From the cis leader of the “trans” “cissupremacist people who want to earn liberal brownie points” group on campus when I objected to the fact that, whenever I bring up problematic language, he ignores me and tells me off.
I have no problem addressing my faults with using correct language. I recognize the fact that I am not perfect with it and I am trying to improve. I would – and do- welcome criticism of my language and other things if they are presented in a respectful manner. However, you are not respectful. They are phrased as attacks, with implications that my efforts are undermined because of them and that my work loses its value because of these things. You also have an air of negativity about much of the work we do and I wonder if you even believe allies are at all effective or useful. As I said before, [the group] needs to sit down and have a serious talk about expectations and communication if we are going to continue to function. I didn’t follow up on that last time because I hoped things would work themselves out. Obviously they haven’t. We can further discuss these issues when we all meet.
yeah… he just used a tone argument on me. And said that degendering and dehumanizing trans people doesn’t undermine his efforts. Then drew out the “ALLY” (read that thing, seriously!) sign to tell me that I should be nicer to him because “ALLY!“.
Whilst people on the internet still generally don’t know who I am (and won’t figure it out until I no longer have a position on our LGb(t) committee) I’d just like to add that this *really* reminds me of a certain current LGb(t) Officer at our Union.
I try calling said person out on stuff but said person believes themself (they are cis) to be being coerced and bullied into “compromise” on their language and refuses to seriously consider that they may have actually got something wrong. And, yeah, they don’t think I (as a trans person) can question their credentials as a trans ally.
Yeah, I pretty much told them that their language is painful and I’m going to reply like someone who was just hurt- because I was hurt; their language DOES undermine their efforts (unless their efforts are transphobic in which case- stop it. Bad “ally”. No cookie); and you don’t identify as an ally and you CERTAINLY don’t pull it out to silence the people you claim to help.
I’m not even going to bother reading what their reply was. It was something about “strong language” and I didn’t bother reading. I’m guessing it’ll be something along the lines of how I have no right to feel bad and how I’m unfairly demonizing them and I’m oversensitive and blah freaking blah blah blah. Don’t care any more.
I’m starting to hate “allies”. The good ones don’t take the label the bad ones use it as a tool to oppress us. Great word that.
I read it. He basically completely ignored it, said he couldn’t reply to it and would deal with it in person. “In person” probably meaning “in an incredibly dangerous space where I have control over you because I dislike having to talk to you like an equal”. I also do better over email because in person doesn’t work for me. Lovely. Definitely seeing how he earns that “ally” title…
“Ally”? sounds more like “hostile”.
*likes*
I’m starting to think that that’s just how “ally” is. I really like this post- http://radicalmasculinity.blogspot.com/2008/09/can-we-stop-using-term-ally.html (I also noticed that it only seems to be an LGB(t)Q thing. I’ve never heard a white person say “Oh, I’m an ally for people of color” or a temporarily able bodied person say “I’m an ally for people with disabilities” or anything else…)