Pragmatism or selling out the weakest?

Last week Stonewall shared their latest strategy. Reading it you’d barely notice that trans children are facing an acute escalation in  targeted persecution. Life is dire for trans kids in the UK right now. Here’s a very short list:

• Healthcare – criminalised
• Trans teens being medically detransitioned
• Forced conversion practices disguised as therapy
• Forced identity investigation
• Social transition denied
• Segregated and humiliated at school
• Excluded from sports
• Can’t even go on a school or DofE camping trip
• Bullying and violence
• Supportive families facing social services and police
• Can’t change institutional records
• No chance of protection from transphobic parents
• Barred from trans positive social media connections
• Fights to ban trans books from school and county libraries
• Schools teaching transphobia
• Lessons on the ‘sex-based right to be transphobic’
• Transphobic and scientifically illiterate lessons on bodies and puberty
• Ban on school resources about trans lives, esp for younger ages
• No education for their peers on trans lives or trans rights
• No action on transphobic bullying
• Gov refuses to even recognise trans kids

From a policy angle, I can’t think how things can be worse? (don’t tell me how)

Stonewall’s strategy does not mention a crisis. It does not mention trans children facing the worst situation for their rights and wellbeing this century.

If you don’t even acknowledge the problem, how are we meant to believe you are a trusted ally in helping us solve it?

They describe their role as to be “pragmatic conveners”. I always worry when folks use the word pragmatic. It’s a bit like describing yourself as the sensible grownup in the room. It is often a way of talking down to those of us who ask for more, as though it is not possible to hold steadfast to certain principle and then act in pragmatic ways. Too often pragmatic is the word used to defend something else – selling out those who are less important to you.

“Turbulence” is another buzz word that Stonewall is using. It is a term that glosses over the reality that we are not all in the same boat, and this isn’t a bit of rocky weather, but a very clearly targeted and incredibly well funded attack on the weakest parts of our communities.

Our enemies are incredibly strategic and tenacious. Our ‘friends’ appear without strategy.

Stonewall – from foes to friends and back again?

Over a decade ago Stonewall was being protested for its transphobia.

In 2015 they chose to start working for trans people

In 2017 I critiqued their then strategy for failing to have anything to offer for trans children.

Under Nancy’s leadership they were suddenly reliable strong on advocating for trans children.

At the same time as Stonewall got better at sticking up for trans kids, they apparently lost political capital. Perhaps they stopped getting the ear of government. Perhaps they stopped being in the rooms of the powerful.

Does that mean that sticking up for trans kids was the wrong strategy?

Should trans kids be sacrificed in the name of political capital and influence?

Should we operate under this fascist logic?

Should advocacy for trans kids be blamed for Stonewall’s unpopularity amongst a media and political elite in the throngs of rampant transphobia?

Should advocacy for trans kids be blamed for being on the losing side of a culture war?

Would those culture warriors have bowed out and quit if Stonewall had been more pragmatic?

Consensus

The part of the strategy that really stuck in my throat is this sentence.
“We will seek common ground and consensus”.

• Billions of pounds have gone into the global anti-gender movement.
• In the UK we have had 8 years of incessant misinformation, lies, propaganda and fearmongering about trans kids
• Transphobic politicians created the illegitimate and prejudice riddled Cass Review that has greenlit all kind of persecution and discrimination against trans kids
• Whole organisations have formed to advocate against trans kids rights. Organisations that are terrifying in their connections to those with power and funding.
• Organisations fighting for trans kids rights have been weakened, have sold out, have been scared away
• Public opinion has over the past 8 years got worse year after year on topics related to trans kids

We cannot get progress through common ground and consensus.

Common ground and consensus tells me that trans kids’ rights, trans kids’ lives are disposable, while you work on the areas where there is most consensus.
Grow a bloody backbone.

An organisation standing up for trans rights, for trans kid’s rights at this point in history needs to be brave, needs to be principled, needs to proactively reshape the narrative through standing up clearly and articulately and strongly for trans kids’ rights at every turn.

We should be telling everyone who will listen that the current status quo is deeply harmful. That it is unfair. That it is persecuting trans kids just for being trans.

I don’t believe we will see change through consensus. We will see change through clearly putting our marker in the sand, and speaking up again and again and again, leading with our principles.

In the room where it happens

Those who talk of pragmatism and consensus want to be in the room where it happens. They want to have the ear of those in power.

Great for them.

But what message will they be saying in those powerful rooms?

Are they going to hold the government to account on all of its horrendous failings?

