text:
Transgender

Transgender people have a gender identity that differs from their biological sex. Such individuals have either have been medically diagnosed as suffering from Gender dysphoria, and may be in the process of transitioning to the other sex, or self-identify as the other gender.

C

 * The preoccupation with transition and surgery objectifies trans people. And then we don't get to really deal with the real lived experiences. The reality of trans people's lives is that so often we are targets of violence. We experience discrimination disproportionately to the rest of the community. Our unemployment rate is twice the national average; if you are a trans person of color, that rate is four times the national average. The homicide rate is highest among trans women. If we focus on transition, we don't actually get to talk about those things.
 * Laverne Cox, Laverne Cox flawlessly shuts down Katie Couric's invasive questions about transgender people (7 January 2014)

 * For me, it's always important to support other transgender people, to love and support each other. There's enough spotlight, there are enough resources to go around, so for me it's always about loving and supporting my trans siblings.
 * Laverne Cox, Laverne Cox Talks About Being A Transgender Icon | TODAY (23 June 2015)

 * Being uncomfortable does not mean that you are unsafe. Right? [...] For several years, it was all about bathrooms. Banning trans people from bathrooms, right? In the segregated South, white folks were not comfortable with black people in the bathroom with them. But did that mean that they were unsafe?
 * Laverne Cox, Laverne Cox - Exploring Trans Representation with “Disclosure” | The Daily Social Distancing Show (23 June 2020)

D

 * And how was Caeneus made at first a man, And then a woman, then a man againe, But in a daunce? which when he first began Hee the man’s part in measure did sustaine: But when he chang’d into a second straine, He daunc’d the woman’s part another space,  And then return’d into his former place.Hence sprang the fable of Tiresias, That he the pleasure of both sexes tryde; For in a daunce he man and woman was By often chaunge of place from side to side; But for the woman easily did slide  And smoothly swim with cunning hidden art,  He tooke more pleasure in a woman’s part.
 * John Davies, Orchestra (1595)

F

 * The liberation of trans people would improve the lives of everyone in our society. I say 'liberation' because I believe that the humbler goals of 'trans rights' or 'trans equality' are insufficient. Trans people should not aspire to be equals in a world that remains both capitalist and patriarchal and which exploits and degrades those who live in it. Rather, we ought to seek justice – for ourselves and others alike. Trans people have endured over a century of injustice. We have been discriminated against, pathologized and victimized. Our full emancipation will only be achieved if we can imagine a society that is completely transformed from the one in which we live.
 * Shon Faye, Prologue

 * The demand for true trans liberation echoes and overlaps with the demands of workers, socialists, feminists, anti-racists and queer people. They are radical demands, in that they go to the root of what our society is and what it could be. For this reason, the existence of trans people is a source of constant anxiety for many who are either invested in the status quo or fearful about what would replace it. In order to neutralize the potential threat to social norms posed by trans people's existence, the establishment has always sought to confine and curtail their freedom. In twenty-first-century Britain, this has been achieved in large part by belittling our political needs and turning them into a culture war 'issue'. Typically, trans people are lumped together as 'the transgender issue', dismissing and erasing the complexity of trans lives, reducing them to a set of stereotypes on which various social anxieties can be brought to bear. By and large, the transgender issue is seen as a 'toxic debate', a 'difficult topic' chewed over (usually by people who are not trans themselves) on television shows, in newspaper opinion pieces and in university philosophy departments. Actual trans people are rarely to be seen.
 * Shon Faye, Prologue

 * ‘Trans’ [...] is an umbrella term that describes people whose gender identity (their personal sense of their own gender) varies from, does not sit comfortably with, or is different from, the biological sex recorded on their birth certificate based on the appearance of their external genitalia. The standard view of how sex and gender manifest in the world is as follows. Babies born with observable penises are recorded as male, referred to and raised as boys, and as adults are men; babies born with observable vulvas are recorded as female, referred to and raised as girls, and as adults are women. To be trans is, on some level, to feel that this standardized relationship between one’s genitalia at birth and the assignment of one of two fixed gender identities that are supposed to accurately reflect your feelings about your own body has been interrupted. How the person who experiences this interruption reacts to it can vary hugely – which is why ‘trans’ is a catch-all word for a diverse range of identities and experiences.
 * Shon Faye, Prologue

 * When we talk about trans people, we’re usually referring to individuals who were either recorded as male at birth but who understand themselves to be women (trans women) or, vice versa, were recorded as female at birth but who understand themselves to be men (trans men). Not all trans people, however, find simply moving between the pre-existing categories of man and woman satisfactory, accurate or desirable. Such trans people, who are less well understood, generally unsettle mainstream society more than trans men and women, because they challenge not only the prevailing idea that birth genitals and gender are inseparable, but also the idea that there are just two gender categories. Often, these people are accused of making up their experience out of a need for attention or a desire to feel special – though in reality the political, economic and social costs for such ‘non-binary’ trans people (who don’t straightforwardly see themselves as men or women) can be immense.
 * Shon Faye, Prologue

 * Suicide attempts occur at a higher rate among trans people than the general population. Indeed, the statistics are truly alarming: research by the UK charity Stonewall published in 2017 found that 45 per cent of trans young people had attempted suicide at least once. Yet, behind the statistics are individuals, suffering in private and leading complex human lives: there is rarely one simple explanation for such a tragedy.
 * Shon Faye, Introduction

