a THREAD based on my latest piece: I've heard many complaints over the years about how "born that way" arguments are essentialist or pathologizing, and some #LGBTQ folks will say "why do we even have to explain why we exist?"... medium.com/@juliaserano/t…#transgender#queer
...while I sympathize with such sentiments, they overlook the main reason *why* "born that way" arguments have been successful, namely, because they assuage longstanding fears that queerness is somehow contagious. medium.com/@juliaserano/t…#trans#transgender#LGBTQ#queer
...another thing I implicitly tried to convey in this piece is that, while I don't believe #trans or #LGBTQ are "contagious," the social stigma projected on us most certainly is - this is what sociologists call "courtesy stigma"... medium.com/@juliaserano/t…#transgender#queer
...& most importantly, prejudice (including homophobia, biphobia, transphobia) is socially contagious too! here's a link to an accessible article about this phenomenon - many other studies have found similar results: salon.com/2017/01/30/pre…#LGBTQ#transgender#queer#bisexual
...and as an aside, it's true, I really did coin the adjective "Susan Sontag-ish" in my piece... : )
...anyway, I posted this latest piece to challenge recent claims that "transgender = social contagion" by proponents of #ROGD & others. while there is absolutely no evidence that transness spreads via social contagion, transphobia almost certainly does... medium.com/@juliaserano/e…
...more to the point, the very term "rapid onset gender dysphoria" seems to be spreading via social contagion! with reluctant parents being "infected" by this pseudoscientific ideology upon being exposed to it on websites like 4thwavenow & TGtrend...
...while I don't believe that transgender is a "trend," being suspicious of trans kids' identities & the gender-affirming model most certainly is. FIN. if you like this piece, please give it lots of "claps" & consider supporting me on Patreon: patreon.com/juliaserano/ov…
if you are interested in inviting me to speak at your college or conference, please check out my recently revamped booking webpage: juliaserano.com/booking.html – in this THREAD I will share some of my most requested talks...
my most frequently requested talk continues to be "Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive" – it is based on my 2nd book Excluded, although I've added some newer material to it in the last few years... juliaserano.com/booking.html#E…#feminism#LGBTQ#queer#activism
last week I wrote two follow up essays regarding the whole ongoing "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" controversy - you can access them both via my latest Patreon update - and while you're at it, please consider supporting me there! patreon.com/posts/21230320
and for those who haven't seen my ROGD meme, but wish to experience it in all it's glory, here it is...
if you are looking for more critical reviews of the Littman paper & ROGD more generally, I encourage you to read @ButNotTheCity's Medium essay... medium.com/@florence.ashl…
kinda rich to be called "prolix" by the guy who authored a series of 7–10 papers detailing an ornate and farfetched (& subsequently disproven) theory that can basically be boiled down to: all trans women are perverts, and any trans woman who disagrees with me on this is a liar...
I suppose I may as well share my main 3 debunking-autogynephilia-theory papers. my most thorough is "The Case Against Autogynephilia" (2010) - if it seems too "prolix", it's because Blanchard's theory is chockfull of jargon & caveats that I had to address tinyurl.com/q2whgeu
btw, I've spent almost all of my last 10 days writing the original piece & responding to it. neither essays are monetized, as I want them to be as accessible as possible. so if you appreciate all this work, please consider supporting me on Patreon: patreon.com/juliaserano/ov…
I am exhausted & in dire need of an internet break. but before I go, here are the most pertinent passages of this follow up essay. if you like them, please RT: medium.com/@juliaserano/r…
hey a quick tangent here, as I've heard second-hand that apparently Ken Zucker (who's a proponent of gender-disaffirming approaches) is pushing back on this bit of my piece, saying that "many serious researchers" are published in PLOS One. this is quite true...
...in fact, LOTS & LOTS of researchers have been published in PLOS One! (as the journal publishes a shit-ton of papers). admittedly, not all of them are crap - some may be quite sound...
...many of the PLOS One in my previous field (evo devo) were simply smaller studies that weren't important enough on their own to be published elsewhere, or which didn't fit neatly into larger papers. PLOS One is useful in that it fills this niche...