Definition of Transphobia

Based on the Trans Actual and Liberal Democrat definitions of transphobia. Note: in this
definition, the word “trans” refers to all non-cisgender identities including, but not limited to,
binary trans, nonbinary, nongendered/agender, and two-spirit and other non-Western
gender identities.

The core value underlying all transphobia is a rejection of trans identity and a refusal to
acknowledge that it could possibly be real or valid.

Transphobia has no single, simple manifestation. Rather, it is enacted through a complex

array of ever-shifting behaviours and arguments that result in the denial to trans individuals
of all possibility of living openly, comfortably in society, and, in the end, the erasure of trans
people as a viable class.

Genuine errors or misunderstandings about a trans person’s gender identity, or about the
nature or effect of a policy or practice, do happen, and genuine errors or misunderstandings
should not be considered intentionally transphobic. Some people may have had little or no
experience or engagement with issues affecting trans people. Genuine errors and
misunderstandings can still have potentially harmful effects, but the action taken to address
them should take into account the lack of intention. Where accidental offence or harm has
been caused the most appropriate course of action will generally be an apology, retraction or
similar.

However, where an individual repeatedly does things which can be viewed as transphobic, it
is unlikely this is in genuine error. This is especially true if they have been challenged by
others, and they have been pointed to resources to help them learn about trans rights and
transphobia. Indeed, disingenuous feigned ignorance of trans issues is a common tactic of
committed opponents of trans rights. A history of transphobic actions or behaviours should
be taken into account when considering whether someone is being intentionally transphobic.

Transphobia includes, but is not limited to:

1. Attempting to remove trans people's rights.

a) Campaigning to remove rights from trans people.

In the UK, a number of groups which claim to “protect women’s rights” have campaigned to
keep trans women out of women’s toilets, linking this campaign to discussions about the
UK’s Gender Recognition Act and ignoring that the Equality Act (2010) protects trans
people’s rights access to single sex spaces in line with their self-determined gender (you’ll
find more info on the Equality Act here). There is an allowance within the Equality Act to
make exceptions to this, but any exclusion must be shown to be proportionate and
justifiable, and any exclusion must be made on a case by case basis. None of the national
organisations interviewed as part of Stonewall’s “Supporting trans women in domestic and
sexual violence services” reported having ever applied the exceptions in the Equality Act.

Campaigning against trans people’s human and civil rights constitutes transphobia.

b) Claiming there is a "conflict" between trans people's human rights and those of any other
group.

This is the classic tactic of haters, fascists and others and has been throughout history.
Often the term "concerns" is a signifier for this. Just because you have "concerns" does not
mean those "concerns" are valid. Indeed the fact that the term is being used regularly
without evidence to support it suggests they are not. In the UK, people have said they are
“concerned” that men might pretend to be trans women in order to gain access to women’s
spaces. In the case of this example, campaigners claim that trans women ought to suffer
because of the potential actions of cisgender men. There have been no documented cases
of men pretending to be a trans woman to access women’s toilets for nefarious purposes.

c) Misrepresenting those who oppose trans people’s human rights.

This is a very common technique employed by transphobic hate groups. They dishonestly
claim that the anti-trans “debate” is about a conflict between “women” or “feminists” and
trans people. In fact, the transphobes represent only a tiny minority of women or feminists,
and there are plenty of feminists who argue that transphobes are not feminists at all. The
voices of cis women who support trans rights are usually ignored or shouted down by the
minority of women opposed to trans rights. For example, when all of the women candidates
in the 2020 UK Labour Party leadership election stated their support for trans women, they
were shouted down at a hustings by a group of transphobic activists. Of course there are
also men who are transphobic. The defining feature that members of these groups have in
common is neither their gender nor their (claimed) feminism, it is their transphobia.

d) Encouraging or facilitating proxy violence against trans people.

Whether tacitly, explicitly or through advocating structural oppression. For example

campaigning to prevent trans people from using the toilets that match their gender identity
and presentation is to attempt to facilitate violence by proxy against trans people by forcing
them to out themselves every time they use the toilet or put themselves in dangerous
situations where they are likely to be attacked or raped. Spreading fear of trans people so as
to increase the likelihood of transphobic attacks is another example of this. This is
sometimes known as “stochastic terrorism”. Between 2016 and 2019, transphobic hate
crime rose by 81% This coincided with an increase in transphobic rhetoric in the UK press
and online.

e) Ignoring the fact that transphobia is amplified when it is intersectional.

