I’m working with an organization of professional women who want our trans sisters to know they will be welcome and accepted in the group.
What’s the best way to do this in our media when having events, etc?
Because my brain goes “trans women are women, of course they’re welcome!” but I know that isn’t always the case and want to allay any concerns folks might have about joining.
Are there ways you’ve found to indicate while not othering? #advice#askfedi
@aronow one suggestion I would make is for the leadership to work on their own internalized misogyny first. A lot of trans women are punished by other women for taking on and being happy about their femininity.
A simple example for me: when I started voice training and began presenting a more feminine voice and register, I was told I was less "engaging" and treated as less competent. A lot of us fems internalize these messages that masculine is neutral, default, or superior, and we internalize negative beliefs about femininity that lead us to tear each other down.
Also, putting money where your mouth is - maybe fundraise for a trans organization or donate labor and resources to trans causes. Trans people are generally skeptical of performative marketing (e.g. saying a group is inclusive) because we often show up and are treated poorly. This includes making sure forms don't equate legal name to actual name, having gender options on a form besides male/female, etc.
@JoscelynTransient thank you for this! They’re just getting started so budget is tight but big into events so I’m going to propose doing some volunteer work as a start.
@aronow yeah, that's a real easy way to start, just doing some volunteering or co-sponsoring/hosting an event with a trans organization, especially one serving trans women and fems. We take note of that and it makes a big difference. Like, I take note of who is helping at every trans and LGBTQ event I go to and reach out to some when I want to do an event later. Someone willing to put their skin in the game matters a lot to us.
It's surprisingly common for women's groups to signal that they're trans-inclusive, and they very much want to believe that they are... even though they're really very much not. Trans women will come, see that cisness is centered, and quietly leave.
To paraphrase Audre Lourde, if you make a space genuinely inclusive, where members of a given minority want to be, they will appear. If you look around at your group, and especially at your leadership--
I’ve just started working with the group and they’ve indicated they strive for inclusiveness, but it sounds like my next step is to ask if there are trans members, if they are in leadership, and if not, why not.
@aronow That cannot be the end in and of itself. Trying to get people in the door and on leadership must always be a result, not a goal in and of itself. The presence or lack of them is a marker of how well a group is living up to its claims of allyship, whether on racial, gender, or any other axis.
Trying to get and place people into those positions "to increase diversity" is tokenization, and it harms us more than no action at all.
@Impossible_PhD@aronow Others, including the linked article, said it way better than I will, but my take is below. “You” here is addressed to your question, yes, but really to cis women generally.
Why? Why do you want trans women to feel comfortable in that organization? Let that sit a moment, we’ll come back to it.
Trans women (and do you mean women? What about trans people who identify as… not women, but not men? What about trans women with beards? I’ve barely scratched the surface with these examples) learn fast that talk is cheap, only actions matter. If you want trans folks to feel comfortable with you, do things to help marginalized folks.
Teach technical skills to non-stereotypically technical people.
Publicly pressure local officials to make statements supporting the local abortion clinic.
Shun TERFs. For goodness sake, don’t promote Harry Potter books. Why not your beloved HP? JK Rowling is a famous and well-funded TERF.
Hold fundraisers to ameliorate the housing costs of local trans youth… and don’t cut off aid when they are over 18. Why over 18? They are old enough to leave untenable home lives and medically transition without parental interference, but can they ACTUALLY afford to do so? In THIS economy?
Hold a panel at the library to educate parents of young children (years before this becomes relevant to their lives) on the horrors of making children who know they are trans go through the wrong puberty. Undoing the changes to the body caused by the wrong hormones is expensive financially, physically, mentally, chronologically, and inter-personally.
When your friends’ spouses come out as trans, invite them over for dinner as a couple. Do NOT use the words “the surgery” under any circumstances. Ask how they picked their name. Ask what they enjoy about living as themselves. You may be surprised by how many things we enjoy that don’t involve genitals in any way.
I asked why you want trans women in your organization. If you’ve made it this far, you may begin to grasp that the price of actually HAVING trans women in your organization may be sitting with a lot of things you find uncomfortable.
So. Why do you want trans women in your organization? We could give you easy answers. “Put a rainbow on your website!” “Say you think the local blonde bombshell trans woman is such an inspiration!”
But I don’t need that kind of support. And honestly, I don’t trust it. I need to know that when my CEO gets tired of me complaining to them that they misgendered me at the rainbow-draped Pride Ceremony and get HR to find an unrelated reason to fire me, you’ll believe me, and you’ll let them know you disapprove… with your business’s checkbook.
