Welcome to #TransTuesday! A key topic I’ve touched on in many threads is cis allyship, and how important it is to actually making things better for trans people. But some folks who think they’re allies… aren’t. So today we’re gonna talk about PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP.
I have mentioned so, so many times how we trans folks are a small percentage of the population (though the number is likely higher than anyone thinks, what with transgender issues becoming more well known and us having more visibility leading to more of us coming out).
If you’re new around here, I really want you to understand HOW important true cis allyship is, and how much we absolutely NEED YOU to be on our side.
My thread on TRANS PEOPLE ARE HUMAN BEINGS/CIS ALLYSHIP is a great place to start, and it links to a *lot* of my very relevant past threads that I would really like you to read first, so you can grasp just how incredibly badly we need you.
Also see my thread NO ESCAPE 2: SOME ESCAPE, which can show you just how incredibly powerful even the smallest act of real allyship can be.
And also see my thread on TRANS PANIC, which wasn’t mentioned in the initial CIS ALLYSHIP thread as it was written afterward, but it’s real and it’s awful AND YOU CAN HELP CHANGE IT.
Okay, so you’ve read all those (RIGHT?) and now understand how important, how VITAL cis allyship is to trans folks. Nothing will ever get better if you (yes, YOU) don’t do something about it.
But allyship isn’t just saying you don’t have a problem with us, or you think we should have the same rights as everyone else. You cannot be a real trans ally without ACTION.
This means voting for people who will ~allow~ us to exist and not try to legislate us out of existence. This means stepping in if your friends or family deadname or misgender one of us, so that we don’t have to have that confrontation.
It’s about lifting up and amplifying trans voices and actually listening to what we’re saying, and believing we know our own existence and experiences better than cis people do.
It means using the privilege that being cisgender imparts upon you for good, to help make things better for us. Again, see the above NO ESCAPE 2: SOME ESCAPE thread on the massive impact even the smallest and easiest gesture of allyship can have.
So what do I mean when I talk about PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP? I’m talking about the people who say they’re our allies, and likely absolutely believe that they are, but who don’t actually do what’s needed to make that true. There’s no follow through. Okay, story time!
It’s no secret I’ve become somewhat well-known for my massive Matrix trans allegory deep dives, and honestly I have no problem with that. I’m still primarily a fiction writer (with my lovely wife @susan) but I worked so hard on those and I’m SO glad they’ve resonated with people.
When you live in L.A. and work in the entertainment industry, your friends know friends who know friends who know friends, you know? It’s a situation where everyone kind of knows everyone, to some degree. Or knows someone who knows someone. You get the idea.
So a while back I got a text from a friend, who was friends with the producer of a talk show that shall remain unnamed. Said talk show was going to have Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss on to talk about Matrix Resurrections, as part of the promotion for the film.
And as part of the interview they were going to have audience-submitted questions, and my friend (very kindly) thought of me. To say I was ecstatic was an understatement. I got in touch with the producer and while I waited for a reply, I spent HOURS trying to formulate my question.
I knew nobody else would be asking about the trans allegories of the movies, and I knew Keanu mentioned the actors weren’t aware of the allegories during the filming of the original trilogy.
This was before Resurrections had been released, so I couldn’t ask anything worthwhile about that as I’d not yet seen it.
So I’d have to ask them about the original trilogy, because I had no interest in the pandering “what was it like to return to the characters after so long” that hundreds of other people would be asking them.
Still trying to work out what to ask, the producer got back to me. She was SO EXCITED to be in touch with a trans person who was a fan, because she’d heard something or other about a trans allegory and THOUGHT IT WAS IMPORTANT to get our perspective on things.
And for the biggest (and still only) mass media made by, for, and about trans people… uh yes, YES IT IS IMPORTANT TO GET OUR PERSPECTIVE ON THINGS. Never mind that I am but one trans person and I don’t (and shouldn’t have to) speak for the entire community.
Ideally they’d have had questions from MULTIPLE trans people, but apparently they were shooting the interview TOMORROW and I was going to be the sum total of all trans people who got this amazing opportunity.
Oh great, no pressure. NO PRESSURE AT ALL.
