"Transphobic dogwhistle"

[SoftlySoftly123]

I've been watching the TRA/GC debate for a couple of years now and have noticed that recently a new term has entered frequent usage when dismissing GC concerns: "transphobic dogwhistle". I find it infuriating! It seems to be used any time someone expresses a specific concern (e.g. transwomen prisoners assaulting fellow inmates) that others have also expressed. The implication I guess is of bigots repeating other bigots / "signalling" themselves to each other... rather than multiple people pointing out the same thing perhaps being a sign of genuine concerns?

It seems the conversations go like this: a GC commenter is asked what specific rights they fear women could lose if self-ID comes about. They mention specific things, but those are dismissed because they are "dogwhistles".

Can we pick apart where this term originated and how to challenge it when it is used?

Yep, my libfem American friends have started using that a lot. Even mentioning an issue that follows straight from female biology can be a transphobic dogwhistle now.

It's one of those terms they use because other people use it and they think it gives them some credibility. I don't think they actually understand the term. It is from the same family as the false news/statistics about life expectancy, murder rates, suicide rates etc etc which get passed around in an echo chamber to the point that people actually accept it all as the complete truth.

It emerged to describe the Southern Strategy in US politics.

Transcript:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, "N, n, n" By 1968, you can't say "n" – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now, you're talking about cutting taxes. And all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me – because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N, n." ~ Lee Atwater, 1981

As Douglas Murray says, they go on about dog whistles, forgetting that if they can hear it, that makes them the dogs.

I think this point you made in your OP bears repeating "multiple people pointing out the same thing perhaps being a sign of genuine concerns". It's a very good retort to the dogwhistle accusation.
And, dogwhistle, who are the dogs in that scenario?

I think it has two aims. Dogwhistle politics is the sending of coded messages embedded in otherwise unremarkable discourse. So words, phrases, images or gestures which are meaningful to a particular set of people.

The term is often used when talking about racism or white supremacism or class.

So one effect of using it in the sense of hidden transphobia, is to create implied links between gender critical discourse and racism, white supremacism and fascism. There’s been a recent push to characterise radical feminism as white supremacism and gender critical thinkers as the plague carriers of a new colonialism.

The other effect, more generally, is to allow pretty much anything to be characterised as transphobia.

Your dog puts her head up because she heard a sound you couldn’t.

A TRA will say, “that’s transphobia!” “That’s not how I heard it”, the rest of us say. “Well, I can tell because I know these things”, and we accept that we just missed the reference or didn’t understand the code.

“Transphobic”, we nod and soon enough anyone speaking outside the approved script is deemed transphobic.

We must push back against the policing of language in the service of a powerful minority.

It is exceedingly obvious to me that the people who use it are actually close minded and not very bright. It makes them feel like they don’t need to keep reading, keep updating the constructs that shape their belief that they are right.

It is just like calling people terfs. It just shuts down any thought that might challenge.

It's like when people used to say "causation is not correlation!!1!" all the time. They think it makes them sound intelligent, when really, they haven't got a clue.

Considering the actual numbers of transsexuals there are in the planet as a % if the population - why this, why now?

Just like I cringe every time I see the word ‘literally’ used (or misused).

@SerenityNowwwww

Considering the actual numbers of transsexuals there are in the planet as a % if the population - why this, why now?

Money.

thefederalist.com/2018/02/20/rich-white-men-institutionalizing-transgender-ideology/

I really don't care about being called transphobic. It's a phenomenally stupid word and is now best just laughed at.

Apparently talking about freedom of speech is an alt-right dog whistle now...

It may have been a useful term at one point but like so much else it's become a stick to beat people with, an excuse to ignore what's being said, and to dismiss what's being said as "not in good faith".

YgritteSnow - yes. It was a rhetorical question! It’s always men...

Just another excuse to call us all dawgs...

Agree that people are now using "dog whistle" either without understanding what it means, or deliberately expanding the term to shut down debate . The point of a dog whistle is that it is a deliberate signal to a particular group, without others noticing the implication (e.g. to anti-semites "New York culture" might be used to signal "Jews").

The trouble is, it's not easy to distinguish between a dog whistle and just a different representation or framing of a debate. One person's "transphobia" is another person's "gender critical feminism". It's a shoddy tactic to just claim that anything you disagree with is a dog whistle.

What is the phrase? Thought-stopping cliche?

I think this point you made in your OP bears repeating "multiple people pointing out the same thing perhaps being a sign of genuine concerns".

I think this is something that is used against women all the time in all sorts of contexts. For example, if one woman accuses a man of some sort of sexual misconduct, people will say she's lying because no one else has complained. If lots of women accuse the same man of some sort of sexual misconduct, they'll be accused of jumping on the bandwagon and looking for attention. So one way or another, it is framed that they are always wrong. It's so unbelievably frustrating.

People who use the dog whistle phrase tend to also be fond of “gaslighting” - a more recent US import.

It’s everywhere in the Guardian, always assuming you’re in on its meaning.

I finally understood what it meant by telling myself that the Guardian was gaslighting me every time it used the phrase.

I prefer whistleblower. It’s more correct in their cases I suppose...

I think that the ‘dog whistle’ thing is a way of stupid people trying to make themselves look clever. They think they can see/hear something that the rest of us fools can’t. That long rambling response to the JKR letter that keeps popping up on Twitter is a good example of this.

Also, it’s a way of TRA’s accusing people of transphobia that doesn’t actually exist. This means they can talk about trans people being viciously attacked all the time (‘you’re literally killing us!’) when they’re actually not; which allows them to garner sympathy from gullible people and justify the awful attacks on women who speak out against their ideology.

I think all these phrases are a signal to their own 'people' as much as anything else.

If there's a more considered purpose I would say it's to take over the wheel, so to speak. It can throw you off your stride, so that you abandon whatever point you're making in order to defend yourself, which means you're now arguing on their terms and they've got control of the discussion.

As a pp said it’s so that when someone is confused and says e.g. ‘what JK Rowling said seems fine to me, why is she getting so much abuse?’ They can reply ‘oh it might look fine but actually it’s full of transphobic dog whistles that you don’t understand so you need me, who does understand, to tell you it’s not fine.’

It’s because they can’t actually debate with what is being said, so they have to problematise it some other way.

Dog whistles are a thing though, in other areas. I think what is needed is ‘ok, which bits of what JKR said are dog whistles and why, so that I can spot them for myself next time?’