A victory for civil dialogue: American Public Square postposes their panel, “Exploring Gender and Identities”
American Public Square (APS) was planning to hold a panel discussion of trans rights. Today, I am glad to see that the event was postponed. While I am glad that it has been postponed, I will be happier when it has been canceled. It was a bad panel and the timing couldn’t be worse, immersed as we are in a moral panic about trans people.
A bad panel: three people against trans rights to 2 in favor. The panelists were not representative of the legislators in Missouri and Kansas making these restrictive laws. These legislators are typically religiously conservative men. In addition, all three of the anti-trans speakers have national profiles while the panelists in support are local people. This is stacking the deck against trans people in a subtle way. Weirdly, the anti-trans panelists were all sexual minorities criticizing other sexual minorities. This feels like the oppressor technique of getting minorities to fight each other instead of focusing on their common gripe against the majority.
Bad timing. If you want to get people who are being targeted by a moral panic in a public forum, you need to do a lot more preparation ahead of time. You need to work with the most vulnerable people to ensure that their position and that of their critics is presented in a way that won’t increase tensions and make things more dangerous. It may not be prudent or possible to have a civil discussion in the middle of a crisis.
In ten years, APS has NEVER had a discussion with LGBTQ people and topics. The time for civil discussion was before this current moral panic. And since 2015, there have been many public issues involving LGBT Americans, which they could have addressed.
A bad panel
This is how the discussion was initially presented:
”While the transgender community is being targeted by legislation in both Kansas and Missouri that aims to restrict their rights and access, communities are struggling with how to balance rights and access for all, especially when it comes to impacts on women and minors.”
In this description, the context is the spike in laws [sponsored by Republicans] to limit the rights of trans people and their access to … [healthcare, public life, representative books and media, ability to move freely about the country, receive a free and appropriate education, protection from violence and the threat of suicide, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, etc.]. The other side of the debate is presented as concerns for impacts on minors [children and teenagers alike] and [non-trans or anti-trans] women. In discussing motives for the laws, APS doesn’t refer at all to the possibility of a moral panic regarding trans people— despite widespread coverage in the news. By ignoring the moral panic around these issues, APS can glibly treat panelists as reasonable people who disagree.
How representative were the panelists for the issue?
If the context is laws, then I would expect that lawmakers would be part of the discussion, and if not, that APS would list by name which legislators were invited. If no legislators would be willing to talk in public, then it would be useful to have a person with similar background speaking to that perspective. For example, a practicing evangelical man, distrustful of medical science, and concerned about the decline in birthrate and traditional sexual morality.
To have these laws defended by three self-described lesbian women feels fundamentally dishonest to me. It also looks an awful lot like the common practice of trotting out ideologically aligned minorities to defend the practice of a majority. That’s not to say that these panelists couldn’t be part of a more diverse discussion. But it’s strange that they were the only representatives— especially when one of them is deeply opposed to even the existence of trans people.
Bad timing: moral panic
In their statement on the cancelation, APS notes that they have never had to cancel an event in their ten-year history. This statement caused me to wonder if APS has ever tried to do a panel discussion in the midst of a moral panic*. Stanley Cohen said that moral panics arise when “a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.” The fear and resentment of trans people amid an avalanche of Republican bills and laws is certainly an indication that trans people are the focus of a moral panic. In addition, much of the rhetoric aimed at trans people is couched in false, hateful language of perversity and harming women and children. It can be extremely unsafe for people who are the target of a moral panic to appear in public.
In such times, targeted minorities need to make sure that any events they participate in are going to have a range of perspectives, and not just use their peril as infotainment. That APS had such a difficult time getting trans allies to participate is a direct result of lack of preparation for this event, a lack of building trust with trans people and their allies.
Looking back over APS’s ten years, I see that they have never had a panel discussion (or other event, apparently) on LGBTQ issues, or with LGBTQ people. During those ten years, for example, the US Supreme Court made gay marriage legal and ruled that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination in employment. There were also fights over whether trans people could serve in the US military.
Getting to know your neighbor better is something that you do when stakes are low. Then, when a moral panic breaks out, people can remember that those targeted are neighbors, and may think twice before demonizing them.
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* I see that in 2020 in the context of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, APS did have a panel discussion among 3 Black men to discuss anti-racism and wokeness, but imagine trying to set up a panel discussion in Minneapolis in 2020 between police officers and protestors. At a time when tensions were high between police and minorities, they had a panel discussion with three Black men who disagree. To me, this looks like a similar case of having minorities focus on each other instead of bringing together police and protestors. At the beginning of that discussion, the moderator called out the fact that Ibram X. Kendi was invited to participate in the discussion and declined. I only have respect for him that he didn’t participate.
Unlike with LGBTQ issues, APS does have a significant history of talking about race since 2016, sponsoring at least one event a year with a focus on race. With such a history, prospective panelists can judge by their record whether they can trust APS to do justice to their concerns.