Transphobia could, I suppose, be the irrational fear of any number of things: transubstantiation; trans fatty acids; GM bringing back the Trans-Am. We all know that it’s really the irrational fear of “gender variance in society”, though, don’t we. I don’t know about you, but I can scarcely bring myself to step outside my front door for fear of encountering rampant gender variance.
The usual Episcopalians, Unitarians, and other left-leaning quasi-religious dubbed those who believe one is born either as a man or a woman harbingers of violence. Rabbi Steven Jacobs of Temple Kol Tikvah in Los Angeles warned against an apparent new social disease, “transphobia,” which is “the fear of gender variance in society.” The rabbi lamented: “Gender rigidity impacts all of us, even if we are not transgender. That belief that there are only two ways to be human leads to violence and oppression.”
Sadly, evangelicals are now being recruited into this lunacy. Tony Campolo, although always a willing victim of political leftist fantasies to some degree, now seems to have gone completely off the deep end:
“Justice is love translated into social policy,” Campolo insisted at the Human Rights Campaign Clergy Call press conference. “This [legislation] is a chance to practice that love.” Previously expressing support for traditional marriage, and a popular speaker for evangelical conferences, Campolo appeared slightly uncomfortable surrounded by hard-line sexual identity activists, many of them seemingly post-operative transsexuals. Still, he soldiered on, asserting that supplementing federal hate crimes legislation with protection for “sexual orientation” would not threaten free speech among the clergy, “as long as [a sermon] does not promote violence.” Campolo declared: “We evangelicals who have such a high view of scripture should want justice for gays, lesbians and transgendered persons.”
Anglican Samizdat 
I work in a HMO where people can actually decide whether M or F appears on a screen when their medical records are consulted. I have wondered for some time when this will extend to other versions of reality. If I have the right to disagree with what my trillion or so cells know to be true, that I am in fact XY and decide to pretend to be XX (and even the brain cells I use to think it know better, they all have the same chromosomes as the rest of me), then why can’t I declare that my cholesterol numbers are perfect? My blood pressure ideal, weight and height just right, hair color just what it was at 20 — or any other color I want? It really is much less of a stretch, after all once I *was* those things. There is a basis for this fiction in historical fact. However I have always from conception been male and that’s up for grabs, depending on my whims. I assume I can decide one gender one day, another the next? Transgender isn’t a slippery slope, that implies one direction only; this really is the end of slopes altogether. We’re at the bottom just sort of slipping around with no particular direction. Very timely article, thanks.
Comment by bob — May 17, 2009 @ 6:37 pm