{"id":9969,"date":"2023-04-18T00:21:48","date_gmt":"2023-04-18T04:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tempestmag.org\/v01_2020\/staging\/?p=9969"},"modified":"2023-04-23T01:20:30","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T05:20:30","slug":"trans-bans-and-groomer-panic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2023\/04\/trans-bans-and-groomer-panic\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTrans bans\u201d and \u201cgroomer panic\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>his article follows up on a previous Tempest article<\/a> in which I tried to understand how a reactionary far-right protest against a Drag Story Time event in Eugene, OR was organized in accordance with a national (and international) online campaign of networked harassment, intimidation, and what I called \u201cshitstorming.\u201d At that time, it was clear that fascist tactics and far-right conspiracy theories had played a role in the absurd media coverage of Drag Story Hour. Here I describe how we can understand the wave of anti-trans hate speech, \u201ctrans bans,\u201d and \u201cgroomer panic\u201d through Stanley Cohen\u2019s conceptual lens of \u201cmoral panic.\u201d That framework offers a more panoramic view of \u201csocialized transphobia.”<\/p>\n

Galvanizing moral panic<\/h4>\n

When Michael Knowles proclaimed at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in early March that \u201ctransgenderism must be eradicated<\/a>,\u201d his language was calculated to mobilize the far-right base and generate maximum backlash from the \u201cwoke Left.\u201d The intent seems to have been to come as close as possible to an incitement of genocide without openly saying as much; hence, the derogatory \u201cism.\u201d By reducing trans existence to a false ideology promoted by the \u201cwoke Left\u201d\u2014one that Knowles would like to \u201ceradicate,\u201d if he only could\u2014he and the fascists of CPAC felt emboldened to call for the erasure of trans identities, as though this would not necessarily entail the elimination of trans people. (In a similar context, \u201ctransgenderism\u201d would be invoked by Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, who also spoke at CPAC.)<\/p>\n

The functional ambiguity of this term serves a double purpose: On the one hand it is a slur, calling up visceral disgust in order to incite violence against trans people (as though \u201ctransgenderism\u201d were a mental disorder or a virus). For trans individuals and their allies, this poses a constant threat of stochastic terrorism<\/a>, in which the \u201cvirality\u201d of hate speech and networked harassment increases the likelihood that pro-LGBTQ+ establishments or individuals will be violently attacked or even killed. On the other hand, the term is thrown around by its TERF (trans-exclusive radical feminist) and right-wing apologists who would like to absolve themselves of any accountability by denying the reality of this violence (because according to them, trans people don\u2019t \u201creally\u201d exist).<\/p>\n

Michael Knowles was echoing a chorus of far-right media outlets. From Daily Wire and Fox News to social media accounts like \u201cLibs of TikTok\u201d and \u201cGays Against Groomers,\u201d conspiracy theorists from Alex Jones to QAnon, even manospheric misogynists like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate\u2014all have been instrumental in drumming up reactionary hatred and moral outrage in recent years against feminists, trans people, and the \u201cwoke Left\u201d in general.<\/p>\n

Primary targets of the far right currently include queer and trans kids; queer and trans athletes; queer, trans, and gender-fluid teachers; pro-LGBTQ+ school staff, librarians, superintendents, and board members; social workers, doctors, and medical practitioners who provide gender-affirming care; and outspoken gender-critical outliers, such as drag performers, feminists, and anti-fascists, all of whom are routinely lumped by the far right under one giant umbrella of the \u201cwoke Left.\u201d The backlash against \u201cwokeism\u201d\u2014and against trans people as somehow being the Frankenstein- creation of wokeism\u2014has risen to the level of a full-blown moral panic<\/a>, most evident from the tidal-wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills stirring in state legislatures, right-wing caricatures of leftists as \u201cgroomers,\u201d armed protests at Drag Story Hour<\/a> events, and a mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub on Trans Day of Remembrance.<\/p>\n

The average student of American history is already familiar with moral panics. Witch trials, lynchings, Red Scare, \u201cSatanic Panic<\/a>,\u201d and \u201cterrorist panic\u201d are just a few examples. Moral panics often follow on the heels of crises, or perceived crises. In the early 1980s, for example, association of the AIDS epidemic with homosexuality set off a moral panic as the media stoked fear of homosexuals through waves of self-perpetuating, media-driven narratives whose major theme was always moral outrage over \u201csexual deviants.\u201d Homosexuals and transvestites were often associated in the public consciousness with perverts, prostitutes, and pedophiles.<\/p>\n