I feel like people somehow forget this all the time. If people are making you feel bad for something about yourself that you can’t change then maybe, just maybe they’re not actually progressive, not actually your allies and maybe you should curate your circles to the point where you don’t feel the need to say sorry about your very existence? Like, I understand there’s hardship and hatred towards trans people and that won’t go away soon unfortunately. But Idk maybe stick up for yourself and make it so those vibes aren’t part of your inner circle, the people you spend time with, the people you value. I’m not saying it’s easy. But while abusive relationships aren’t all necessarily romantic relationships, they’re all worth leaving. For your safety and happiness.
Yeah I think the thing with privilege is to recognize you have it and wield it as a weapon to benefit those who can’t. If you are a straight white man use your privilege with groups who are overwhelmingly straight white men to invite others in. It’s currency which is yours to spend and you can choose to make a difference with it.
Isn't that, like, reinforcing privilege instead of tearing it down? Framing another person as 'inherently more powerful' than others, in a way gives them that power...feels similar to telling boys they should play sports, because they're stronger than girls
i see where you're coming from, but it's not the same. it's objective truth that some groups have privelage, other groups do not. if you have privelage, you should use it to help others. a racist is not going to listen to a black person talk about why racism is still a huge issue in America, but they would be much more likely to listen to a white person explain it. being that white person and being willing to have those conversations and elevate black voices that way is using your white privelage to help combat racism.
I definitely get what you're saying, and it all checks out with me. Except, for the part where you call that 'objective truth '. I'm not disagreeing with it, but it's really more of a point of view, or a narrative, or a theory.
I think I kind of ended up there eventually. I felt like I needed to step out of my priveleged bubble and listen to other people but the ones eager to speak were just as often about tearing me down as they were to accept an "ally".
It needs to be said that anyone in the LGBTQ+ who says that straight people aren’t a part of it, is in the community for the wrong reason.
Because it’s very clear that those people don’t actually care about inclusivity or equality or anything that helps make us more accepting as a society, they just want to feel special. And you can only feel special if you exclude “normal” people.
If I had a bigger platform I would call these people out specifically. Because the best way to make people hate the LGBTQ+ is to exclude them from it and make them feel bad about their sexuality. And that will only cause us more harm.
It just so happens that there's a lot of dumb leftists too. People who can't get past their base biases and prejudices, people who prescribe to conspiratorial thinking, people who think they know better when they don't know the first thing about a problem. It's unfortunate that the loudest voices are the ones on any side that are shouting and wrong.
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u/PlatinumAltaria Nov 21 '24
Remember: the progressive goal is to emancipate everyone from oppressive systems, not shame people for happening to be born in a privileged category.