IT’S TIME TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
We stray when we forget what unites us.
It would be ridiculous to claim that the queer community has ever been simplistic. Within it are people that belong to different backgrounds, sexualities, ethnicities, gender identities, gender expressions, with different bodies, physical attributes, nationalities, experiences and opinions. The community has never been an homogenous group where everyone has the same needs, experiences or opinions. People who claim that must either be wildly naive or unable to see beyond their own experiences. The only thing that connects us is feeling other than the gender we were assigned at birth.
As many readers may already be aware, the origins of Pride rose from the Stonewall Riots in 1969, when a group of people decided that they’d had enough. This has historically been seen as one of the many tipping points for our community, and it was led by a diverse group of people, with trans people of colour at the forefront.
It is therefore sad on a multitude of levels that a total of eight white, cisgender, middle class, able-bodied, misguided lesbians hijacked an entire Pride in London parade that was meant to celebrate our vast community in all our glory. It is not only sad from a community point of view, but also from a feminist point of view.
Their message was clear: to create division and controversy within our wider community of LGBTQ people. They held up banners painted with the message that accepting trans women as women and some of them as lesbians was erasing cisgender lesbians. This message does not only seem wild, but also just plain delusional. In fact, the majority of lesbians are wholly inclusive of trans women (as the #LWithTheT hashtag has shown, which is by far more popular than the constipated #OutWiththeL hashtag) and accepting trans women as women and some as lesbians actually enriches the community. Claims that trans women are somehow forcing cisgender lesbians to have sex with them, to show they accept them, is an obvious fabrication based in pure fiction. It’s a narrative meant to create fear and shows little but desperation and pure malice.
This reductive and binary ideology that we can all be defined by our parts comes from boring and essentialistic feminist theory that largely went unchallenged until the 1970’s. This is when feminists of colour, disabled feminists, trans feminists and queer feminists grew tired of the binary and privileged feminist movement that had centered around white, able bodied, middle class women. This led to a much more complex and inclusive feminist analysis that broke away from the false and patriarchal binary models of gender and sex. They basically got tired of a bunch of white women with lots of privilege speaking for (and over) all women – and into the future the movement went (aside from a few scarecrows, evidently). Alongside this development in the feminist movement, the queer movement was also gaining momentum.
We are currently living in pivotal times in many aspects. Protections and rights are being stripped away from underrepresented groups all around the world, and forces that centre
tradition, nationalism and binary models of sex and gender are taking hold. This has inevitably led to a backlash against trans people in particular, and they are facing an epidemic of violence, even from within their own community. This is why solidarity and empathy for one another is more important now than ever. If we are to withstand this, we cannot get stuck in this fatalistic debate over who is woman enough or who is trans enough or who is queer enough.
Despite that it was completely unacceptable that the Hateful Eight was allowed to to march in Pride in London, it did little favours for them in the end. It revealed them as who they truly are, and they didn’t seem to gain any allies by that little stunt. On the contrary, it ś led to one of the more visible rises in support for trans people, and people are starting to realise how serious the situation has become. So the question is, how do we move on from here and fight against such clear stances of division, while also juling how to deal with a hostile society in general?
As a community we thrive in solidarity, when we stand together against systems of oppression. We stray when we forget what unites us. The movement has never been stronger than it is today, and this is because we are learning to embrace all members of our community and we are starting to see things from an intersectional perspective. The community doesn’t all share the same values and challenges, but that doesn’t mean we cannot work them out together. There are some fundamental issues that unite us and it is important that we continue to build on those things and find new ways to be unified.
If we really want to move forwards as a movement, we need to realise that queer people are also people of colour, disabled people, people of different body types, people with different gender identities and gender expressions. And we need to let go of those values, thoughts and places that continue to exclude certain members of our community. It means some real selfreflection and rebuilding, and it’s not going to be easy. But it will be worth it. We need to stop policing who can belong in our community, whether that is through active policing or not correcting systematic barriers that make our spaces and movement inaccessible: figuratively and practically.
There is a lot to be gained by looking at how other movements have grown and become stronger. Much like the feminist movement, the queer movement is still breaking away from it’s binary, white, able bodied and middle class focus. We are starting to realise that it isn’t enough just to say that “everyone is welcome” without actively reaching out, because many people have never really been included under “everyone”. We need to reach out to those parts of our community that have historically been marginalised and we need to involve them in everything we do. It’s therefore not enough to say to your trans friends that you support them. You need to say it to the world. You need to speak up and you need to make sure that those voices of division know they do not speak for the majority of our community.
We are here to tell you that gender and the performance around gender and sex aren’t real. Even though you might identify with the gender you were assigned at birth, you have probably struled with performing masculinity or femininity. You have probably been told you shouldn’t wear that, or that you shouldn’t do that. You’ve probably been shamed for the bodies you are attracted to, or for your own body.
But no more. We don’t have to listen to that, because we as a community, can break away from that and create a more inclusive world where everyone is allowed to be themselves, free from binary labels and expectations placed by others.
We don’t have time for the Hateful Eight or what they’re about. We’re here to change the world. Are you in?