people to this horrible state of affairs. It’s killing more people!

It doesn’t help that it’s been hijacked by the culture wars to distract you from the class war and authoritarianism. But it being hijacked doesn’t mean there’s not a core misunderstanding, and it’s not a misunderstanding that can really be corrected or educated by simply saying “trans people exist”. Identity runs too deep, and threats to it are too scary— they can kill you, and kill you in a way far more terrifying than a bullet. Mere words and slogans are not going to cut through that fear. You need a foundational framework of understanding the world.

And that’s where the hijacking and red vs blue political nonsense comes into play. The culture wars doesn’t create the visceral fear of trans people— but it sure as heck makes it harder or even impossible to fix.

They make stupid people question themselves. When stupid people start questioning themselves they get frustrated and angry.

I think trans people are a popular target because they specifically threaten the patriarchy. That trans people exist muddies the line clearly drawn line that fascists have drawn between men and women that put men on top as powerful and women as inferior and subservient. If a trans person can cross that line, then maybe men and women really aren’t that different, and that’s an unacceptable reality for them.

The Patriarchy is weakened when gender is not absolute.

When the Patriarch is threatened hatred is the response

Personally I have an acquaintance that talks about how terrible trans people are all day. As far as I can tell he has no real personal reason to hate, but he subscribes to the republican agenda. The Republicans demonized Trans people so now he does too.

I really think it’s that simple for these empty heads. They hear people on TV and such talk about the “terrible Trans people” who will “invade restrooms and grape your daughter” so that’s their belief now.

It happens on both sides too. Far too many people just whole ass believe and subscribe to these talking points purely because it advances their parties agenda. Of course the parties have to sugarcoat it or straight up lie about these groups to push the belief. The evidence is right in front of us.

For example, this exact post. Talking about Trans hate like its everywhere all the time in our face. It’s just not like that. Sure a lot of people hold these beliefs, fewer wholeheartedly believe all of it, even fewer will try to do something like write politicians about it, and even fewer will go to the streets and propagate their hate. But the old saying is true “if it bleeds it leads”. Stories about hate and death are front page and shoved into our faces because it sells. Were all more aware of these problems because talking heads never shut up about it. The rise on social media and internet has made this problem exponentially worse.

Used to be if there was a shooting on the other side of the country I wouldn’t hear about it. But now there can be a shooting in Australia, a LGBT hate parade in Europe, and civilian deaths in gaza, the news cycle will make sure I know about all of it.

Not saying it’s a bad thing to know about stuff in other parts of the world, but we need to be careful lest we forget that the entire world isn’t like this. It’s overrepresented in media but it doesn’t have to be our lives.

Also closeted Trans or something idk, I live with this same fear and these are the things I try to remind myself whenever it’s just too much. Hope this helps.

A lot of people don’t personally know any trans people. A lot of right wing media says that trans people are bad and that they want to make a lot of changes to society that might effect you too. So it’s easy to hate people when you don’t actually know them, and your “news” is telling you that they are bad.