Can 80% of Society Really Be Irredeemable Transphobes?
Last month, Queer Majority published an essay of mine titled “How to Fix What Ails Trans Activism.” It looked at where activists went wrong, charted the erosion of public support, and offered a philosophically liberal framework for how to reorient trans activism away from a zero-sum power struggle and toward a universalist vision centered around discussion, mutual respect, and winning hearts and minds. The piece blew up on social media, circulated widely among a variety of big-name accounts, and was also republished in Persuasion. Of course, not everyone was pleased. The most voluminous criticism has come from folks in the anti-trans camp, annoyed that the essay stopped well short of espousing a hardline gender-critical worldview. On the other end of the spectrum, many people in radical trans activist circles were infuriated. The article was denounced as transphobic hate, and I was accused of being everything from a far-right bigot to a “salty detransitioner." I was even doxxed, which I’d humbly suggest may not be the most effective way to rebut the observation that trans activism has too often been hijacked by “extremist bullies” and authoritarians.
Two sentiments in particular predominated among the trans activists I heard from. The first was that trans activism has essentially made zero mistakes, and that virtually 100% of the backlash has been conjured by right-wing media. To espouse this talking point is to advertise one’s disconnection from reality and blind allegiance to the tribe. It is to completely overlook the fact that while the political right has, of course, eagerly capitalized on the backlash to radical trans activists, the extremism of these activists has supplied their opponents with an arsenal of needless ammunition. The second was the implicit belief that anyone holding the moderate, pro-trans position shared by a supermajority of society is, in fact, a bigot. It’s this latter thread that’s worth following, because building a more effective version of trans activism — or any activism — requires, above everything, a sense of perspective and being grounded in the material facts of the world around you. Neglecting to do so ends only in disaster.
Much of the impetus and justification for the level of ferocious intensity, urgency, and uncompromising maximalism of today’s trans activism is predicated upon a distorted view of modern society. Activists paint a dire but largely illusory picture of a culture drenched in hate, in which trans people are crushed from all sides by pervasive oppression, victimized by an “epidemic” of murder, and even threatened with “trans genocide.” Thankfully, this isn’t true, but these attitudes persist because in many radical circles, the bounds of acceptable thought are drawn so narrowly so as to render anyone who isn’t a far-left trans activist a reactionary and even violent transphobe.
According to the footsoldiers purporting to speak on behalf of trans people, the overwhelming majority of society are transphobes in need, not of being persuaded, appealed to, or compromised with, but of being somehow defeated and subdued. These are the 79% of Americans who oppose trans women in female sports (including 67% of Democrats or Dem-leaning voters). These are the 71% of Americans who believe no one under 18 should have access to puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones (including 54% of Dems). In Ipsos’s 2025 LGBT+ Pride Report, they surveyed 26 countries, almost entirely Western, and found that only 22% supported trans athletes competing outside their biological sex category. That other 78% represents roughly 1.35 billion people. That’s an awful lot of genocidal bigots to quell and crush. Perhaps this is just generational? No. Even among Gen Z, the 26-country-average support for trans athletes competing in their chosen category was a mere 27.5%.
And yet this same report also found that 71% supported protections for transgender people against “discrimination in employment, housing, and access to businesses such as restaurants and stores.” In the US, support for “nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people” stands at a resounding 75%. The vast majority of people across the Western world are not frothing haters hell-bent on oppressing, much less eradicating, trans people. The vast majority of people across the Western world are moderates steeped in liberal values who want trans people afforded the same legal protections as everyone else, but who also have real concerns with the more controversial — and as yet, unresolved — edge cases in trans politics.
Many of these moderates have been alienated or pushed away by the excesses and overreaches of the trans movement, but they are still persuadable. They still have liberal principles that can be appealed to. If activists write them all off as irredeemable transphobes, we cede actual transphobes a monopoly on proactively influencing public opinion. That path leads to dark places no human rights supporter should wish to tread. And, as we have seen, the backlash will only continue to spread, affecting not only trans people, but gay, lesbian, and bi folks, as well as sexual freedom more broadly. The grim irony is that society is far from the anti-trans hellscape activists portray it as, but if we follow the road they’ve started down, eventually it will be.
Published Nov 24, 2025
