I know I've said this a few times but going to make another go of it. I'm not doing dialogue with transphobes anymore. People keep asking what I'm getting out of it, and mostly I'm putting more in than anyone is getting out.
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As a project, this effort by those of us trying to engage in good faith with the other side and see how much room there is for forward movement has pretty much only so far led to disappointment finding that good intentions give way to cowardice, occasionally leaking information..
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..on rival GCs but no meaningful attempt to reduce toxicity towards trans people, or create a future where we're able to survive in the open. More and more of us will be going into hiding or having mental health breakdowns if this gets worse.
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There are a handful of people on the GC side who have been brave enough to be openly critical of the homophobia and racism that happens on their side. Almost none of them have been brave enough to confront the brazen transphobia routinely on display.
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All that while they routinely lie through their teeth to us that this "isn't about trans people, it's about legitimate concerns about sexual predators exploiting loopholes". If they really believed that they would be trying to build a collaborative policy that protects everyone.
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The effect of befriending and trying to build trust and solidarity with people like this is a continual gaslighting. You come to believe at least the one or two who'll talk to you like a human being and sympathise when you're called a nonce by their movement actually gives a shit
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I still hold on to the belief that the only way to fight the extreme bad faith spreading around is to engage with people in good faith, take them at their word and see what's possible from there. Suspicion is endless continually sabotages opportunities to build alternatives.
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The issue with acting in a radical sacrificial good faith and taking people at their word is that it makes you vulnerable to trust distorting the bigger picture of reality, and that reality is that we are under a serious sustained attack and it needs to stop.
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The one thing I think I've gotten out of this is feeling pretty satisfied with having proven that whatever sympathy there is on the GC side for a future where trans people can exist, there simply isn't enough of it to do anything meaningful or useful.
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The reason I keep going back to trying to make this work by the way is, maybe wrongly, that as an anarchist I have an immense amount of belief that humans can be decent to each other if we work to unpick violent systems.https://twitter.com/Chican3ry/status/1236212933585235968?s=19 …
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At the same time I also have to accept that me and 3 others or 10 others putting in large amounts of energy for no return is basically fucking saviour complex shit. If there's no will to change things there's no will, and it's time for me to put that back into fighting instead.
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In all likelihood I'll be back again in a few weeks trying to see what possibility there is for a future where we're not in conflict because I'm fucking sick of fighting and in a lot of ways I don't have it in me.
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End of conversation
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