An update on Phoebe's big transgenderqueer liberation idea*

Lots of people responded, only a few people wanted to add anything to my list of problems that need dealing with and a lot of the UK-based people either don't feel confident in their ability to contribute directly to the discussion about what we need to get sorted out, or don't have the time/energy resources to get involved in something broader when they're already fighting a series of pretty exhausting battles as part of their day to day lives.

The localisation issue is an important one for me in part because of the fact that whilst there are a lot of common issues internationally, I think it's important that we put the effort in to organise on a local level. It's just too easy to form an international group of bloggers to discuss the issues but not get together and fight specific aspects locally. It's great to hear from people around the world about how their situation is similar or different and important from the point of view of understanding a number of fundamental aspects of transphobic culture and oppression which persist regardless of which region of the world you're from, but beyond the internet we need to start building real world groups and getting active.

There was some promising stuff about people planning to become more active when they move to Manchester (where I am) which I'd be really interested in getting involved with. I also know that there was a trans group in London that was somewhat orientated around politics rather than just peer support. If anyone down south knows about what's going on with the London group and would be interested in cluing them in on the idea that'd be great.

Now unless I'm hopelessly wrong about the nature of the response (on facebook and elsewhere), that means not much is going to happen in direct relationship to the Big Idea without me doing a bit of crusading to follow. Please if anyone thinks I'm wrong about this assessment of things, prove it by sending me an e-mail (foibey@gmail.com) and get active with me.

What this all means for me though is pretty much this: I'm not comfortable setting up for a campaign by myself (yet). I'm not convinced I, personally, have a well enough developed idea of what needs to be done to forge forward and drag along whichever people want to follow. One problem we (the trans community) seem to repeatedly face is that we're frequently represented (where groups of people in power are prepared to listen at all) by a tiny privileged minority shot full of blind spots about issues that affect quite a large spectrum of transgenderqueer people, and I don't want to get into recreating that just on account of the fact that I've got a bit of experience as an activist and can write relatively clear and persuasive arguments and agit-prop. Political experience and rhetorical flair are not qualifications for deciding how things should be, regardless of how often that ends up being the way democracy tends to work. They're really effective for getting to run things, they're really effective tools for making excuses when you fuck up, and tiny groups of privileged theorists are great for being co-opted by the government into designing the remodelled version of oppression without any accountability to the wider community.

HOWEVER: This doesn't mean that I'm going to just stop here. Things can and still should be done. If there's anyone out there who I've misunderstood who actually does want to work with me on building a radical transgenderqueer liberation movement (I know such people exist somewhere), please get in touch with me. If you have suggestions about where you'd prefer to discuss this stuff and work together tell me. I know a lot of us have day jobs. Getting involved doesn't have to mean signing over your life to The Cause. The fact that I'm a medicated & diagnosed & out/proud sort of trans person doesn't mean that if you're not out or in the medical system wrt gender issues (or have only recently gotten into the medical system) that you aren't sufficiently experienced about things to have a say. A lot of us don't even have a clear gender to transition into or any interest in medical intervention and this whole idea that such people aren't equipped to talk about transgenderqueer issues divides us horribly and weakens us. Trans/Not-Trans-Enough is just another false binary.

This comes back to what I said about small groups of privileged people leading causes - I'm no better equipped to talk on behalf of trans people with no interest in the medical system than they are to talk about abuse of trans people by the medical system. All of us have different experiences oppression based on our unusually-gendered** lives and it's that which we need to learn about together and organise collectively against. Without ending the gender hierarchy amongst us we can't unite against the one we're subjected to in our day to day lives.

In the meantime I'm going to work on gathering up a number of willing people and honing my own thoughts on how different bits of oppression interlink with each other and strategising and so on. Again, anyone interested in working with me on this on a local level, I'd really love to talk to you.

One thing I want to do locally in Manchester is work on some sort of a flyer and distributing it in places where there's already a known concentration of trans people (the gay village for instance) inviting people to come and get involved in some activism and discussion. For that I'd need to establish a venue (and it'd be nice to establish a group of people who were definitely going to come along in advance so I don't have to be sitting there panicking about noone turning up on my lonesome. I'd also be very happy to work with anyone elsewhere trying to set up a similar sort of group in terms of writing flyer text and such regardless of whether a local group gets set up here successfully.

* Note, the author is aware it's not an original idea, and trans activists everywhere seem to go through rounds of trying to drum up support for getting together and having a big sort-out and things fizzling out after a little bit of consciousness raising and perhaps a couple of demos.

** Whether that's unusual in our gender identities or the way people apply the gender system to us or both. A lot of our identities are perfectly commonplace, a lot of them also aren't. Getting bogged down in that when we're all being shat on is a red herring.