There Is No Trans Genocide
Gender activists often claim that genocide is being committed against the trans community. An analysis of the evidence shows an ugly truth, but not in the way one would expect.
It is often claimed by many trans activists that genocide is being committed against the trans community via “anti-trans laws.”
More recently, Anne Fausto-Sterling, a biologist and trans activist, made this very argument in a post made on Twitter and Mastodon, another social media alternative. Accusations of genocide are very serious and should not be used without good reason.
This begs the question: is genocide being committed against the trans community?
Let's break it down piece by piece.
What is genocide?
The term genocide typically brings up images from intolerable injustices committed against various groups in history. The most pronounced being the Holocaust committed against the European Jewish people by the Nazis in Germany. This is because the term genocide was explicitly defined as a result of the Holocaust during the Geneva Convention in 1948-1949. The documents created during the Geneva Convention describe genocide as:
“genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”[1]
The Convention further described the elements of genocide as:
“1. A mental element: the ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’; and
2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
Killing members of the group.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’”
Using these very specific qualifications, let's go step by step to see if there is a genocide against trans people.
Intent
The very first part includes the mental element of intent. There are two parts to this mental element. The first is the intent to destroy. The second is the definition of what kind of group is being targeted, specifically religious, ethnic, racial, or national group.
Are trans people a religious, ethnic, racial, or national group?
Intent is already very difficult to determine, and as mentioned in the definition of genocide is the most difficult to prove. Is the intent of many of these lawmakers to completely eliminate “trans” individuals? If you look into the motive behind many laws being passed, the people proposing these bills state that they intend to protect children from sexually explicit content that they are not old enough to be able to handle.
Let's look at the example of the Florida bill known colloquially as “Don't Say Gay.” Officially labeled “Parental Rights in Education,” the bill restricts discussing the topics of gender identity and sexual orientation in grades kindergarten through the third grade.[2] Age wise, this includes children age 4-9. Why this age group?
Psychologist Jean Piaget, who explicitly studied cognitive development, defines two stages involving this age group: preoperational (ages 2-7) and concrete operational (ages 7-11). One of the major differences in these age groups is the change from self centered thinking in the preoperational stage to being able to separate themselves from the topic being discussed in the concrete operational stage.[3] What does this mean? It means children age 2-7 tend to apply everything that they learn to themselves. If you discuss gender identity to this age group, they are more likely to conclude that their gender identity is also in question.
In other words, children in this age group literally can't think about these topics outside of themselves. Is protecting children from topics they are not capable of handling appropriately trying to eliminate trans people?
The other example to think of here is the issue of child centered drag performances. Authors of these bills have explicitly said that the goal is to protect children from adult content. You certainly wouldn't want to show a child pornographic material, would you? Is protecting children from adult material attempting to erase trans people?
For the matter of the mental element of genocide, I think it has not been met in terms of trans individuals.
The Physical Element
The physical element includes five acts that meet the conditions of genocide. There are a few that can be eliminated automatically. The first is killing trans people. There is no group in the US that makes a deliberate attempt to kill trans people. The second that can be dismissed is causing serious body or mental harm to a group. There is no group that intends to cause serious bodily or mental harm to trans people.
That leaves us with three remaining acts, let's look at them in detail.
Conditions of Life
“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
There are many that claim that laws being passed to prevent “gender affirming care” are being passed to attack the trans community. Advocates claim that “gender affirming care” is “life saving care” and that not having these treatments results in trans people committing suicide.
Is this true? One of the largest studies of its kind says it isn't true. The Swedish study found that suicidality remained virtually constant at every stage of transition from the initiation of hormones to after surgical procedures.[4]
Recently, reports out of the UK from Tavistock clinics have indicated that these treatments aren't helpful either. But the UK is “transphobic,” right? Except they are not the first to make this observation. This Finnish study from 2019 demonstrates that cross sex hormones aren't enough to give relief from gender dysphoria.[5]
This probably explains why Finland has changed their protocols for treating gender dysphoria and why they suggest intensive psychotherapy instead of the gender affirming model.[6]
In 2020, Sweden also had to change their policies, putting a halt to hormonal and surgical interventions and instead opting for psychosocial support until adulthood. Apparently, after extensive research, they determined the risks outweigh the benefits.[7] It's probably why France followed soon after.[8] The most recent country to implement changes is Norway, who has determined that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender affirming surgeries are experimental and lack evidence proving efficacy.[9]
If it is true these treatments don't actually prevent suicide, then can you say that preventing these treatments is causing suicide?
