Trans people make up approximately 2% of the population. Why should we remake society for 2% of the population? That’s insane!
That’s the approximate percentage of people who are trans, two percent. Why remake society to help such a small group of people? Recreating society to help 2% of the population is just not logical. Stay with me.
Put aside the fact that democracies are meant to protect the rights of the marginalized and to ensure everyone can pursue their vision of a good and flourishing life.
The Curb-Cut Effect
The Curb-Cut Effect was a term coined by Angela Glover Blackwell, and it’s about the fact that when we make changes to society to help small, marginalized populations, it ends up helping everyone.
So let’s say you don’t even care about trans people. What is it about helping to ensure marginalized groups like queer people, like trans people specifically, can flourish and can exist? Because it’s going to help everyone.
What Are Curb Cuts?
Curb cuts were something that was started in Berkeley, California, in the 1960s, when Ed Roberts, a man paralyzed by polio, noticed that it was tough to get up and down from sidewalks.
Curb cuts are the cutouts of sidewalks that create little ramps. They started as accommodations for wheelchair users, but now curb cuts are used by everyone. It makes it easier to push a stroller across the street. It makes it easier to roll a suitcase if you’re going to the airport for business.
Many things started as accessibility measures for disabled Americans and disabled people worldwide. For example, closed captioning for TV is now used by everyone, which just makes life better. There are Oxo hand-gripped kitchen tools that were designed for people with arthritis that are just easier to use for everyone.
So How Does This Relate?
What about queerness has to do with the curb-cut effect? When we break down binaries of gender or expectations of gender roles, it liberates everyone.
So much of the discourse is about the fear that a kid will want to wear a T-shirt with a rainbow, play the wrong sport, or pursue the wrong job. Those are the constraints of gender normativity and gender binaryism that have constrained everyone.
So even if you’re not trans, even if you’re not non-binary or gender non-conforming, even if you’re not queer, questioning and rejecting these very rigid rules and categories frees us all, even if you’re a straight cis-gendered man who likes ballet or a girl who wants to go into a conventionally male-dominated field.
The movement for queer liberation and trans liberation and safety and belonging will ultimately benefit everyone.