 * In the final months of her life, when she must have been experiencing a degree of mental anguish, Lucy Meadows was bullied, harassed, ridiculed and demonized by the British media. Her death remains one of the darkest chapters in the British trans community’s history, and one of the most shameful episodes in the long and shameful history of the British tabloid press. [...] By the end of the 2010s, trans people weren’t the occasional freak show in the pages of a red-top tabloid. Rather, we were in the headlines of almost every major newspaper every single day. We were no longer portrayed as the ridiculous but unthreatening provincial mechanic who was having a ‘sex swap’; now, we were depicted as the proponents of a powerful new ‘ideology’ that was capturing institutions and dominating public life. No longer something to be jeered at, we were instead something to be feared. Soon after the Lucy Meadows inquest, that fleeting opportunity to shed light on the bullying of trans people evaporated. In the intervening years, the press flipped the narrative: it was trans people who were the bullies.
 * Shon Faye, Introduction

 * The media agenda with respect to ‘the transgender issue’ is often cynical and unhelpful to the cause of trans justice and liberation. Media coverage of the trans community rarely seems to be driven by a desire to inform and educate the public about the actual issues and challenges facing a group who – as all evidence indicates – are likely to experience severe discrimination throughout their lives. Today, the typical news item on trans people features a debate between a trans advocate on one side and a person with ‘concerns’ on the other – as if both parties were equally affected by the discussion. As trans people face a broken healthcare system – which in turn leaves them with a desperate lack of support both with their gender and the mental health impacts of the all-too-commonly associated problems of family rejection, bullying, homelessness and unemployment – trans people with any kind of platform or access have tried to focus media reporting on these issues, to no avail. Instead, we are invited on television to debate whether trans people should be allowed to use public toilets. Trans people have been dehumanized, reduced to a talking point or conceptual problem: an ‘issue’ to be discussed and debated endlessly. It turns out that when the media want to talk about trans issues, it means they want to talk about their issues with us, not the challenges facing us.
 * Shon Faye, Introduction

 * Human beings rely on familiarity to understand and empathize with others, and we find it easier to extend compassion to those we can relate to. Given that, like any minority, trans people are unfamiliar to the average person, we rely more heavily on media representation, on political solidarity from people who aren’t trans and vocal, and ongoing support from public institutions to create the right conditions for understanding and compassion from the rest of society. By the same token, we’re especially vulnerable to the spread of misinformation, harmful stereotypes and repeated prejudicial tropes. And the latter, unfortunately, are widespread in public culture, just as they have been throughout history. Trans people are discriminated against, harassed and subjected to violence around the world because of deep prejudices that have been embedded into the fabric of our culture, poisoning our capacity to empathize, and even to accept trans people as fully human.
 * Shon Faye, Introduction

 * Family rejection and estrangement have devastating long-term health implications. They also have a material impact. For some kids, the only option is leaving home. Others have no option at all: their parents kick them out. As a result, trans teenagers and young adults in Britain are much more likely to experience homelessness than their cisgender peers. [...] A minority within a minority, trans young people are disproportionately over-represented in the homeless population: one in four trans people have experienced homelessness.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter One

 * In general, trans people are more likely to have lower incomes and to experience poverty than the wider population. [...] Prejudice persists. It is not just a personal affront, but an economic reality that shapes and limits trans lives.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter Three

 * The experience of being trans is shaped by social class. While there are trans people, the vast majority are working class – just as the vast majority of the total population is working class. Trans workers are often employed in lower paid and more precarious jobs, with a high risk of discrimination and bullying in the workplace. As a result, trans political struggle is part of a wider class struggle. Despite this, trans politics is commonly misrepresented as coddled, bourgeois and anti-working class.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter Three

 * To be trans is an experience bound up with economic struggle. There cannot be one without the other.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter Three

 * A key tenet of the drive by trans people towards ‘visibility’ in mainstream media in the past decade has been the belief that, the greater amount of more accurate media coverage, the more chance trans people have of encouraging empathy in the wider population. This, it is hoped, will make people want to treat trans individuals better both in daily life and in policy. This strategy hasn’t worked – or, at least, it hasn’t worked sufficiently to materially improve the lives of the majority of trans people. The problem is that it involves a rose-tinted view of the media, which is imagined as some kind of benevolent megaphone, which amplifies our voices, uncovers truth and educates. This is an apolitical understanding of the raison d’être of the media in a capitalist society, which – as for any other industry – is first and foremost to make money.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter Three

 * To this end, much of the mainstream media exists to entertain people, for which purposes it clings to tried and tested formulas and conventions, to avoid any risk to its revenue streams. In the case of trans people, it tends to focus less on what wider society might recognize as familiar about our experience, instead foregrounding what makes us different, peculiar, titillating, aggravating or freakish. Cisgender people, media bosses conclude, do not want to watch a news item about a trans call-centre worker talking about his poor pay and how his shift patterns make medical appointments difficult – because it is depressing and, arguably, familiar to many low-paid non-trans people with medical conditions of their own. [...] Trans bodies when objectified are entertainment; trans bodies when at work in the service of profit are not.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter Three

 * Generally, trans people remain confined to lower-paid, more precarious roles even in the organizations that campaign for our welfare. In particular, Black and Asian trans communities in Britain remain completely under-represented in LGBTQ+ sector organizations; these are the same communities experiencing the brunt of systemic anti-LGBTQ+ oppression in the UK.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter Three

 * Trans people are emblematic of wider, conceptual concerns about the autonomy of the individual in society. Their rejection of dominant, ancient and deep-seated ideas about the connection between biological characteristics and identity causes a dilemma for the nation state: whether to acknowledge and give credence to the individual’s assertion of their own identity in law and in culture; or to mandate that it, the state, is the final authority on identity, and to assert its power over the individual – by force if necessary. Attacking the very concept of trans people by imposing rigid and immutable definitions of sex and gender, as Orbán’s party has done, is the latest iteration of the way national governments embrace totalitarian ideology. After all, attacking trans people has been a part of fascist practice since the destruction of ’s Berlin  back in 1933 by Nazi youth brigades.
 * Shon Faye, Chapter Five

