Transphobia: discrimination against gender diversity

There is a lot of talk about forms of discrimination against women, but there are other types of rejection and violence against people based on gender. It is the case of transphobia, a concept that has started to become popular in relatively recent times and has to do with transgender minorities.

What is transphobia?

Transphobia is a concept that refers to the attitudes and actions through which hatred, intolerance or contempt is expressed towards the diversity of ways in which gender and biological sex are related.

In other words, people who manifest transphobia discriminate against transgender people in general for the fact of being transgender, these being latter individuals escaping traditional binary gender identities (male or female with male or female genitalia, respectively).

• You may be interested: "The Kinsey scale of sexuality: are we all bisexual?"

People who suffer from transphobia

People who are victims of transphobia do not present a stereotypical profile that is usually attributed to transgender people. It is about a wide range of gender identities. for example:

• People who practice cross-dressing: they feel identified with an aesthetic and symbols that do not correspond to the gender attributed to their body.

• Transsexuals: people whose gender identity does not coincide with that attributed to them by society based on their biological sex.

• Genderqueer: people who do not notice that their identity is linked to a fixed and well identifiable gender identity, but that it has diffuse limits and / or is changing.

• Intersex: people with genitalia that at some point in their lives have been formed in an ambiguous way, without becoming completely male or female.

Cultural differences

Transphobia has been deeply ingrained in a large number of cultures, although it can take different forms. For example, in many African, Western or Asian cultures transgender has been repressed and made invisible in practically all its forms of expression.

In other societies, such as Pakistan, it is common to invite transsexuals to animate wedding parties, although beyond these elements of folklore, these people are excluded from life public.

What are the causes of this discrimination?

There is a wide variety of theories about what motivates this form of discrimination against transsexuals, intersex and transgender people in general. Each explanation must meet the challenge of not only explaining the hostile attitudes of people isolated, but a cultural and legal residue that supposes a collective and systematic discrimination towards a minority.

Currently, a large number of anthropologists and sociologists believe that transphobia is basically the way in which a system of domination is expressed that perpetuates itself from generation to generation, without the need for justify itself. Basically, it is based on the idea that gender roles must be respected because they are "natural" and that, in any case, whoever wants to get out of them is the one who must argue and convince.

However, like what happens with homosexuality, this principle is not supported on rational bases: tradition justifies itself.

The feminist and gender studies perspective

Other theories appeal to the concept of heteropatriarchy to point out that transphobia is not simply the resistance to breaking with tradition, but that there are groups whose privileges depend on gender roles not being transcended.

This perspective indicates that the fact of discriminating against transgender people is a tool to subdue and impose power, with all that this implies: keeping open the possibility of controlling the lives of others to obtain Benefits.

These benefits, however, would not be personal, but collective, to be distributed among a minority who is almost always related to groups of heterosexual white men whose gender identity is male. The fact of keeping threats against gender roles at bay would allow exploiting women and transgender minorities without the need to vastly outnumber them.

That is why transphobia is usually closely related to types of sexism in general: both are forms of legitimation of traditional roles that benefit a part of society and harm a other.

• Related article: "Patriarchy: 7 keys to understanding cultural machismo"

Overcome barriers

Transphobia does not have to do with innate predispositions that determine our attitudes, but can be corrected and eliminated, just like forms of sexism in general.

A change in mentality and habits can make the existence of transgender people be accepted with all that this implies. For it, it is necessary to review the mental schemes through which these minorities are judged, and wondering to what extent they are good and useful for oneself and for others.

• Related article: "How to stop being homophobic and accept the difference"