Member-only story
‘Dissent’ Should Mean More Than ‘Anti-Trans Agenda’
They were ‘just asking questions.’ Then they had ‘nuance.’ Now they ‘dissent’.
Several years back — around 2018 — anti-trans rhetoric emphasized concern-trolling and the Just asking questions! framing.
In the early 2020s, I noticed some anti-trans leaders excited over the word “nuance.” They portrayed trans-inclusive people as “rigid” and “dogmatic,” lacking curiosity and sensitivity, while self-complimenting their own thinking as nuanced.
You see, they wanted their prospective audience to listen to their anti-trans podcasts for hours and hours, click on their anti-trans essays, and buy their anti-trans books to deeply contemplate all the nuance. They promised a level of richness in understanding of transness that could not possibly be gotten from a trans person.
In an essay for Prism & Pen today, Alex Mell-Taylor discusses the rhetoric of Just asking questions! and nuance and also mentions the anti-trans writer I’m going to discuss here.
I want to focus on a third concept whose increasing popularity I’m noticing: dissent.
Whereas nuance is about intellect, dissent is about power.
