An Embarrassing Misfire
A Critical Response to Laura Becker's “How Androgynous Fashion Tricked Me Into Being Transgender”
“…Being is something we must embrace. We cannot fight it.” — Laura Becker
“Reality’s Last Stand” (the publisher) is edited by Colin Wright, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute (MI). The MI is a conservative think tank devoted to swaying economic and public opinion towards the right. With that in mind…
Laura Becker's article, “How Androgynous Fashion Tricked Me Into Being Transgender,” is, quite frankly, a mess [1] [*]. It fundamentally misunderstands what being a transgender person means and paints a damaging and incorrect picture of the gender-affirming model of care. Becker portrays female-bodied people as gullible, foolish, and destined for motherhood (aka, the ‘confused little girl’ trope), stereotypes which have no grounding in reality.
Before diving in on the article, I’d like to offer some charity. I relate a lot to the stories that she recounts from her childhood; I had a very similar upbringing. Some of her experiences were heartbreaking to read. Becker, just like anyone and everyone else, did not deserve the difficult life that she has obviously had.
However, this trauma does not excuse her words, nor her inflammatory behaviors towards trans people. Becker must be held to account, just like us all.
This article blows.
Let's get one thing straight: fashion doesn't trick anyone into changing their gender. The title of this piece is a ridiculous lie. Discovering one’s transness is a deeply personal and intimate journey, not a fickle wardrobe decision. Becker's claim not only trivializes the profound experiences of countless trans individuals, but it also borders on insulting.
Becker does not do the trans journey justice—not her own, nor anyone else’s. She spends approximately two paragraphs detailing how she went into a gender clinic at nineteen, was immediately started on T (a schedule III drug), and then six months later had received top surgery. I find this incredible.
Transitions are long and difficult. Every roadblock is put in your way—from prescription shortages to pharmacists’ refusals, from gender clinics shutting down to impossible insurance forms, getting and staying on testosterone has been an arduous process for me (in a blue state, mind you). Finding a surgeon willing to perform top or bottom surgery who is both accessible and affordable is even harder.
Becker uses her personal de-transition story to cast a shadow on the gender-affirming model of care overall. It's a dangerous move to generalize her experience to the entire community—one she is not a part of, might I add. It reeks of arrogance and ignorance. She is unable to imagine a trans person having better judgment than her own. Well, surprise Becker, we do, and we use it to create authentic lives in line with our true identities.
Like Jordan Peterson (whom Becker mentions), Becker cannot fathom that some people simply have epistemic privilege. In other words, if you’re not trans, you cannot Know what it’s like to be trans. We must accept other people’s experiences of their identity, even though they might be confusing. One’s confusion has no bearing on the reality of the thing itself.
Ignoring her own experiences with abuse, depression, and social anxiety, Becker points the finger at androgynous fashion as the cause of her early-twenties ego death. It's a pathetic avoidance of personal responsibility and a total failure to acknowledge how these experiences might have influenced her identity struggles.
Strangest of all is Becker’s careless lumping together of her Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis and gender identity issues. Being autistic and being trans are very obviously not the same, they are not causally linked, and conflating the two can only serve to create harmful stereotypes and misunderstanding. Trans people and autistics are two categories of Being that have no intrinsic relationship.
One of the most disturbing yet emblematic aspects of Becker's narrative is her casual use of the derogatory term “faggot.”
“I affectionately titled my five-person friend group “The Queer Stoners.” We were a configuration of 1 openly gay boy, 2 bisexual queer/questioning boys, 2 bisexual girls, and me—the straight girl who was somehow deemed the ‘faggiest’ [sic] of all. We had a lot of adventures as a motley crew escorted by my wacky self who everyone viewed as ‘gay’ or a ‘faggot’—a term of endearment.”
If it even needs to be stated, such language is deeply offensive and harmful. It undermines the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community in battling homophobia and hate speech, and its use in her article is inexcusable. If Becker were to argue she was merely reclaiming a slur that has been weaponized against her, I would respond that as a straight, cisgender woman, Becker has no right to reclaim faggot.
