In fact, liberals do not even substantially disagree with the core of Trump’s policies. After all, both right-wing and liberal elites are loyal servants of empire, the latter just give it a veneer of humanitarianism. Source: https://lemmy.ml/post/36896947
Authenticity does not have to be subversive. Source: A Sophie Labele's cartoon, showing a girl with a very plain outfit doing embroidery.
And this is why the cultural normalization of Transness is important.
Being trans is something to be normalized as part of a deep cultural change. How deep? As deep as traditional third-genders or other genders are part of the tradition and religion of other cultures such as Africa and India.
Trans politics in the Western world right now are strictly informed by the idea that being trans is subversive. Or it should be subversive and it ought to be subversive in order to be worthy of solidarity. The element of subversion is present in the contrary belief also: that Transness genuinely is so subversive as to endanger Western civilization as a whole.
To understand how political groups focus on Transness and understand Transness, Transness should be studied beyond its personal, legal, and medical meanings. It should be studied as an icon and as a symbol, just like advertisers and marketers are extremely aware of the meanings and connotations symbols have. So what are the meanings that Transness, the cultural symbol, carries? What would an advertiser who would use Transness as a symbol would want to convey? Youthfulness? Self-care? Strength?
As a symbol of eccentricity, it is the exemplar of personal freedom of expression, for liberals. But this does not account for cultural systems where being trans is traditional. As a symbol of christian defiance, most celebrated by atheists, it does not account for cultures where Transness has religious connotations.
As a rhetorical device, trans acceptance is tooted as the absolutism of authenticity, acceptance and secularity. It is on this account that it is exploitable as a veneer of humanitarianism. Should transness be part of our normal, conservative, religious life, it would have not these meanings. By not bearing these connotations it would be useless to Democrats, to signal acceptance and inclusion. It would be equally useless to Fascists, who decry excess, and fearmonger about Transness being the bearer of civilizational collapse. It would be useless to Left-wing intellectuals as well, who make careers out of pointing out that the "veneer of humanitarianism" is not true revolution, and thus legitimize alt-right trolls in left-wing spaces, who try to scapegoat trans people as unworthy of solidarity.
Being trans is a normal variation of human ~~sex~~ development. This is the core idea that makes christian nationalists, TERFs, racists, and nazis seethe. It is an idea they are willing to extinguish. They are ready to kill in order to suppress this idea. It is therefore an idea worth having. But what it really means is not that it is eccentric, outlandish, secular, excessive and modern (which can be very good things in and of themselves under certain circumstances). But boring, commonplace, transcedental, modest, and old-fashioned.
This is the true shift we owe to make culturally with regard to Transness. And one that is to be pursued particularly by the Left, whose occasional tendency to certify subversion in order to release solidarity, can be the seed of its eventual moral default.