‘Trans Rights Harm Women’ is a Transphobic Dog-Whistle
The rights of transgender people and cisgender women aren’t in opposition — they’re mutual
The current ‘debate’ over transgender rights (really, an attack on trans people and our existence) is framed in terms of trans rights and cisgender women’s rights being in opposition.
Some self-professed women’s rights groups contests that greater transgender inclusion will lead to cisgender women being attacked in gender-specific spaces (‘single sex spaces’), either by trans women or by cisgender men pretending to be trans women.
While it’s clearly important that women have access to safe gender-specific spaces, such as toilets or changing rooms, the conclusion that allowing trans women to use these same spaces is a risk to cis women is just not true.
Absence of evidence
For a start, we can look to other states which have more trans-inclusive policies than places like the U.K. or the U.S.
One major claim is that so-called self-ID laws allowing trans people to self-identify their gender and have that identity legally recognised without pathologising medical barriers or invasive bureaucracy will result in abuse of the system by predators.
13 countries around the world have adopted self-ID laws. This includes Argentina, which passed such laws in 2012, Denmark which has had self-ID laws in place since 2014, and Ireland since 2015. More are following suit — Finland and Spain have both passed self-ID laws for trans people in 2023.
Guess what?
None of these ’concerns’ about women’s rights have materialised in these countries.
Testimony from experts and women’s groups confirms this.
“We haven’t had situations of violence from our travesti and trans sisters,” said Candelaria Botto of Ecofeminita, one of the country’s most prominent feminist groups. Other feminist groups FEIM, ELA and Colectiva La Revuelta agreed.
We don’t even have to look to other countries for answers: the U.K. itself is an example.
Trans people have been using the single sex spaces of their choosing for years. None of the concerns around women’s rights in relation to gender-separate spaces such as public bathrooms have materialised here in the UK, either.
Evidence of absence
One reply to highlighting this lack of evidence is to critique the idea that it relies on the idea that ‘a lack of evidence equals evidence of absence’.
While the burden of proof is on those making the claim that trans-inclusive policies are harmful, there is a legitimate argument to be made that, just because we don’t have evidence of harm, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any.
Therefore to support the claim that trans policies don’t harm women we would also need evidence of a lack of harm in itself.
And we do — in the form of empirical research that compares areas with and without trans-inclusive policies.
This data shows that there is no basis for claiming that trans-inclusive policies result in more incidents of physical or sexual violence against cisgender women.
“[T]he passage of [transgender inclusive] laws is not related to the number or frequency of criminal incidents in these spaces. [F]ears of increased safety and privacy violations as a result of nondiscrimination laws are not empirically grounded.”
— Hasenbush et al (2019) (pg. 1, para. 1)
As far as the available evidence and the experience of countries with self-ID laws and trans-inclusive policies around gender-specific spaces goes, there is no indication that such policies have any negative impact on cisgender women’s safety.
Ignoring women
What about all the self-professed feminists who contest that there is a threat posed by trans-inclusion?
Are we ignoring the voices of cisgender women?
Well, it depends what women you’re talking about. Some women are being ignored, but not the ones you might be thinking of.
There are several recently-emerged organisations which claim to stand for women’s rights which are, in reality, only really concerned with opposing trans rights by making claims about trans-inclusive policies harming cisgender women.
These are the groups whose voices are amplified in the media, who have the ear of the government, while simultaneously complaining that they are being ignored (often, ironically, in major media publications).
One telling aspect of opposition to trans-inclusive policies is that, while concern around male violence and women’s safety might be the expressed reason for such opposition, explicit attitudes about transgender people appears to be a much better predictor.
“Counter to what opponents themselves reported, opposition to trans-inclusive policies was consistently more strongly predicted by (explicit) trans attitudes compared to male violence concerns.”
— Morgenroth et al (2022) (pg. 37, para. 3)
What’s more, these groups tend to advance biologically essentialist and gender essentialist narratives of sex and gender that are deeply patriarchal — another clear indication that women’s safety isn’t their main concern; maintaining patriarchal norms of binary sex and gender is.
