Coming to the end of our first year running, we have a lot to reflect on over here at Health Liberation Now!. It’s been pretty much go-mode since we started. Yet there’s still so much further to go, and we’re having to shift from the mentality of the sprint to a marathon.
Our goal from the start has been to expand the conversation surrounding trans health and politics. Pulling from our past experiences with conversion practices in anti-trans detransitioned communities, we sought to provide trans and trans-supportive community organizers with the information and resources they needed to support each other and newly detransitioned people in the face of escalating assaults on our shared rights. We’ve certainly accomplished that, and then some! Following is just some of what we’ve done in 2021, as well as three key goals for the upcoming year.
Accomplishments in 2021
Since launching this February, we’ve navigated a range of projects. Some have had to go on pause after further reflection, some led to full publications, and some are ongoing. It’s been a bit of a bumpy road, sort of figuring things out as we go, but there’s so much that we’ve done regardless!
- Solidarity building with international trans activists, researchers, and journalists: Health Liberation Now! was partially born from solidarity building with trans activists and researchers in the UK in the midst of the initial Bell v Tavistock ruling. We are firm believers that liberation is a global struggle, particularly in a digital world where ideas and coordination can spread rapidly, as well as ever-expanding funding from the US Religious Right into different regions to target women, queer, and trans people. Throughout the year we’ve continued building relationships with people from various regions to understand and share knowledge on transmission of anti-trans theories and actions, global networking of organized transphobic groups, and structured attempts to undermine queer and trans liberation in health and public policy.
- Exploring community need for alternative peer-to-peer support spaces for trans, detrans, retrans, and questioning individuals: One of our first exploratory projects was assessing the need for new spaces that allowed trans, detrans, retrans, and questioning people to support each other in exploring their options in a compassionate, nonjudgmental way. A brief Twitter poll showed that people were most interested in a Discord server, and a preliminary survey identified ongoing interest and key areas of need. It became clear that there is indeed interest in inclusive, mutual support spaces that explore gender across a range of experiences. Furthermore, there are some shared needs that can and should be worked through within these inclusive spaces, while also holding effective and compassionate boundaries. While we weren’t able to follow through on constructing the space due to our own needs and limitations as survivors, one has since been built by two Redditors and posted in /r/actual_detrans. We’re not members ourselves, nor are we affiliated with the server, so we encourage those interested in joining to do your research to figure out if it is something that will help you. In the meanwhile, we are thrilled to see trans and detrans peers working to make their own resources that center solidarity and autonomy in the face of anti-trans organizing!
- Exposing the links between early radical feminist, anti-trans detrans organizing/writing and the current moral panic surrounding “[trans]gender ideology”: As our project grew, we used our first-hand knowledge from detrans radical feminist communities to expose its links to sites or publications that helped shape the moral panic surrounding trans health care, particularly for youth. This includes the networking behind 4thWaveNow, as well as the influences on the infamous articles from Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal. Later, we added intel on the origins of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC)’s Declaration into our second post on TAnon, as well as detrans radfem collaboration with Lisa Littman for her detransition study in our methodological critique. Read more about these below!
- Identifying the development of “TAnon” and the subsequent mapping and reporting of its impact: Research into the rapidly changing political climate highlighted a growing convergence between the far right (including QAnon), anti-abortion efforts, and anti-trans organizing. This led to the identification, subsequent mapping, and reporting on the still-developing phenomenon we call TAnon. To date, we have two posts in a series pertaining to the phenomenon. The first, “What is ‘TAnon’?”, is a primer that lays out its key characteristics, the threats it poses, and where it differs from “gender critical” activism in the UK. A second post, “Where It Came From”, is a detailed historical analysis demonstrating the origins of key concepts and the social context they developed in. Pulling from digital archives, online publications, and our own primary sources or investigative research, we identified three phases of escalation spanning from 2010 to now. We still have a lot more to cover, including what to watch for and strategies moving forward, so stay tuned!
- Tracking protest campaigns covering locations in the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Australia: Our research into TAnon showed a crucial form of escalation in anti-trans organizing, namely in the form of organized protests. Starting in December 2020 in the United States and branching outwards, we have recorded 22 protest campaigns outside of clinics and hospitals, businesses, courts, and various government bodies. We identified clear links between use of the Gender Mapper project and affiliated groups by protest organizers, polished coordination with ever-increasing shock tactics, conspiracies connected to Big Pharma and “globalism”, and willing collaboration by protest organizers with fascist cells or media. Just as with anti-abortion protests, we expect these to keep going, so we continue to monitor as we can and share research with trustworthy journalists covering the issue.