Black trans people, disabled trans people, and Muslim trans people for example, often run
greater risks from being targeted by transphobia than white middle-class people. The denial
of culturally-specific trans identities, in addition to the denial of all trans identities, is both
transphobic and racist. Structural oppression in the form of racism, for example, makes it
more likely that black and minority ethnic trans women are targeted for violence and murder.
In 2019 in the United States, at least 26 trans or gender non-conforming people were killed
by violent means – 91% of them were Black women.

f) Tacit transphobia is still transphobia.

Actions designed to harm or take away trans people's human rights are still transphobic
even when not expressed in explicitly transphobic language, or not expressed in language at
all. This tacit transphobia is often referred to as ‘dogwhistle’ transphobia. For example, one
UK based transphobic hate group bought a full page advert which read: ‘Woman: an adult
human female.’ The statement itself is not transphobic, but when the context for the
statement is that the group in question believes that trans women can never be female, the
transphobic intent is clear. Similarly, when a football ‘fan’ throws a banana at a black player
during a match, the racist intent is clear even though bananas are not inherently racist.
g) Attempting to define transphobia as so restricted as to exclude extremely transphobic
acts.

Defining transphobia as restricted to name-calling for example, is done with the intention of
allowing transphobic groups to get away with transphobic actions like campaigning against
trans people's human rights, purposeful misgendering or deadnaming, or spreading fear of
trans people, which are all transphobic. Just as white people ought never speak over people
of colour when seeking to define racism, cisgender people ought never to speak over trans
people when seeking to define transphobia.

h) Advocating the withdrawal of access, or delay, to transition-related medical treatment for

trans people or advocating or facilitating any kind of therapy that has the effect of trying to
change anyone's gender identity.

When trans people are unable to access transition-related medical treatment, their bodily
autonomy is undermined. Advocating to remove or delay access to transition-related
medical treatment needs to be regarded as proxy violence, as transition-related care has
been shown to improve life outcomes for trans people. The Endocrine Society state that it ‘is
critical that transgender individuals have access to the appropriate treatment and care to
ensure their health and well-being.’

Some transphobic campaigners use graphic images of transition related surgery and scars
from transition-related surgery as “evidence” that a trans person, often a trans man or a non-
binary person, has “mutilated” themselves. The use of this language impacts the mental
health and well-being of trans people, often making them more conscious of their scars than
they had previously been.

Conversion therapy is not deemed acceptable for lesbian, gay or bi people, nor should it be
deemed acceptable for trans people. Research has shown that conversion therapies kill and
traumatise, whether they are labelled as ‘conversion therapy’ or not.

i) Knowingly promoting the idea that gender dysphoria is a form of, or is caused by, mental
illness, which directly contradicts NHS guidance (available here/).

j) Deliberately endangering the lives of trans children and young people.

Advocating an end to acceptance of trans children and young people in their identified
genders, claiming that trans children and young people are only "going through a phase",
attempting to deny medical support to trans children and young people and failing to protect
trans children and young people from bullying and the consequences of media and hate-
group misrepresentation. Using terms such as "contagion" constitutes exclusion bullying by
proxy.

In the UK during the 1980s and 1990s, Section 28 outlawed the ‘promotion of
homosexuality’ in schools. This law was seen to be a means of ‘protecting children’ from
‘homosexual propoganda’. The law was repealed in 2003 (2000 in Scotland) and schools
are now free to teach in an LGBT inclusive manner. The rhetoric used about trans inclusive
schools today strongly echoes that of the rhetoric used by those in favour of Section 28.

Research has shown that trans children and young people who are well supported at home
and at school experience better mental health outcomes than those who aren’t supported.
The use of misinformation and scare mongering has the potential to discourage parents and
teachers from offering that crucial support.
2. Misrepresenting trans people

a) Misrepresenting trans people.

