"We're All Transphobic" :: Vice Mag Co-Founder Slams Trans People, Gripes About Backlash

Vice Magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes lashed out at transgender people in a vulgarity-laced essay last month. When GLBTs and thoughtful straight supports spoke up in turn, McInnes complained that his exercise of free speech was being attacked.

Media Matters related how McInnes slammed trans people in a post that appeared at Thought Catalogue. The essay was titled "Transphobia is Perfectly Natural," but didn't make reference to any of the natural sciences to support its thesis. Instead, McInnes hurled insult after insult at transgender people, whom he evidently confused with homosexuals, calling them "mentally ill gays."

In keeping with that inability to distinguish between transgender people and gays, McInnes seemingly drew on a wellspring of anti-gay rhetoric for his essay.

"We see there are no old trannies," McInnes declared. "They die of drug overdoses and suicide way before they're 40 and nobody notices because nobody knows them."

McInnes went on to claim that transgender people were "poor bastards" who were ill served by attempts to press for their equality under the law and social dignity. He also directly contradicted the lived experience of transgender individuals and inveighed against those who undergo gender reassignment procedures in order to obtain the sort of body in which they will feel at home.

"They are mentally ill gays who need help, and that help doesn't include being maimed by physicians," McInnes wrote. "These aren't women trapped in a man's body. They are nuts trapped in a crazy person's body."

The essay included a healthy dose of the sort of personal intolerance that once resulted in so-called "ugly laws," legislation designed to keep people deemed unsightly out of public spaces.

"I see them on the streets of New York," McInnes railed. "They are guys with tits and a sweatshirt. They wear jeans and New Balance. 'What's the matter with simply being a fag who wears makeup?' I think when I see them."

"You're not a woman. You're a tomboy at best."

Media Matters reported, "The post generated a significant backlash, with scores of writers demanding that their work be removed from Thought Catalog. Within a week of the post's publication, McInnes was placed on 'indefinite leave' from his position as chief creative officer of the ad agency Rooster."

McInnes was defended by another publication, the Daily Caller, where he plead the case that he was being unfairly hounded.

"It's a real quandary people who write have to face right now," McInnes said. "Am I going to speak freely or am I going to hide?"

Daily Caller writer Patrick Howley took a stance sympathetic to McInnes claim of unfair treatment, and, without apparent irony, posed the question, "Will mine be the first generation in history to gauge intellectual success as a measure not of challenging taboos, but rather of maniacally defending them?"

An attempt to view the essay directly brought up a message from Thought Catalogue that stated, "The article you are trying to read has been reported by the community as hateful or abusive content."

The text directed the reader to a roundup of comments on the article and on the issue of its subsequent removal. Comments included an opinion from a reader identifying as a transwoman who deplored the response that McInnes' posting drew.

That reader lamented "Mister McInnes' crucifixion at the hands of the bloodthirsty progressive mob," saying that it "brings back traumatic memories of the times when I received the same treatment." The reader went on to speak out against "the loss of freedom in our society, as the list of people persecuted for thoughtcrime in our society grows longer and longer."

As though in response, a subsequent posting quoted online writer Kat Hach� as writing about the fracas, "For anyone crying 'censorship' or 'thought police', they can blow it out their ass." The quote attributed to Hach� went on to note that McInnes "had a platform for his bile, now people have the freedom to respond to it or refuse to associate with him.

"For people handwringing about how this privileged cis white dude lost his job due to his own shitty behavior, my heart bleeds as I think of all the trans people who either lose their jobs or face difficulty obtaining one due to prejudice that he reinforces."

Kat Hach� writes for Bustle, where her bio states that Hach� is "a transgender writer from East Tennessee" who "writes about transgender issues and feminism."