PHOBIC MESS

Chicago Sun-Times Writer Tells Laverne Cox She’s “Not A Woman”

laverne-coxCongratulations, Kevin D. Williamson, you are the possibly one of the worst trolls in the history of the Internet.

Who can say why Williamson thought it would be a good idea to write an essay entitled “Laverne Cox is not a Woman” and why the Chicago Sun-Times decided it would be a good idea to print it? Surely nobody can actually believe the insane claims he’s making in this piece, can they?

Williamson’s latest piece is a travesty of journalism, stuffed to bursting with incredibly ignorant attitudes about trans people. And yet, somehow, there it is in what is otherwise a generally reputable news outlet.

Among the essay’s worst offenses:

  • “Bradley Manning is not a woman. Neither is Laverne Cox.”
  • “Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman.”
  • Corrective surgery is “the offer to amputate healthy organs in the service of a delusional tendency.”
  • “Having a culture organized around the elevation of unreality over reality in the service of Eros, who is a sometimes savage god, is not only irrational but antirational.”

Okay, just please stop. Let’s make a couple things clear, Kevin D. Williamson. Trans women are women. They are women as soon as they identify as such. There’s really no argument to be made, unless you are just willfully ignorant of the facts. Treatments for gender transition are supported by the American Medical Association and American Psychological Association.

Here’s a simple rule of thumb, Kevin Williamson: if a person has been struggling with gender identity their entire life, and you have not struggled with it ever, the chances are pretty good that they are more qualified than you are to know what gender they are.

Telling a trans woman that she’s a man is as unreasonable as saying it to any other woman. It’s particularly galling when it comes from someone who apparently has absolutely zero accurate information about what it is like be trans.

But for whatever reason, Williamson has decided that he gets to be the gender police, and tell everyone what they are not allowed to be, according to his rules. Okay, fine. Some people are awful, and that’s just the way it is. We are sad that Laverne Cox and trans people everywhere have to put up with strangers explaining their own bodies to them.

The real mystery is why the Chicago Sun-Times would waste space on his essay.

Update: The Chicago Sun-Times has retracted Williamson’s article and apologized for syndicating it.

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