I agree with this in principle, but in reality the trans community isn’t monolithic. We aren’t just trans, we’re many other things. If a trans person is, for example, racist, then not calling them out sends a message to people of colour both within and outside the trans community that we’re okay with racism. Failing to call that person out and denounce their views creates disunity, within the trans community (what message does that send to trans people of colour?) and forgoes any opportunity for trans people to build unity with communities of colour outside our own. And I think at this point creating unity with other groups outside the trans community is just as important, if not more, than building unity within the trans community. I think we can call out behaviour in a way that attends to the need to recognise human fallibility and does so with compassion, but I don’t see much benefit in keeping it internal for certain matters. Other groups have to know we are more broadly anti-oppressive, not just against anti-trans oppression. And if we aren’t more broadly anti-oppressive, we’re fighting a losing game. Nobody is free until we all are.
Thank you for saying this. As a Black transman, I've experienced more covert racism & nasty microaggressions in the past 10 years than I had all previous 50 years combined. I refuse to not call it out when I see it, and I don't support writers who have racist readers among them. They'll sit there and watch a dog-pile on me, because a couple white transwomen (or white transmen) didn't like me, and not say one word. Or they'll tell me how messed up it was privately, but not openly in the group where it happened.
A very strange kind of sexism, too. I am a Black man who happens to be trans, and we know what sexism is from the inside-out. I presented female for 58 years of my life, so trust me, I know.
That is unacceptable and all it did was leave me without community and reluctant to hang around any of them. I never know when that crap will break out when folks realize what I am, or if I bring up something racist/transphobic that has happened to me. Am I supposed to just stuff it all to avoid people like that? I don't think so. I'm highly intersectional, and we're rather tired of being segregated by the most covert methods possible. I can't be trans without being Black, and I can't be Black without being trans.
It goes unchecked in our community, because nobody will accept responsibility or accountability for it ... just like the wider communities as a whole. It's more hidden in ours than the cis communities.
So, Morgan Page, I think you're a white trans woman and have no idea what this community does to certain people. I don't care if I'm liked, but I do care if I'm disrespected. FULL STOP!
The four-point checklist before you post is really good. For most of us who want one checkpoint, but only one, I suggest never posting anything that you wouldn't say to that person to their face, and to emphasize the point, to their face when they are surrounded with their own friends.
I hav not merely been harmed by the violation of this rule; I have been actively harmed, including acts of public violence; with public defamatory claims; with active exclusion from ALL aspects of the trans community, and with harassment continuing even after the unsurvivable violence committed against me forced me to flee 15,000 km from Montreal to New Zealand.
The perpetrator of these crimes against me is Celeste Trianon, a "trainsfemme community leader" who is really a crypto-fascist, is utterly devoid of good faith, takes orders from crooked police, and weaponises police even at anti-police marches she organises. She ordered violence including police proxy violence against me in March 2023 and carried it out in August 2024; her initial threat would have had me falsely arrested and imprisoned when I was birthing my own baby on March 21, 2023.
I attempted every possible means of resolving her dispute, which she scorned and avoided. She charged me with criminal harassment *as part of her criminal harassment of me,* where I was unable to defend myself in Court as I had already fled the country fearing for my life.
I am now facing widespread exclusion and further violence in Wellington, because Trianon is spreading false and defamatory information across New Zealand in order to continue her abuse; her motive has never been clear.
I have nothing to hide, and will openly discuss this criminal oppression by a fraudulent and abusive "leader"; my email is margiefancypants@gmail.com.
I have never committed any crime, but because of her abusive and false charges now face arrest if I ever return to Canada. DENOUNCE THE HYPOCRITE CELESTE TRIANON!
I think transpeople tear each other down sometimes because we have internalized the hateful ideas being screamed about us for so, so long. It should be no wonder that we can begin to hate ourselves and our own kind.
Thank you for this important post. When I was younger and exploring my gender identity, there certainly was unnecessary harm happening in the trans and queer community. Harmful things being said like “you’re not trans enough”, or “why do they always have to be so flamboyant and out about their queerness it makes us look like freaks.” I found this so harmful because we were doing to ourselves what the world was doing to us. We must uplift each other, we are not a monolith and I celebrate each trans person’s individual identity and how they are in the world. We need each other to uplift one another to dismantle what we’re up against. Love wins.
