The recent media furore over an article by Julie Burchill has brought to light prejudice against transgender individuals among people who should know better. But this tendency to demonise the victims of unfair treatment is a well established phenomenon

There was a bit of outrage flying around online recently. You may not know about it, and I wasn't involved, but if you have any interest in online media it was impossible to miss, in the same way that any ships travelling near Bikini Atoll would struggle to not notice when the military were running a few little tests there. It culminated in a Julie Burchill piece for the Observer (which is a different publication to the Guardian … I've been blogging for them for months and I only found that out this weekend). Burchill's article was supposedly a defence of her friend Suzanne Moore and her recent dealings with trans people, but seems to be an all-out attack on trans people in general (which I won't be linking to here because the online version has been withdrawn and, even if it hadn't been, it has already had enough traffic thank-you very much).

I wouldn't dare to assume that I was qualified to comment on the issues and hardships facing trans people, or feminists for that matter. It is such a sensitive subject that odds are I've accidentally said a number of offensive things in that last paragraph alone and will continue to do so in the remainder of this piece. Sorry about that in advance, I promise it's not intentional, and feel free to point out my mistakes to me.

But leaving the political, sociological and ideological factors aside, I was amazed to discover the degree of hostility there is to trans people, particularly from those who are supposedly opposed to oppression and prejudice. Why would members of society who are persistently victimised in the worst possible ways still be vilified so?

Could it be the Just World Hypothesis? This dates back to research by Melvin Lerner which showed that subjects asked to evaluate someone undergoing painful electric shocks (they were fake, don't worry) tended to rate the victim far less favourably if they were told their suffering would continue. If they were told they'd be rewarded in the end, people rated the victim far more favourably. The worse the victim apparently suffered, the worse the subject's opinion of them was.

What's going on there? The Just World Hypothesis states that people have an inherent belief that the world is fair and just and that people's actions and behaviour is eventually met with the appropriate consequences, i.e. "you get what you deserve." When faced with evidence that suggests that this is bollocks, most people's first response is to rationalise it in a way that allows the illusion to continue. The most obvious example of this is victim blaming.

People see someone suffering, and think "either the world is a cruel and essentially random place where people can suffer for no reason, or this person is suffering because of something they did, so they deserve it."

Rarely is there any evidence for the latter conclusion, but it's the one people go for as it offers some form of psychological protection. "It happened to them because of something they did. I didn't do whatever they did, so it won't happen to me", that sort of thing. It's not nice, but it's the sort of logic that probably stops many people from constantly collapsing into a weeping heap.

People can go to extremes to find reasons to blame victims. That's how Japan can suffer a catastrophic natural disaster and some people can conclude it's because of Pearl Harbour.

This tendency to victim blame is everywhere and often exploited. Demonising the disabled? "Scroungers v strivers"? It is present even when it comes to official crime prevention, especially when it comes to anti-rape campaigns. Trans people are constantly victimised, so would likely be more prone to be on the receiving end of this just-world false rationalisation that they are in some way to blame. It is a cruel irony that an ingrained belief that the world is a fair place makes people behave in ways that ensure it isn't.

There's obviously more to it than that, though. Most people are hopefully intelligent enough to think beyond knee-jerk reactions in this way. And if anyone should be aware that the world isn't intrinsically fair, it's feminists and similar campaigners/activists, who wouldn't need to exist if it was. I don't know the ideologies nearly well enough to know if this is a valid statement, but it seems logical to me.

There's also the defensive attribution hypothesis, which is related. Simply put, people will interpret situations and behaviours that result in victimisation or unfortunate events in a way that protects their self-esteem, and makes it seem like they won't suffer similarly. If they see someone who is similar to them in some way suffer, they will instinctively focus on how they're actually different, ergo a similar fate won't befall them. This could and would inevitably lead to the demonising of trans people.

It can't be just that, though. Trans people and any similar groups must be victimised in the first place for any of the above to be applicable. There must be something about them that makes people more prone to behave negatively toward them (to put it mildly).

Some people may disagree with what other people do to their bodies, but as long as they're not forcing you to do it too, what's the issue? It's their body, what could be more theirs to do with as they please? A lot of people don't see it that way though, as we know. If what you do or want to do to yourself ends up involving some form of government funding, a lot of people feel entitled to a say in your life.

Gender is itself a far more complex concept than the simple binary system we typically adhere to. Those who go around challenging societal norms just by being there rarely get an easy ride. And the binary concept of gender is so entrenched in our collective psyche that anyone who deviates from it is likely to provoke strong and usually negative reactions, even from people like doctors, who logically should be the last people to behave in such ways.

But If I was going to try and explain all possible reasons for this animosity toward trans people, this blogpost would run into the terabytes. There are so many social, psychological and countless other factors in play, it would be like trying to untangle a ball of Christmas tree lights the size of the moon. I just offer the above rationalisations as possible explanations for illogical transphobia. Of course, some people are just bastards, let's not forget that.

I don't have any ideological or personal involvement with the whole debacle that occurred recently, and I'm certainly not making any expert pronouncements on what's happening. I'm a behavioural neuroscientist who works in mental health, and I just saw supposedly intelligent people behaving in ways that seemed illogical, even hypocritical, and I thought I'd offer a possible explanation as to why. But obviously things are a lot more complex.

I'm also a Guardian blogger though, and not even a serious one (I usually write about boobs or moustaches). But given that it was Burchill's article that caused so much offence, and the Guardian's perceived poor track record in this area, I felt it was necessary to have at least one piece published under the Guardian banner that presented transphobia as illogical and irrational, which it definitely is.

It may not be a just world, but that doesn't mean we can't at least make an effort to change that.

Dean Burnett is on Twitter (for now) @garwboy