Trans Identified Men and Other Clowns.
When a Triggernometry guest compared trans identified men to clowns she unwittingly revealed an uncomfortable truth. Like clowns the trans identified are viewed with suspicion. And for good reason.
In the wake of the multiple shocks of the Cass Review, Trump’s election and the UK Supreme Court’s ruling the trans lobby is in freefall. Or deep doodoo. Take your pick.
As panic has mounted trans activists have been forced to try out new tactics. Until recently their modus operandi was to lobby insidiously behind the scenes. Now they’ve declared open season against the law.
The problem for them is large chunks of the public aren’t in the buying mood any more. Polls suggest voters have pivoted dramatically.
That’s why some within the trans movement have begun to consider what until recently seemed an unimaginable response. One fraught with all the existential danger of Supergirl wrestling with kryptonite.
A handful of these bold souls decided it was time to face their worst fears. And engage in something called…. debate!
Step forward then Supergirl avatar Deborah Frances-White, Australian born founder of The Guilty Feminist podcast and all-dancing, all-singing trans ally.
With a book to publicise (and there lies a story…) our Deborah has been keen to get discursive. So much so she even asked the boys at Triggernometry if she could come on their show.
Her appearance two weeks ago has become something of a comedy classic. And not just because clowns played a starring role.
The clowns came courtesy of a left-of-field analogy Frances-White made between trans identified men who want to be in women’s spaces and …those iconic tricksters in funny costumes and bad wigs. An analogy that struck some as a bit of a self-own. After all …aren’t clowns objects of ridicule?
The analogy is even more revealing than it first seems. It offers an unintended window into the befuddled imagination of trans allies.
If someone really did believe, in their heart of hearts, that trans identified men were benign the last group they should compare them to is one, like clowns, which have had a long and ambivalent association with moral provocation and rule-breaking violence.
‘Art the Clown’ from the movie Terrifier is just one of countless clowns to prove my point. Art would love you to assume he was benign.
The truth is ever since his modern incarnation two centuries ago the ‘clown’ has consistently tapped into some of our worst nightmares. That’s why Frances-White’s seemingly silly comparison is worth exploring in depth. As we’ll discover far from the clown being the victim of prejudice and social conformity, as she implied, there lies a dark tale of aggression, social contagion, serial killers and …..a film director convicted of child abuse. A director who created one of the most terrifying clown monsters in cinema history while all the time being financed by a living Hollywood legend.
Above all this is a story about the wilful ignorance of trans supporters who make clowns of themselves by refusing to take our fears seriously.