I agree with this in principle, but in reality the trans community isn’t monolithic. We aren’t just trans, we’re many other things. If a trans person is, for example, racist, then not calling them out sends a message to people of colour both within and outside the trans community that we’re okay with racism. Failing to call that person out and denounce their views creates disunity, within the trans community (what message does that send to trans people of colour?) and forgoes any opportunity for trans people to build unity with communities of colour outside our own. And I think at this point creating unity with other groups outside the trans community is just as important, if not more, than building unity within the trans community. I think we can call out behaviour in a way that attends to the need to recognise human fallibility and does so with compassion, but I don’t see much benefit in keeping it internal for certain matters. Other groups have to know we are more broadly anti-oppressive, not just against anti-trans oppression. And if we aren’t more broadly anti-oppressive, we’re fighting a losing game. Nobody is free until we all are.
Thank you for saying this. As a Black transman, I've experienced more covert racism & nasty microaggressions in the past 10 years than I had all previous 50 years combined. I refuse to not call it out when I see it, and I don't support writers who have racist readers among them. They'll sit there and watch a dog-pile on me, because a couple white transwomen (or white transmen) didn't like me, and not say one word. Or they'll tell me how messed up it was privately, but not openly in the group where it happened.
A very strange kind of sexism, too. I am a Black man who happens to be trans, and we know what sexism is from the inside-out. I presented female for 58 years of my life, so trust me, I know.
That is unacceptable and all it did was leave me without community and reluctant to hang around any of them. I never know when that crap will break out when folks realize what I am, or if I bring up something racist/transphobic that has happened to me. Am I supposed to just stuff it all to avoid people like that? I don't think so. I'm highly intersectional, and we're rather tired of being segregated by the most covert methods possible. I can't be trans without being Black, and I can't be Black without being trans.
It goes unchecked in our community, because nobody will accept responsibility or accountability for it ... just like the wider communities as a whole. It's more hidden in ours than the cis communities.
So, Morgan Page, I think you're a white trans woman and have no idea what this community does to certain people. I don't care if I'm liked, but I do care if I'm disrespected. FULL STOP!
Calling in is always more effective than calling out. Assume good intent first and handle things in private before you put people on blast.
Oh my God, I love every word of this so much. SO VERY MUCH!
I attended my first Transgender Awareness event recently as a CIS-HET straight White man from Rural America and all I have to say about it is this:
I found my people.
Thank you, Ari, for articulating a social framework that I can commit to, as I do now. If we don’t heal the pain in our community, who will?
This is great. I am a trans therapist writing about queer resilience. Would love for you to check it out: https://open.substack.com/pub/queerresilience
The four-point checklist before you post is really good. For most of us who want one checkpoint, but only one, I suggest never posting anything that you wouldn't say to that person to their face, and to emphasize the point, to their face when they are surrounded with their own friends.
I hav not merely been harmed by the violation of this rule; I have been actively harmed, including acts of public violence; with public defamatory claims; with active exclusion from ALL aspects of the trans community, and with harassment continuing even after the unsurvivable violence committed against me forced me to flee 15,000 km from Montreal to New Zealand.
The perpetrator of these crimes against me is Celeste Trianon, a "trainsfemme community leader" who is really a crypto-fascist, is utterly devoid of good faith, takes orders from crooked police, and weaponises police even at anti-police marches she organises. She ordered violence including police proxy violence against me in March 2023 and carried it out in August 2024; her initial threat would have had me falsely arrested and imprisoned when I was birthing my own baby on March 21, 2023.
I attempted every possible means of resolving her dispute, which she scorned and avoided. She charged me with criminal harassment *as part of her criminal harassment of me,* where I was unable to defend myself in Court as I had already fled the country fearing for my life.
I am now facing widespread exclusion and further violence in Wellington, because Trianon is spreading false and defamatory information across New Zealand in order to continue her abuse; her motive has never been clear.
I have nothing to hide, and will openly discuss this criminal oppression by a fraudulent and abusive "leader"; my email is margiefancypants@gmail.com.
I have never committed any crime, but because of her abusive and false charges now face arrest if I ever return to Canada. DENOUNCE THE HYPOCRITE CELESTE TRIANON!
I think transpeople tear each other down sometimes because we have internalized the hateful ideas being screamed about us for so, so long. It should be no wonder that we can begin to hate ourselves and our own kind.
Thank you for this important post. When I was younger and exploring my gender identity, there certainly was unnecessary harm happening in the trans and queer community. Harmful things being said like “you’re not trans enough”, or “why do they always have to be so flamboyant and out about their queerness it makes us look like freaks.” I found this so harmful because we were doing to ourselves what the world was doing to us. We must uplift each other, we are not a monolith and I celebrate each trans person’s individual identity and how they are in the world. We need each other to uplift one another to dismantle what we’re up against. Love wins.