Trans Allyship Workbook

Building Skills to Support Trans People In Our Lives

Davey Shlasko, Kai Hofius

• Publisher: Think Again Training
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780990636922
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Revised, updated and expanded for 2017 – the new Trans Allyship Workbook is everything you’ve been wanting to read about trans allyship! A workbook to help you build your understanding of trans communities and develop concrete skills for supporting trans people in your life, with over 100 pages of explanation, activities, illustrations and reflectionsincluding –

• New sections on intersectionality, singular they, and philosophies of allyship
• Tips and “best practices” for the special allyship situations of parents, teachers, healthcare providers and therapists
• Tons of new color illustrations
• New activities – it really is a “workbook” – to help you deepen and practice your allyship skills
• Extensive glossary to get updated on recent evolutions in trans terminology
• Resource lists to help you take the next steps in your learning, whether for personal or professional development

CHAPTER ONE: What is Allyship?

In the most general sense, allyship means helping each other out, or working together—being in alliance. In the context of social justice activism, it means supporting someone (or some group) who is impacted by oppression or inequality differently than you are. Sometimes allyship refers specifically to people with a particular, privileged identity, supporting people who do not share that privilege—for example, straight people who work for LGB (lesbian, gay and bisexual) rights or white people who support racial justice movements. Other times, allyship can include people within the group—like trans people seeking to support trans people who are different from ourselves. Sometimes allyship refers to an attitude—such as believing that people should not be discriminated against—and other times it requires more active engagement.

When ally is used to refer to an attitude, the term can become so watered down that it doesn’t mean much and even becomes counterproductive. Activists and scholars have written about the problems that arise when people can become so attached to their ally “identity” that they defend it even at the expense of the people they claim to be in alliance with. If you want to read more about that, Mia McKenzie’s blog Black Girl Dangerous, and her book of the same name, are great places to start.

For the purpose of this book, being an ally is not something you are, nor something you think or feel, but something you do. It is informed, accountable action that contributes to other people’s ability to survive and thrive in a context of inequality. You can be an ally to a group or to an individual.

I often use Dr. Barbara Love’s essay “Developing a Liberatory Consciousness” to explore the ingredients required for effective allyship. Love talks about awareness, analysis, accountability, and action.

Awareness means developing the capacity to notice when something is wrong—to notice when someone is being excluded, insulted or discriminated against. In the dominant culture, marginalization of trans people is so pervasive that it can be hard to notice because it just seems normal. In particular, many of the barriers trans people face are not a result of deliberate discrimination (although there’s plenty of that, too) but rather of systems that are set up on the assumption that trans people don’t exist. Forms that require you to check off male or female, public restrooms that are designated for men and women with no other options, and the overall absence of trans people in books, movies and television are all examples that allies should cultivate the ability to notice, along with more overt violence and discrimination. In order to develop that awareness, we need to be at least somewhat familiar with the diversity of trans identities and experiences that exist.

Awareness also means becoming conscious of our own beliefs, feelings, and assumptions about trans people and about gender in general. This allows us to make more conscious decisions and to act on our actual values, rather than on stereotypes we have absorbed without even noticing them. Chapter 4, “Getting Pronouns Right and What it Teaches Us About Gender,” is mostly about developing this kind of self-awareness.

Analysis refers to developing a nuanced understanding of what we know and observe. Beyond noticing when something is wrong or right, analysis requires us to think through why and how those things are happening, what is wrong or right about them, and why it matters. It also requires us to make connections between different kinds of events, beliefs, and systems. An analysis of challenges trans people face in the world can help to explain what male/female check boxes have to do with family violence against trans youth. It can highlight how some current tensions within trans communities are entangled with the legacy of the medical system’s pathologizing approach to trans identity. It can strengthen coalitions by clarifying how police departments use some of the same tools (such as special enforcement zones) to target communities of color and trans communities, or how politicians use transphobia to drum up support for bills that hurt poor people, people of color, and people with disabilities along with trans people.

Action simply means doing stuff—in this case, doing stuff that has a positive effect on a trans individual or community. Your allyship can’t be all in your head. You may start out with reflection and self-education, but if you don’t eventually move to taking action, then your project is one of self-improvement more than allyship. Action can be as small as accompanying your trans friend in a public restroom to shield them from harassment, and as large as organizing a campaign to change a law that hurts trans people. Chapter 5, “Allyship in Action,” is about some of the many ways you can take action as a trans ally.

Finally, accountability is about relationships. Who do we trust to give us accurate feedback about how we’re doing as an ally? Whose work do we look to for direction in setting priorities for action? If you’re focusing on being an ally to a particular trans person, you are accountable to that person. That means you recognize that they, not you, are the ultimate authority on what kind of self-education and action you should be prioritizing as their ally. But you can also form relationships of accountability with other trans people in your life, and with other skilled allies, so that you aren’t only relying on someone you’re trying to support to teach you how to support them. You can even have indirect relationships of accountability with trans authors and organizations, who can help you develop your awareness and analysis and provide some guidance about appropriate allyship behaviors.

In fact, allies should always be accountable to trans communities and movements beyond the individual(s) we’re supporting, so that we don’t accidentally undermine some trans people while trying to support others. For example, it may be helpful in some contexts to reassure a trans person that you don’t see their trans identity as a mental illness, even though the medical model has historically understood it this way. Many trans people would agree that trans identity should not be pathologized (understood as an illness). But when you say that someone’s trans identity is acceptable because it is not a mental illness, there’s an unintended consequence of reinforcing the stigma attached to mental illness, which undermines the ability of trans and cisgender people with mental illness to survive and thrive.

