Solidarity

[liv]

So one of the things that caught my attention during the Ten Days was that bootstrapcook posted a Twitter thread declaring that they refuse to be a bystander [to anti-semitism] any longer because to do nothing is to be complicit. I advise against reading the comments. I was surprisingly moved by their posts; basically, my expectation is that people who actively identify as leftist generally don't care about anti-semitism, whether because (some) Jews are rich and white, or because Israel is oppressive and colonialist.

I think the right thing for me to do is to return the favour. I don't have one percent the audience that Jack does, but still:

Transphobia / transmisia is one of the most dangerous threats facing our country today.

I refuse to be a bystander because to do nothing is to be complicit.

I choose to reject the subtle and blatant ways that transmisia is diseasing the fabric of our society.

It's not enough that I am broadly in favour of trans people having equal rights; I need to start actively pushing back against the rising tide of trans hatred. Including the hatred coming from the left and from people calling themselves feminists. I'm not saying I understand all the nuances of trans issues (and there are as many different experiences as there are individual trans people). I'm not saying I'm completely free of my own anti-trans prejudice or at the very least ingrained cis-sexism. But still, this is the year I'm getting off the fence, I'm no longer prioritizing intellectual debate and trying to see the merits of both sides over the safety and wellbeing of actual trans people.

Trans people are just as much the gender they say they are as cis people. Acknowledging that doesn't diminish feminism or take anything away from cis women. Feminism that deliberately excludes and actively seeks to harm trans women is not real feminism.

There is no issue of men pretending to be trans women so that they can attack people in public toilets. And even if someone could show me a convincing incident of that happening rather than a hypothetical anxiety that it might happen, the problem would be abusive men, not trans women. There is no benefit, and vast amounts of harm, from prohibiting trans people from going out in public, or insisting that people must use the toilet that matches random strangers' perception of their gender.

There is no such thing as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. There is no issue of children being forced to undergo surgery and invasive medical treatment just because they don't conform to extreme gender stereotypes. Accepting trans children means listening to them when they say what their gender is, and in a few very rare cases (I believe the numbers are in the 10s UK-wide) giving them entirely reversible medication to delay the onset of puberty. (There is in fact a problem with painful and dangerous surgeries being performed on intersex children without their consent and often without even their parents' consent, but that's caused by the cis medical establishment, not by trans people.) There is one study that suggests a high proportion of gender non-conforming children turn out to be cis by the time they're adults, but almost all the other high quality evidence out there says that the vast majority of children know what gender they are. And even if some children are mistaken in thinking they might be trans, the benefits of those children knowing that they're loved and supported as they are far outweigh the minor downsides of them returning to their previously assigned gender.

Self-identification means reducing the amount of bureaucracy trans people have to go through in order to get the gender marker changed on their paperwork. It does not mean men invading women-only spaces. (Again, if men did that, those men would be to blame, not trans people.) Nobody's gender is 'attack helicopter'; that's a years old weak joke by a mediocre comedian. And honestly, all aspects of identity (not just gender) are complex and people use all kinds of different metaphors to explain their experiences. You don't have to understand somebody else's identity to treat that person with respect.

Trans lesbians stating the truth that they are lesbians does not mean they are forcing cis lesbians to have sex with them. Straight and other male-attracted trans women aren't "raping" straight men simply by existing as women whom some men may find attractive.

Yes, some trans people are horrible people. But trans people don't hold collective responsibility for the actions of everybody who happens to share some aspects of their gender history. There is a far, far bigger problem of cis people committing violence against trans people than there is of crimes committed by trans people. And even when trans hatred stops short of direct violence, children being rejected by their parents, people being abused in public whether online or in person, people being discriminated against in employment, people being denied medical treatment, and all other aspects of punishing people for having a different gender from the one they were assigned as babies, do massive and all too often lethal harm.

I still have lots more to learn, and like Jack Monroe I'm going to make sure I get most of my information from trans people talking about their own lives, not cis people theorizing about them. And I'm going to start treating trans hatred as the dangerous bigotry it is, not as a reasonable difference of opinion.

Aside from that, I finally got round to coming out on FB. Facebook is odd because it contains a lot of people from my childhood and other eras of my past, and quite a few people with whom my connection is more professional or pastoral than personal. I wasn't exactly hiding the fact that I'm poly, and bi is buried in the small print of my profile somewhere nobody ever looks. But I made a post updating what's going on in my life, including that I'm in a quad relationship. It was a bit scary, but so far it's mainly led to people I haven't spoken to in ages getting in touch, which is delightful. But now I'm properly out everywhere, work, all my various Jewish communities, and the bits of the internet where I use my wallet name. More love, more openness, more keeping going anyway in spite of fear.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

well said

[alexseanchai]

Thank you.

I'm kinda afraid to google 'recommended reading and actions for opposing anti-Semitism'. Do you have a better place to suggest I start?

[liv]

That's a really great question, and I think you're right not to Google. I would start with the Anti-Defamation League. They're quite establishment and not especially lefty, but they will give you useful information about what anti-semitism is and how to respond to it.

Holocaust commemoration sites often have relevant info too. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has some good stuff. [Part of the background to Jack Monroe's post is that there's a current political row where left politicians are refusing to engage with the IHRA's approach, because they worry about freedom to criticize Israel.] The American Holocaust Museum does a lot of good work and has good information; they're very intersectional, both caring about other racism and genocide and being politically active around current US politics.

[alexseanchai]

Thank you many!

[redbird]

Yes, well said.

Also, congratulations on coming out on Facebook and on the positive responses to that.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm glad you could come out more fully and that it was well-received.

[doc_paradise]

Thanks

[monanotlisa]

Thanks for this post! Yes, I agree it's important to speak up, even about things one vaguely assumes...maybe especially then.

[miss_s_b]

Thank you.

[sfred]

<3

I hope the coming out continues to get a good response.

[lnr]

*applause* and congratulations for the coming out happily!

[silveradept]

Here's hoping we can build a better world by fighting the things that make it terrible.

[ayebydan]

thank you.

I'm thrilled to hear your fb post went down well.

[davidgillon]

I've been saying for a while that I can't expect people to support disabled people against disablism/ableism if I won't support their minority against similar discrimination. We don't get to pick and choose between forms of discrimination, oppose one, oppose them all. (And be a good ally by taking their direction on what's a problem and what's not, rather than insisting you know best and can't possibly be wrong/part of the problem, which is another frequent issue with parts of the broad left).

And congratulations on being out everywhere!