Organised transphobia is on the rise. Accordingly, the anti-gender scholarship has begun to pay more attention to anti-trans politics as a dimension of anti-gender movements. Yet this attention has come relatively late. Foundational texts in the field have tended to overlook or sideline the anti-trans elements of these movements, assuming them to be inconsequential relative to the anti-feminist and anti-LGB agendas pursued in the name of tackling ‘gender ideology’.
This paper argues, firstly, that anti-trans politics has not suddenly become a feature of anti-gender movements within the last few years. Instead, it shows how trans rights claims have always been a core component of what came to be known as ‘gender theory’ or ‘gender ideology’. Opposition to ‘gender’ has often hinged on understanding ‘gender’ to mean that one’s sex/gender could be independent of ‘genitals and chromosomes’, or even freely chosen. In short, for anti-gender movements, ‘gender’ has always signified trans identity.
Secondly, the paper demonstrates that transphobia has not been simply omitted but often hiding in plain sight in anti-gender scholarship, with key texts apparently failing to ‘see’ the transphobia in their own data. The paper closes by arguing that the field needs to confront its own epistemic biases, as ‘epistemologies of ignorance’ (Mills, 1997) regarding trans issues within academia and academic feminism have provided fertile ground in which transphobia has taken root.
