Thread by @AlexandraErin

Cant' help but notice that a heck of a lot of people who want to call trans women "he" and chase us out of public spaces are agreeing with Contrapoints that people using gender-neutral pronouns are bad for the acceptance of trans women.

Don't have much to say about Contra in particular but the idea that transphobia is the fault of anyone but transphobic cis people is an appealing and pernicious myth that has set trans people against each other for as long as I've been alive, and longer.

I had an acquaintance who wanted to be stealth who believed that transphobia was just misplaced homophobia, and if we could ever make it clear to the masses that We're Not With The Gays, her parents and her pastor and the other parent of her child and everybody would accept her.

And on Tumblr my heart ached watching people 16 to 20 years old who were sure , SURE, that non-binary people and neopronouns and furries were why their parents couldn't accept them.

They'd tell me they *knew* it happened, because "My mother seemed willing to learn but then she went online and found stuff about fursuits and 'faeself' and transtrenders and now she thinks I made it all up."

And I said it's an appealing idea, because... it means your parents aren't rejecting you. It means they're confused by other people, and if you could clear up the confusion, they'd accept you as you are.

It's not systemic bias, it's a silly mistake.

If you could choose between fighting an entrenched power structure that is indoctrinated in everybody and propped up by the powerful majority to get your rights, or fighting a marginal fringe within a marginalized group, which sounds like the easier battle?

Old vaudeville gag: the comic comes out from backstage crawling on hands and knees and bumps into the straight man, who is giving a nice speech in front of the curtain.

"What are you doing?"

"I lost my wallet backstage."

"Then what are you looking for it out here for?"

"Well, the lights' so much better out here!"

It's easier to look for the causes of your oppression among the weak and marginalized. But you won't find them there. The time you spend grubbing around on your hands and knees in the wrong place is time you're not solving the problem

People who hate us will always attack whatever they see as the extremist fringe, the exposed and vulnerable flank that has the least social capital, least protective camouflage, least power to fight back.

but they won't stop there.

If you see your kith and kin teetering on the edge of a cliff and you push them over because you think transphobes make a better ally than they do, all you've done is put yourself on the cliff's edge. Banish the fringe often enough and you'll be the fringe.

When everyone else is gone, the most socially acceptable mainstream conforming inoffensive and passable binary trans woman will be the most radical and aggressive and scary trans woman, too.

And if you think the very same people who praised your reasonable attitude and your efforts to assimilate can't turn around and villify you, demonize you for "infiltrating", for "sneaking"... hoo.

Trans women who go stealth are a threat to the cisnormative power structure, too.

We either free everybody or we all go over the cliff. Negotiating to be the last one flung onto the rocks only means you die in the service of your murderers.

So be good to each other, friends and neighbors, because we are all in this together and no one's getting out on their own. Uphold and uplift each other, defend each other, stand by each other.

If it were an easy thing to take us all down together, they wouldn't bother trying to separate us.