Whether by misuse of statistics, research, history or the law, presenting false images of
trans people as a group. This includes presenting trans people one-dimensionally and
intentionally ignoring positives. Ignoring evidence from other countries that supports trans
rights is also profoundly transphobic. For example, transphobic activists in the UK claim that
changing the law to allow trans people to change their birth certificate by signing a statutory
declaration is an issue for women’s rights. However evidence from Ireland, whose 2015
Gender Recognition Act allowed trans people to do just this, demonstrates that there has
been no such issue.

This also includes spreading the idea of a “trans conspiracy” which asserts undue influence
over media or government or claiming that cisgender allies support trans rights initiatives out
of fear or bribery rather than a genuine belief that trans rights are human rights.

b) Mockery or dismissal of new names and pronouns and the identity they reflect.

This often takes the form of inappropriate comparisons (‘people will be defining themselves
as Muppets and Wombles next’), suggesting trans people do not mean what they say (for
example by describing them as ‘confused’ or ‘just trying to be controversial’), or suggesting
trans identities are a fad, through comments such as ‘I’m too old to understand all this’.

c) Portraying trans people as a “threat”.

This is what homophobes did in the 1980s to LGB people. Endlessly debating trans people
in the media in their absence and prohibiting a right of reply is the way this manifests itself
all too often. This can often be seen in the press by the use of words which imply a threat of
violence or intimidation such as “ordered to…”, “feared being labelled transphobic”,
“towering”, “powerful”. Also, for example by equating trans people with paedophiles, rapists,
sex offenders or grooming gangs.

d) Accusing trans people, as a group, of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing
committed by a single trans person or even non-trans people.

This is a textbook definition of prejudicial discrimination. Holding all trans people to account
for the crimes of one or two individuals is like saying that every white cis woman should
have to answer for the crimes of Rose West.

e) Denying trans people the right to their own language to talk about their situations.

Using terms such as “trans identified males” to mean trans women, not only has the impact
of misgendering trans women but it also makes it harder for trans people to explain their
identity to others. The same goes for terms like “biological man” as opposed to “AMAB”. For
example, when a trans man tells somebody that he is a trans man, he often has to explain
his identity to avoid being mis-identified as a trans woman. The use of “trans women”
ensures that trans is correctly used as an adjective in a similar way to the use of “gay
women”. “Gaywomen” without a space could indicate that lesbians were not included in that
person’s definition of who gets to call themselves a woman. “Transwomen” has the same
impact.

"Cisgender" is neither an insult nor an identity, it is a word used to identify people who aren’t
trans whilst avoiding the use of stigmatising language such as “normal”. Denying trans
people access to non-stigmatising language to describe people who don’t share their identity
acts to further stigmatise them.

The denial of self-determination more widely also constitutes transphobia. For example the
denial that trans women are women, trans men are men and that non-binary people’s
identities are valid and should be respected. Identity denial is a particular problem for non-
binary people, who are often told that their identity is “a trend” or “made up” despite
evidence of non-binary people having existed across time and cultures.

f) The omission of trans men and non-binary people.

Transphobic rhetoric regularly ignores trans men and non-binary people. This is often
because the existence of trans men, in particular, would act to undermine the arguments
being made against trans women. For example, campaigners who claim that trans people
should use the toilets that align with the sex they were assigned at birth in case a cisgender
man pretends to be a trans women to access women’s toilets ignore the fact that if trans
men are forced to use women’s toilets, it would be easier for cisgender men to also access
women’s toilets by just pretending to be a transgender man.

g) Using biological essentialism to try and delegitimise trans people.

"Man", "Woman" and "Non-binary person" are social/cultural statuses. Trans people have
existed for millennia throughout history and in every part of the world. Consequently, trans
people have as much right to claim their genders based on biology or otherwise as cis
people do. The Endocrine Society states that there is “a durable biological underpinning to
gender identity”. That being said, bio-essentialism plays into the hands of extreme right-wing
ideologies.

h) Applying double standards by requiring of trans people behaviours that are not expected
or demanded of any other groups in society

For example criticising both trans women who do not conform to female stereotypes for not
being feminine enough and trans women who do conform for perpetuating sexism.

