Today, for the first time, I began to gain a conception of
my own privilege as a white, heteroflexible male. I was at a dinner with some
friends and the topic was, predominantly, a housemate of ours who was handling
a situation with her boyfriend effectively getting free room and board at our
house; we were letting off steam. I raised the topic of how she disapproved of
a recent hookup of mine with a trans girl (a peaceful, enjoyable incident).
A friend sat next to me, a gay man, then proceeded to quiz
me on the status of the girl. What was between the legs? I implied. And then
came the comments, for the first time, that I had heard so much about but never
experienced firsthand.
“so really he’s a man then”
“oh don’t tell me not to mislabel”
You get the picture; the topic was dropped quite quickly. But
for the first time I understood my place in the world as someone with
privilege. I will never have my identity negated in this manner. And, truly,
that was what this was, he was negating the lived in experience of this person,
of this girl.
Ignoring issues of respect, courtesy, and politeness, which had
previously been the paradigm through which I viewed these issues, I began to
understand that this went a lot deeper than simply being respectful of someone’s
life. The issue at hand was identity, society’s rejection of said identity, and
for the briefest of moments I saw, clearly, in front of me, the various ways in
which the negation of these people’s will is coded into every day conversations
and how it is so easy to sweep something to monumental under the carpet with a
single comment.
I was angry and troubled in about that order. And I began to
see my role as an ally to the LGBT community; I began to see my duty to use my
privilege to educate and shut down those who are being disrespectful and
offensive to the persecuted. My eyes felt open; and the saddest thing of all is
the fact that it’s taken me a deep interest and self-alignment with the LGBT
community and many many years of knowing LGBT people, and then having to
witness transphobia, to get to this point. Even sadder is the fact that people
have to live with this every day, many times a day.
And the fact that the person making the comments was himself
gay opened my eyes to another issue which I had previously been agonisingly
neutral on; the fact that gay men are often rampantly transphobic. It was a
truth I had not wanted to face up to; simply, I have known gay men throughout
my entire life, my best friend, who I have grown up with and regard as a
brother, is gay. I holidayed with a gay male couple as a young child. I have
lived their struggles; witnessed the ignorance. And to see one negating a
struggle, and being ignorant in turn, was a shock, but a necessary one. I realised
I could not be blind to this; I needed to stop flirting with the #notall(gay)men
line of thinking I was running with. The fact that the majority of the gay men
I know are conscious and conscientious of issues outside of themselves does not
matter against the wider issue; to ignore the wider issue is simply selfish.
I instantly realised how hard it must be for trans people. That
sounds like a huge understatement, and it is. And I also saw that I must make a
conscious effort to raise awareness of these issues where I can, educate on the
correct way to address trans people, live a life using my privilege as a tool
to raise others up with me, do my bit to help society become accepting of all
people, and to stop standing by blind, letting others take it on.
It is hard to face these truths; it is hard to shut people
down if they are being offensive, especially when they are friends; it is also
hard to analyse one’s own behaviour, and realise that one has been transphobic,
as I now recognise I had been in the past; it is also hard, as someone who
assumed themselves as an LGBT ally, to realise that being an ally goes much
further than simply being friends with LGBT people.
But as hard as this is, it does not at all compare to the
hardships faced by those who are persecuted daily for simply being. And this is
the greatest realisation of all; the fact that I will never know this is not
the norm, it is pure luck on my part. But luck is random; this respect should
be afforded all. And I know now that I must try my utmost at all turns to allow
this to be afforded to all citizens, LGBT and other.
