Rich people want you to focus on people who can’t defend themselves well, so you’re looking away while the rich people are stealing money from you.

Dave wants to wear a dress to school. Donald doesn’t like it because he thinks only girls should wear dresses. Dave says he’s a girl, too. Dave says she wants to be called Samantha. Other girls are perfectly happy with Samantha wearing a dress and playing with them, until Samantha chooses a doll which Marjorie wanted to play with. Angry that she can’t play with her doll, Marjorie tells Donald Samantha is bad. Donald says; “See? I told you it was bad!” Meanwhile Kevin stole the doll Jocelyn was playing with and started kicking it around the schoolyard, breaking it as he does. Donald says “Dave caused that!” And half the other boys agree with him. Now Samantha gets sent home from school by the teacher for fighting with Donald, while Samantha had done nothing but wear a dress and play with dolls. Neither Dave in boy clothes, nor Samantha in girl clothes show up at school the next day. Donald keeps shouting that kids like Dave are the problem. Marjorie agrees with him. Kevin destroys another doll, but they’re fine with that because he’s not wearing a dress.

Homophobes lost the culture war around gay folks so now they’ve moved on to the next group they can abuse.

A lot of people don’t personally know any trans people. A lot of right wing media says that trans people are bad and that they want to make a lot of changes to society that might effect you too. So it’s easy to hate people when you don’t actually know them, and your “news” is telling you that they are bad.

Fascism cannot function without scapegoats, and trans people are the smallest minority group. Once they normalize persecuting the smallest group, they move up to the next group which is slightly larger than the previous. It’s the Nazi playbook.

It looks like autistic people are next, based on RFK’s bullshit.

The problem with trying to explain it is that bigotted hatred isn’t logical. Try to get any actual bigot to explain it and you’ll get many (often contradictory) reasons.

The reality is both more boring and more sinister than what you probably expect if you’re looking for sensible reasons.

People who hate are easier to control. The powers that be choose a minority that can be bullied without consequences, create bullshit reasons for it, and encourage people to be afraid of and hateful to that minority. Those fearful and hateful people raised kids to be fearful and hateful. Those kids grew up to make their own fearful and hateful offspring. Some of these kids grew up to join the ranks of the powers that be, and brought their fear and hate to the decision making process. Combine this with the systematic destruction of public education, and you have current events in the us.

There is no valid reason to dislike trans people. There is no valid reason to care if someone is trans. There is no valid reason to treat trans people differently.

You can substitute any color, religion, and culture for the word trans too.

Envy.

Rowling is upset that she’s had to endure a lifetime of misogyny, and envious of men. When she sees trans women, she assumes they have it better than her because they got to be male, and gets mad at them for not enjoying having what she wants.

Steven Crowder isn’t trans, but he does have a crossdressing fetish, and he’s mad trans women get to do his fetish all day long. He wants that, but he can’t have it because he’d eventually feel dysphoric.

Andrew Tate is furious that nobody thinks he’s pretty. He has to traffick women in order to get them to have sex with him. He wishes he had the attention that women get, and he’s mad that trans women are “males” who get to be pretty. He doesn’t want to be a woman, but he wants someone to find him attractive.

Donald Trump just wants to be the center of attention. He doesn’t hate trans people, but he knows attacking them gets him attention. He wants to be in the news.

Because they are such a tiny AND unprotected minority, they are fairly easy targets for othering / discrimination.

[ I am not condoning, just informing ]

Alright, literal 5 year old, I’ll give it a shot. Fair warning, most kids get these lessons in pieces over time, because attention spans. I don’t know what your metaphorical 5 year old has learned so far though, so, sorry for the wall of text, but I think we have to start from the beginning:

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Well, kid, you know how your parents always tell you that it’s what’s on the inside that counts? And that you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up? And that it’s fun to do things different sometimes?

And you know how some children are boys, and some children are girls?

Well, in very special cases, when a baby is born… sometimes we only think they’re a boy. They might even look like a boy.

But later, when that baby grows up, and learns how to talk, and tells us how they feel… it turns out that “boy” was really a girl on the inside all along!

And sometimes we think they’re a girl, but they were really a boy on the inside all along!

And sometimes they don’t really feel like a boy or a girl on the inside! Just remember that it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Whatever they look like on the outside, it’s what they feel like that matters most.

Sometimes, when we call someone a boy, but they don’t feel like a boy, that can upset them. If you know it makes them upset, then it’s not nice to do that. It’s not nice to call them names they don’t like, even if you think you’re right.

Well, there aren’t a lot of children like that. They’re very rare. Most boys feel like boys on the inside, and most girls feel like girls, and they grow up to be what we always thought they were. That’s great for them!

