Kendan Bendt
Opinion Editor
“If it is false, then for the good of society, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely. The whole preposterous ideology, at every level. Have I made myself clear?”
These were the words of Michael Knowles, a popular internet personality and conservative speaker, in a video responding to the controversy around his speech at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). CPAC took place from Wednesday, Mar. 1, 2023 – Saturday, Mar. 4, 2023.
Several news outlets, among them Rolling Stone and Huffington Post, published articles criticizing Knowles’ speech as containing genocidal rhetoric. This was met with backlash from Knowles and his supporters, who criticized the wordings of the aforementioned articles and those like them as libelous.
Knowles seems to think that, by saying that he was calling for the eradication of transgender people, rather than transgenderism, as were his exact words, the press was intentionally defaming him.
While it is unclear if Michael Knowles is legitimately as unintelligent as he thinks his viewers are, or if he is just manipulating them for his own political goals, his speech and the content within were seemingly meant to rile up his base in a way that endangers transgender people and their place in society.
When saying, for example, that “there can be no middle way in dealing with transgenderism—it’s all or nothing,” Knowles has to know that this sort of rhetoric is capable of inspiring violent fervor in his audience.
Furthermore, “transgenderism” is not a legitimately separable phrase from transgender people. By attempting to identify the ability of trans people to live as they choose as an ideology, as Michael Knowles does, he further supports the criticism that his rhetoric is genocidal in nature.
The “ideology” he is trying to define here is a simple one: that trans people are the gender that they identify with. By creating a system in which trans people are excluded from public life or forced into harmful situations, Knowles is advocating for harm.
Knowles is quoted as saying, “Nobody is calling to exterminate anybody, because the other problem with that statement is that transgender people is not a real ontological category — it’s not a legitimate category of being.” In other words, you cannot exterminate a transgender person, because they are simply “laboring under a delusion. And so we need to correct that delusion.”
Whether or not you agree that this is tantamount to calling for a genocide, it does not matter. This language falls strongly along the lines of historical fascism and the dehumanization of other vulnerable groups facing oppression.
Gregory Stanton, former professor of genocide studies and founder of the organization Genocide Watch, created the 10 stages of genocide, a model with which to examine societies with social groups at risk of systemic oppression or harm. This model can be seen demonstrated above in a graphic by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
Knowing that these steps can overlap or skip one another, the United States political system is slipping in the wrong direction. How long before trans people can’t exist in public legally? Oh, right. Tennessee’s already on its way towards doing that with its recent anti drag bill.
Alarmingly, Knowles’ speech and following comments have been well received among his base. Time will tell how far he and the Republican party are willing to pull the thread of his logic.
If allies care about trans people, they better prove it in the next decade.
