I feel like I'm stuck between the ol' rock and hard place. I want to help fight the good fight, but I've already rocked the boat quite a bit lately.
Context: I'm a public HS Math teacher in the south, for my own health I finally made the leap to be my authentic self in all my domains. My admin and coworkers support me but I know that there's some parents/students who aren't a fan (as evidenced by my roster total going from 100 before open house to 75 on 1st day, likely not all my doing, but too many to not have a correlation).
I don't want my presence to go unnoticed, but my admin team basically said to keep my head down and just teach the math. It's difficult for me to find the fine line of keeping my current job intact (I don't get tenure for 2 more years) and making my presence known to those who's minds can be swayed off the fence.
Excellent piece, and a handy reminder of rhetorical basics! Listening I can do, but I'm still searching for an effective way of engaging with older child-free TERFs (that's otherwise reasonable people whose “legitimate concerns” aren't answerable to actual evidence, not JKR-alikes lost in multiple interlocking rabbitholes). My own feminism was shaped in part by Dworkin and Daly back in the early 80s, but there are too many cis women from that generation who never found a path out of womb-centric gender-essentialism 😢
TERFs are radicalized. They view anyone supportive of trans rights as a lunatic.
That situation is ✨arhetorical✨. You cannot persuade them.
When a person has radicalized themselves to the point of joining a hate group--and TERFs are by definition (and are recognized by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center as being) a hate group, as they exist exclusively to harass trans people--the only way out for them is for them to decide, on their own, to deradicalize. Then, and only then, can you make a difference.
I'm a trans American, but I don't live in American anymore. I strongly wish to perform some sort of activism work to help American trans people, but I'm not sure how. I have no money and I'm stuck over here. Aside from just chatting with people on Reddit, any ideas on how I can help from abroad?
One really important thing to remember is that even as an expatriate, you're still an American, and you're definitely not the only American expat, no matter where you are! A lot of Americans living abroad just plain don't understand how bad things have gotten for trans folks, or why the things they hear about really are *that bad*, so rallying and fighting with your fellow expats to pressure your representatives and vote in big numbers can make a really outsized difference!
Most of my friends here aren't Americans, though the ones who are definitely are voting to stop Trump and the anti-trans movement. But I do a lot of talking to people about trans issues, pointing out how things have changed in America, and so on. I'm a teacher, so I often get the chance to tell students a little about what it means to be trans (age appropriately, of course.) That always is nice when I get the chance to do it.
I feel like I'm stuck between the ol' rock and hard place. I want to help fight the good fight, but I've already rocked the boat quite a bit lately.
Context: I'm a public HS Math teacher in the south, for my own health I finally made the leap to be my authentic self in all my domains. My admin and coworkers support me but I know that there's some parents/students who aren't a fan (as evidenced by my roster total going from 100 before open house to 75 on 1st day, likely not all my doing, but too many to not have a correlation).
I don't want my presence to go unnoticed, but my admin team basically said to keep my head down and just teach the math. It's difficult for me to find the fine line of keeping my current job intact (I don't get tenure for 2 more years) and making my presence known to those who's minds can be swayed off the fence.
That's a fair question. And the thing is--you don't have to be visible *at work*. You can do your advocacy elsewhere, where you're safer.
That's kairos: the opportune time and place.
Thanks for another fantastic piece to push me out of my comfort zone (assuming that a trans person can ever have a comfort zone).
Editing question. First sentence, "word" or "world?"
World. Blech.
The paragraph that starts with “We are a living,” references ethos twice - should one of those be pathos?
This piece is so amazing and so important - thank you for all of the work you put into it! 💜
Yep! Thanks for the catch--I've updated it.
Excellent piece, and a handy reminder of rhetorical basics! Listening I can do, but I'm still searching for an effective way of engaging with older child-free TERFs (that's otherwise reasonable people whose “legitimate concerns” aren't answerable to actual evidence, not JKR-alikes lost in multiple interlocking rabbitholes). My own feminism was shaped in part by Dworkin and Daly back in the early 80s, but there are too many cis women from that generation who never found a path out of womb-centric gender-essentialism 😢
TERFs are radicalized. They view anyone supportive of trans rights as a lunatic.
That situation is ✨arhetorical✨. You cannot persuade them.
When a person has radicalized themselves to the point of joining a hate group--and TERFs are by definition (and are recognized by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center as being) a hate group, as they exist exclusively to harass trans people--the only way out for them is for them to decide, on their own, to deradicalize. Then, and only then, can you make a difference.
I'm a trans American, but I don't live in American anymore. I strongly wish to perform some sort of activism work to help American trans people, but I'm not sure how. I have no money and I'm stuck over here. Aside from just chatting with people on Reddit, any ideas on how I can help from abroad?
That's a great question!
One really important thing to remember is that even as an expatriate, you're still an American, and you're definitely not the only American expat, no matter where you are! A lot of Americans living abroad just plain don't understand how bad things have gotten for trans folks, or why the things they hear about really are *that bad*, so rallying and fighting with your fellow expats to pressure your representatives and vote in big numbers can make a really outsized difference!
Most of my friends here aren't Americans, though the ones who are definitely are voting to stop Trump and the anti-trans movement. But I do a lot of talking to people about trans issues, pointing out how things have changed in America, and so on. I'm a teacher, so I often get the chance to tell students a little about what it means to be trans (age appropriately, of course.) That always is nice when I get the chance to do it.