What are 'transvestigations'? The 'hate-driven conspiracy theory' explained

"Transvestigations" are becoming increasingly common as transphobia runs rampant in the media and online — but what exactly are they?

The "hate-driven conspiracy theory" first emerged in early 2017, according to GLAAD, making a recent resurgence as transgender rights have come under attack in state legislatures across the United States.

The trend largely occurs in social media circles, targeting cisgender celebrities — and sometimes people who aren't public figures — by “investigating” their biological sex, offering "fake pseudo-scientific 'evidence' that they are transgender (with the underlying bigoted and ignorant implication that being a transgender person is a bad thing)," the media advocacy organization explains.

Most recently, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif has become the target of virulent attacks from conservatives accusing her of being transgender, even though she is a cisgender woman hailing from a country where it is illegal to identify as trans and transition. Figures as large as Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance have fallaciously added to the fire.

Khelif is one example of how the conspiracy theory largely impacts Black women, such as Michelle Obama and Serena Williams, whom euro-centric beauty standards and the institutions upholding them deem to have "less feminine" features. Still, the "investigations" are far-reaching and have impacted celebrities such as Taylor Swift and, bizarrely, right-wing darlings like Kyle Rittenhouse.

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France's First Lady, Brigitte Macron, has also been the target of such "investigations," with conservative pundit Candace Owens being the loudest voice to accuse her of secretly being a man, calling the implications “terrifying” and a “scandal.” Macron previously successfully sued two women making similar claims for defamation.

The "transvestigation" trend has parallels to the "satanic panic" of the 1980s and 1990s, according to Media Matters, which led to a string of false convictions for crimes such as sexual abuse and homicide. This is particularly concerning, given the right's repeated and baseless claims that members of the LGBTQ+ community are "groomers."

The organization explains that the trend is based in the bioessentialist ideas of what males and females are "supposed to" look like according to "nature," when in fact sex is not entirely binary and exists instead on a spectrum.

"The right’s present fixation on trans people has led to accusations of secret trans people everywhere not because men and women are so different, but rather because we have so much in common," it writes.