 * Being trans, of course, is not a consciously adopted political position, just as claiming a trans identity is not, usually, an expression of a consciously held ideology. A trans person is just a person. We see our daily lives through the same everyday lens as most human beings; after all, we are simply trying to live. However, as with all stigmatized social identities, the very ability to articulate being trans, or to work, seek healthcare, or participate in civic life while trans, is political.
 * Shon Faye, Conclusion

 * Hope is part of the human condition and trans people’s hope is our proof that we are fully human. We are not an ‘issue’ to be debated and derided. We are symbols of hope for many non-trans people, too, who see in our lives the possibility of living more fully and freely. That is why some people hate us: they are frightened by the gleaming opulence of our freedom. Our existence enriches this world.
 * Shon Faye, Conclusion

J

 * Detransitioners speak of trauma from experimental drugs and surgeries, of having been manipulated and deceived by adults, and of being abandoned by friends when they detransitioned. I have seen them abused and defamed  on social media, accused of being transphobes and liars, and of trying to stop genuine trans people getting the treatments they need.  In fact, most are simply urging caution, and have no desire to stop others living as they wish. Their most obvious wounds are physical:  mastectomies; castration; bodies shaped by cross-sex hormones.  But the mental wounds go deeper.  They bought into an ideology that is incoherent and constantly shifting, and where the slightest deviation is ferociously punished.  They were led to believe that parents who expressed concern about the impact of powerful drugs on developing minds and bodies were hateful bigots, and that the only conceivable alternative to transition was suicide.
 * Helen Joyce, "Trans - When Ideology Meets Reality", p. 10

K

 * Transgender and gender non-conforming people know things about gender that most cisgender folks are light years away from realising. To survive unequal realities, marginalised folks often cultivate deep knowledge of how these realities actually function.
 * OluTimehin Kukoyi,

L

 * People have been taking the piss out of trans people for 60 years. The narrative on trans issues has been controlled by people who have no understanding of them. Social media is about us grabbing the narrative back and telling our own stories – this is our reality, this is what we go through and this is what matters to us. We're here, we're in your face, we definitely exist. That's the most important thing – realising we exist.
 * Paris Lees, as quoted in

M

 * The AMA has sent a strong message to America’s governors cautioning that interfering in the medical care of transgender minors would be detrimental to the health of transgender youth. AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James L. Madara, MD, warned that these measures would “insert the government into clinical decision-making and force physicians to disregard clinical guidelines.”
 * James L. Madara as quoted by Timothy M. Smith, “Understanding the short-term impact of gender-affirming care”, American Medical Association, (MAY 30, 2022)

 * We’re not fighting for equality [...] None of these conflicts against systems of oppression are fights for equality. They are fights for accurate regard of supremacy. We're better at sex than y'all. We're better at art. We're better at warfare. These are things carried in the old understandings of so-called, whatever-you-want-to-call-it: non-binary, queer, genderqueer, trans, gay, lesbian. Just like the neurodiverse peoples, these people are all sacred beings, superior to other beings.
 * Ezra Miller interviewed for "Ezra Miller: 'We’re not fighting for equality. We are fighting for regard of our supremacy'", GQ (March 12, 2020)

P

 * Every day you're seeing our existence debated. Transgender people are so very real.
 * Elliot Page, "Elliot Page Is Ready for This Moment", Time, (16 March 2021)

 * If cisgender people, who are 99.5 percent of the population, are accused of transphobia for simply existing, failing to use the correct terminology, allowing genitals to influence their dating preferences, or even having non-queer Theory beliefs about gender, this is likely to result in much unfair antagonism against trans people (most of whom do not believe in this either).
 * Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, "Cynical Theories" p. 261

S

 * In January 2019, the Wall Street Journal ran my piece, "When Your Daughter Defies Biology." It provoked nearly a thousand comments, and hundreds of responses to those comments.  A transgender writer, Jennifer Finney Boylan, quickly wrote a rebuttal in an op-ed that appeared two days later in the New York Times.  Her op-ed garnered hundreds of comments and hundreds more reactions to those comments. All of a sudden, I was flooded with emails from readers who had experienced with their own children the phenomenon I had described or had witnessed its occurrence in their kids' schools - clusters of adolescents in a single grade, suddenly discovering transgender identities together, begging for hormones, desperate for surgery. . . . This is a story America needs to hear.  Whether or not you have an adolescent daughter, whether or not your child has fallen for this transgender craze, America has become fertile ground for this mass enthusiasm for reasons that have everything to do with our cultural frailty: parents are undermined; experts are over-relied upon; dissenters in science and medicine are intimidated; free speech truckles under renewed attack; government healthcare laws harbor hidden consequences; and an intersectional era has arisen in which the desire to escape a dominant identity encourages individuals to take cover in victim groups.
 * Abigail Schrier, "Irreversible Damage - The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters", pp. xxii, xxiii

 * While some cisgender people refuse to take our experiences seriously, the fact of the matter is that transgender people can be found in virtually every culture and throughout history; current estimates suggest that we make up 0.2 – 0.3% of the population [or possibly more]. [...] In other words, we simply exist.
 * Julia Serano, Debunking "Trans Women Are Not Women" Arguments (June 27, 2017), Medium

 * Accusations that IP is inherently “narcissistic” and “divisive” have become quite prevalent among EC-centric leftists lately. [...] In addition to disregarding all forms of non-EC marginalization, accusations that IP activism is inherently “narcissistic” or "divisive" severely confuse cause and effect. After all, I’m not the one who is “obsessed” with my identity. [...] It’s the people who harbor anti-trans attitudes who are obsessed with my identity, not the other way around! While I would absolutely love to live in a world where my trans identity was not especially notable or worth calling attention to, these people insist on making an issue out of it. Furthermore, by making a distinction between transgender people (who they single out for discrimination) and non-transgender people (whose identities and experiences they respect), it is they (not us) who are the ones being divisive. Once we acknowledge this causality, it becomes clear that IP is not an expression of navel-gazing or narcissism, but rather a form of organized resistance against those who are actively trying to delegitimize and disenfranchise us.
 * Julia Serano, Leftist Critiques of Identity Politics (February 25, 2018), Medium

