If you can't imagine speaking to a trans person

Here's a principle of civility (of a good sort):

"Whenever you are weighing in on politics, society, and culture, ask yourself: Would you feel comfortable making this argument directly to the face of the people whose lives, rights, and dignity are most immediately affected by the issue in question?

I can’t quite remember where I first encountered the idea that we ought to approach politics through this lens at all times. It has profoundly shaped my perspective."

— Domination or Dissolution, Rule or Ruin: The Right is fantasizing about secession, “national divorce,” and civil war – because they will not, under any circumstance, accept pluralism. Thomas Zimmer, Democracy Americana (Substack), Feb 7, 2024

One reason I believe many people feel comfortable with suggesting anti-trans restrictions is that they don't know any trans people and thus can't imagine themselves making the argument to any trans person's face. They can't imagine what it would be like to speak to a trans person. So, regarding what they say about trans people, they give themselves no intellectual constraint based on what they'd be willing to say to a trans person. The latter is not a concept they have; it cannot constrain them.

Zimmer brought up this topic in the context of the increasingly serious proposals for Texas secession or other versions of a 'national divorce.' It's wrong, he says, because you wouldn't say it to someone's face. For example, "would you feel comfortable making this argument – let them go do their own thing! – to the tens of millions of people who happen to live in those Republican-led states, who want nothing to do with the reactionary project, but would suffer most under authoritarian white Christian patriarchal rule?" Also, "the analogy simply doesn’t work." It's not a divorce because you couldn't have "amicable split"; you'd have "disastrous political, economic, and social consequences." Also, the image of a divorce falsely implies "a defensive posture on the Right, as if they just wanted to do their own thing, unbothered by an encroaching government or totalitarian progressive elites."

Imagine, then, what this so-called "divorce" would look like. Imagine secession. Imagine war. Imagine leaving your neighbors to unjust laws. Imagine leaving them behind to suffer cruelty.

That's what we'll do if we don't have empathy.

Would you feel comfortable proposing this to the face of someone who would suffer from it?

That's why I'd like everyone to refrain from proposing regulations on trans people's lives if they do not even know a trans person and can't imagine speaking to one.