"Respectability" is not a viable strategy

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(Full disclosure, versions of this piece have been in my drafts folder for years as I’ve grappled and regrappled with this topic, well before I found myself in the middle of any kind of controversy. The choice to publish it now, however is due to a conversation between myself, Ed Buckner, and Aaron Rabinowitz, in the wake of the Jerry Coyne debacle. This is not meant as a specific attack on any one individual, but of a line of conversation that has been going on, not only since the election, but in every civil rights movement in history. Enjoy.)

I generally do my best to be a kind and pleasant person.

Am I always successful in that regard? No, of course not. Everyone is a dick from time to time, we have bad days, social blind spots, or just plain get frustrated. But I generally try to treat people how I would want to be treated, regardless of if I know them, or if I even like them. It’s at the very core of my value system as a human being.

I think some people mistake that kindness, however, for naïveté or a lack of intelligence. I think there’s a lot behind that assumption. I’m relatively young for my chosen professional field. I have a feminine name, and people generally perceive me as a woman, despite emphatically not being one, and having been on HRT for years. My kindness comes from a place of genuine emotion, something many view as a weakness. I think that emotional element also deeply ties into the fact that my area of expertise is not just based in theory and hypotheticals (though I do love theory and hypotheticals), but also in my own lived experiences. I work on issues that directly impact me, my friends, and community at large. And therefore yes, I do get emotionally attached to my work. For people who value “objectivity” and “reason” above all else, the fact that I fully admit that I cannot technically be “objective” in my work (though I would argue there is no such thing as objectivity in the law) is reason enough to dismiss my work outright.

This Barbie’s powers are expansive.

I also highly value cooperation and collaboration. It kind of goes hand in hand with the “be kind to people” thing, and also the only way you can actually get any civil rights work done. These things combined tend to make people think that I’m a bit of a pushover, and that I am all smiles and rainbows in my approach to activism.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a queer person — and I mean queer in the political sense, not just in the “I don’t want to figure out how many letters are in LGBTQIA+” sense — I’m often trying to balance being unapologetically myself with the fact that it is unfortunately still a radical concept to a lot of people. I’m also disabled, and while either of those things tend to make a lot of people very uncomfortable around me, both of those things in conjunction tend to put a lot of people on edge. It’s something I’m incredibly used to. I’ve had to be an “activist” since I was a child in order to make sure I had the same basic right to an education as my peers, and have had to continue to fight tooth and nail to make it to where I am today, and where I’ll be tomorrow. I know deeply and intimately that in order to fight a system that does not want you to exist, you have to know what your line is and stick by it, even when it makes people uncomfortable.

Since the election, we’re seeing the same old song and dance about the merits of “respectability politics” when it comes to trans activism. The phrase “respectability politics” as most American activists understand it has its origins in debates within the Black community in its struggle for civil rights, but occurs within every marginalized group seeking liberation, as well as gets suggested by well meaning self declared “allies” on a regular basis. In short, it refers to the idea that a marginalized group should do everything they can to appear assimilated and non threatening to the majority in order to convince their oppressors that they are in fact equals. Proponents of “respectability” say that those who appear too radical, too strange, too alien, or who try to change things “too quickly” or by the “wrong” means, will do nothing but push “allies” away from their cause.

Now there is some small amount of merit to this from a strategic standpoint. Trying to prove that trans people are literally just regular people trying to live our lives is a huge part of my own strategic tool kit. The problem is that most people who advocate for “respectability,” especially when the recommendation is coming from a so-called “ally,” generally label anything that even mildly challenges the status quo as “too radical.”

“Respectability politics” essentially demands that marginalized people sit down, shut up, and take whatever scraps you’re given, and if you face any harm or violence, it is your own fault. And if people make morally reprehensible choices, they cannot be held accountable, because they were “pushed away.”

An ever relevant Bors comic.

Take a look at the discourse post 2024 election. If you were to take the words of TV news pundits and some Democratic politicians at face value, you would think that the most recent election was based solely on trans people. It is all trans people’s fault, if they had just shut up about their damn pronouns and medication and bathrooms and sports, Donald Trump would have never been elected.

Except…the data doesn’t show that. For years support for trans rights has been on the rise, certainly trailing behind same sex marriage, but still rising. Data from the Pew Research Center shows that 64% of Americans in 2022 supported equal rights for trans people in employment, housing, and public spaces, and even in areas where opposition to trans rights was stronger than support, the only area with a true majority of over 50% was in sports bans. In every other area the opposition to trans rights was under 50%, with undecideds being capable of making a huge difference. Now note that these numbers don’t take into account whether or not people actually vote, or how important these issues rank for them.