But because they’re so rare, most people have never met a special kid like that. Most people have never seen a child grow up to surprise everybody like that. And sometimes… sometimes adults don’t like surprises.

You know how sometimes you’re afraid of the dark? And sometimes you think there’s a monster hiding in the closet? But you come find us, and we turn on the lights, and we check your closet together, and we show you there’s nothing to be afraid of?

Well, adults can be scared too. They can be scared by what they don’t understand. Sometimes, when they get surprised and confused, they see monsters where there aren’t any, and that upsets them. And they get upset at those children, even though the child did nothing wrong.

That doesn’t always make them bad people! Sometimes they never learn, but sometimes it just takes time for that poor kid to turn on the lights and help them see there’s nothing to be scared of.

But sometimes, there are mean people who play tricks on those adults. They make scary noises and trick those adults into really believing in the monsters. They make those adults think that it’s what’s on the outside that counts, and that those special kids are like the monsters in the dark. But that’s not nice.

It’s not nice to scare people… but not everyone is nice all the time. Sometimes people are mean. Sometimes people like to lie, and cheat, and steal, and that’s not nice. We don’t do those things, because we don’t like it when people do those things to us.

You know the boy who cried wolf?

Sometimes, those mean people make those scary noises and pretend the monsters are real, and they cry wolf, even when there are no wolves… and it works. Those confused, scared adults come running, because they don’t know any better.

The story hasn’t ended yet, and they don’t know that there is no wolf, and so they keep running to chase it away, because they don’t know it’s all a trick by those mean people.

They can’t see what’s on the inside, and so they think those boys and girls are the ones being tricked, and they get angry and scared and they do all the wrong things because they think they’re the ones who are right.

It’s messy, and confusing, because sometimes things are messy and confusing.

But what you need to know, more than anything, is that it’s what’s on the inside that counts. There is no wolf to be afraid of when people are different or surprising. We can’t see what’s on the inside, so the best we can do is listen when someone tries to tell us how they feel, and do our best to be kind, and make them feel happy.

Look at Umberto Eco’s properties of fascism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism

There’s 14 properties. The fight against trans people falls into 8-10 different properties.

Trans people are a strawman for modern fascism. Just like immigrants.

It’s the ‘ick’ factor, plain and simple. The “culture war” is all about giving idiots a group of people to hate so you can win their votes by oppressing that group. Most of the world is cis, and most cis people never spend a second of their lives thinking about how their experience isn’t universal. So when they see a trans person just living their lives, they’re more apt to be judgmental than curious: “Obviously, if that person’s lived experience is different from mine, there’s something wrong with them.”

Trans people are easy to scapegoat because they’re a minority and their very existence challenges the narrow worldview that most cis people possess. They’re a godsend for evil people looking to oppress people for power.

Hate is learned.

A literal five-year old?

Well, you might be right. Some people hate others just because they’re different.

Also, there are some bad people who want to make others hate trans people. Those bad people will make up lies that make trans people look bad. They’ll tell stories that are lies, and make videos talking about those lies. And many people believe the lies, and start to hate trans people.

Trans people are an easy target because there are not many trans people. Well, there are many! But not as many as there are black people, for example. In fact, black people experienced similar hate and lies targetted towards them in the past. They still do today. Before, it was much worse. Thankfully, Black people grouped together to fight for their rights. They also had many allies help them in those fights. Trans people are doing the same now. That’s why we need to ignore the lies, and be allies to Trans people.

Now, why did the bad people who spread the lies choose to lie about Trans people, and not some other group? It might be for three big reasons.

1. Trans people cannot stop being Trans, and there will always be Trans people. This means the bad people will always be able to spread their lies.
2. Trans people have a lot of things in their lives (like medical procedures) that are different and surprising to people who aren’t trans. Things that are different and surprising can be scary to anybody sometimes.
3. Trans people have started fighting for their rights, and some bad people don’t want to give rights to people who are different from themselves.

I know that’s a lot to take in. What are your thoughts about it?

Transphobia is not like other bigotries.

To get past anti-black bigotry, one can sympathize with what it’s like to be disrespected or judged unfairly. To get past anti-homosexual bigotry one can sympathize with what it’s like to have a sexuality that you didn’t choose. In these examples, you have to reexamine how you think of other people.

But for a cis person to get past transphobia, you have to reexamine your ideals about sex and gender; you have to change how you think of yourself. This is threatening to identity and ego. If you add in the rigid and strict gender norms of reactionary thinking, it’s threatening to the order of all things; a rebellion against God and country.