3. Forms of Abuse

a) Physical assault or abuse

Physical assault or abuse motivated by the fact that the victim of that abuse is trans, is an
act of transphobic violence. This disproportionately affects some sections of the trans
community, Black trans women and non-binary femmes in particular.

b) Harassment

Harassment can take place online, through the posting of photos of trans people without
their consent, spreading rumours, deliberately misgendering, exposing someone’s
deadname or trans identity, or sending hateful messages or encouraging others to do the
same. Galop’s Online Hate Crime Report found that trans people are more likely to
experience online harassment than cis people. Offline harassment might include deliberate
misgendering, spreading rumours, sending offensive letters, stalking or otherwise making
somebody feel intimidated. If this harassment is motivated by the fact that someone is trans,
this is transphobic harassment. Stonewall’s Trans Report found that 44% of trans people
avoid certain streets because they don’t feel safe.
c) Ostracism

Ostracising somebody from a community, place of worship or family because they are trans
is transphobic. The threat of ostracism might be used to prevent a trans person from coming
out or living a fulfilled life.

d) Deliberate misgendering and deadnaming

This is abuse. Calling trans women, “men” or trans men “women”, or non-binary people
“men” or “women” is transphobia. Using the wrong pronouns, such as “she” for trans men
and “he” for trans women is misgendering. Not using “they/them” (or similar) pronouns for
non-binary people is transphobic as is using these terms for binary trans people.

Treating trans people any differently from those who are also the same gender is
transphobia. For example, treating trans women as different from cis women is
discrimination and has been defined as such in the UK’s Equality Act (2010).

In the early phases of transition, or if someone is not aware of the transition or is not well
informed about transition, accidental mistakes may be made as people get used to new
names and pronouns. Doing it deliberately, persistently and/or maliciously is a means of
humiliation and degradation.

e) Expecting trans people to participate in "debates" about their right to exist.

Gladiatorial media debates are designed to obscure what trans people need to communicate
and prevent trans people from raising awareness of important issues affecting the
community. Being forced to "debate" your existence is a form of abuse. Just as a Jewish
person should not have to justify their right to live a life free from anti-semitic discrimination,
a trans person should not have to justify their right to live a life free from transphobic
discrimination.

Trans people being allowed to publish single-person authored articles arguing against the
transphobes is different and rarely, if ever, allowed by the media.

4. Systematically excluding trans people from the media and discussions about
issues that directly affect them.

a) Systematically preventing trans people from engaging fully in media or institutional

“debates” about transphobia and trans rights.

A good example of this is when universities or societies invite transphobic speakers.

Frequently, such events take place despite protests and condemnation from trans students
and relevant societies. At the same time, though, transgender people and allies who
campaign for trans rights are not invited to speak by these institutions, even at events that
specifically discuss trans rights and identities.

b) Accusing trans people as “silencing” transphobes or “shutting down debate” when the
opposite is happening.

In the UK there has been a systemic, and almost total, exclusion of trans people from the
mainstream media, who campaign against transphobic hate groups. Meanwhile, people with
transphobic views are consistently invited to comment on trans related issues in the media,
regardless of their qualifications to do so (for example, when a sculptor with no experience
of teaching in schools is asked to comment on trans inclusive practice in schools). People
with no qualifications in education or in history would not be invited to talk to the media
about history teaching in schools, so unqualified people should not be invited to talk about
trans inclusion in schools either. Denying trans people a right to reply on the same terms
and with the same prominence and regularity is the real “silencing” and “shutting down
debate”.

c) Expecting trans people to respond calmly to transphobic material or claims, whether

explicit or covert.

We don’t dispute that it’s best to respond calmly to transphobia, however many transphobes
continually aim to anger trans people to provoke trans people into a reaction that is used
against trans people in the media. This is often called "Provoke and Publicise", and was a
technique employed by anti-desegregationisists in Southern states in the US in the 50s and
60s. The symbolism of this is significant.

5. Other forms of discrimination

a) Employment discrimination

Transphobic employment discrimination may come at the recruitment process, where a

trans person’s application is rejected because they are trans. In the workplace, this may
come when a trans person is treated less favourably or unfairly because they are trans. This
might result in a trans person being able to progress in their career or even in a hostile,
uncomfortable working environment.

b) Refusal of access to goods and services

This could include being refused entry to an event, being turned down or asked to leave
rented accommodation, or restricted access to healthcare based on a trans person’s
identity. Many trans people choose not to disclose that they are trans in certain
circumstances for fear of this type of discrimination. Discrimination by a letting agent can
result in homelessness.