On trans issues, resist the haters on both sides.

Donald Trump’s victorious White House campaign exploited transphobic myths, fears and prejudices. His advertisement targeting trans athletes in women’s sports, gender-affirming health care, and new use of pronouns.

So anyone who challenges this practice is transphobic, right?

Wrong. All of these questions are – or should be – open to debate. And if you consider people who raise questions about them to be bigots, you are entering into a form of bigotry yourself.

Let’s be clear: transphobia is real, and some people are so sinister, discriminatory, and misleading in their statements on this topic that it’s fair to call them transphobic.

I’m looking at you, Donald Trump. During the election campaign he repeatedly stated that schools sent children for gender reassignment surgery without parental consent. “There are times when your boy goes to school and comes back as a girl.” he said in October.

This is a lie, and a hateful lie at that. Eat no copy – not a single one – children operated on in schools. And even in states where gender confirmation surgeries are legal for patients under 18, they cannot be performed without parental consent. Other types of care for transgender minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. parental consent requiredtoo much.

Trump, of course, knows all this. The only reason to spread these lies is to incite hatred against transgender people and their advocates.

But it hardly follows that anyone who questions medical intervention for transgender children is also a hater. In the most comprehensive scientific review of puberty-blocking drugs and other hormones, British pediatrician Hilary Cass concluded that the evidence for their beneficial effects on children’s mental health and well-being:surprisingly weak“

Of course, some critics argue that there are flaws in Kass’s own analysis. This is to be expected. The science on this topic is still in its infancy and there is a lot we don’t know.

It’s the same with the research on trans athletes, which doesn’t yet provide clear answers. A recent study A study funded by the International Olympic Committee found that trans women athletes have a stronger hand grip—a common measure of overall muscle strength—than their peers who were assigned female at birth.

But in the same study, transwomen athletes who received at least a year of testosterone-suppressing treatment had lower lung function, jumping ability and cardiovascular fitness than cisgender female participants.

In short: these questions are complex. This is why we must resist complete bans on gender-affirming care for minors and further trans athletes competing on women’s teams. At last count, each practice was banned in half of the US states.

But that’s why we need to keep an open mind about these questions and refrain from demonizing people who answer them differently than we do. We will never learn about this topic again unless we are refused to discuss it.

And especially on our university campuses, this is exactly what is happening. At the University of Pennsylvania, where I teach, students who doubt Trans women’s swimming champion Leah Thomas should have been allowed to participate in the women’s team, told me that they would not share this point of view with others. The risk of being saddled with the T-word—transphobe—is simply too great.

Not to mention, some trans athletes themselves question whether they should be compared to cisgender women. “I only want to win if I know it’s fair,” trans long-distance runner Andy Taylor said in 2021, fearing that her years as a man might give her the wrong leg.

What about the controversial issue of pronouns? Here, too, Trump’s campaign ads used unfounded barbs: “Kamala for them/them; President Trump for you— to stigmatize transgender people.

But that doesn’t mean we should require everyone to state their “preferred pronouns” or that people who reject this ritual are bigots. I don’t ask my students to say their pronouns because I think it’s intrusive. If you want me to call you by a certain pronoun, I tell them: just message me and I will do it. (And since I’m the professor, the rest of the class will follow my lead.)

I may be wrong in my approach, and I’m happy to entertain its critics. This is how we learn.

But if they call me transphobic, no one will learn anything. There’s enough hate out there already. We don’t need to add anything to it, all in the guise of resisting it.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Whose America? Culture Wars in Public Schools” and eight other books.

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