Instructor sees rise in transgender scapegoating

A Cal Poly Humboldt instructor sees a troubling trend in the number of pieces of legislation aimed at the transgender community.

Loren Cannon, who published “The Politicization of Trans Identity: An Analysis of Backlash, Scapegoating, and Dog-Whistling from Obergefell to Bostock” in 2020, said the trend is moving in a negative direction. Highlighted by North Carolina’s “bathroom bill,” which prohibited transgender people from using restroom facilities that did not correspond with their birth gender, more than 300 pieces of restrictive legislation aimed at transgender people were introduced in 2017.

“The number of bills in 2021 was even more than that,” Cannon said in an article posted on the Cal Poly Humboldt website.

The United States has a long history of discriminatory practices against people based on such criteria as race, ethnic background, gender, and sexual identity.

“I do not think the targeting of transgender people is an organic response,” Cannon said. “It has been organized by certain individuals. It’s almost like there was a creation of a national scapegoating. There are influencers who are in front of this and who are not losing any steam. There has been an avalanche of legislation and an avalanche of rhetoric.”

Cannon, who is transgender, came to Cal Poly Humboldt in 2006 and teaches Trans Lives and Theory in the Department of Critical Race, Gender & Sexuality Studies.

Philosophy, he added, is a good avenue for exploring scapegoating as well.

“Philosophy, as a discipline, is terribly misunderstood,” he said. “Too many people think philosophy is only about dead white men and is only studied by white men who are soon to be dead. This is not only false but erases so much of the excellent work in philosophy done by those that do not so identify. It is much more expansive than people seem to think it is.”

Philosophy can help explore the idea of what it means to be transgender and how society treats those who are transgender, Cannon said.

“I wanted to look at what is going on here and what tools I have as a philosopher to make sense of it.” he said. “My background is applied ethics. I see this as a moral topic. Some of the idea is to recognize what’s going on and to recognize that this has moral implications. These are real people and real families.”

Cannon notes the legislation aimed at the transgender com