Ironically, I think it’s actually rooted in the same cause of what makes trans people exist in the first place. Identity, who you are, is core to… well, who you are. It’s important. And gender is important to who you are. Not being who you are hurts, a lot. It can hurt so much that it can drive someone to suicide. We know this— this is the whole reason that accepting trans people is important, right? Not doing so can literally kill them in this way.

So is it so strange that non-trans people hold the same depth of conviction about keeping their same gender? “Oh, but why can’t they just accept that other people need to align their mental gender with their biological sex?” Because they don’t understand or believe that this is what is happening. Really. You know the thing where not having these thing aligned can KILL you? Well, they view being trans as actively CAUSING this state, deliberately inflicting it on someone. And that social pressure and acceptance of trans people is encouraging and/or driving more people to this horrible state of affairs. It’s killing more people!

It doesn’t help that it’s been hijacked by the culture wars to distract you from the class war and authoritarianism. But it being hijacked doesn’t mean there’s not a core misunderstanding, and it’s not a misunderstanding that can really be corrected or educated by simply saying “trans people exist”. Identity runs too deep, and threats to it are too scary— they can kill you, and kill you in a way far more terrifying than a bullet. Mere words and slogans are not going to cut through that fear. You need a foundational framework of understanding the world.

And that’s where the hijacking and red vs blue political nonsense comes into play. The culture wars doesn’t create the visceral fear of trans people— but it sure as heck makes it harder or even impossible to fix.