- Reporting on the formal collaboration between secular and religious “ex-trans” organizers to oppose trans health equity: As rightwing groups ramp up their legal blitz against trans health care, we investigated the recent collaborations between several prominent detransitioned activists, “ex-trans” ministers affiliated with Exodus and regional conversion practice groups, and the new evangelical law firm Child & Parental Rights Campaign (CPR-C). We uncovered how members of CPR-C have long-standing ties to Liberty Counsel, an explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ religious firm and ministry with connections to the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda, a child kidnapping scandal, and high ranking members of NARTH Institute and Council for National Policy. We detailed our findings in our landmark report “When Ex-Trans Worlds Collide”. The report highlights the intent to normalize conversion therapy for trans youth in the social and legal sphere by stoking a culture war, as well as the broader implications for trans and detrans people seeking care in the US and abroad.
- Publishing the first methodological criticism of the latest Littman study on detransition and released the study’s questionnaire in the name of open science: Just a month after its initial publication, we published a detailed critique of the study Individuals Treated for Gender Dysphoria with Medical and/or Surgical Transition Who Subsequently Detransitioned: A Survey of 100 Detransitioners by Lisa Littman. It revealed the biased sampling pools and leading questions that Littman relied on, how its close proximity to the original “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD) study calls the study’s intent into question, cherry-picking of data and citations that “prove” her theory while downplaying the parts that contradict it, and the historical context that the data emerged from. With the help of UK comrades, we then released a transcript of the survey used so others had the tools they needed for their own. This enabled science YouTubers, podcasts, and reputed trans clinicians to challenge disinformation surrounding ROGD and how it impacts care for trans youth.
Thanks to all of this, plus each of our own independent work, our research or experiences have been featured in numerous publications such as Slate, The Advocate, Jewish Currents, Left Coast Right Watch, Dame Magazine, The New Inquiry, and Transfeminismo in Brazil (publicação em portugues).
Goals Moving Forward
With all that in mind, we have some important goals for 2022 to keep Health Liberation Now! sustainable long-term!
Goal 1: Strengthen project infrastructure.
We can’t keep going if we don’t set our house in order. A priority goal moving forward is to strengthen our project infrastructure to support long-term sustainability. Some of these pieces include:
- Collect resources and build internal supports for project members. Researching anti-trans efforts is exhausting work, and the chance of burnout is high. Part of caring for others is caring for ourselves and each other. We aim to build support structures for project members to practice self- and collective care, as well as the flexibility of doing what you can, when you can, and taking time when needed.
- Exploring financial stability and options for incorporation that are in line with our values. This allows us to cover overhead costs, compensation for guest writers, and resources necessary for self- and collective care.
- Improve project balance. We hope to increase collaboration with other activists and researchers to build effective resources, incorporate stories of hope and opportunities for the future of health liberation, and promote organized resistance instead of pervasive feelings of hopelessness.
- Expand on our current resistance strategies. This includes developing or hosting practical responses to organized transphobia that people can build from, expanding and refining our Additional Resources page, and re-evaluating our Can You Hear Us? project for impact.
These steps will allow us to expand capacity, continue reporting on the political threats to health liberation, expand the resources we can provide to organizers in the US, and build up to providing more direct supports for people in need or referrals to regional resources.
Goal 2: Streamline data collection and organization for effective reporting.
Creating an organizing system for the data we collect is crucial to reporting, both by ourselves and researchers or journalists we network with. We’re going to be putting more time into streamlining our data collection and notations this year, which will make it easier for writing later. That said, we can’t write about everything, so we’ll also need to focus on how to effectively share what we know to journalists interested in covering topics that we haven’t published on yet. This is part of a key question that we continue to explore: how can we improve our own ability to report on issues while maintaining personal and collective well-being and decreasing the rates of burnout? We don’t have the answer yet but look forward to figuring it out!
Goal 3: Strengthen community relationships with like-minded projects and organizers on a national and international level.
Solidarity building is a crucial element for collective resistance, and we are looking to expand on the networking we’ve been doing. Networking with US-based activists, researchers, and organizers has been limited, so in 2022 we’re going to put a more concentrated effort into national outreach while still maintaining our momentum with international collaboration. In doing so, we’re constantly on the lookout for opportunities for collaboration or resource sharing. We also aim to expand our internal resource list for community members in need, as we predict that those needs will become more urgent as anti-trans efforts escalate.
Looking back at everything, it’s hard to believe that we’ve come this far in such a short amount of time! All of this couldn’t have happened without the constant support, guidance, and love from our comrades. We feel truly blessed to be in community with you and to offer what we can to the collective resistance against organized transphobia. Moving forward, there may be quiet periods as we work towards these goals, but we are committed to making Health Liberation Now! a dependable resource for years to come. Here’s to another year; looking forward to seeing you out there!