Transphobia: Discrimination against gender diversity

A set of attitudes that serves to exclude minorities on the basis of their non-traditional gender identity.

Much is said about forms of discrimination against women, but there are other types of rejection and violence against people based on gender. This is the case of transphobiaa concept that has started to become popular in relatively recent times and that 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 transgender people are treated. towards the diversity of ways in which gender and Biological sex relate to each other..

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

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 a wide range of gender identities. such as:

• People who practice transvestism.They feel identified with aesthetics and symbols that do not correspond to the gender attributed to their body.

• Transsexualspeople whose gender identity does not coincide with the one attributed to them by society on the basis of their biological sex.

• GenderqueerIntersex: people who do not feel that their identity is linked to a fixed and clearly identifiable gender identity, but rather that it has fuzzy boundaries and/or is changeable.

• Intersexpeople with genitalia that at some point in their lives have formed ambiguously, without becoming completely male or female.

Cultural differences

Transphobia has been deeply rooted in a large number of cultures, although it can take different forms. For example, in many African, Western or Asian cultures, transgenderism has been repressed and made has been repressed and invisibilized in virtually all its forms of expression..

In other societies, such as Pakistan, it is customary to invite transgender people to entertain at wedding parties, but beyond these elements of folklore, they are excluded from public life.

What are the causes of this discrimination?

There are a variety of theories as to what motivates this form of discrimination against transsexual, intersex and transgender people in general. Each explanation must face the challenge of not only explaining the hostile attitudes of isolated individuals, but also a cultural and legal background that involves a collective and systematic discrimination against a minority.

Today, a large number of anthropologists and sociologists believe that transphobia is basically the way in which a system of domination expresses itself, perpetuating itself from generation to generation, without the need to justify itself. Basically, it is based on the idea that gender roles must be respected as "the natural thing to do" and that, in any case, whoever wants to deviate from them is the one who must argue and convince.

However, as with homosexuality, this principle does not stand on rational grounds: tradition is self-justifying.

The feminist and gender studies perspective

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

This perspective points out that 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 in order to obtain benefits.

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

This is why transphobia is often closely related to types of sexism in general: both are forms of legitimizing traditional roles that benefit one part of society and harm another.

Overcoming barriers

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

A change of mentality and habits can bring about acceptance of the existence of transgender people with all that this implies. In order to do so, the mental schemes through which these minorities are judged must be revised.and ask to what extent they are good and useful for oneself and for others.