Or are they going to play polite, make a couple of challenging points on the less controversial issues, while letting a whole heap slide?

Are they going to bask in the warmth of the powerful while trans kids are out in the cold?

Do they even recognise how bad it is? Do we even trust that they care about all the above violence being pushed by our government onto trans children?

I’ve been in rooms with several leading (cis, white, male) LGBT sector leaders and they have said to my face (in politer terms) that they don’t support trans children. That they are not actually bothered by trans children’s rights violations. That trans children make them uncomfortable. That they are quite on the fence. That its all a bit much isn’t it. That rights for trans children is a step too far. Perhaps even that rights for trans children is harming the wider LGBT endeavour. Trans kids can wait for next century, their time is not now.

For those defending ‘pragmatism’, I am sometimes left to wonder if they are naïve to the real agenda, to the real lack of conviction amongst some leaders.

Is it pragmatism, or is it selling out trans kids entirely?

The good activist

Let’s also be honest here – there is not a shortage of organisations and individuals queueing up to the be ‘reasonable LGBT activists’ who are allowed into the rooms of the powerful.

But at what cost? If you sell out your weakest members to get into those rooms, to stay in those rooms?

Moving the needle

I don’t believe we are where we are due to lack of articulacy.

Or due to not being invited to play the token LGBT friend.

Or due to being too demanding.

I don’t think we have done anything wrong.

We have faced overwhelming power differentials, and have lost because of the scale of those power differentials.

Taking away a lesson that we just needed to do X or we just need to be politer or work more for slow progress or consensus, is learning the wrong lesson.

Being in the room isn’t going to shift the needle when the game is rigged. We certainly can’t win the consensus game in our current media landscape.

Winning through consensus, through playing nice, will take us decades.

And that isn’t winning at all really. It is giving up any chances for the current generation of trans kids. And for the one after. And the one after that.

What can we do?

I see three roles that stonewall can do in this current context:

1. Calling out persecution and injustice to embarrass those in power

This role is not nothing. There are parts of the Labour party who do not want to be known as the baddies. Most trans people view them as out and out baddies. Conveying this message to a wider public can embarrass Labour, and empower those in Labour who want to be less terrible.

2. Calling out persecution and injustice to embolden cis people

This is for me the biggest priority. There are a ton of cis people across the country working out how to respond to trans kids. Individual school teachers. GPs. Governors. Scouts leaders. Many will by default fall into the path of least resistance, which currently means following gov policy and guidance to harm trans kids. But clear messaging from stonewall on how unacceptable all of this is can embolden people to consider a different act. Most of life does not take place based on detailed following of government decree – it is in the small and everyday decisions and actions of millions of us. Having clear communication from Stonewall that the current government policy harms trans kids can turn the needle on those everyday decisions. Having clear communication from Stonewall that specific actions and policies are part of systemic persecution and genocidal intent (see recent statement from the Lemkin Institute), is something that we can give to individual school head teachers, to individual social workers, to individual family members, to legitimise the messages that we are currently trying to convey.

3. Calling out persecution and injustice to make us feel less alone

Even if nothing else, feeling that our current pain and fear is noticed, that we are not abandoned, that we have staunch allies – that actually matters. Even in the face of ongoing and perhaps not easy to fix persecution – it can help us take one more step – help us stay in the fight.

Today I saw photos of Stonewall smiling and celebrating at a 10 Downing Street ‘pride’ reception. I saw no public call outs of the horrific Labour policies that are destroying the chances of happiness for trans children across the UK. It felt a real kick in the teeth.

Finding Hope

The Stonewall strategy talks about being a “a beacon of hope”. I actually agree with this ambition. What does that hope look like? For me, I draw hope from knowing that organisations and individuals will be brave, will stand up and be counted, will call out oppression and persecution and ignorance and hate wherever they find it. This gives me hope. This can give hope to trans kids too – showing that their current atrocious treatment is noticed, showing that we recognise it for bigotry and violence, showing that we stand at their sides. The current Stonewall approach give me zero hope.

What they have given me, this evening, is rage. I am beyond done with sell outs and folks who are part of the problem. We have enough problems.

I know that Stonewall are not the real enemy. They are not the reason that life is so goddam hard. They are not the reason I am stressed and afraid.

I know that it is easy to turn on each other when we feel so powerless and defeated.

Maybe I should thank them for providing some rage.

Rage is more motivating than fear.

I just wish there were other things on the menu these days.

Is hope really too much to hope for?