Honestly, I don’t care why you want me in your org. If you DO want me, and you want me enough to show it with your actions, that’s enough for me. I don’t have to know why, if you do the work.
If you feel personally attacked by any of the above, I promise you it’s not hitting close to the mark on purpose.
But that’s kind of my point. We deal with this kind of thing every day. It isn’t you, personally. It’s SO MANY people we know, in our lives. Often, people we have positive relationships with in other ways. So we grit our teeth and don’t say anything when they stick another knife in a festering emotional wound, because what good will it do to burn this bridge? And the next, and the next?
Sure, I could try to educate each and every person I interact with about each and every point I made, above, but how many would still be listening?
4/4 (I’ve clearly overrun my intended length. I’ll probably repost this as a stand alone thread in the future.)
So. I want to be in your women’s business group, if you do the kinds of things I talked about, above. You might even find me wanting to take on a leadership role!
But I don’t have time or energy to decorate your “Meet our members” page with my face and bio.
Do you want me so we can seek liberation together? So we can smash the patriarchy together? So we can go out for drinks and talk about our families and our lives’ victories and tragedies together, then get up hungover together the next day and strive again, together?
That kind of dedication leaves its own signature. That, I’m here for.
@Willow@Impossible_PhD I’ve been thinking about your question all morning and here’s what I’ve got so far… (still rough thoughts, so apologies if not eloquent!).
The reason I want trans women in the group is the same reason I want all women in the group and why I want to be there - I work in the tech industry adjacent, as a technical recruiter, and while there are lots of women in the industry there are proportionally smaller numbers of women in the upper levels of management. (Cont.)
These are the right reasons. These are very good reasons.
Second, the data:
Trans women are four times as likely as cis women to live in poverty and be unemployed. We're promoted dramatically less, and paid about $0.60 on the dollar that cis men make--twice the pay gap cis women have to live with. We're nine times as likely to be sexually assaulted or raped, and sexual harassment? Incidence rates in the last 12 months for trans women exceed 50%.
@aronow@Willow So yeah, literally all the things you're talking about? They not only affect us, but they affect us at SO MUCH HIGHER rates than cis women have to live with, and with SO MUCH LESS support.
And Black trans women? It's even harsher for them. The stats would make your hair go gray.
So yeah. Fight these fights and fight them explicitly for trans women? Believe me, we'll sit up and pay attention.
I'm a tenured professor at a public university. When I transitioned, I was in a low-level leadership position--a program coordinatorship. I managed two small majors for a few dozen students.
Within two years of me coming out, I'd been pushed out of my position. Not overtly. People just... wouldn't listen to what I had to say, suddenly. I saw, very clearly, that I could either step aside, or both programs would be killed from neglect because of who I was.
@aronow@Willow They didn't set out to do that. It wasn't anyone's intent.
But cis men simply didn't respect anything I had to say because it was me saying it. Implicit bias. And I'm not the only trans woman in my department who was pushed out of leadership when she transitioned.
I will never, ever be allowed to be a leader again, because of my gender.
That is the scale of how messed up things are. That is the scale of the problem you need to confront if you want to make things better.
@aronow@Willow Thanks... But I don't really get a choice. Either I hang in there in the way I am and make what difference I can, or I get slowly pushed out of either work or my right to be public about my transness.
It's a choice between fighting, elimination, and elimination. That's not really a choice
@Impossible_PhD@aronow@Willow I hit something similar as well. I could literally change my performance metrics at my job by identifying as trans or not. It created a whole bunch of weird existential issues that my cis leaders were not ready for - especially the suggestion that their quantitative measures didn't also work as qualitative ones
They weren't being inherently transphobic but just acting out systemic transphobia. I want groups I join to actively engage those biases and confront them
@aronow --If you look around at your group, and especially at your leadership, and see few or no trans women, the verdict has already been given. The only way to make a place safe for any minority is to do the work to deconstruct the privilege of the in-group and to honor and center the struggles of minoritized members.
In other words?
The one and only way to show that a group is safe for minoritized people is to do the work of active allyship-as-accompliceship, even though it maybe--
@aronow --costs the ally in funding, membership, and so forth, and for that active, continuous, and serious work to demonstrate that your group is a safe place.
And I'm gonna be honest: as a business group, you've got an uphill battle, because trans women especially have gotten the short end of the stick from capitalism in a whole array of ways.
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