World News

10 day account attempting to downplay transphobia…

In recent years, anti-LGBTQ politicians and media figures have increasingly employed the phrases “biological male” and “biological female” as derogatory ways of referring to transgender women and transgender men respectively. Extensive research confirms that sex and gender are complex and cannot be reduced to simplistic “biological” categories. Using these phrases to target trans people is not a matter of accuracy but of animus — language wielded to stigmatize and deny transgender and nonbinary people’s right to live openly and safely. These phrases are not neutral descriptors; they are rhetorical devices used to deny the validity of transgender identities. Terms such as “biological male” or “biological boy” are deployed to deliberately misgender transgender women and girls while collapsing the important distinction between gender identity and sex assigned at birth. As journalist Erin Reed notes, since the early 2010s, “biological” framings have been deliberately mobilized as part of anti-trans political agendas: “Anti-trans legislators are on the record stating the broader goal is the end of transgender people altogether. If they can convince the public to place an asterisk next to the gender identity of transgender athletes, it becomes much easier to extend that asterisk to bathrooms, youth rights, literature, and beyond.”

What began as a deliberate strategic framing in legislative debates and media coverage quickly spread online, appearing in posts, memes, and coordinated harassment campaigns. On social media, the terms “biological male/female” or “biological pronouns” are frequently used to target individual trans people with harassment, to spread disinformation about transgender athletes, or promote false narratives that trans women are threats in women’s spaces. The repetition of these phrases in comment sections, hashtags, and viral content normalizes misgendering, escalates pile-ons, and creates hostile environments that make platforms unsafe for trans users.