Further, Becker can’t seem to figure out who her enemy is. From vague references to evil entities like “[the] government” and “medicine,” to truly unbelievable scapegoats like the “brutal nihilistic body-modification cult,” Becker is as lost to the antagonist as the rest of us. She could not possibly engage with an interlocutor, as she has no idea who could possibly vouch for her lunatic, ‘dark-forces’ version of transness.
Becker’s obvious tension with ‘femaleness.’
Something that would be amiss to not mention is the bizarrely sexist ways that Becker talks about females. She claims on the one hand
“I don’t believe something like wearing a glittery necklace is an innately ‘female behavior’; it is cultural and we must contend with stereotypes while also enjoying them.”
Whilst also holding that
“…troubled girls in adolescence, even those who go through medicalization and trans identity, will likely end up growing into adulthood and making the most out of being female. For me, and many other women, this means valuing a loving relationship and having a family.”
Becker seriously believes that most detransitioners will become mothers. God, I wish she would have used a single citation.
Just, why?
Becker’s lack of insight into this topic is telling, and the picture of transness she paints must be pointed out for its falsities. Her ideas are not founded on logic or reason, but emotion. She wants us to believe that being trans is ‘cool,’ ‘hip,’ whatever. Being trans is so hard. But the longer that being a right-wing grifter is profitable, the more Lauras we’ll see cropping up around the place trying to convince us all that anti-trans violence is somehow justified.
To sum it up, Becker's narrative is an embarrassing oversimplification of her experience projected onto a diverse, strong, and multifaceted community. It's a poorly reasoned, harmful misrepresentation that we can't afford to let slide. Her story is hers alone, it doesn't define ours, and it certainly doesn't define mine.
— C.
Notes:
[1] The article is linked here:
CONTAINS: homophobia, transphobia, slurs, domestic violence
[*] Becker’s article was published by “Reality’s Last Stand,” a publication produced as ‘activism’ by the same people who created the pseudo-documentary “No Way Back.” Becker was featured in and produced music for “No Way Back” [2]. The website for “No Way Back” also includes such ‘activists’ as Abigail Shrier and her book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters [3]. Dr. Christopher Ferguson says of the book, “if [you] were hoping for a book that carefully hews to science, this is certainly not it and, in that respect, the negative reaction it has garnered in the trans community is entirely understandable” [4]. “Reality’s Last Stand” is also edited by Colin Wright, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute (MI) [5]. The MI is a conservative think tank devoted to swaying economic and public opinion towards the right. Becker creates this article with the background of massive amounts of secret (and legal) funding from right-wing politicians, billionaires, and so on. Becker’s writing is clearly involved in a much larger, more wealthy, more powerful propaganda machine. Her inclusion of Jordan Peterson (who is known for spreading the antisemitic conspiracy theory “cultural Marxism” [6]) as a person worthy of being admired should not be overlooked.
For sake of clarity and transparency, I am not funded nor supported by anyone, private or otherwise. This publication is written completely voluntarily by one person. I am not supported by any funding by the right-wing. If anything, I seek to abolish such groups.
[2] https://nowaybackfilm.com/ —“… featuring interviews with LAURA BECKER… original song by LAURA BECKER…”
[3] https://nowaybackfilm.com/activism/
[4] Psychology Today (01/21): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/checkpoints/202101/review-irreversible-damage-abigail-shrier
[5] https://manhattan.institute/scholars
[6] For references to Peterson citing “cultural Marxism,” see Burston’s article (02/20): https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-34921-9_7
For references to “cultural Marxism” being a far-right conspiracy theory, see Jay’s article (11/11): https://web.archive.org/web/20111124045123/http://cms.skidmore.edu/salmagundi/backissues/168-169/martin-jay-frankfurt-school-as-scapegoat.cfm
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