Frames and Triggers of Extreme Speech: The Case of Transphobia

Abstract

This research explores, from a critical discourse perspective, the following questions: What frames are used to construct transphobic argumentation and its counterargumentation? What triggers the discriminatory comments? Answers to these questions will help in understanding what motivates transphobia and how to improve counterspeech. Our data comprises 1137 annotated comments discussing trans personnel in the UK army. The annotations and our analysis focus on the argumentation used in transphobic speech to construct the topos of threat and its counterspeech. We adopt both a quantitative and a qualitative approach and identify two main argumentative frames (the medical and misfit frames), their counterspeech, which is mainly based on logic and facts, and the triggers of transphobia, namely gender ideology based on binarism as well as the role played by public figures such as politicians in spreading disinformation and prejudice. Our results include suggesting an argumentation schema (argument, premise, conclusion and claim) based on the topos of threat, a schema which may be used in automatic counterspeech.