When allies aren't really allies (might be a slight rant)

[wolfduality]

I always think it's awesome whenever gay/lesbian/bi/trans people gain allies and have more people who wish to educate the masses when those who are in the closet/stealth can't. It can be an amazing and beautiful thing. However, I'm noticing the amount of people I directly interact with (either IRL or online), the "trans allies" aren't really allies. These aren't people who say they are allies but are secretly transphobic, these are people who feel they KNOW the trans community and feel they are better educated than trans people themselves.

For an example: someone asked something about how early aged cross dressing is related to coming out as trans later in life. I said that there isn't some prerequisites to being trans so just because someone cross dresses, it doesn't mean they want to be a different gender than they were born as. Instead, one of these allies swoops in and states that ALL trans people crossdress early in life and is the first sign of a conflicted individual. When I politely stated that there are no absolutes, they insisted they read a book about these issues and they KNOW it's true. This isn't the first time with this person and certainly not the first person that feels like they can't be wrong about these issues when they only "read them in books".

This isn't to say trans people can't be wrong about trans issues but it's obnoxious that a cis gender person is acting as though they know the issues BETTER than a trans person. So how do you counter this or what do you do?

[Adam (birkin)]

I've encountered a few people like this. There's one extreme example that happened recently. I met one who claimed she was a HUGE trans ally, that she was all interested in trans issues and was researching them and everything. Then turns around and calls her FTM friend, who is so far into transition that he has a phalloplasty, a woman. And then she went on to say that MTFs aren't "real" women blah blah blah and how she thinks transgender is a mental illness. I had to sort of raise my eyebrow at her, fortunately she doesn't know about me. I just said something along the lines of "well, we don't know what these people have had to go through to be who they are. I have some transgender friends and I know it can be a very hard process, I have a lot of respect for that." And then I very insistently use the right pronouns. lol.  This girl was extreme though, I don't know what her issue is...to go from one extreme to another like that.

I've met a few milder examples, usually some liberal arts students who think that they know everything about trans because they read one article or they saw a workshop by one trans person. Or they have the friend of a friend who transitioned. I usually just refer them to a better resource. There's a lot of crap out there and I'm not surprised that people are ill-educated. I link people to Laverne Cox on a regular basis.

On that note, it's really interesting to encounter people's views of trans stuff as a stealth person. It's a bit disheartening actually.

[FTMax]

Honestly, I don't even try. My city/greater region is very LGBTQ friendly and most schools/especially all the universities and colleges have some sort of LGBTQ student group that encourages allies to join. They come to a few meetings, make some friends in the community, take a queer studies course, and suddenly they know more than someone with lived experience.

It's annoying. It's a big part of the reason I don't go to these groups anymore, and I don't seek out people as friends who identify as allies. Obviously they aren't all this way, but it feels pervasive enough that I would rather just disassociate.

You can't teach someone who thinks they know everything. It's not worth my time to attempt to educate people like that.

[Edge]

I hate that.
I've had an "ally" attack the trans group I tried to start in my city and then claimed that trans men aren't real men. I've had that same "ally" and another tell a group of trans people that we shouldn't be worried someone who was planning on educating people on trans issues, but who's only preparation was to go to a PFLAG meeting a few days beforehand where she spouted some transphobic things because "at least someone is taking an interest."
I'm also tried of people and organizations pretending to be trans friendly by including "trans man" and "trans woman" as separate options from "man" and "woman." You know, like we're not real men and women. Because that's totally trans friendly. (Sarcasm.)
I'm also sick of hearing pansexual "allies" claim to be attracted to "men, women, and ->-bleeped-<-s" (yay slurs) or "men, women, and transgenders." I would be fine with them saying "men, women, and non-binary people," but putting all trans people as separate from men and women makes it sound like they don't think trans men and women are men and women. My boyfriend has also had a pansexual person argue with him about his sexuality because he's dating a trans man. Apparently, I'm not a real enough man.

[Seras]

It is impressive that such a well read person as your friend there would make the mistake of an appeal to authority fallacy like that.
As if book X says Y is ever sufficient justification for anything (other than book X said Y).

Ya know I read a whole lot of things in the Bible, about these sort of LGBT issues, how many of them are true. Well since I read it in a book...

--

Problem is logic is above some people. So it doesn't always work.

