by dean spade

Both Craig and Boots have been writing and saying some interesting things these days about what it means to be a good ally-trans specifically but a lot of it applies to other dynamics as well. These conversations became particularly clear and relevant to me again this week, negotiating with a non-trans-identified friend about how to make a party we were planning together for her graduation and my birthday (sweet 16! or if you'd rather think of it as 13 and send bar mitzvah gifts directly to PO Box 321855, NYC 10032 feel free) a transpositive space. So I tried to talk to my friend about our party and about who she was inviting and what the bands she had booked were like and what kinds of people they might bring along. I was trying to get a sense since I'm in a new city and a little out of my context, of what kind of vibe the party would have and how it would feel for trans people.

Whenever we have parties and events at my house in NY we try to put thought into whether the space will be trans positive, will be a space that is comfortable for people of color, whether people who are older who come will feel comfortable, etc. We often do specific stuff to try to create that space if we're not sure, like putting something on the invite or putting thought provoking but fun stuff around the house-stuff to engage people and help them remember what is expected of them like to not assume people's gender when you meet them or whatever. Mostly people don't try to fuck with each other, but they end up doing it because they forget to do the extra work we all need to do all the time to check ourselves and unlearn the policing methods and hierarchy-creating practices that are built into our language and our minds from birth.

So anyway, I'm in a different city, getting ready to have this party, and I call my friend to get some clarity on what the scene might look like in terms of her invitees and her roommates' invitees-and in terms of who has come to their parties in the past, and to strategize with her about cool stuff we can do to make the space a safe and good one for the trannies I'll be inviting. As I explain to her, I feel a lot of responsibility when creating trans spaces, because I know a lot of trans people don't go out a lot because of the prevalence of transphobic social practices and bad interactions (see everything I've written on this website for examples) even in 'queer' scenes, and I'm not interested in putting other trans people in those situations. I'm pretty outspoken and very social, and even still I sometimes feel hideously exhausted by the effort of being trans in the world, and I know a lot of my friends are perhaps even more vulnerable to these experiences because they are less likely to talk back, or they are shyer, or their trans identity is an easier target for certain transphobes in certain contexts.

I approached my dear friend with these concerns expecting to hear that maybe she'd also thought about this or at least that she was psyched to come up with cute ways to make the space comfortable. Instead I got a whole lot of defensiveness about how her scene isn't transphobic, and no one will attack anyone at the party. I actually had to break down to her that, yes, people in SF are maybe more conversant about trans stuff than in a lot of other cities, but that nonetheless I'd had plenty of fucked up experiences since I'd been here (which she was aware of) and that there were reasons to believe that we should take steps to think about the more vulnerable attendees of the party. I won't go into the details of the conversation, but it was awful-requiring me to go all the way down the road of how transphobic attacks often don't seem like attacks to the non-trans person, about how I have a responsibility to people I invite to an event, even if its not a guarantee that no one will be an asshole and that this was a legitimate concern. When I tried to bring up the example of the fact that I knew one of the bands had a straight-boy kind of following and was wondering what environment that might create and whether she knew if it tended to be a transpositive one, she actually accused me of over-generalizing about straight boys. Hi? Reverse transphobia? Please!

Clearly there was no real space for me to express my concerns. It was shocking -someone I've trusted deeply on trans and other issues, and who I anticipated being excited about making a rad space with me-invalidating my concern for my own safety and comfort and that of my guests. Besides deciding not to have the party with her, I've been prompted to think a lot about what these conversations are like, and how they should go, knowing that I'll continue to be on both sides of them for the rest of my life.

First, I guess, is the point of responsibility and accountability. What I wish had happened when I called her, and what I think is a reasonable expectation, is that she would be excited to work with me to make the space as good as possible for everyone. I would hope that this would be a goal for all of us, whether we're having a party with a transperson or not, and certainly if we are. That we would look at the opportunity to create a transpositive space that makes non-trans people consider new questions as not a burden but a fun, rad, right thing. Also, that we would easily recognize that all the social spaces we create are also political spaces that people enter with expectations, assumptions and identities, and that whether intentional or not we shape that as hosts. There is often a false assumption that something close and personal like a house party isn't something you need to think about in terms of race, class, age, gender, and sex dynamics like you would a conference or a meeting you were planning. That assumption denies our responsibility in shaping those spaces. It often means we are adopting norms of white supremacy and race segregation, gender dichotomy, heteronormativity, ableism, etc that shape what our personal lives look like and that will come down on the "odd people out" in the space. Accountability for these hidden dynamics and assumptions, and an overt desire to address them, is first and foremost an expectation that I have of my friends and allies and of myself as an ally to communities in resistance and a member of such communities.

Second, I think there is a responsibility to take account when we react to confrontation with defensiveness. In my conversations with my friend after the initial disappointing phone call, she continued to defend her behavior by trying to suggest that I had communicated unclearly, or that it was a mutual misunderstanding, and wanting to settle it with a simple "we both hurt each other's feelings" answer. This isn't satisfying to me personally or politically. There is an obligation, in my view, when a person comes to you to speak about a vulnerability to systemic oppression and to ask for ally support, for the ally to do extra work to recognize their position of privilege and give that support. It means first recognizing that the person asking has had to overcome the societal disentitlement that has told them they cannot claim that space, that their request to exist or be respected isn't legitimate. That work and coming to ask for participation, support, or help in creating a space is an act of love, trust, and respect, and to see that as an attack and defend yourself from it is to break that trust and send a message that you don't want to work together to topple the hierarchies and insure their safety or comfort.

Defensiveness is what many of us feel when someone suggests that we might be in a transphobic scene, or a white scene that carries what racist values, or a straight scene in which queers are marginalized, or a young scene in which older people are ignored. However, that defensiveness, while common, is not an okay place to start responding. We have to come from a place of recognizing our implication and investment in oppressive systems in order to stop replicating them and start toppling them. This is perhaps most painful where it is most personal, because we love our friends and it hurts to admit that we may sometimes participate in their oppression, but we do and we have to fight it.

Tokenism occurs when we use a "different" person in order to justify the rest of our "non-different" life, but we don't really engage how the valuing of sameness and squelching of difference is built into the system we're participating in (whether that is a school, an industry, a friend circle, a subcultural scene, etc). If we want to move beyond tokenism, we have to be ready to be confronted with truths about how oppressive regimes are built into our personal lives and how that makes some of our friends unsafe. We have to be thrilled and energized to fight that with our friends and even when they aren't around to remind us. And perhaps most importantly, we have to let go of the expectation that we'll ever arrive at a place where we're the perfect anti-racist or perfect trans-ally and instead always know that we have work to do and be ready to do it. It's about being humble in some ways, but also being proud of ourselves and forgiving enough that we're okay with knowledge that we'll keep being confronted and keep working to unlearn and undo oppression. We're side by side in that even when we're confronting each other or feeling defensive.

I want to get good at this. I want to be a person who is safe to confront about my racism, my capitalism, my ableism, my ageism, and my looksism. I want to be a good confronter who doesn't back down and who feels entitled to a just world. I want us to all remember that we have the most responsibility to change, to listen, and to act when we are in the position of privilege. I think this is what it means to be an activist, to be an ally to our friends and ourselves. It doesn't mean being perfect, and any attachment to perfection only undoes us. It means a commitment to a lifelong process of unlearning, of fighting the bullshit inside and outside us with equal fervor. That is a commitment of love and trust to our friends and all the other people in the world. It is a commitment to fight and it is a commitment to win.

transmissions