Transphobic Fears and Callous Desires

An Account of Polarised Rhetoric Against Gender Affirming Education

Bibliographic Data

ID24229834
AuthorsJames Thomas (0000-0003-4805-4190, York University)
Year2026
Pages1-19
Publication date2026-05-29
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAustralian Feminist Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1321-7568 • E-ISSN: 1465-3303
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/08164649.2026.2680110
OpenAlexW7162763439
LanguageEN
References cited39

In 2023, a group of those opposed to gender-affirming education participated in a letter writing and petitioning campaign opposing gender-affirming education in New Brunswick, Canada. This paper analyzes the polarising rhetorics mobilised by emailers and petitioners of this campaign, with a focus on how language, operating as a symptom of anxieties and fears, can be instrumentalised to do violence. While all social realities are psychosocially mediated through discourse, I consider how the polarising rhetorics of the far-right are marked by psychic defenses that prevent dialogical engagement and thinking together across difference. My conclusion advocates for strategic disengagement from backlash discourses that deploy such rhetoric. I underscore the interpretive and dialogical qualities of storytelling on which we must insist, such that interlocutors can meet in reciprocated humility, curiosity, and compassion.

Backlash · dialogic interaction · far-right discourse · language and violence · New Brunswick · petition campaigns · psychic defenses · Storytelling · Transphobia · Gender and Feminist Studies · Gender, Sexuality, and Education · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy

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