She told me I’d have to sign a release. No problem, that’s Hollywood SOP. I told her I was still thinking over what my question would be since it was so important to me, but I’d have it soon. She was thrilled! How wonderful.
A few hours later, after writing and rewriting my question over and over to be sure it was worded exactly right for what may be my one and only chance to ask these two artists, who were part of something SO important to me, about the art that’s meant so much to so many, it was ready.
I don’t still have the text of the question to share it, but the gist of it was asking how they thought their performances in the original trilogy would have changed if they’d been aware Trinity was Neo’s self-actualization, and they were playing two aspects of the same person.
A still from a Matrix Resurrections trailer that shows half of Neo’s face and half of Trinity’s face, joined/split in the middle
If you’re REALLY new around here or somehow missed those threads and that’s catching you by surprise, it’s the basis of all four movies and I wrote 24 essays about it that became BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX!
“Tilly, why don’t you still have that text?” I hear you ask. “Tilly, why not just link us to the video of them answering the question? That must have been so cool!” I hear you cry. (I’d write better dialogue for you, but I’m tired and need more coffee, so them’s the breaks.)
Well the reason for all of that is because my question was never asked. Because when I sent my question to the producer, she ONLY THEN told me it had to be submitted as a VIDEO of me asking the question myself.
If you’re wondering why that was an issue, let me first direct you back to my thread on DYSPHORIA.
And then my thread on PHOTOS (which applies also to reflections, and videos).
Where I’m at in my transition now, reflections are a lot better. Photos are often MUCH better, as you may have noticed by how many selfies I post. (I didn’t get to see myself for my entire life but now I do, so yeah that tracks… it’s common for a lot of trans people. Let us have this.)
But video is a… much more difficult problem. Because it also introduces VOICE issues.
And because seeing yourself moving and talking is very different from only a still photo, or only hearing yourself talking. I’ve done a few video appearances on podcasts, but it’s been INCREDIBLY difficult for me, I hated every second of it…
…and I only managed because the hosts were people I was already friends with, so there was a comfort level that otherwise doesn’t exist. And it’s worse than doing Zooms, which I can cope with because they’re not recorded BUT still are a little difficult, even just with friends.
This was asking me to do a video, already very painful to me, for people I didn’t know, to show to artists I cared a lot about… AND THE ENTIRE NATIONAL/GLOBAL AUDIENCE OF THE TALK SHOW. Recorded for all time. I couldn’t. There was just no way.
If I had a MONTH to shoot it and reshoot it again and again as much as needed to get something I could somehow live with, then maybe (though the process would be so painful I’m honestly not sure if I could get a usable one even then).
There was NO WAY I could do this in less than a day, if I could even do it at all. I explained all of this to the producer, and asked if it would be possible to have someone else read the question out for me.
They could (and should! please!) still attribute it to me, all I asked was someone else be the one to ask it on video DUE TO MY DYSPHORIA. I explained the entire situation to her, and tried to convey how painful and impossible it would be for me to do in the allotted time.
She refused. Said she understood I was “camera shy,” and thanks anyway. And that was it.
In the span of a few hours I had an amazing opportunity that I’ll likely never get again, and a producer who said she wanted trans perspectives (BUT WOULD NOT DO EVEN THE EASIEST DAMNED THING TO GET SAID PERSPECTIVE) snatched it away.
And I cannot even TELL YOU how livid I was at her equating gender dysphoria to being “camera shy.” Just writing about it now, my blood is boiling. DO NOT DO THIS. Dysphoria is real and painful and awful and it’s not about being fucking camera shy. God damn.
She SAID she supported trans people. She SAID our voices were important. She SAID she wanted to be sure we were included.
But she would not do a SINGLE, EASY THING to actually make it happen.
You can say you support us all you want. You can say you stand with us, and say all the legislation against us is wrong. You can even pat yourself on the back for doing so.
But if you don’t back it up with ACTION… *THAT IS NOT ALLYSHIP.* When the entire world is coming for us, people who claim to be our friends doing nothing at all to actually help us is the last thing we fucking need. Be a REAL ALLY.
We need you.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com