Recently, there has been a
United Nations draft that is littered with transphobia. Based on the report from
Pink News, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) was starting to diverge from the gender binary of women and men in their legal system. OHCHR member Reem Alsalem was against this decision and made a draft as a response.
Within the draft, Alsalem declares that UN members accepting trans women, “denied females their own right to be recognized in law, as a distinct, particularly vulnerable group in need of targeted protection.” She then furthers her argument by saying gender dysphoria is just a social construct being spread and not valid. In her world, trans women are trying to sneak into women’s spaces to hurt “real women,” and she will do anything to stop it.
Obvious Counter-Evidence
Now, it is reasonable to want to protect people from danger. But what Alsalem claims is not true.
As we all have mentioned time and time again,
there is no sustainable evidence of of trans women attacking cis women in private spaces. According to the
Williams Institute, there is a huge lack of proof of trans people threatening the privacy of cis women and it is, in fact, the other way around. Several trans people have been harassed, assaulted, and denied entry to these spaces just because they are trans.
This can easily be looked up and proven not to be true. If Alsalem had taken the time to actually look at the facts, she will realize her narrative is false and has no support behind it. Or maybe she did, and didn’t care or think these studies are false.
In fact, she takes information from actual false studies. According to the same
Pink News article, Alsalem is basing her claims off of Dr. James Cantor and Ray Blanchard, two transphobic sexologists. They claim trans women have
autogynephilia, where trans women are sexually attracted to themselves as women, or else they’re gay men pretending to be women to make their attraction to men more acceptable.
As we all know, this is false. Trans women aren’t transitioning just because it would make their attraction “acceptable.” They have a hard enough time as it is just being trans in our society. Not to mention,
trans women are women and can still be attracted to women. The same goes for trans men.
Overall, Alsalem is basing her argument off of false pretensions and is just straight-up incorrect.
Conclusion
These types of people making major decisions based on clear false information irritate me. It wouldn’t surprise me if you feel that way too. Why do they keep on insisting that trans people aren’t valid when they clearly are? I don’t fully know. What I do know, however, is that we keep trying. Don’t give up, people! You are all valid; don’t let someone define who you are.
Photo courtesy of Public Domain Pictures