 * I would love to live in a world where the word “transgender” serves the same simple purpose — a mere sharing of information about my life experiences — but unfortunately, it doesn’t. On top of being a descriptor, the word “transgender” is also politically loaded. But that is not my, nor other trans people’s, fault. As discussed in the last section, there’s a long history of people hating, ostracizing, and criminalizing us, and much of this history took place before words like “transgender,” “transphobia,” and analogous terms even existed. In fact, those terms were created in response to that marginalization, not the other way around. And even if I were to relinquish my trans identity, those people would still exist and continue to discriminate against me for supposedly being a sinner, or freak, or deviant, or for being delusional, or whatever other rationales they might concoct in order to justify their bigotry.
 * Julia Serano, Leftist Critiques of Identity Politics (February 25, 2018), Medium

 * The most infuriating assertion regularly made by the "trans women are biologically male" camp is that trans people are somehow "denying" or "erasing" biological sex differences, and that this hurts cisgender women/“biological females.” This is patently untrue. I can assure you that trans people are highly aware of biological sex differences — the fact that many of us physically transition demonstrates that we acknowledge that sexually dimorphic traits exist and may be important to some people! I would reframe things this way: Transgender people often have a more complicated relationship with our sex-related traits (as they may be discordant with our identified and lived genders), and thus the language that we use to describe or discuss these traits may seem arcane, or nonsensical, or unnecessary to the average cisgender person. And because they are unfamiliar with this language (and/or flat-out antagonistic toward us), some cisgender people will subsequently misinterpret this language and differing perspective as some sort of "denial."
 * Julia Serano, Transgender People and “Biological Sex” Myths (July 17, 2017), Medium

 * Matt Sharp, a top lawyer at ADF who drafts model legislation on the group’s behalf, said he expects issues dealing with transgender athletes and medical care to reach the Supreme Court. In an interview, Sharp compared judges ruling in favor of allowing gender-affirming care for transgender minors to courts upholding forced sterilization for disabled individuals a century ago. “I think it’s always worth stepping back and remembering the courts get it wrong sometimes,” Sharp said. “It was about 100 years ago that the Supreme Court upheld forced sterilization for individuals with mental disabilities. It was a wrong decision. And thankfully, both the courts and the medical community recognized the damage that they were doing to a vulnerable population and corrected that mistake. Similar here, these are courts that are struggling now.”
 * Matt Sharp as quoted by Jo Yurcaba, Tyler Kingkade; “State laws targeting LGBTQ rights have a new foe: federal judges”, NBC, (July 9, 2023)

 * Paul Smith, who successfully argued the 2003 landmark Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas, which found the U.S.’s remaining sodomy laws unconstitutional, said the repeated victories for LGBTQ people and advocates are “a sign that these laws are mostly being thought up based on their appeal to a certain frenzied group of people in the country who were very excited about picking on LGBTQ people right now, not based on their legal merits and sustainability. “Take a law that says, you can’t have a drag show. It’s hard to imagine an easier First Amendment case to win, because it’s just plain content censorship,” he said. “And there’s not going to be any evidence that is harmful to somebody.” Smith, a professor at Georgetown Law, said the cases regarding restrictions on transition-related care are more complicated, but the wins still make sense, because in those cases the care is supported by the adolescents, their parents and doctors, and by expert testimony.
 * Paul Smith as quoted by Jo Yurcaba, Tyler Kingkade; “State laws targeting LGBTQ rights have a new foe: federal judges”, NBC, (July 9, 2023)

 * It is difficult to generate a counterdiscourse if one is programmed to disappear. The highest purpose of the [medically defined] transsexual is to erase h/erself, to fade into the "normal" population as soon as possible. Part of this process is known as constructing a plausible history--learning to lie effectively about one's past. What is gained is acceptability in society. ... In the transsexual's erased history we can find a story disruptive to the accepted discourses of gender.
 * Sandy Stone, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” in Body Politics: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, edited by Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub (1991), pp. 280–304.

 * To attempt to occupy a place as speaking subject within the traditional gender frame is to become complicit in the discourse which one wishes to deconstruct.
 * Sandy Stone, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” in Body Politics: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, edited by Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub (1991), pp. 280–304.

 * Transsexuals for whom gender identity is something different from and perhaps irrelevant to physical genitalia are occulted by those for whom the power of the medical/psychological establishments, and their ability to act as gatekeepers for cultural norms, is the final authority for what counts as a culturally intelligible body.
 * Sandy Stone, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” in Body Politics: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, edited by Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub (1991), pp. 280–304.

T

 * “The laws do so much damage when they’re passed that I think it’s difficult to see even the court victories as a good thing on balance,” said Ryan Thoreson, a University of Cincinnati law professor and former researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The sheer number of these laws has been significantly disruptive to the care that transgender children are receiving. They’ve had a chilling effect on providers who are now much more cautious about providing some of these services to kids and their families.”
 * Ryan Thoreson as quoted by Jo Yurcaba, Tyler Kingkade; “State laws targeting LGBTQ rights have a new foe: federal judges”, NBC, (July 9, 2023)