What other options are there? According to the available research, the vast majority of children who identify as trans don't carry that identity into adulthood. In fact, the percent of kids who “grow out of” their trans identity is somewhere between 68-90%.[10]
This is likely why the medical organizations from these other countries suggest psychosocial support to adulthood. But does the psychosocial support actually work?
One study has shown that group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy was able to significantly improve the moods and outlooks of trans identifying teens. It also gave them coping mechanisms to help cope with the many social pressures that trans and gender nonconforming individuals experience.[11]
Why are these therapies not being sought after by trans activists?
Jack Turban, a prominent trans activist and medical doctor, wrote a study that identified anything except for the gender affirming model of treatment as “conversion therapy.”[12] This has been turned into a rallying cry for trans activists, who claim that any psychosocial therapy is conversion therapy and an attempt to eliminate trans people.
If “gender affirming care” doesn't work, is pushing for “gender affirming care” pushing for suicide?
If most kids grow out of their trans identity, is pushing for “gender affirming care” pushing for harm against a community?
Is discouraging use of therapy that works in favor of “gender affirming care" pushing a group into self destruction via suicide?
Preventing Birth
“Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group…”
During the Holocaust, many individuals had medical experiments performed on them and often these experiments were done with the intent to prevent pregnancies or to eliminate the fertility of these individuals.
Is this happening in the trans community?
Let's take a closer look into what treatments people are seeking, since so many of these laws are looking at preventing treatments. For younger people, the traditional thing they want to do is block puberty. And the most common medication to block puberty is Lupron. But is that the only thing the drug is used for?
No, it's not.
Lupron is in fact the same medication Canada and the US uses to chemically castrate sex offenders and pedophiles to control their sexual urges.[13]
In addition, cross-sex hormone therapy has a known risk to permanently and irreversibly damage the reproductive systems of individuals undergoing these treatments.[14]
These are treatments that many of these laws are trying to ban in children. Trans activists claim that these laws are an attempt at genocide, and yet these “gender-affirming” treatments are doing harm that can actually be considered genocidal…
Forcibly transferring children…
“Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Despite the clear harm that can be caused by these treatments, some still push for these treatments. What happens to those who object to these treatments?
Some parents are now having their children taken from them for not pursuing the gender affirming model. Unfortunately, these cases happen with divorced parents where one parent refuses to consent to these treatments.[15][16]
Not only are some children being removed from their parents, but in some cases, children are leaving of their own accord.
California senator Scott Wiener authored a law that will take in families of trans identifying children who are seeking “gender affirming care.” The bill will also take children into custody of the state to allow for them to seek out medical transition.[17] This law went into effect January 1, 2023.
Of note, it is also Scott Wiener who proposed a bill in 2020 which does not require people who commit acts of oral or anal sex on minors to be registered as sex offenders.[18] It seems concerning that a person who is interested in protecting pedophiles also is interested in removing children from their parents.
Who Is Committing Genocide?
The claim of genocide by trans activists like Anne Fausto-Sterling appears to have no legs to stand on. For one, there is no clear intent to commit genocide against trans people, but additionally the trans community is not of any particular nationality, ethnicity, race, or official religion (although one could argue that transgender ideology is a religion, it is not a recognized religious group).
But, if one could prove intent, who is actually committing acts that would qualify as genocide?
Who is promoting treatments that don't prevent suicide in trans people while simultaneously calling treatments that help trans people “conversion therapy”?
Who is promoting treatments that eliminate and prevent births and pregnancies in trans individuals?
Who is removing children from families who question if these treatments are worth the harmful side effects?
It appears the group that is most harmful to trans identifying individuals are the activists who claim to be protecting them.
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Florida House of Representatives. (2022). CS/CS/HB 1557 (2022) Parental Rights in Education.
McLeod, S. (2023). Jean Piaget's theory and stages of cognitive development. Simply Psychology.
Cantor, J. (2016). Do trans kids stay trans when they grow up? Sexology Today.
Gans, A. (2022). California set to become a refuge for transgender health care. Cal Matters.