For example, many of the arguments in favour of excluding transgender women from elite sports are the same sexist arguments that have historically been used to exclude and control cisgender female athletes and create barriers to participation, especially for women of colour.
“[T]he fight is not so much ‘about toilets’ but about the contested boundaries of womanhood, tightening the reins on gender, and making trans lives impossible.”
— Jones & Slater (2020) (pg. 847, para. 3)
Arguments around policing gender-specific spaces also have a detrimental impact on those who don’t conform to sexist stereotypes of femininity or those with disabilities.
Instead of standing for women, these groups only stand against transgender people — they do nothing for women’s rights, and in fact they narratives they perpetuate are harmful to both cisgender women and trans people.
The silenced majority
If we look to mainstream women’s rights organisations working with female victims of abuse — both cis and trans — the organisations with years of experience in these areas, then we hear a very different story.
Mainstream women’s rights organisations have shown consistently strong support for transgender people and trans-inclusive policies.
Yet they are ignored by the media, as are the threats and violence they have experienced against their premises and staff for daring to stand up for transgender people.
“All of Scotland’s main feminist organisations are trans-inclusive, and all have received significant abuse in recent years as a result.”
Organisations like Rape Crisis and Women’s Aid have been operating on a self-ID model for decades — they don’t ask you to prove your gender at the door.
Trans people aren’t a risk to their service users; trans people are some of their service users, and they have been serving the trans community for years — without issue.
The on-the-ground experience of these organisations directly contradicts the claims of those opposed to transgender rights on the false grounds that we pose a threat to women.
And they are being ignored.
Dog whistles
It’s clear that the tactic of pitting cis women and trans people against each other in a manufactured moral panic has been incredibly successful in terms of manipulating and setting the tone of public debate.
Asserting a false dichotomy of ‘trans rights vs women’s rights’ has served as an excellent cover for transphobes: anti-trans groups have very successfully argued that they aren’t anti-trans — they’re pro-woman.
It’s an emotive claim which frames the debate around transgender equality as an issue of who’s rights are more important — trans people’s or cisgender women’s?
It forces people to take sides.
The success of this tactic has had a particularly harmful impact on public discourse, since many people invoking this seemingly ‘reasonable concern’ have no idea that they’re repeating (and thus reinforcing) a transphobic dog-whistle.
Because dog-whistles are covert — that’s the whole point. They’re only meant to be intelligible to certain people — in this case, the anti-trans groups and individuals who have created and perpetuated this transphobic myth in the first place.
Of course, trans people also recognise the dog-whistle, because they have been hearing it and challenging it for years.
If we point out the transphobic dog whistle and attempt to challenge the lie, we only open ourselves to further accusations of misogyny, sexism, ‘ideological bullying’, or even ‘petty-fascism’, as the head of the British Psychological Association put it.
If we argue for our rights, we’re anti-woman. If we defend ourselves against accusations of being anti-woman, we’re even more anti-woman.
It’s a very clever, and very dangerous tactic that falsely pits cisgender women and transgender women against each other while distracting from the systems of oppression that harm all of us.
Mutual not opposite
The adoption of what were once fringe beliefs by government institutions like the UK’s equalities body marks an acceptance of ‘gender critical’ ideology by the state (for reasons that have little to do with women’s rights).
While transgender people have our rights oppressed or removed in the name of protecting women, the real issues that face women, all women, continue unabated (issues which have been made worse in no small part by 13 years of disastrous Conservative policies).
Trans people aren’t a threat to women; cisgender women, transgender women and all gender diverse people suffer under the same systems of oppression which simultaneously reinforce sexism and cissexism.
In the words of an alliance of Scottish women’s rights organisations:
“The paths to equality for women and trans people [are] deeply interconnected and dependent on our shared efforts to dismantle patriarchal systems that impose barriers to full equality for us all.”
— Rape Crisis Scotland et al (2023)
The rights of cisgender women and transgender people aren’t in opposition — they’re mutual.
The idea that equality for one means less equality for the other is a lie being used to keep us all down.