Transphobia must die

CONTENT WARNING: This article contains mentions of violence, queerphobia, transphobia, police violence (including towards First Nations’ people) and mentions of Nazism.

Over the last month, a series of increasingly violent attacks on queer people, and queer rights protests, has unfolded across Australia. Black-clad Christian men first took to the streets of Newtown. Then, Nazis accompanied transphobes on the steps of the Victorian Parliament. Last Tuesday night, a group of LGBTQIA+ activists holding a speak-out in Belfield against transphobia were met with mob violence. Following this, Federal Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe was tackled by police at British transphobe Kellie-Jay Keen’s rally outside parliament.

In the wake of British transphobe Kelly-Jay Keen’s tour of Australia, a suite of transphobic attacks have occurred. In Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart and now Canberra, Keen held events aimed at denying trans people the right to exist.

But the events have also been spurred by Christian men — some linked to the Christian Lives Matter group — who were responsible for the violence in Newtown and Belfield respectively.

These events represent an undeniably serious escalation of anti-queer attacks in Australia, and an alarming infringement on the rights and safety of queer people — particularly for members of the transgender community. Honi is disgusted; the queer Editors writing this piece are speaking from a place of anger. The recent spate of violently transphobic events is deserving of the most severe condemnation. in reports surrounding her death paired with publications such as The New York Times releasing further reports defending J.K. Rowling and her pursuit against, “the trans agenda”, has left a foul and somewhat questionable taste in the mouths of many.

The immediate cause of these attacks is frighteningly clear: queerphobia and transphobia. Nothing more than a virulent hatred of queer and trans people can explain the conduct of these attackers. In recent weeks, Christian figures have claimed that “religious freedom” justifies this conduct behind the defence of “family values, children, society and country”. This is an unacceptable argument. Honi does not care about any of the perpetrators’ supposed desires to uphold religious values; we are consciously aware that these attacks have come from a place of hate.

Although TERFs like Keen claim that they are fighting for women’s rights, there is no tension between trans rights and women’s rights. In fact, the two are mutually reinforcing.

Trans women are women. It is antifeminist to oppose the rights and very existence of trans women, as Keen and those like her spend so much energy doing.

But TERFs are not feminists. They have no interest in women’s rights. And they know this. Their interest lies in the terrorisation of trans people. This much is clear from their rhetoric and the types of people who associate with them: nazis, racists, and misogynists.

What is evident here is not just the things that I read, but also observe and personally experience. What I can say is true is that my own identity as a trans person is tainted to strangers by those who will never personally know me, speak to me, or have empathy for me. When myself and many others are dehumanised from a real person to an agenda, whatever middle ground left from the mainstream to the atypical

Evelyn Redfern wants you to listen.

experience is lost. How many more innocent people will be affected by this hate, how many experiences have since gone unrecorded? How many more will be ostracised and punished for earnestness? During Mardi Gras, trans rights are proudly displayed and fought for on paperboard but it seems as though there is so much further to go in the pursuit of equality.

Equal rights and equal respect are the least to ask for, yet lately, it seems practically humorous to suggest such a thing. When an issue of respect and human rights is utilised as a political talking point and an ideological weapon, some meaning is lost in the minds of the general public, including the minds of both developing teenagers and fully-fledged adults. Danger and hate lie beneath a bare fist or a sharp blade wielded by a child yet also behind the cruel words and malicious intentions of people encouraging such hate against Trans lives.

When will you take responsibility for your hate?

Art by Evelyn Redfern

Part of the reason we have seen such extreme displays of violence and hate directed at queer people is the way that queerphobia — particularly that directed towards trans people — has been normalised as a feature of discourse in this country. In recent weeks, academics at Australian Universities — including two at USyd — have made alarming comments about the transgender and gender non-conforming communities. Transphobia is now endemic in academia. It has become so under the guise of academic analysis and under the flawed pretences of TERF logic.

Mainstream politics also should be attributed with some degree of blame. From Victorian Liberal Party MP Moira Deeming — who attended the Melbourne event attended by Nazis — to TERF Katherine Deves, the Liberal Party candidate for Warringah in last year’s federal election, transphobia has begun to infiltrate mainstream politics.

The Labor Party has not done enough to prevent this normalisation of antitrans hatred. Anthony Albanese is yet to condemn March’s events in any meaningful way.

The political response to the spate of transphobia gripping Australia has been meek. The Liberal Party federally introduced a bill to ban Nazi symbols, which was rejected for now by Labor, citing the rushed nature of the Bill. In Victoria, the Andrews Labor government decided to fly the trans flag outside parliament and has promised to introduce laws to ban the Nazi salute.

The political response to these events ought to also include the removal of barriers to healthcare and selfidentification faced by trans people. Politicians should drop all attempts to restrict queer rights in the name of “Religious Freedom”. Mere lip service and symbolic actions in support of queer people will not have the effect of these measures to meaningfully protect queer rights.

The fact that police have targeted queer rights protestors — with a particularly violent response in Melbourne and against Senator Lidia Thorpe in Canberra — is unforgivable as well. Even when a small group of queer rights groups were brutalised in Belfield, police did little to protect queer people. The police do not protect us and should not be trusted to do so.

Queer rights are under attack. Those in power have a moral obligation to publicly say this. If they don’t, they are culpable for failing to prevent the pain and violence suffered by the queer community. Honi stands with the queer community in this difficult time. Honi will always stand with the queer community, and recognises that its trans members are facing the brunt of queerphobic violence and hatred. It is profoundly alarming that this position is not universally shared.