Last week, conservative journalist Chadwick Moore commented on US gubernatorial candidate Christine Hallquist’s historic win as the first transgender major party nominee for governor of a US state. In an interview with Fox News, Moore basically said that Christine’s victory is due to her “transgender privilege.”
We quote: “She can get away with many, many things simply by being transgender […] I mean, who knows if that’s even how she won this primary. But while the entire country is fixated on the fact that she’s transgender, nobody knows anything about her policies.”
Well, the Internet wasn’t having it. Immediately after the interview, #TransgenderPrivilege became a trending topic, with several netizens correcting the journalist as to what the phrase really means.
The outpour of tweets ironically gave light to the marginalized state of transgenders. A US Trans Survey conducted in 2015 detailed how transgender people are more prone to verbal harassment, work discriminations such as getting fired or denied a job or promotion due solely on their gender identity, and physical assault by members of their own family. Moreover, according to reports, many transgender Americans have a hard with even being able to vote in elections.
In an interview with Them, current President of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, Annise Parker said, “They claimed Vermont primary voters know nothing beyond her gender identity while in fact the opposite is true—voters chose Christine because of her experience and positions, not because of her gender identity, and it is an insult to Vermont voters to say otherwise.” She also pointed out why the Fox News interview was even more problematic. “For two cisgender white men on Fox News to bemoan ‘transgender privilege’ in a conversation about one of the few openly trans candidates in the entire nation requires extraordinary ignorance, at best.”
Art by Marian Hukom
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