I don't know if any CW are required for this but if so suggest them and I will add. I'm not mentioning any particular hateful things; just the presence of them.
An old comrade of mine has fallen into the grips of anti trans bigotry.
It has been happening for 10+ years and I have raised the issue multiple times when we've been together or in touch. They downplayed their investment in the ideas.
Recently I have learned that it has crept into their mass organizing. This person is an excellent, committed, powerful organizer working for years at a local level.
I think they are now getting in to organizing explicitly on anti-trans grounds. They have capacity to be highly effective at this. But really it is the integration of anti-trans stuff into legitimate mass organizing work that is more dangerous. My understanding is that they are seeking to orient these orgs against the interests of trans people and to exclude trans people and even trans-allied people from organizing.
This person made many key political contributions to who I am. Much of the good I have done as an organizer is due to their influence on me. Without them I would have ended up the most insufferable kind of lib. On a personal level, it breaks my heart to see this has happened to a dear friend. I feel compelled to attempt to return the wisdom and patience they afforded me when I needed it, and offer them a better perspective, help them be a better organizer.
I plan to attempt intervention. We live far away from each other but do keep occasional contact. Less so over recent years just due to being on different social media platforms. I could get some correspondence and maybe a phone call to discuss this on the basis of our long standing relationship. I would offer to maintain the dialogue on going if they were willing.
- general advice?
- have you tried this and if so how did it go?
- is there hope?
- some kind of FAQ covering anti-trans misinformation; more in-depth and comprehensive would be better (for me to read)
- writing/ideas aimed specifically at communists/socialists
- theory to understand trans* from marxist/materialist perspective
- I know this sounds stupid but they already have theory to hate trans*
- This person is coming at it from a TERF (as in actual old school radical feminsm) perspective, not a right-wing/fash perspective
- The idea of "bourgeois decadence" is important here. It's not something I ever found to be very compelling so I don't have much analysis to counter it.
Of course I have my own ideas and knowledge but I'm sure all of the above has been perfected so I want to make sure I have the best at top of mind.
This person is pretty stubborn, as required to be a lifelong revolutionary. So I know I'm not going to turn the ship around in one conversation. I am considering strategy of reformism or harm reduction. For example if I could convince them to avoid bringing these ideas into their organizing, even while still holding them privately, it would be a benefit.
NGL, if you can't have a face to face conversation with them multiple times, you're probably not going to be successful. You can't really out theory someone online bc it often just turns into debatelord shit (even if that's not your intention.) this is especially true with TERFs because they can be very cult-like. There's a good chance that if you find the theory you want, they're gonna take that theory to some TERF community and a bunch of people are gonna reverse-engineer some objection to it.
the problem is, if someone is a leftist and they can't see the obvious reality that anti-trans bigotry is a tool the ruling class uses to divide and conquer, and they're willing to live in a country where trans kids are literally committing suicide and/or being bullied by their classmates and the state, they're kinda a lost cause at that point. I'm nonbinary, there's a group of people who just refuse to see me as a human being, nothing I'm gonna say is gonna convince them to.
You might be able to come at them from a practical perspective that anti-trans bigotry makes them less effective as an organizer because it turns them into a wrecker.
I'm not saying this is impossible because I don't know you or know them, but you gotta be really prepared for this to fail before you go into it. What you're doing is admirable! I'm not being a naysayer, but a lot of legit TERFs often end up in that place because other TERFs weaponized some kind of trauma against them to make them think that way. For example, look at Dave Chappelle. Though he's not a legit TERF, it's been speculated that part of the reason he took the transphobic path was out of a real and valid anger at how white queer people weaponize racism against Black men while still claiming the oppressed class status. I don't think that justifies hating trans people but it is a valid criticism since many white trans people are still fine being racist (see: lib trans people supporting Israel)
the real issue is the claim that trans is bourgeois decadence. someone spouting that nonsense doesn't know anything about trans people. most of us are poor! most trans people live in the Global South. if someone ends up taking that position, they're just completely out of pocket to the point where they might not be reachable.
That may be so, but why the fuck did Chappelle go out of his way to stan for E~L~O~N and even do the "lol ur poor" thing against people booing E~L~O~N at his show? Why was he defending an Apartheid billionaire manchild known for normalized racism in his businesses, and having nonwhites-designated sections at his factories called shit like "The Plantation?"
probably because he's also a rich person and he's been living in a rich person comedy bubble for decades at this point. He's had an elitist rich person streak to him for a log time, just look at how poor Black people were treated on Chappelle's Show.
I'd call it the Seinfeld Effect except that Seinfeld is such an incredible piece of shit pedo creep that I'd rather not give him that honor.
all good points.
On the one hand I know that others have attempted to reach this person to pull them out. And on the other hand, there are anti-trans people who are in close physical proximity. So it's low chance. But maybe with what I can say combined with what other people can say, and do, maybe after a while it'll click.
I will probably try to use my distance as a virtue. I don't have any skin in any organizational disputes. I'm not trying to get anything. I am not allied to any faction. I honestly feel sad that my old friend has been diminished in this way. It's not hypothetical to describe them as a wrecker; from their own description of it, which is from a such a warped perspective, it seems the case. But on the left we have to have a bit of a contrarian streak don't we. So sometimes we are able to displace blame from ourselves because otherwise we'd take the whole weight of capitalism on our shoulders. So it can be hard to recognize when we are in fact to blame.