For trans people seeking to be in alliance with each other, it is important to remember that what works best for us does not necessarily work best for all trans people. Being in relationships of accountability with other trans folks whose identities and experiences are different from our own can not only make us better at supporting each other, but also help us to explain things to our cisgender allies in a way that doesn’t leave anyone out.

CISGENDER: Not trans.

Reflection: The 4 As of Liberatory Consciousness

Consider Barbara Love’s 4 elements of a liberatory consciousness: Awareness, Analysis, Action and Accountability. Take stock of your own allyship to trans people. How are you doing on each of the four elements? Where do you have room for growth?

Reflection: Relationships of Accountability

What are your relationships of accountability around trans allyship? Make a list of individuals you know personally, individuals you follow on social media, authors whose work you look to, and organizations whose leadership you trust around trans issues.

Review your list of people, and ask yourself: How many of the individuals are trans? Do they include a balance of people with nonbinary identities, trans women, and trans men? Do they include people of different ages, races, class backgrounds, professions and experiences? Do they include people who have been “out” as trans for a long time, along with those who have come out or transitioned more recently? Do they include people who live with disabilities, people who have been (or are still) incarcerated, people who have been (or are still) homeless?

Now look at the organizations on your list. Who do these organizations represent? Who is in leadership? What is the balance (within each organization, and also across all the organizations on your list) of leadership by and for trans people of a variety of genders, ages, races, classes, and experiences? Additionally, consider the organizations’ relationships: What other organizations do they collaborate with? What is their reputation in trans communities, especially among trans folks who are poor, people of color, and/or otherwise marginalized?

What patterns do you notice? What sorts of voices might be missing from your accountability network?

Finally, make a plan to fill those gaps. Perhaps start with the resource list at the end of this book, and/or with some of the trans authors mentioned throughout the book. Find out what your local trans communities and organizations are working on, and consider building in-person relationships through volunteering or attending discussion groups. Aspire to have at least two “real life” relationships of accountability with people who are different from you and each other.

CHAPTER TWO:

What is Trans, and Who are Trans People?

In order to understand what trans encompasses and who trans people are, we first have to understand what gender is and isn’t.

Very broadly, gender is a system of categorizing people according to factors like anatomy, identity, appearance, and mannerisms, and attributing meaning to those categories. Different cultures have different gender systems in terms of what gender categories are acknowledged (men, women, and other categories), the meanings attached to the categories (gender roles, stereotypes and expectations), and which factors (anatomy, identity, etc.) are most important in determining someone’s category. If you’re interested in exploring gender diversity across cultures, Serena Nanda’s book Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations is a great place to start. (However, be aware that Nanda uses some academic/anthropology jargon that’s considered out of date and disrespectful by many trans people).

For people who have grown up in the dominant US culture—even if it wasn’t the only culture we grew up in—some aspects of this gender system are so pervasive that they seem natural and inevitable. And yet, they don’t reflect the diversity of gender experiences that people have. So it’s important to dig into what gender isn’t:

Gender isn’t binary, although most of us have been taught to think of it that way. Binary simply means that something has only two categories, like on/off or yes/no. The binary gender system is the way of thinking that says there are exactly two kinds of people in the world—men and women. It assumes that there are no categories or experiences of gender beyond men and women—no one who’s both, neither, on a spectrum between, or something else entirely—and that which category you belong to says everything anyone needs to know about your gender.

BINARY GENDER SYSTEM: The set of ideas and structures that assume and reinforce a two-category system of gender (men/women).

In addition to a way of thinking, the binary gender system also includes concrete structures that sort and confine people into gender categories. M/F check boxes, public restrooms labeled for men and women, and sex-segregated shelters, jails and hospital wards all are part of the binary gender system. Even if we personally don’t believe in the ideas behind the binary gender system, these structures can still have a significant impact on our lives.

The genderbread cookie is an image that many educators and activists use to communicate key concepts related to gender. The earliest version I have found or heard of was developed by youth leaders at the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center in Portland, OR, around 1997. In 1998, activists with the Trans Activist Network in Western Massachusetts (later the Western Massachusetts chapter of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, MTPC) printed a version of it in a training guide; this was cited in the first published version, in a chapter in Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, 2nd edition, in 2007. The genderbread cookie was always meant to be shared and adapted freely by educators and activists who use it, and this has continued to happen. There are many versions in circulation, with different strengths and weaknesses. However, one user—the proprietor of the website itspronouncedmetrosexual.com—falsely claimed to have authored it, effectively plagiarizing and privatizing what should be an evolving community resource. And his version isn’t even that good, in that it still relies pretty heavily on binary logic. Please don’t use it, and don’t credit him with inventing the genderbread! The version presented here is my current adaptation, based on what works well with training groups I work with. Anyone is free to use and adapt it, crediting me as the author of this version (not of the whole idea).

The binary gender system lumps together several different aspects of human experience: biological sex, assigned sex, gender identity, and gender expression. Actually, these are all different from each other—and none of them are binary.

Biological sex refers to features of one’s body including genitals, internal reproductive organs, chromosomes, and hormone levels, along with secondary sex characteristics like body hair, facial hair, fat-to-muscle ratio, breast development and vocal pitch. Even at a biological level, sex is not binary.

Intersex people are people whose bodies are not easily categorized as simply male or female. Sometimes this is apparent at birth, and other times not until puberty. There are many ...