Respectability Politics Won't Save Us
If I’m constantly being held responsible for whatever bizarre idea an awkward teen posted on TikTok, I at least want the cookies and milk from the weekly committee meeting of the single, consolidated Trans Community™.
The constant "Why does the trans community do X?" posts are just people digging up isolated cringe and projecting it onto millions of strangers so they can play the pick-me or the "real ally". "Look at me, I’m one of the normal ones, unlike THOSE weirdos."
It’s bad enough when it’s cis people fishing for a virtue badge. But it’s genuinely tragic when it comes from a trans person groveling for normative validation. The bigots will come for us all no matter how much anyone tries to appease them. They are NEVER going to accept any of us, and throwing some of us under the bus just weakens our resistance to bigotry.
People need to stop intellectualising dishonest cowardice as "respectability politics" and face the reality of where they are at so they can grow. This desperate posturing for people who will always hate us will never work.
As for the "they reflect badly on all of us" argument, we cannot allow bigots to set the terms of our existence or sense of community in the first place. In the end all this is achieving is ruining trans people's lives.