[ImagineKate]

Honestly? I think there are a lot of bandwagon jumpers because it is popular or cool. Maybe because President Obama supports gay rights they figure they would support it too, or they see Laverne Cox and start to jump on the bandwagon of trans acceptance. Don't get me wrong, those things do help.

However what helps to change hearts and minds more is seeing ordinary people. Lesbians who lived for years in the shadows rejoicing on the steps of the Supreme Court when DOMA was struck down, for example. They are normal people and help to humanize the cause.

[Ayden]

I've had this recently. A friend who has know me since before transition asked me about a student of hers. She has an androgynous student and she wanted to know "is it a boy or a girl?!?!" I suggested that maybe the student is an androgyne, and she wanted to tell me that Andro people don't exist, only the binaries, and that as a "woman who felt like a man" I should understand that.

Needless to say, I ain't talking to her anymore.

[suzifrommd]

This bothers me a lot, especially when cisgender people propose cultural solutions that miss the mark. "If we allowed men to act more like women, transgender people wouldn't have to transition. Argh!

Sort of our own fault though. When we're so squeamish and fatalistic about educating cisgender people ("won't do any good", "just want to be a man/woman and live an ordinary life", "not my job to educate people", etc. etc.) we shouldn't be surprised at the ignorance we encounter.

[Clhoe G]

Cross dressing... A prerequisite lol clearly these "allies" have never watched ru pauls drag race 
I love that show... I wonder what it would be like to date a drag queen... Oops did I just write that out loud   

[wolfduality]

This bothers me a lot, especially when cisgender people propose cultural solutions that miss the mark. "If we allowed men to act more like women, transgender people wouldn't have to transition. Argh!

Sort of our own fault though. When we're so squeamish and fatalistic about educating cisgender people ("won't do any good", "just want to be a man/woman and live an ordinary life", "not my job to educate people", etc. etc.) we shouldn't be surprised at the ignorance we encounter.

This might make me a jerk but I find it incredibly naive when someone says that trans*people are perpetuating stereotypes because they change to "gendered clothing" or "gendered hairstyles". Excuse me? It's not MY job or any other trans*person's job to "fight the gender mold". If I want to dress like a lumberjack because I feel it makes me a man, LET ME. If I want to wear high heels and makeup in a miniskirt because I feel that makes me a woman, LET ME. It's no one's job or crusade to fight things they don't want to fight. If you or anyone else wants to be the change, that's on you/them. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

(Not directed at you but you comment about "fighting cultural norms" sparked another aneurysm about dumb ally comments.)

[PinkCloud]

Sometimes people hurt others... usually the things they love most, and hold dear. Maybe because it comes too close, becomes too real, too hard to deal with the reflection, the truth too painful.

[ImagineKate]

This bothers me a lot, especially when cisgender people propose cultural solutions that miss the mark. "If we allowed men to act more like women, transgender people wouldn't have to transition. Argh!

Unggghh... This was my wife's proposed solution to my little "problem."

Problem is it would still leave me with the wrong hormones and body. And waking up every day disgusted with myself, probably even more so as the only thing I hate more than being a "man" is being an effeminate man.

[Satyrane]

I've had a funny relationship with allies in the sense that I for years have pretended to be one (straight and cisgender), and the vast majority of people still think I am one. I learned to be very submissive regarding any interaction with LGBT folk because of this. I don't dispute anything they say even if I feel they are gravely wrong because I would become that opinionated ally that oversteps boundaries. I often feel more like a servant than a person.

For some strange reason, I have seen allies do more the LGBT community in the place I grew up than LGBT folk themselves. Maybe it was because since I was an "ally," I was outside the LGBT and thus had know idea what they were doing. Maybe it was because LGBT members of our advocate group never really talked about how they were LGBT, and thus assimilated into the straight, cisgender erasure. In the place I live now, the LGBT is much more open and active but that does change the fact I'm outside their community, and thus can't really have an equal, meaningful relationship with it.

To add to the backwardness of my experiences, the people most opinionated about what is and is not trans are trans folk themselves. I don't blame them; they have to deal with stigma and misinformation everyday. The problem with how some of them do it is that it creates a group of outcasts amoungst outcasts, and I am most definitely one of them. All and all, my unusual experiences had lead me to believe that the best way to support trans folk is to stay an ally, even if that meant they can never fully relate to me or trust me.