My friend Jade Careaga was discovered incapacitated in the middle of the street in Seattle later on December 16, 2020. As a transgender woman of color involved in sexual work, Jade has developed and refined her wit, charisma, and wisdom beyond her years. She had plans to meet with a customer that evening so they could go out on time. The male pursued her because he knew she was transgender. The meeting was canceled after the man stumbled into her porch while parking. He attacked her rather than compensating her for the harm. Careaga’s night featured abuse, violence, and narrowly escaping a near-death experience, just like far too many media stories about trans women that we read. I’m very appreciative that she survived and is now a champion for various sexual assault survivors.
This is an illustration of the “desire to violence” network, as I like to refer to it. Most people are left with just representations of us, with thousands of them being sexual, in a world where just about four out of ten Americans individually know someone who is trans. This is coupled with a political system where seats are frequently used to sway our rights to care and existence. As a result, transgender people are all too frequently constrained to being viewed as sex objects rather than as individuals deserving of dating, falling in love, getting married, or starting families.
Watch More: House of Tulip: A Brief Documentary on American Transgender Dangers
It has been well established that the likelihood of trans people committing a violent crime is four times higher than that of transgender people. Even more crucial is the fact that stigmatization is frequently committed by a current or potential romantic partner. People drawn to trans people are responsible for some of the most deadly and violent attacks on transgender people, according to a Human Rights Campaign statement from 2020. The likelihood of transgender individuals experiencing any kind of intimate partner violence is 1.7 times higher than that of transgender people. Since 2013, an romantic partner has killed 29 % of transgender people.
Although alarming, these numbers are hardly shocking. When people talk about being ingrained in society, or transmisia—a modern term to describe discrimination against trans people—they usually concentrate on our legitimate, care, and legal systems. However, images produced by the media, films, and specifically the adult entertainment market were influencing what it means to deeply connect to transgender women long before trans people were used as a political speaking stage.
The second-highest trafficked sexual content site in the world, Porn Hub, reported an increase in trans porn searches of 75 % at the end of 2022. Google Analytics also showed that the rise in trans-related porn search terms like” tranny” and” shemale” was largely caused by American users in the states with the most repressive legal threats against trans people. But keep in mind that these words are disparaging and are typically regarded as insults or pejoratives.
While watching video can be a sincere investigation in which people learn something significant about their sexuality, it is frequently used to express one’s personal desires for transgender people. Unfortunately, for many consumers, secrecy combined with a culture that is largely anti-transphobic instills shame. Male transgender people frequently worry that their involvement in trans women will cast doubt on their masculinity and sexuality. In other words, they worry that being drawn to us “makes them homosexual” and that, in their eyes, being gay does not make one a “real” person.
Violence results from lost wish as well as shame. In my private life, ex-partners have sold and leaked my personal photos to other people without my permission either soon after I broke up with them or when they were afraid the relationship would end. People who I trusted, believed to love and respect me, and who were both trans, chose to offend my body and privacy for financial gain. People are taught by society that dating trans women is an assault on their masculinity. They feel emasculated, disempowered, and ashamed by dating us while also feeling loved, desired, nurtured, or cared for by us. They “loved” us until they were unable to have us, at which point they mistreated us. 15 % of lesbian, gay, or bisexual people have been threatened by someone who was going to share intimate photos of them, despite the fact that only 4 % of the general population has been the victim of revenge porn. For transgender persons, the figures are probably higher.
A desire that is unfulfilled, shrouded in shame, or repaid but then lost is frequently result in cruelty. It is based on transgender misogyny, which is the false belief that “male” and “female,” in addition to being mutually exclusive and set linear types, are superior to womanhood for transgender ladies like me. While it’s no solution that the U.S. has a history of issues with oversexualizing the female body, whether those issues are related to stringent school dress codes, breastfeeding debates, the public humiliation of athletes and celebrities who revel in their pride by baring their chests or the demonization of female activists who have taken off their tops and bras in protest, sexism has always been most pronounced among those with crossing excluded identities.
Because of this, it is much more difficult to deal with and undo the over-sexualization of transgender people, which ranges from exaggerated tales about our health moves to labeling us “groomers” and “pedophiles” for advocating for laws that will maintain trans kids dead to policing our bodies. Perhaps previously reliable sources continue to obsess over our bodies and moves and suggest that radical cis- eliminationists ‘ views are balanced, mainstream, and important to consider, despite the fact that targeted right-wing and religious advertising campaigns are openly hostile and portray trans people as animals.
These behaviors are the result of implicit teaching that someone who is seen as different from the majority is “bad” or a” threat,” and as such, when sexualized, they are viewed as “fetish” s or something to be kept secret. We are taught to be seen as a theoretical construct—or, worse yet, as democratic football—by others. Politicians dehumanize us in particular so they can explain robbing us of our rights more readily by telling their constituents that they are defending them from a common foe and thus deserving of their support. The federal conversation on trans people suggests that we are “mentally ill,” “monsters,” or “people to pity.” We are instantly viewed as attractive, “exotic,” and sexually appealing “deviants.” When combined, we are viewed as “dangerous” to everyone—god, community, and nation.
A home departs in search of a better future as Texas target children.
I’ve been continuously exposed to the desire-to-cruelty pipeline for years, especially on social media, where I frequently see images and videos of people using violence against me. Contrary to popular belief, people have shamed me for having a massive breasts and shapes and celebrating my physical experience as woman while also accusing me of “man lying about being person.”
The over-sexualization of transgender girls must stop, and there are many ways to do so. First, even though trans picture has advanced significantly, the earth deserves more tales from trans people about trans individuals. This includes tales of transgender people leading standard lives, developing loving relationships, and engaging in both extraordinary and mundane activities—not jokes, villains from the past, or simply coming-of-age and emerging stories.
Trans people will continue to be forced to engage in sex function as a means of subsistence until the world in which they no longer experience higher rights of financial tyranny in the form of unemployment, poverty, and being unhoused. At least 20 % of transgender Americans, including myself, have engaged in sexual activity, and 72 % of these individuals have experienced sexual assault and violence. When this crime is reported, the sex worker is frequently detained rather than the violent culprit. Decriminalization is the first step in ensuring that sex workers ‘ human rights are protected, and it’s crucial to see a movement toward social trans pornography that is made in accordance with the law, respects trans performers and pays trans actors and filmmakers pretty for their work.
Not to mention that people, including children, deserves to have access to comprehensive sexual health and safety training that is age-appropriate, medically appropriate, and free of shame or judgment. This covers maternity prevention and healthy sexual options. It has been demonstrated that physical education has a positive effect on young people’s lives and lowers rates of teenage pregnancy, sexual activity, and sexual risk behaviors.
Society needs to develop good relationships with and treatment of transgender women. Trans women should be accorded value, decency, kindness, patience, and understanding. Because everyone, including myself, has internalized fear, trust, and the vilification of trans people, we all have a duty to analyze and learn what community has taught us about relationships, gender, or sexuality. All of us are working to comprehend and eventually learn this cultural conditioning. Because we could just start dismantling the network of desire to cruelty together.
