Dehumanization and Its Neighbors

This chapter explains the relationship between dehumanization and other, nearby, destructive social beliefs and practices—things like sexism, ableism, and transphobia. Often, people lump all of these together under the heading of dehumanization. The chapter argues that they each have their own unique dynamics, and blurring the distinctions between them only makes it more difficult to resist them. The chapter goes on to assert that not all dehumanization is of the sort that makes monsters. There is another kind of dehumanization—enfeebling dehumanization. When people get dehumanized in the enfeebling mode, they are seen as metaphysically threatening but physically innocuous.