Language is often weaponized against trans people. Does the word 'transphobia' capture this...

The Washington Legislature has passed a bill protecting young transgender people from the reach of anti-trans health care laws in other states. Kentucky, Florida, and Texas are some of the states that have banned gender-affirming health care for minors. Other states have passed laws about bathrooms students can use, sports teams they can join, and how they can discuss gender and sexuality.

These sentiments are commonly described as “transphobic.” Some people use transphobic to describe both a culture, and individual people. One of them is Jaelynn Scott, a black transgender woman who leads Seattle’s Lavender Rights Project. The group advocates for Black and Indigenous gender-diverse people.

Scott says she has no problem saying that individual people are phobic about her, for overlapping reasons.

“You have the fear that goes along with the power of Black women and their association of anger with us,” she says. “You have Black identity in general and the guilt associated with the experience of Black people in this country, from people who are not Black. Then you have trans identity. The wish to erase us as a people is deeply rooted in fear. We threaten everything they have understood to exist, about identity and gender identity.”