 * In this prospective clinical cohort study of TNB youths, we observed high rates of moderate to severe depression and anxiety, as well as suicidal thoughts. Receipt of gender-affirming interventions, specifically PBs or GAHs, was associated with 60% lower odds of moderate to severe depressive symptoms and 73% lower odds of self-harm or suicidal thoughts during the first year of multidisciplinary gender care. Among youths who did not initiate PBs or GAHs, we observed that depressive symptoms and suicidality were 2-fold to 3-fold higher than baseline levels at 3 and 6 months of follow-up, respectively. Our study results suggest that risks of depression and suicidality may be mitigated with receipt of gender-affirming medications in the context of a multidisciplinary care clinic over the relatively short time frame of 1 year. Our findings are consistent with those of prior studies finding that TNB adolescents are at increased risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidality and studies finding long-term and short-term improvements in mental health outcomes among TNB individuals who receive gender-affirming medical interventions. Surprisingly, we observed no association with anxiety scores. A recent cohort study of TNB youths in Dallas, Texas, found that total anxiety symptoms improved over a longer follow-up of 11 to 18 months; however, similar to our study, the authors did not observe statistically significant improvements in generalized anxiety. This suggests that anxiety symptoms may take longer to improve after the initiation of gender-affirming care. In addition, Olson et al found that prepubertal TNB children who socially transitioned did not have increased rates of depression symptoms but did have increased rates of anxiety symptoms compared with children who were cisgender. Although social transition and access to gender-affirming medical care do not always go hand in hand, it is noteworthy that access to gender-affirming medical care and supported social transition appear to be associated with decreased depression and suicidality more than anxiety symptoms.
 * Diana M. Tordoff; Jonathon W. Wanta; Arin Collin; et al "Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care”, JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(2):e220978.

 * Our study provides quantitative evidence that access to PBs or GAHs in a multidisciplinary gender-affirming setting was associated with mental health improvements among TNB youths over a relatively short time frame of 1 year. The associations with the highest aORs were with decreased suicidality, which is important given the mental health disparities experienced by this population, particularly the high levels of self-harm and suicide. Our findings have important policy implications, suggesting that the recent wave of legislation restricting access to gender-affirming care may have significant negative outcomes in the well-being of TNB youths. Beyond the need to address antitransgender legislation, there is an additional need for medical systems and insurance providers to decrease barriers and expand access to gender-affirming care.
 * Diana M. Tordoff; Jonathon W. Wanta; Arin Collin; et al "Mental Health Outcomes in Transgender and Nonbinary Youths Receiving Gender-Affirming Care”, JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(2):e220978.

V

 * I'm non-binary, which means it's not just that I'm challenging the binary between male, female, man, woman, but between us and them. And in your statement, you said, "why don't I help them", as if this struggle is not your struggle too. The reason you don't fight for me is because you're not fighting for yourself fully. And any movement that's trying to emancipate men from the shackles of heteropatriarchy or emancipate women from traditional gender ideology has to have trans and non-binary people at the forefront, because we are actually the most honest. We're tracing the root, where did these ideas of manhood and womanhood come from? They come from a binary structure, and so that's why people like me, who are visibly gender nonconforming, who are both feminine and masculine and none of the above, we experience the brunt of all of these collective fantasies that were created that are killing other people, that are also killing us, it just looks different. And so one of the things that I try to do in my work is say, "don't show up for me because you wanna protect me, or you wanna help me. I don't need your help. I have an unshakeable and irrevocable sense of who I am, because I am divine." [...] I don't need to be legitimized, or I don't have anything to prove. What I want us to rephrase the conversation is, are you ready to heal? And I don't think the majority of people are ready to heal, and that's why they repress us as trans and gender variant people, because they've done this violence to themselves first. They've repressed their own femininity, they've repressed their own gender non-conformity, they've repressed their own ambivalence, they've repressed their own creativity. And so when they see us have the audacity to live a life without compromise, where we say there are no trade-offs, where we say we actually get to carve in a marrow of this earth and create our own goddamn beauty, instead of saying "thank you for teaching me another way to live", they try to disappear us because they did that to themselves first.
 * Alok Vaid-Menon, ALOK: The Urgent Need for Compassion | The Man Enough Podcast, 26 July 2021

W

 * Do we have a theory on why people are gay? No. They just are. The only reason we even feel like we need a theory about trans people is that society is so unaccepting of us that it’s constantly demanding we justify our own reality.
 * Natalie Wynn, "Transtrenders" (1 July 2019)

 * I feel like trans culture is just so obsessed with reassuring ourselves that we’re valid, that we sometimes forget that the end goal of a political movement is not validity, it’s equality.
 * Natalie Wynn, J.K. Rowling (26 January 2021)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Transgender


text:
B*A*P*S

B*A*P*S is a 1997 comedy film about two tacky homegirls who move to L.A. to become dancers; instead they scam a dying millionaire but eventually become B*A*P*S (Black American Princesses).
 * Directed by Robert Townsend. Written by Troy Byer.

'''These Pretty Women... Are Clueless!'''

Mickey

 * My food is created to nourish the soul, okay? I haven't used pork since Thelma was on Good Times about to marry Ibe, the African prince and I said, "No, no, no, I'm waiting on my African prince to be my baby's daddy, so I stopped use pork, because I started using chicken broth! So I don't know what you're talking about." See what I cook is much healthier than that *bird* stuff Alfred is cookin' for him!"

 * ...A-re-ah-der-chee to you too... and some mozzerella and fettichinni... Hell yea!

Dialogue

 * Nate: Now why did you have to burn my toast, baby?
 * Nisi: Now you know said you wanted everything well done.

 * Isaac: I'm calling the police. You two have been stealing - from my uncle.
 * Manley: No... The girls had nothing to do with it. [looks at Antonio] It was Antonio.
 * Isaac: Antonio...
 * Antonio: Isaac, our plan could still work! It could be our words against theirs. Her fingerprints are still on the safe, man!
 * Isaac: I don't know what you're talking about! What plan? I'm calling the police...

