Trans People Are Not An Ideology! Let me say this: trans people have always existed in this world. We are simply a natural occurrence, we don't need justification from any academic theory. Indeed, many trans people like myself believe that the academic theories around gender are a distraction at best, and are harmful to proper understanding of trans people at worst. Needless to say, we are not fans of the academic theory at all. Which makes it all the more painful for us to hear descriptions of the 'trans phenomenon' or the 'trans ideology' lumped in, almost reflexively, with things like critical race theory, postmodernism, the 'oppression olympics', and so on, a practice that is increasingly common especially among conservative commentators.
I understand that there is a lot of frustration with postmodernism and critical theory driven cultural activism out there. However, please don't take it out on trans people. Please understand that many of us are also very frustrated about the cultural discourse around gender. Contrary to popular belief, not all of us agree with every radical idea around gendered language and norms out there, and we certainly don't have a collective agenda of imposing such ideas on the rest of society. The truth is, we are sick and tired of being used as a political football by people on all sides. All we want is to live our lives in peace. All we want from society is an understanding that we are human too. Like many other people, we have our own issues, and we transition and live 97
