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Today, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck dropped a major story detailing North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s particularly troubling history of online posts in a messaging forum.
Made between 2008 and 2012, the posts include Mr. Robinson referring to himself as a “Black Nazi,” expressing support for the reinstatement of slavery, fondly reminiscing when he enjoyed “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a teenager, and admitting that he enjoys watching transgender porn.
The first three of these things are completely and undeniably wrong, but, of course, I have a terrible feeling we’re about to see a news cycle in which considerable shaming will be projected on Mr. Robinson from various corners for his private porn viewing habits.
And that would not only be missing the point but harming trans people in the process.
I don’t give a damn what any consenting adult is or isn’t into, does or doesn’t do, when it comes to their sexual interests. It’s absolutely none of my business, nor is it anyone else’s. It’s not my place to judge the consensual and private sexual practices of any other adult.
If a non-trans adult has a kink for trans people, I really don’t care, and moreover, I really don’t wanna know. I would prefer not knowing how they privately fetishize trans folks, and also: I see nothing wrong with them doing what they want in private, so long as they keep it to themselves and act in a consensual manner.
The problem here is that central to Mr. Robinson’s political brand is an aggressive and cruel dehumanization and shaming of trans people, in addition to the LGBTQ community generally.
Mr. Robinson has called for trans women to be arrested for using public women’s restrooms and went further than that, stating that if trans people need to use a public restroom, we should “find a corner outside somewhere.”
Like dogs, of course.
Mr. Robinson has promoted the completely absurd, misogynoir conspiracy theory that former first lady Michelle Obama is secretly a trans woman (he called her a “man”) and implied that she and former president Obama are secretly a gay male couple, slander which is often thrown at Black women public figures.
In the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting, in which 49 people were brutally murdered and 53 wounded, Mr. Robinson posted on Facebook:
“…homosexuality is still an abominable sin and I WILL NOT join in ‘celebrating gay pride’ nor will I fly their sacrilegious flag on my page. Sorry if this offends anyone, but I’m not falling for the media/pop culture ‘okey-doke.’”
Mr. Robinson has stated that LGBTQ people are the downfall of civilization and referred to us as “devil worshippers,” which, I must say, as a Christian trans woman, is certainly news to me.
This is all in addition to his Holocaust denialism, frequent invocation of horrible antisemitic tropes, beliefs that women should neither have the right to vote nor breastfeed in public, statement that Muslim Americans are “invaders,” and consistently holding that abortion should be entirely outlawed, without any exceptions, despite having paid for an abortion himself.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more this sad, cowardly, insecure person has said and done throughout his public life that makes him beyond disqualified, many times over, to run for any elected office.
So, am I surprised that Mr. Robinson viciously attacks trans people publicly while enjoying transgender porn privately? Not even a little. It is the opposite of shocking.
He is simply part of a long pattern of MAGA extremists who weirdly sexualize the bodies of trans people and are deeply unsettled by their own desires and bizarrely address that internal quagmire by projecting their conditioned self-loathing and resulting rage on those of us who are trans.
I don’t care about Mr. Robinson’s sex life, and I really don’t want to know anything about it. And I certainly have no interest in shaming him for his consensual sexual interests, mostly because that would require knowing about them and again: I don’t wanna know. Nor do I have the right to know.
If we were the last two people on earth, and it were his dying wish to confide in me his transgender kink, I would politely decline, wish him a smooth exit of his own, and mercifully alone, wait for Death’s sweet embrace, peacefully and blissfully unaware of his interior life.
I just wish he and other Trump acolytes wouldn’t feel the need to make their sex lives our business through this constant and cruel projection.
Perhaps that’s an extraordinary request for extremists like Mr. Robinson, and yet, here I am, naively hoping they’ll someday understand such a simple concept.
The Actual Problem with Mark Robinson's Dabbling in Trans Porn