 * [looking up at painting on a wall]
 * James: Now, look at the picture! Look at the picture! Who does this picture remind you of?
 * James and Ali: Laquisha Jenkins!
 * Ali: UGGH... THAT'S NASTY!

 * Nisi: You remember when we took those CPR classes?
 * Mickey: Yeah - All the cute guys were in there.
 * Nisi: Didn't you learn anything?
 * Mickey: No... But I met James.
 * Nisi: Shh... we gonna check his heart to see if it's still beating... Go on. Check it.
 * Mickey: You check it.
 * Nisi: You check it.
 * Mickey: You check it...
 * Nisi: YOU CHECK IT! It's on yo side!
 * Mickey: [Mickey laid her head against Mr. B's neck to see if he was still alive] He's alive!
 * Nisi: I'm going to bed!
 * Mickey: Nisi? Nisi? Nisi!

 * Nisi: Now at the audition I didn't do the best I could...
 * Heavy D: Hey! Ain't you that girl that hit the other girl in the face with your hair?
 * Nisi: Uh huh...
 * Heavy D: Oh no... I seen all you can do, Hon...
 * Mickey: Naw, naw. She can really dance...
 * Heavy D: No, I seen all you could do - you could hurt somebody
 * Mickey: No, she can dance and I'm the next Monifa
 * Nisi: She is!
 * Heavy D: Oh - you the next Monifa?
 * Mickey: Yea... look here - This the "Mickey remix..." Check this out... IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE YOU BEEN GO-ONE... FEELS GOOD WHEN I'M WITH-CHU... I MISS YOU COME BACK HOME...

 * Mickey: You think Ali and James miss us?
 * Nisi: I don't know, but I know I miss my man...
 * Mickey: Uh uh... you NEED to scoot over cause I ain't got no problem sleepin' on this expensive white carpet, cause I know it's poodle hair.

 * James: See you deserve this kinda stuff... [hanging head to "cry"] but I just can't give it to you... You deserve nice stuff... You deserve a big ol' house... and you - you deserve your own back yard... and - and everyone else got a - a little white dog, why you can have one? I wanna take you out to dinner... everytime we go out, we gotta watch - other people eat... HELL I wanna eat too! And - and you need some clothes... W-w-why should you have to wear your Sunday clothes on Wednesday? Now look girl... don't think a dude a punk cause he crying like a little girl - but you my queen... and I Lah-Love you!
 * Mickey: Oh James you ain't never said nothin' like this... Don't said it if you don't mean it!
 * [knocks James into a fountain]
 * James: I MEAN IIIIIIIIIIIIT!

Cast

 * Halle Berry - Denise “Nisi”
 * Martin Landau - Mr. Donald Blakemore
 * Ian Richardson - Mr. Manley
 * Natalie Desselle-Reid - Tamika “Mickey”
 * Troy Byer - Tracy Shaw
 * Luigi Amodeo - Antonio
 * Jonathan Fried - Isaac
 * Pierre Edwards - Ali
 * A.J. Johnson - James
 * Bernie Mac - Mr. Johnson
 * Faizon Love - Tiger J
 * Rudy Ray Moore - Nate
 * LL Cool J as himself, cameo
 * Howard Hewett - himself, cameo
 * Leon Robinson - himself, cameo
 * Heavy D - himself, cameo
 * Dennis Rodman - himself, cameo

title: B*A*P*S


text:
Abstinence

Abstinence is a voluntary forbearance from indulging a desire or appetite for certain bodily activities that are widely experienced as giving pleasure. Most frequently, the term refers to abstention from sexual intercourse, alcohol, or types of food.

Quotes

 * To preach fidelity and abstinence assumes that a woman can determine with whom she sleeps and when—a grave misunderstanding of the relations between the sexes in places where women are sometimes betrothed at birth or sold for cattle.
 * Marcella Alsan, "The Church & AIDS in Africa: Condoms & the Culture of Life", Commonweal: A Review of Religion, Politics, and Culture, vol. 133, no. 8 (April 2006)

 * Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
 * Variant: To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.
 * Augustine of Hippo, as quoted in The New Webster's Dictionary of Quotations (1991), p. 2; The Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 270

 * A BSTAINER, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

 * When I started, someone told me that you should be with a lover the night before so you look all secure and soft out there. But for downhill you should reserve your strength. That's one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. You need to be loose in sports to do well, not all knotted up.
 * Suzy Chaffee, as quoted in Women & Sports (1979) by Janice Kaplan.

 * [T]he only lawful method of avoiding parenthood is abstinence, either total or periodic. Every intelligent person will see how different is this type of 'birth control' – if one wishes to call it such – from the use of a contraceptive. One is the non-use of a faculty, the other is its abuse.
 * Father Francis J. Connell, “Birth Control: The Case for the Catholic”, The Atlantic (October 1939)

 * I'm against abstinence programs because I really consider "abstinence only" child abuse.
 * Joycelyn Elders, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, "Abstinence"

 * We tell people not to drink and drive. We don't teach them not to drive. ... We would never withhold information about seat belts because they wouldn't know how to protect themselves.
 * Laura Linderberg, as quoted in Sarah McCammon, “Abstinence-Only Education Is Ineffective And Unethical, Report Argues”, NPR (August 23, 2017)

 * The perfect victory is to triumph over ourselves. For that keepeth himself subject in such sort that his sensual affections be obedient to reason, and his reason in all things obedient to Me; that person is truly conqueror of himself, and lord of the world.
 * Thomas à Kempis,  (c. 1418–1427)
 * The Complete Guide to Christian Quotations (2011), p. 7

 * My experience through life has convinced me that while moderation and temperance in all things are commendable and beneficial, abstinence from spirituous liquors is the best safeguard to morals and health.
 * Robert E. Lee, letter to the students of Washington College, Virginia, December 9, 1869. From Life and Letters of Lee, by J. William Jones (1906), p. 442

