THOUGHTS IN BRIEF
Rampant intolerance of transgender people within the Scottish independence movement forced me to take a principled oppositional stand and become a trans ally. This surprised a great many people and many of these people began hurling abuse at me. So many complaints were sent to my editor at a pro-independence magazine that it was decided it would be best for the publication that I no longer contribute. When I refused to show uncritical support for an outspoken racist who had landed herself in trouble with the police in Scotland for her transphobic and homophobic behaviour, I was no longer invited onto pro-independence podcasts to advocate for the independence of my country. The campaign against transgender people and their rights had become more important to the independence movement than the project of uniting people under the banner of Scottish independence.
One question I was frequently asked by friends in the movement was: ‘Is this the hill you want to die on?’ This question is always something of a threat. It suggests that if you continue on this path, you will be abandoned by friends and allies and left to die alone. It also presupposes the enemy — one’s former friends. Of course I did not want to die on this hill. What I wanted, however, was irrelevant; obeying my conscience meant I had to prepare myself for death on the hill. My decision was to stand firm and hold the line.
I made the conscious decision to ally myself with trans people’s struggle for acceptance and rights rather than simply keep my mouth shut, and this decision surprises me even still. By no means am I a likely trans ally. I’m a religious Catholic, I am theologically literate, and I teach Biblical Studies at university level. This is not the typical curriculum vitæ of a ‘trans rights activist.’ While many speculated that I was perhaps ‘struggling with my own sexuality,’ about to ‘come out as trans,’ or ‘into kids,’ the truth is actually quite boring; I am a cis-gender straight man. I have a handful of gay friends and acquaintances, and have only met one or two transgender people. On paper, this fight is not my fight. This wasn’t meant to be the hill I would die on. But here we are.
Why? It is the only morally right position. In fact, in the face of such violent intolerance and prejudice towards transgender people, remaining silent is morally reprehensible. Transphobia — like homophobia and racism, and every kind of hate that targets innocent people because of who they are — is, in the language of my religious tradition, sinful. This species of hate is a grave sin because it is contrary to the justice of God and a direct violation of the dominical command to love our neighbour. Coming down from this hill is simply not an option.
The hate-mongering and fear-mongering rhetoric right now being deployed against transgender people is, point for point, a repetition of the hatred and vitriol aimed at gay men and women not so very long ago. This was as wrong then as it is now. The suggestion from former colleagues and strangers that I must be ‘into kids’ because of my support for trans people merely confirms the hellish nature of this prejudice. It is a challenge to show these hateful people compassion, but I must. They simply do not understand the nature of the forces which are leading them. Regardless, they are in the wrong — and good people are morally obliged to resist them and their far-right ideology of hatred and intolerance. We are obliged to stand with their victims.
Jason Michael McCann M.Phil.
Biblical Studies and Hebrew
Race, Ethnicity, and Conflict
Unprecedented Times 