TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDAL IDEATION
So last night I saw this choice bit of nonsense on Tumblr:
Quote
ally is not an identity category
ally has never been an identity category
ally will never be an identity category
at best it's something you choose to live into daily without expecting accolades
at worst it's a fiction invented to recenter discourse around the "good" members of an oppressive class rather than on the marginalized and the systems that marginalize them
f__k ally week
Interesting. If it weren't for my allies I'D BE DEAD. IT WAS ALLIES THAT KEPT THE GUN FROM BEING PURCHASED SO I COULD BLOW MY BRAINS OUT.
If you don't respect allies, fine. Don't EVER condemn mine!
I am trans and queer and I LOVE MY ALLIES!
well, the poster is partly right. I do choose to be an ally. I wasn't born that way. But I was born with an often overwhelming sense of empathy. Often other's pain becomes my own.
But I am an ally because someone I love can use support or someone who has the strength to step between them and an ingnorant and ugly opposition.
I really didn't want to be here, I must be here to be true to myself. See, we aren't so different after all.
To me, the fact that people choose to be allies is something very much worth celebrating. It's like those folks who were born in the US and claim to be the real citizens while condemning immigrants to CHOOSE to become citizens. My citizenship status was granted to me (and my parents, and grandparents...) upon our births. Folks who've chosen to become citizens had to work for what we were freely given.
Allies have chosen to be allies. There was a time when I was on Craigslist and eBay shopping for a pistol. It was my cisgender and heterosexual/heteroflexible allies who helped. It was a time when even in the trans communities I was being met with scorn.
I will always celebrate my allies. They're why I'm still alive.
Of course I am happy for allies, but I think what the post is referring to is some allies want to make their own "allyhood" an identity, rather than just something they do because, oh, I don't know, it's the right thing to do. Lol. Like some people want to add an A to the alphabet soup for "allies." Yeah, I am glad that they are around and I believe they are doing the right thing, but to equate the experience of being an ally with growing up gay and/or trans just isn't the same. Allies don't grow up with self-hatred, or discrimination, for being an ally. Even if someone does give them crap for being an ally, they still get privileges for not being actually gay and/or trans.
I'm actually reading the "anti-ally" movement as exclusionary. People who believe LGBT spaces should be for LGBT only. If they strip the identity away from allies, then those people have no identity and the exclusionists feel more comfortable keeping them out.
In addition to the point Constance eloquently makes, it runs counter to our interests. Laws are made by majorities and the majorities where we live are straight and cis-gendered. If we want the legal landscape to improve, we need all the allies we can get.
While I do see where the poster on tumblr is coming from, I also have learned to take a lot of the political/activist stuff with a grain (or 50 lb bag) of salt. In many cases I feel that they have let their anger completely obscure their objectivity.
Wow, someone's bitter.
That attitude of categorical dismissal makes one just as defective as the oppressors.
Quote from: Sarah7 on February 02, 2014, 01:14:51 PM
I'm sorry, but I do think that there need to be spaces that are exclusionary. I think there need to be trans* support groups for just trans people. I think there is a need for bars for gay men, where nobody else feels particularly welcome. I think there need to be groups for queer women only. Oppressed groups need places to go where they can feel safe, where they can relax and heal. I would feel incredibly uncomfortable going to a trans* support group that accepted allies.
I think the most important thing is to concentrate on people who are safe to talk to. Not every trans* person is safe to talk to. Not everyone who is safe to talk to is trans*.
I think every group in the BaltoWash area at least says they accept allies. Some are more welcoming than others. When I said I wanted to start a support group that actively reached out to and included allies, every single trans* person I talked to said it would never work because trans* people would never come because they'd never feel safe. I and my usual coconspirator (who is a cis ally) did it anyway. In the first year, the group was overwhelmed with attendees, grew into a community building organization that also runs a mentor program and an additional support group in D.C., became known to a number of therapists including the local trans* clinic as the "best in class" local support group, and hosted a trans* community picnic that draw attendees from a three state area. We are the group people come to for the tough stuff. Lots of other groups talk about hair, makeup, and clothing. We don't do much of that. We talk about suicide, parental rejection, job loss, and other such things. We are also the group of choice for non-binary identities. We seem to be doing well and every single person who told me it would never work had written to me and thanked me for ignoring them and doing it anyway. So I think we've managed to do pretty well. We are still about 75% trans* and we are trans* led. But allies come in and say they've never experienced such acceptance. So do trans* people who really need a safe place to be. Our latest meeting was today and one of the attendees commented how, unlike all the other groups, we don't seem to be competing with one another. Our group is about really helping one another. And it has been successful beyond my wildest dreams, with allies and all.