 * There is a mainstream sex ed and there is right-wing sex ed. But there is no left-wing sex education in America.
 * Leslie Kantor in 1997, as quoted in Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (2002), Judith Levine, forward by Joycelyn Elders, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, ISBN 0816640068 No-Sex Education, p. 93

 * When asked a few years ago why her new curriculum's title now prominently featured the word abstinence, a progressive sex educator (who has herself worked to build a dike against the deluge of abstinence ed) said, "Because it is one way teens can choose to deal with sex." Her interlocutor, a saber-tongued sex therapist, replied, "Right. So's suicide." Abstinence education is not practical. It is ideological.
 * Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (2002), Judith Levine, forward by Joycelyn Elders, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, ISBN 0816640068 No-Sex Education, p. 93-94

 * Est virtus placitis abstinuisse bonis.
 * 'Tis virtue to abstain from things that please.
 * Ovid, Heroides, XVII, 98
 * Classical and Foreign Quotations, 3rd ed. (1904), no. 695

 * Ἀνέχου και ἀπέχου.
 * Sustine et abstine.
 * Bear and forbear.
 * Stoic maxim, attributed by Arrian to Epictetus

 * Self denial is not a virtue: it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.
 * George Bernard Shaw, "Maxims for Revolutionists", Man and Superman (1903).

 * Usez, n'abusez point […] L'abstinence ou l'excès ne fit jamais d'heureux.
 * Translation: Use, do not abuse […] Neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
 * Voltaire, "Cinquième discours: sur la nature de plaisir", Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738).

 * The moon, methinks, looks with a wat’ry eye, And when she weeps, weeps every little flower, Lamenting some enforcèd chastity.
 * Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, III, i, 192–4

Bible

 * And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her.But he refused, and said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand;There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her.
 * Genesis 39:7-10 (KJV)

 * Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the L ORD, she shall be praised.
 * Proverbs 31:30 (KJV)

 * And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the L ORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands,Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the L ORD ’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon to fight against them; and the L ORD delivered them into his hands.And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the children of Ammon were subdued before the children of Israel.And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the L ORD , and I cannot go back.And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the L ORD , do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the L ORD hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows.And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains.And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel,That the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.
 * Judges 11:30–39 (KJV)

 * All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
 * Matthew 19:11-12 (KJV)

 * Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
 * Romans 13:13 (KJV)

 * Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.
 * 1 Corinthians 6:18 (KJV)

 * What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
 * 1 Corinthians 6:19 (KJV)

 * Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.
 * 1 Corinthians 7:2 (KJV)

 * There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
 * 1 Corinthians 10:13 (KJV)

 * And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.
 * 2 Corinthians 12:21 (KJV)

 * Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
 * Galatians 5:19-21 (KJV)

 * Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
 * Colossians 3:5 (KJV)

 * For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;
 * 1 Thessalonians 4:3-4 (KJV)

 * Abstain from all appearance of evil.
 * 1 Thessalonians 5:22 (KJV)

 * Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
 * 2 Timothy 2:22 (KJV)

 * Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.
 * Hebrews 13:4 (KJV)

 * Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
 * 1 Peter 2:11 (KJV)

 * Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
 * Jude 1:7 (KJV)

Quran

 * Those who forswear their wives must wait four months; then, if they change their mind, lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
 * Surah 2, 226 (Pickthall)

 * Whoso (of the guardians) is rich, let him abstain generously (from taking of the property of orphans); and whoso is poor let him take thereof in reason (for his guardianship).
 * Surah 4, 6 (Pickthall)

 * I asked of him an evil act, but he proved continent.
 * Surah 12 (Yusuf), 32 (Pickthall)
 * could not seduce Joseph

 * And let those who cannot find a match keep chaste till Allah give them independence by His grace. And such of your slaves as seek a writing (of emancipation), write it for them if ye are aware of aught of good in them, and bestow upon them of the wealth of Allah which He hath bestowed upon you. Force not your slave-girls to whoredom that ye may seek enjoyment of the life of the world, if they would preserve their chastity. And if one force them, then (unto them), after their compulsion, lo! Allah will be Forgiving, Merciful.
 * Surah 24, 33 (Pickthall)

title: Abstinence


text:
Absurdity

Absurdity is a term for things extremely unreasonable, or as to be foolish or not taken seriously, or the state of being so. "Absurd" is an adjective used to describe an absurdity, e.g., "this encyclopedia article is absurd". It derives from the Latin absurdusm meaning "out of tune", hence irrational. The Latin surdus means deaf, implying stupidity. Absurdity is contrasted with seriousness in reasoning. In general usage, absurdity may be synonymous with ridiculousness and nonsense. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter, and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness. Students of the absurd or advocates of the importance of recognizing it are often designated Absurdists, and usually consider it one of their major roles in human society to note subtle differences between something that can seem entirely "nonsense" and something which is "absurd", in that absurdity is often hidden within either ultra-seriousness or widely-trusted thought, and actually indicates something beyond any particular notions or definitions of "Good" or "Evil" — or any mortally conceivable concepts whatsoever.

