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I've written an article in which I discuss a somewhat common idea regarding the idea of trans people "existing" [1]. Some trans rights activists (TRAs) refer to denying the statement "transwomen are women" as denying the existence of trans people. Another manifestation of this is when people argue that denying that transwomen are women is threatening to transwomen's existence. The same applies to transmen of course. I argue that these arguments rely on ambiguity in language about "existence." Denying the existence of transwomen seems very silly because that is an unusual way to describe rejecting that a transwoman actually is a woman. Phrasing this as a threat to existence evokes thoughts of genocide. I think this is another case of language being used in an unusual way that is misleading, although perhaps not intentionally. This description of "anti-trans" attitudes should be avoided as it is not accurate and morally charged in a misleading way.
[1] https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/do-transgender-people-exist
I always do a double take at the idea of a population that is (largely) voluntarily sterile could be subject to "genocide," since that term literally invokes the idea of a genetic lineage. Can we blame New Atheism for the "genocide" of the last remnants of the Shaker community, who practice celibacy and rely on conversions from outside the community? There are, last I checked, exactly two living Shakers, down from thousands at their cultural peak.
To be clear, I'm not attempting to lessen any of the usual definitions of genocide, but I think trying to wield the weaker definitions as a rhetorical weapon cheapens actual violence against actually-vulnerable groups.
Doesn't this prove too much? Attempting to destroy gay or lesbian communities seems bad in the same way; aren't they also "(largely) voluntarily sterile"?
If anything, that's what I'm trying to point out with the example of the Shakers: they are voluntarily sterile (celibate), and they really are almost certainly going to disappear completely within my lifetime, but I don't know that this fact makes a good argument against anti-Shaker (or more broadly, anti-Chrisitian or anti-Theist) communities as "committing genocide." I don't really agree with New Atheism, but I think (excluding acts of actual violence) it can't fairly be called "genocide" either.
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