For that let’s spend some time with polling data put together by Data For Progress, and released in October of 2024 shortly before the election. In its study, the organization found that voters consistently preferred candidates with pro-trans stances, but it didn’t even crack the top 14 issues for the overwhelming majority of voters.

While 52% of voters said they trusted Democrats (generally considered more pro-trans) over Republicans (generally considered more anti-trans) on transgender issues, 80% of voters thought both parties needed to refocus and spend more time on real priority issues like the economy, jobs, and inflation. Amongst all likely voters, however, 52% said that they were more likely to vote for a candidate who supports transgender rights over one who rejects them (31%), and 57% said that they were more likely to vote for a candidate that said that there is too much legislation targeting a small minority population than a candidate that says we need new laws to restrict “biological boys” from competing in girls’ sports (34%). Notice how over the two year span between these two studies the percentage gap seems to have shifted? Now these are two different studies by two different groups so that shift must be taken with a grain of salt while doing any type of analysis, but there are still perfectly reasonable conclusions that can be drawn from this data.

First, the majority of Americans likely support trans people’s rights to be free from discrimination, access healthcare, and play sports (at least under the previous standards set by various associations without the need for further government interventions). Culturally speaking this makes a lot of logical sense. Across the board Americans generally aren’t huge fans of the government getting involved in people’s personal lives and medical choices. We like our autonomy and privacy and do not typically like being told what to do by “Big Government.”

Second, transgender rights were not why Donald Trump got elected. There were much more significant issues on the table for the vast majority of voters, including the economy, immigration, abortion, threats to democracy, and public benefits programs. Anecdotally speaking, many young voters I know also struggled with apathy and the moral dilemma presented by continuing to vote for “compromise” politicians, especially in the face of the ongoing Palestinian genocide.

Despite all of this data showing that trans people aren’t to blame for the election results, we have become easy scapegoats for a lot of reasons. For some, it’s because they were always transphobic and now feel they have a socially acceptable way to express it. For others, it’s a sheer unwillingness to come to terms that in this chapter of the battle against American fascism, the Democratic party deeply and utterly failed. I think for most of us it is so hard to believe that people would genuinely agree with Donald Trump that we instead want to find anyone else to blame. So trans people, a group of people with very little political power, and that most people have little experience with, have become the target. Ironically, this is the same reason why the GOP and the alt-right started targeting trans people in the first place.

Since then we’ve seen constant renewed calls for trans people to adopt “respectability” (though those calls never went away). Even saying something as simple as “please use the pronouns I asked you to use, because it causes genuine distress and dysphoria and I don’t think you want to cause me harm” is “too much” to ask and being upset when someone makes that choice is “pushing away allies.” We are being asked to sacrifice our safety, dignity, and lives in the name of “saving America” not because it is actually an effective strategy, but because they never wanted a place for us in this country to begin with. They’re fine with us as long as they never have to acknowledge our presence or make any changes or challenge their world view. They’re fine with us so long as we defer and bow and beg for any little shred of dignity they’re so graciously willing to bestow upon us. But don’t step out of line. Don’t ever make people uncomfortable. Or you’ll quickly learn that their “allyship” was never real.

The fact is you merely have to look at history to see that “respectability” is not what leads to liberation. Every time there is a push to expand rights for a group, there are always those saying that advocates are being “too extreme.” Yet it is the suffragettes that caused riots, were violently arrested by the police, and made loud, unignorable protests that won us the 19th Amendment. It is the Black activists that sat at all white lunch counters, marched on Washington, and fought against state violence like hell that won us the Civil Rights Act. It is the disabled activists that engaged in the 504 sit-in (aided by the Black Panthers) and the Capitol Crawl and beyond that won us the Americans with Disabilities Act. No one has ever gotten rights in this country by asking nicely. You must demand them, become impossible to ignore and disregard. Then, and only then, will change go into motion.

So yes, I am kind. I work very hard in order to be so, even to people I do not like, and have serious disagreements with. Do not mistake my kindness for “respectability,” however. I will always be outwardly, expressly, emphatically, and joyfully queer. I refuse to compromise my vision for a future where instead of a simple return to the pre-Trump status quo, we are able to make true, radical social progress and change. I refuse to fight for a future where I have to make myself small and silent just to please people who view my existence as an inconvenience, or at best, a philosophical debate. And I will never be interested in being “one of the good ones.”