Erasing Transgender People - A Perspective from Deviance and Social Control

Note: I'm not going to be citing various sources as per some academic paper. It's been a while since I read/discussed material in that area and don't recall all the references that may have influenced my thinking. Feel free to comment if you recognize such influences. I know Stigma by Goffman and a generic reader or two with classic excerpts/articles and cross-cultural examples were involved including a piece on social landscapes. So that is the fertilizer for the mind soil in which my own perspective has developed. This isn't meant to be revolutionary or amazingly insightful, just an introduction for those not familiar with the issues discussed.

Societal Ideal and Distance from Center

This is a pretty standard idea, I think? Not sure what's "in" at that moment. But as I use it "societal control" and "distance from center", consider if society imagined an ideal person. Now it wouldn't be totally consistent or stable, but it would still be a constellation of features that hung together. This echoes some of Erving Goffman's thinking. And it need not be all of society that imagines it, but those with the most power and influence. It then spreads out to others by representation in public spaces and platforms. In the United States, this has generally been a young white somewhat wealthy Christian male who is athletic, confident, and handsome. Plus cis-gendered and heterosexual.

Now if everyone is evaluated on some level by this, even if only subconsciously, then assume for a moment that the closer you are to this ideal the more you are seen as a proper, respectable, decent person worthy of consideration and deference. If you make a mistake you are more likely to be treated kindly and given the benefit of the doubt.

The further you are from this, the more suspect you are. The harder you have to work to be seen as and maintain an appearance of being acceptable, respectable, safe, and reliable. You are more likely to be judged quickly and harshly or have your actions viewed with suspicion or disdain. The harder it is to get or restore a good reputation.

This framework makes societal privilege easier to understand. A poor, average-looking white guy with little education is not at the center of the target ideal. So he can generally expect to not be treated as well as the rich, pretty white guy with a Harvard degree. Yet a somewhat handsome black man with a degree from a state university may in some ways be considered further from the center of the ideal. Hence in some situations he may get less consideration that the poor white guy while still enjoying some advantages the poor white guy lacks.

So we don't need to pit them against each other. We can simply acknowledge that some criteria are more important for being closer to or further from the ideal, and that your cumulative distance is a decent predictor of how society will treat you. But of course it's never that simple in how people picture the situation. The black man may be painted as "having been given everything" based on the color of his skin. The poor white man may be made to resent the black man. After all why not? It's a great form of social control. People must be reminded of their place.


Knowing Your Place (and Staying There)

People generally feel good about being "better than" others in some way - at least privately - which is why social resentment is so easy to generate and use for divisiveness. People are supposed to know their place in the social landscape, and how their distance from the ideal allows or restricts their movement in social space. This has at times been made literal with Jim Crow and legal segregation.

Such social boundaries are widespread in time and space. And if someone steps out of bounds, that can quickly generate resentment. After all, if *I'm* stuck in my limitations who do you think you are to step outside of yours? You must think you deserve special rights! What about *me*? What about *my* problems and the sense of comfort I could have for at least being better than you? You can't skip ahead in the line! You can't replace me or take my spot in the pecking order!

This zero-sum game perspective is all too common. People need to know their place and earn their way to something better, even if technically much or most of the system has nothing to do with being earned but rather how close or distant you are regarding the societal ideal. So resentment swells up. Not at the shitty, unfair system of unearned advantages for those born close to the ideal (and ideal many can't reach by an effort). Nope, it's resentment that some people call bullshit on ridiculous expectations and boundaries.

Those further from the center who accept their place?

Well, they still aren't so great but at least they aren't so "uppity". They accept the way things are and don't rock the boat. And those who criticize the way things are (meant to be) are just delusional, self-pitying social justice warriors with no life who need everything to be "safe" and "fair". They can't handle or accept the "real world" as it is. They are weak.

Such mockery is meant to keep people from following their compassionate instincts and speaking out against injustice. And it insulates those who benefit from or who base their identity on such a system from being called out for their own fragility and fear of losing their sense of having a tough, self-made superiority over others.

There is No Place for Trans*

Then there are those who have no place. The societal ideal and its criteria for evaluation and placement offer no options for such people to be scored by. In other word, the imagined universe of possibilities on the social landscape doesn't always provide a place for some people to occupy, even if it's a truly awful location to be dumped in - light years away from the ideal. So in the minds of people subscribing to such a worldview, those without a place on the social map don't exist.

I mean sure, they exist physically. But some aspect of their identity isn't a recognized category. So those using that set of categories just deny that whatever it is that doesn't fit. It isn't real. It's just an aberration or type of mental confusion on the part of those claiming to be something different. Which is perilous social ground to be on - or more accurately to not be on at all.

There is longstanding work by social scientists such as anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, etc. that indicates people are often uncomfortable with other people, objects, experiences, or events that don't fit neatly within pre-conceived categories. They are often seen as either divine or devilish, a great revelation or a great deception --something potentially enlightening and wondrous or possibly disruptive or dangerous.

Now for those excited to learn and explore something that breaks pre-conceptions may still at times be seen as disruptive (or even dangerous) but also as an opportunity to learn, explore, and expand human experience and understanding. Breakthroughs often come from the disruption of standard assumptions. Those who prefer the status quo more than such expansion of understanding tend to see delusion, threat, and needless disruption.

Of course, there are lots of other threads involved in trans* identity and acceptance, but this framework gives a straightforward vantage point on a core issue in friction of race, privilege, sex, and gender. When focused on trans* recognition and rights, it reveals that a major issue underlying all of these disagreements is a fundamental perception of what is real. What different worldview allow or disallow. There are worldviews with room for recognizing trans* individuals and there are those without. It's one or the other.

People can adjust or expand their worldview but when two such notions of reality conflict, the only resolution is that one becomes accepted and other rejected. Either trans* people as a bio-social category are valid, or they are just confused or perverted individuals from a different category who should be put back in their proper place. Either position could be adopted with compassion, but if you are using it as a political grenade to scare and disgust people then those who seem different must become the dangerous misfit other.

Either trans* are valid or not. And currently great harm is being done by those who derisively dismiss their reality for short-term political gain.