I think that accepting cisgender people is part of our secret. An exclusionary space is an exclusionary space is an exclusionary space. And if it's exclusionary then it is pretty hard to be truly open and welcoming, even to the people it is meant for.
So I certainly understand the impulse to say that the presence of cisgender allies will make the space uncomfortable and feel unsafe. But I think that in practice it can work very well indeed.
I also would add that I also recognize that our group--and others like it--cannot possibly meet every need every person may have. There very well may be people for whom having an active outreach to allies is a deal breaker.
I find it problematic when (as someone mentions above) an "A" for "Allies" is added to the alphabet soup. Everyone else is in the alphabet soup because we identify "differently" or are an oppressed gender or sexual minority. So when I talk about LGBTQQIA people (or whatever the current initialism is), I certainly don't mean to include allies in that grouping because doing so makes no sense to me. Consider:
"We need to change the laws and end discrimination against LGBTQQIA people." I suppose the allies might face some discrimination because they support the outlier community, but I certainly don't see those folks as being IN the community. They can walk away if they want; we can't. To me, including them is like saying that white allies are part of the black/African American community. It just doesn't make sense.
So I don't oppose it because I am exclusionary; I oppose it because it is illogical and confusing.
Actually, it is exclusionary and illogical to exclude allies. Reading the blogs Raising My Rainbow, Gendermom, and Trans*forming Family (just to name a few) demonstrate the instances in which allies in general, and supportive parents in particular, can indeed encounter harassment and abuse for simply being allies.
Being an ally is a choice, whereas I never chose to be trans and queer. And in a time during which even the community HERE at Susan's was failing me, my allies stepped up. Sorry folks, I will always support my allies without question. Doing so is inclusive and most logical.
Almost all of my posts use I or "we" because I can only present honest commentary on my experience as an ally.
But.. and a very big but ...
I am not easily identified as a binary weighted female. I would be just as comfortable being "mistakenly" identified as a transwoman. My experience cannot be directly equated with all transwomen but I can relate to many of the challenges, aside from biologic health issues. Those I am seeing through my child's journey.
I now like who I am. I struggle with body image like most humans in our society. I do not have the challenge of finding intimate companionship at this stage of my life, unlike many folks.
My goal is to help those who struggle with understanding to see that in general we are all people that face many of the same obstacles and can be supportive in many ways. I do not wish to diminsh the pain that many transfolk must have. Just like I cannot nullify any experience of any disabled individuals.
I ask that I be accepted among the suppottive community because I feel I can bring my own unique experience to any cause I back. Right now, Im not in a fight to be accepted by anyone in particular, but I do ask that you not view me as an "other" nor as someone that pretends to care. Becsuse I do. I am not going to run around and "out" anyone, anymore than I "out" myself as a CISfemale. The only "proof" I have of that is my pregnancy and birth of my child. There are plenty of us people who have never and will never "procreate" with our own organs. What difference does THAT make?
Ooooh, I must stop before I offend more people with my big mouth. Bless all who struggle and their supporters. We all have strengths that can be used the help someone else. We become part of the human family when we can care about someone that is different than ourselves, because no one person has exactly the same experience in life.
I think the point the poster was trying to make is that ally should not be a special category because being an ally should be the default. When you treat allies as the exception to the rule, it sends the message that the default is not to be an ally, meaning that you're basically accepting discrimination as the norm. If we want to move beyond this, we need to start expecting eveyone to be the things that allies are.
I don't think the poster meant to minimize the positive impact that supportive people make in our lives.