Trans activists really need to lighten up

From the always awesome GenderTrender:

Transsexuals’ histrionic response to every slight only confirms how flimsy their identity is.

Why are transsexual activists so sensitive to criticism? * * *

And the trans lobby is even more sensitive than that, reacting with censorious anger not only to insults but also to people’s allegedly incorrect use of language, to being called ‘a transsexual’, for example, rather than ‘a member of the trans community’. They even picket the offices of newspapers that have the temerity to piss them off. Why the extraordinary touchiness?

I think it reflects the fundamental flimsiness of the trans identity, the fragility of this so-called community. Transsexuals’ hopping-mad reaction to any perceived slight doesn’t confirm that they are a well-organised, increasingly cocky gang holding the world to ransom, as some have claimed. Rather it reveals the opposite – that this is a ‘community’ so sadly uncertain of its own claims, so instinctively aware of the largely phoney nature of its arguments, that it must protect itself from any form of public ridicule or questioning lest its facade be knocked down.

The rule of modern-day identity politics and offence-taking seems to be this: the less rooted and real one’s identity is, the more obsessed one becomes with erecting a forcefield around it in order to keep at bay awkward query-raisers.

In addition to showing the problem of the trans* cult, this shows why I am so proud to be a lesbian. We lesbians do not react to criticism in that way at all. When people criticize us, we do not engage in emotional outbursts, try to shut down all speech that is imperfectly adulatory of us, or become the word police. We are perfectly happy to discuss issues in a calm, rational, and adult manner.