But it doesn’t fit the mental structure they’ve built to justify anti-trans bigotry, which is assembled on an scaffold of nominally trying to protect women from perverts.
Current right wing anti-trans sentiment is built on much of the same underlying ideas as the anti-trans part of 2nd wave trans-exclusive radical feminism:
All men are dangerous, likely sexual predators.
Sexual predators will do whatever they have to to pursue their prey.
You cannot change your sex, and wanting to is either mental illness or a ploy.
Women have a right to spaces that exclude men.
Women in such spaces are likely to be in a more vulnerable position than elsewhere.
Therefore, sexually predatory men will play dress up and pretend to be women to get access to women’s spaces as a means to pursue prey.
If you accept all five of those points, then their view makes total sense (but at least half of those points are wrong, which is why it doesn’t make sense in reality).
they don’t know that trans men exist
I’m sure they do, in an academic sense.
But it doesn’t fit the mental structure they’ve built to justify anti-trans bigotry, which is assembled on an scaffold of nominally trying to protect women from perverts.
Current right wing anti-trans sentiment is built on much of the same underlying ideas as the anti-trans part of 2nd wave trans-exclusive radical feminism:
Therefore, sexually predatory men will play dress up and pretend to be women to get access to women’s spaces as a means to pursue prey.
If you accept all five of those points, then their view makes total sense (but at least half of those points are wrong, which is why it doesn’t make sense in reality).