Outrage is Not Allyship

So many of the women in “power” at this moment in history--  Susie Wiles, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nikki Haley--  have the kind of power Eva Braun had; the kind Anne Boelyn had. Power that is tenuously tethered to what men will allow and the entire survival of which demands an unflinching contortion into the conquering male perspective of violence, reductionism, and denial not only of the humanity of others, but also of their own humanity.  

 Last week, Nancy Mace, a Republican representative from South Carolina proposed a bill that bans lawmakers and House employees from using single-sex bathrooms that do not correspond with the biological sex they were assigned at birth. She initiated the bill in response to the election of Sarah McBride, the first openly transgendered person to be elected to the US House of Representatives.

Mace doubled down, saying “And I'm a victim of abuse myself. I'm a rape survivor.”

And the award for Missing the Point on Purpose goes to….

If trans women wanted to harm cis women they would have remained cis men. Trans women have actively moved from a place where causing harm to women would not only have been relatively easy, but it would have been rewarded as sanctioned proof of success at maleness.

“Becoming” a man or a woman via the “traditional” route of cultural indoctrination is deceivingly easy. It happens below the level of our awareness, as we are gently and not-so-gently buffeted by forces of social approval and rejection. As such, these women spewing hate and ignorance at trans women can be forgiven for their obliviousness to the deep and alternately soul-crushing and soul-enlivening work of consciously choosing to become a woman.

For women like Mace, decades of being belittled, silenced, objectified, and terrorized has led them to believe that becoming a woman each morning, is in fact—or so it feels—as simple as strapping on some heels. A little lipstick and off they go, performing “woman.” Meanwhile, they know, deep in their bones, that being a woman is hard. They have suffered. They have been harmed. Their so-called “success” is the result of a lifelong commitment to becoming small when necessary and to selling themselves a story that their begrudging compliance is defiance.  

“Why should a person who was born male be allowed to put on some makeup and heels and call himself a woman,” they want to know. They’re angry at how they’ve consistently betrayed themselves and contorted their truth to “make it” in a man’s world. They have earned their tenuous, sad, minimal power and they will not be usurped by yet another man, especially one who is “pretending” to be a woman.

A trans woman is a person who was assigned male at birth and who has worked with incredible thoughtfulness to “become” a woman. They have thought and felt deeply about what it is to be a woman and about how incredibly different it is than being a man. At every step, their “female” behaviors and dress have been met with ridicule and rejection…and still, they persisted. Even with all the bells, whistles, and straight-up privilege “man” brings, that didn’t feel true to them, so they moved away from it over the course of days, weeks, months, years. Inching their way toward their truth, regardless of the social consequences—because their own, hard-earned, long-suppressed truth was their north star.

Living in integrity became more important than any power, position, or advantage afforded by a sex they didn’t have the opportunity to choose.

Women, we have facilitated the dynamic that creates Nancy Maces and Marjorie Taylor Greens. We have been judging, shaming, and shutting each other down for centuries. We have cultivated our own, twisted incarnations of maleness in hopes of scoring a tiny piece of the disgusting pie of violence and conquest.

While I appreciate the outrage from cis women backed up by stories of alllll the times you have used a men’s room without fear or incident or allll of the times that you have attended an event where the bathroom was unisex and nobody got hurt, and allll of the times you have not shown your genitals to other women in the restroom, this is not allyship. It does not make the world safer. It does not make me safer.

The people enacting bans on restroom use are not interested in the precedent set by the thousands of restaurants, offices, and concert venues that have removed gender from the restroom experience. If you want to support trans people and women, know that true solidarity lives in a deep interrogation of your own gender.

Gender, like race, is an entirely human invention. It is both imaginary and deeply real. It can be an avenue of gorgeous, nuanced, moment-to-moment embodiment, or it can be a weapon we use to create more “others.”  

Ask yourself:

How did I “become” a woman?

How did I “become” a man?

What am I giving up in making these choices?

What am I gaining in making these choices?

Are there parts of me that share the fears and concerns of the people who would ban transness?

People who want to ban certain humans with certain bodies from using certain restrooms, from participating in sports, and from generally participating in society have not felt deeply about gender and followed where it goes.  If they have, they were instantly unsettled by what it might mean to wonder how they got here, to this place where they cling with desperate tenacity to “woman” or “man.”  They looked around at the binary house of cards in which they live and the sinking feeling in their gut made them slam the door to who they might truly be. It didn’t seem “worth it” when they looked back at all they’d already sacrificed to get “this far.”

Make all the space you need to wonder whose voices, which forces, which fears, and actual events led you to your gender, my friends. When you dress your body each day and signal to the world how it should interpret you, ask yourself who chose those clothes. 

This is about reclamation. Who might you be if you had been taught to hear and respect your own voice from a young age? If you’re still living, it’s not too late. What would it take for you to hear your own voice and to bring that wisdom to your embodied experience in the world?

That kind of interrogation and awareness is where meaningful advocacy is born.