What we are living through is a tumultuous ongoing adaptation to the new environment that our technologies and industrial-digital economies have unfolded. Theoretically we are more removed from the necessities of biological survival than ever, so, as luxury has created space in civilisation for the tolerance that comes naturally to animals and pre-civilised humans, repressed minorities such as trans people have felt emboldened to demand respect — or at least, a lack of persecutory violence. At the same time, many people, rather than seriously face the underlying issues of ecological degradation, social instability due to rising economic inequality, automation and the rise of ‘surplus’ populations, have pounced on this emboldening in a reflexive retreat into ‘civilised’ scapegoating.