A

 * The logical figure of the absurd, which presents as stringent the contradictory opposite of stringency, negates all the meaningfulness logic seems to provide in order to convict logic of its own absurdity: to convict it of using subject, predicate, and copula to lay out the nonidentical as though it were identical, as though it could be accommodated with forms.
 * Theodor Adorno, Can One Live After Auschwitz? (2003), p. 284

B

 * Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
 * Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

C

 * The absurd is born of the confrontation between the human call and the unreasonable silence of the world.
 * Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)

 * Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful.
 * Albert Camus, in "Three Interviews" in Lyrical and Critical Essays (1970)

 * The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.
 * Albert Camus, critiquing Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, as quoted in Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd (2002) by Avi Sagi, p. 43

 * It is not funny that anything else should fall down, only that a man should fall down … Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.
 * G. K. Chesterton, "Spiritualism", in All Things Considered (1908)

 * In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask.
 * G. K. Chesterton, On the Comic Spirit

D

 * There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.
 * Fyodor Dostoevsky, in "Mr. —nov and the Question of Art" Polnoye Sobraniye Sochinyeni [Complete Collected Works] (1895), Vol. 9

G

 * Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.
 * James A. Garfield, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (4 July 1865)

H

 * Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it or simply avoid it.
 * Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace (1986), ch. 2

 * There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world.
 * Václav Havel, in an address upon receiving the Open Society Prize awarded by Central European University (24 June 1999)

 * Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.
 * Václav Havel, as quoted in Amnesty International's essay "From Prisoner to President – A Tribute"

 * The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject but man only.
 * Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

M

 * We live in a time which has created the art of the absurd. It is our art.
 * Norman Mailer, Canniobals and Christians (1966), "Introducing Our Argument"

 * A prophet or an achiever must never mind an occasional absurdity; it is an occupational risk.
 * Oswald Moseley, My Life (1968), ch.12

N

 * From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.
 * Napoleon I of France, speaking about troubles in the invasions of Russia (10 December 1812), as recorded by Abbé du Pradt, and quoted in History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789, to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, Vol. 3 (1842) by Sir Archibald Alison, p. 503; often also translated as: There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

S

 * I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incident divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together.
 * George Santayana, in a letter to Logan Pearsall Smith (24 May 1918) in The Works of George Santayana: The letters of George Santayana 1910 - 1920 (2002), p. 319

 * Jesus never said anything about absurdity, and he never indicated for one flash of time that he was aware of the preposterousness of his theory about himself. And he didn't even try to make the theory understandable in terms of the reality and experience of the rest of us. For if everybody else is also not what Jesus said he was, what good is what he said?
 * William Saroyan, Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang in Forever (1976)

 * The more absurd life is, the more unsupportable death is.
 * Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words

W

 * When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness' . . . because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity . . . And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings.
 * Colin Wilson in The Black Room, p. 75 (1975)

title: Absurdity


text:
Accusation

An Accusation is a statement by one person asserting that another person or entity has done something improper. The person who makes the accusation is an accuser, while the subject against whom it is made is the accused. An accuser can make an accusation with or without evidence and can even be a false accusation, made out of malice, for the purpose of harming the reputation of the accused. The perceived strength of an accusation is affected by the trustworthiness of the accuser.

Quotes

 * Sorted alphabetically by author or source

 * To accuse is so easy that it is infamous to do so where proof is impossible!
 * Zoë Akins, Déclassé (1919), Act I.

 * ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
 * Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

 * The founders of the English laws have with excellent forecast contrived, that no man should be called to answer to the king for any capital crime, unless upon the preparatory accusation of twelve or more of his fellow subjects, the grand jury: and that the truth of every accusation, whether preferred in the shape of indictment, information, or appeal, should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours, indifferently chosen, and superior to all suspicion. So that the liberties of England cannot but subsist, so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, (which none will be so hardy as to make) but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it; by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial, by justices of the peace, commissioners of the revenue, and courts of conscience. And however convenient these may appear at first, (as doubtless all arbitrary powers, well executed, are the most convenient) yet let it be again remembered, that delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters; that these inroads upon this sacred bulwark of the nation are fundamentally opposite to the spirit of our constitution; and that, though begun in trifles, the precedent may gradually increase and spread, to the utter disuse of juries in questions of the most momentous concern.
 * William Blackstone Book IV, Ch. 27: Of Trial, And Conviction. (1765-1769)

 * I've been accused of every death except the casualty list of the World War.
 * Al Capone The Bootleggers.

 * It is not uncommon for ignorant and corrupt men to falsely charge others with doing what they imagine that they themselves, in their narrow minds and experience, would have done under the circumstances of a given case, and the surest check, often the only check, on such perjury, is to recognize the impossibility that men of larger instruction and resources and experience could have been guilty of such conduct.
 * John Hessin Clarke, Valdez v. United States, 244 U.S. 432, 450 (1917) (dissenting).

 * Even doubtful accusations leave a stain behind them.
 * Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia (1732).

 * Trust me, no tortures which the poets feign, Can match the fierce, the unutterable pain He feels, who night and day, devoid of rest, Carries his own accuser in his breast.
 * Juvenal, reported in William Gifford, The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis (1806), p. 408.

 * We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.
 * Edward R. Murrow, in his famous See It Now broadcast focusing on McCarthy's tactics (9 March 1954)

 * When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing to himself.
 * Louis Nizer, My Life in Court (1961), p. 115.

 * Let your accusations be few in number, even if they be just.
 * Pope Sixtus I, The Ring (c. 120).

 * Believe not each accusing tongue, As most weak persons do; But still believe that story wrong, Which ought not to be true!
 * Richard Brinsley Sheridan, reported in Nicholas Harris Nicolas, The Carcanet: a Literary Album, Containing Select Passages from the Most Distinguished English Writers (1828), p. 132.

 * Don't accuse anyone else.
 * Vincent van Gogh, in statement to police before he died, as quoted in "The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh" on 60 Minutes (16 October 2011), referring to evidence that Van Gogh had not committed suicide, presented in Van Gogh: The Life (2011) by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith.

 * Character assassination is a deliberate and sustained effort to damage the reputation or credibility of an individual by making false accusations, rumors, and manipulating information.
 * Wikiquotes

 * Qui s'excuse s'accuse.
 * Who apologizes, accuses himself.
 * Quoted by Wood, V.-C, Tichborne v. Tichborne (1867), 15 W. R. 1074; by Lord Bramwell, Derry v. Peek (1889), L. R. 14 Ap. Ca. 347.

title: Accusation