to join (yourself) with another person, group, etc., in order to get or give support

Ever since my roommate brought her TV to our apartment we've begun a nightly ritual. At 10pm we turn on Comedy Central for the Daily Show and watch straight on through the Colbert Report and @Midnight. I've never before followed this weekday lineup, but it's quickly becoming something I look forward to. We all have our favorite parts, and I'm definitely partial to the interviews (though the puns are a very close second ^.^). This past Tuesday, Stephen Colbert interviewed Janet Mock, an advocate for trans women and author of the New York Times bestseller  Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More. Watching the interview, I immediately began composing a PfP blog post about the effect of satire on social justice education. While this topic is hasn't gotten any less interesting, researching Janet Mock brought up feelings on allyship that were much more immediate. (I encourage everyone to watch the Colbert interview anyway here).

Before Ms. Mock was on the Colbert Report she appeared in two controversial segments on Piers Morgan Tonight. The first segment can be seen here where she was interviewed about her memoir and her life as a trans woman. In the interview Piers Morgan repeatedly mentioned that she "was born a boy" and focused most of the interview on the experience of her transition. Portraying to Mr. Morgan that everything went well in the studio, Ms. Mock later used twitter to express her disappointment of the sensationalist treatment of her story and of Morgan's misgendering her. With Mock's tweet came a torrent of backlash against Morgan from her supporters. Piers Morgan fought back, also via twitter, and eventually invited her back to the show. 

"Come back on my show again tonight @janetmock and let's debate my supposed 'offensiveness' live on air."

Rather than pointing fingers at who was right and who was wrong, this second segment is what I really want to talk about. Piers Morgan starts the interview by defending himself, citing his support for "gay rights, gay marriage rights, and transgender rights" and asks Janet Mock to explain "why I've had to go through this" ("this" being the twitter "abuse"). And then he proceeds to defend himself for another minute and a half (an extraordinary amount of time in the 8 second sound bite world of TV) before he lets her answer. The rest of the interview goes downhill from there. It's obvious that Morgan is way more interested in defending his position than listening to Mock, repeating the same statements again and again regardless of what Janet Mock is actually saying. This tweet of his nicely summarizes his portion of the interview: 

"As for all the enraged transgender supporters, look at how STUPID you're being. I'm on your side, you dimwits. @janetmock"

Ever since I started my social justice journey I've learned about taking up space. I've learned that to be an ally to any community is to let that community speak for themselves. They get to define their goals, their needs, and their direction because these are choices that will affect their lives, not yours. I've learned that to be a good ally is to listen and to watch the amount of space you're taking up. I've always loved the idea of listening; I tend to be a quiet person that likes to collect different perspectives and I would think that the most pertinent perspectives in being an ally are those for whom you are showing support. After all, they're the ones who either feel supported by you or don't. 

Now, I understand that everyone makes mistakes, and it's important to accept those mistakes with grace. What could have been a teachable moment ended in a verbal sparing match that was very difficult to watch. Honestly, what struck me most about the interview was Morgan's insecurity. He was so worried about his reputation as an ally that he let his relationship with the transgender community deteriorate. In other words, he was so worried about losing his 'ally card' that he embodied the exact opposite of what an ally represents, or as Merriam Webster defines, "to join (yourself) with another person, group, etc., in order to get or give support".   

To read up on Janet Mock and her work here is a link to her website.

I've been avoiding writing about Agnes Torres Sulca for almost a month now.  For those of you who don't know, Agnes Torres was a Trans* activist in Puebla, Mexico who was found murdered on March 10.  Her Twitter account is active until the day of her disappearance, with a link to an interview she did being the final post.  Agnes was a psychologist, an activist, and an academic.  She was one of the most prominent advocates for Queer people in Mexico, and Mexican authorities went from writing off her death as a crime of passion to stating that the motive behind her murder was the theft of her car, not hatred, not transphobia.


[Agnes Torres Sulca]

I didn't want to write about this because I didn't want to add to the perception that Trans* people, especially Trans* women, are all victims.  I didn't want to add to that narrative and that perspective, especially if other Trans* people are going to internalize it.  There's a strong belief that to be Trans* is to be completely powerless, to be dependent on some cisperson for support through our lives, and that's shown in just about every representation of a Trans* person that I can think of.  Every movie, almost every book, I think with the exception of Leslie Feinberg's "Drag King Dreams", has us crying to and leaning on some tolerant cisperson who sits by and listens.  

The fact is that Trans* people are being killed and no one seems to care.  We're being killed directly, through knives and guns and fists, and we're being killed indirectly, by being denied houses, medical care, and jobs.  And sadly, that's never far from my mind.  The fact that almost half the names I read in online obituaries are Latin@ names, that half the bodies and faces shown during Trans* Day of Remembrance belong to someone who looks like me doesn't help.  And their ages, nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-five, twenty-eight, only add to the weight in my chest.  It doesn't look like people like me make it to thirty.

So here is the point at which, you, cispeople, are supposed to start doing something.  One of our assignments in Peers for Pride was to interview people on being what being a good ally means, and I received several responses that were simply "Being there for my friend to talk to".  Let me make this abundantly clear: that is not being an ally, that merely is being a decent friend.  If you want to be an ally to Trans* people, if you consider yourself an ally to Trans* people you're going to have to start doing more than the bare minimum, because for us it comes down to a matter of life and death.  You need to create spaces for us, to begin with.  You need to give us a part in communities and in families.  This is the first step.  Trans* people need places to organize and places to create.

Those of you who organize, on any level, need to realize that Trans* people are not some abstraction, not some target population for another group or social worker, we are part of your community!  We share your struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and we need voices in those spaces and those movements.  And we need you to start using your voices to help us.  We are strong, we are capable, but we are few and we are scattered, we need as much help with our struggle as we can get.

And to Trans* people: we need to unite.  There is no other option.  We need to fight for and work for one another, we need to work on loving one another, because without that we are simply a group of people who share marginalizations and medical histories.  It is my sincere belief that Trans* people, all Trans* people, have a responsibility to create a Trans* community and to do everything they can to advance this community, because failure to do so will result in more deaths, more violence, and less hope.

And neither cispeople nor Trans*people should be allowed to forget those who have passed on.  They are more than faces to be gawked at during a memorial service, or names to be read in a litany at Day of Remembrance, they are a part of our family, they were sisters, brothers, siblings, lovers, and they deserve at the very least the justice that every human being deserves.  Never let us forget that, and never let us forget them.