Talk:Transvestigation

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This Conspiracy theories related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

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Question[edit]

How many of these tranvestigators are in denial? 2600:4040:475E:F600:7CAC:4887:EAE0:3ACF (talk) 12:22, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Haggard's Law is a sarcastic meme, not an actually meaningful statistical effect. While there's no doubt to be some closeted transphobes out there, we should not take queerphobia to be an automatic sign that someone's in the closet. Carthage (talk) 12:26, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
I don't think "Haggard's Law" factors into it much at all, though transvestigation could be seen as one manifestation of how some people are very uncomfortable with the concept of other people being transgender. The way that someone essentially appears to turn from one person into another, can be interpreted as a scary "shapeshifter"-esque characteristic, especially if someone doesn't know any trans people personally. And then there's the idea that anyone you know could turn out to be trans (rendering the concept both foreign and near if, again, they don't currently know anyone who is). Some emphasize that as true to emphasize the normality (of sorts) of being trans, but the thought may in fact make some people anxious or scared. Chillpilled (talk) 12:58, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
Reading some Reddit threads about this subject made me realize that there could be a serious case for Haggard's Law directly applying to a small handful of these folks, actually. Imagine you find yourself attracted to a celebrity of the same sex. What if your bizarre way of denying your own homosexual attraction was to convince yourself that celebrity is secretly the other sex? Granted, lacking a specific example, this is speculative. Chillpilled (talk) 16:40, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Poe's Law[edit]

There HAS to someone doing this as a parody. Then it got picked up by actual cranks.The Krusty Krab (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Most of these people are serious. It's not even a new thing, actually it appears that the oldest versions of such theories more often tended to accuse people of being "hermaphrodites", i.e. intersex. I think that was the case for the Lady Gaga incident even. Back in the 1990s or so there were a few cases of models who were accurately outed by the tabloid press as transgender, which I consider may have helped fuel the trope very early on. As with many conspiracy theories it received new life online especially in the smartphone/Facebook/YouTube era. If you think about the way that people speculate about Hitler having one testicle, that's not even that different. People may be a bit obsessed with the sex lives and genitalia of famous people. Chillpilled (talk) 13:14, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Future possible section[edit]

Exploring the specific religious justifications for believing in the wider conspiracy theory, i.e. the Biblical verses cited on transvestigator blogs. This sort of thing may help to illustrate the religious component. It seems to me that the usual English-speaking transvestigator online is an Independent Baptist or evangelical type Christian (particularly among the laypeople) who also may buy into conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church being satanically-controlled and that sort of thing. Chillpilled (talk) 19:58, 27 September 2023 (UTC)