ID: Is this a pigeon meme where the person is tagged “cis society”, the butterfly in their hand is tagged “trans people having a backbone about anything at all”, and they are asking “is this destroying my free speech?”
I posted this on another thread here, a week and a half ago it was, and I just wanted to post it here once more. To reiterate though, this is not a ‘praise me’ or ‘look at me being a great parent’ post, this is the bare minimum to be even just an ally. That said I hope it helps some people here, because we are out there, allies, friends, fellow 2SLGBTQIA+. Reach out, ask for help, be brutally honest if you’re having suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideation.
One of my kids came out as gay, and was immediately bullied by both staff and students (they were in trade school). I did the usual furious parent stuff, but also added a piece of flair every day to tell the world I was bi, and wore a bow in my hair. They came to me a few days later and came out as non-binary, and asked for help getting clothes to match who they were.
It wasn’t the threats I made to the teacher, it wasn’t the death stares I gave their classmates, it was seeing someone they trusted showing them not everyone is straight that did it. I am so very proud of them.
I didn’t do anything spectacular, I don’t want praise, I just want to tell everyone I meet that tiny actions like that ripple out.
Paulo Friere coined the phrase “to the oppressor, equality feels like oppression.” But at some point in the last 10 or 20 years, “oppressor” has changed to “privileged,” and while I understand the sentiment I’m afraid it leads to some misconceptions about privilege and oppression. Friere carefully constructed a long and detailed basis for his statement, carefully explaining the dynamics of oppressor/oppressed dynamics, but he was speaking pretty specifically about peasants in neo colonies in the global south, like Brazil.
I think you will definitely find many people of privilege among the oppressor class(es), and privilege functions within society to justify different kinds of oppression. But you’ll also find people of privilege set against injustice in every way they possibly can. Because of the way privilege is bestowed upon some people but not others, contrary to how oppression is more like an organized effort by some political interest, be it national, economic, etc., to keep many people poor and wretched so that only the few can prosper. The privilege, IMO is a function of the oppression. I guess I think privilege is a personal thing whereas oppression is a much wider problem, as many individuals come together in order to dominate an other. The social factors that might drive this are all too abundant.
I see the “privilege” quote everywhere, but I never see the “oppressor” quote brought up, even though I’m pretty sure its the source. It gives me sort of an icky feeling too, like it may be saying something much different than the original. Our ruling classes love to tweak little details like this, and really its usually to claim the work of some oppressed workers as their own.
But in order for change to occur, privileged people would have to come over to, and fight for, the side of change. This would not affect their status as privileged, but it would affect whether or not they were an oppressor.
Move to western and northern Europe. It’s still not 100% accepting of trans folk, but you won’t get sent to the gas chamber.
Yet. Plenty of places are running hard in the wrong direction, even some mostly progressive countries.
I’ve needed to have this kind of backbone for 20 years now. I am at the point where it hurts to stand, but I have to.
Don’t be hard on yourself, we each carry our own baggage and trauma and it can be hard to find confidence and a voice through all that shit. But learning to set boundaries (which is basically what this is) is such a powerful tool for self defence, and a way to try and reduce opportunity to be constantly retraumatised, we could all benefit from doing it more!
