Yesterday, a 28 year-old female-to-male transgender attacked a private Christian school in Tennessee, killing three teachers and three nine year-old students before being shot and killed by police. According to the police, this was a targeted attack that was likely motivated by the shooter’s transgenderism. Tennessee recently passed a ban on transgender surgeries for minors, and this shooting happened immediately after trans activists called for a “day of vengeance” against what they falsely call a “genocide.”
What do the trans activists mean when they accuse conservatives of perpetrating a “genocide” against them? Where did they come up with that term? My understanding is that it comes from the idea that when somebody declares themselves as trans, they adopt a new persona that replaces who they were before. Thus, the new persona of Caitlyn Jenner replaced the old persona of Bruce Jenner, or the new persona of Elliot Page replaced the persona of Ellen Page. In the eyes of the pro-trans ideologues, when a trans person adopts their new persona, it is like a new person is born into the world. Thus, anyone who refuses to affirm their transgender identity is guilty of trying to “kill” this new person, and anyone who opposes transgender ideology generally is guilty of “genocide.”
We saw this play out recently in the fiasco over the 2021 Hugo-nominated short story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.” It started when Clarkesworld published the story, which was written by an anonymous male-to-female transgender under the name Isabel Fall. The story was based on a meme ridiculing transgender ideology, and Fall’s intent in writing the story was to own the meme and turn it into a pro-trans statement. However, the readers of Clarkesworld failed to recognize this, and attacked Fall as being secretly anti-trans, going so far as to suggest that Fall’s author bio (born in ’88) was a dog whistle to Nazis.
This is where things get interesting. Isabel Fall (who to my knowledge still remains anonymous) reacted to these attacks by requesting that Neil Carke unpublish the story. Fall then decided that he wasn’t transgender after all, and stopped transitioning. This prompted a bunch of hand-wringing by the woke leftist mob that had attacked Fall as being secretly anti-trans, ultimately culminating in the essay “How Twitter Can Ruin a Life,” which was nominated for a Hugo in 2022. When you read it, you realize that these people literally believe that Isabel Fall was “killed” by the online reaction to “her” story, and thus became a victim of the ongoing “trans genocide.”
Here’s the thing, though: nobody actually died in this fiasco. The person who wrote “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” is still, to my knowledge, very much alive. But the three nine year-old kids and their three teachers who were shot to death in Nashville yesterday by a transgender mass shooter are NOT alive. And if it turns out that the shooter was motivated by this false narrative of a “transgender genocide,” then all of the trans activists calling for violence in reaction to this “genocide” have blood on their hands.
It very much reminds me of how woke ideologues conflate speech with violence, and violence with speech. The logic goes like this: hate speech is a form of violence, therefore we are justified in using actual, physical violence to silence and intimidate anyone who is guilty of anything we deem to be hate speech. In much the same way, trans activists believe that the rejection of anyone’s transgender persona is a form of genocide, and therefore people like this shooter are justified in committing actual mass killings of people who oppose transgenderism.
It is not possible to share a country with these people, for the simple reason that it is not possible to agree to disagree with someone who follows this kind of zero-sum logic. We must all either submit to their ideology, or we must, as a society, reject it. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that we should round up and kill anyone who posts a transgender flag to their social media. However, anyone who calls for violence in response to the “trans genocide” should be prosecuted immediately, and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Calls for violence are not protected speech under the first amendment. If we fail to do this—if our legal system fails to hold these transgender ideologues responsible for their crimes, perpetuating the double standard that lets “mostly peaceful” leftist rioters walk free while the J6 “insurrectionists” languish in solitary confinement—then I fear that our country will break apart and fall.
I say this, recognizing that it may very well get me black-listed in the award-winning publications in my own field. Mainstream science fiction has very much embraced the transgender ideology that promotes this false narrative of a “trans genocide,” as evidenced by the fact that “How Twitter Ruined a Life” was nominated for the Hugo. But as a writer, I believe that it is my solemn duty to speak the truth as best I understand it, and when I see tragic events like the ones currently unfolding in Nashville, I cannot in good conscience remain silent about this issue.
Accusation is projection is confession. When transgender activists accuse us of committing genocide, they are confessing that they want us all dead. Plan accordingly.
