Welcome to Trans Tuesday! A key topic I’ve touched on in many trans Tuesdays 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.
This topic is entirely entwined with a lot of others, so let me hit you with some foundational stuff that’s important if you’ve not read them before.
I have mentioned so, so many times how we trans folks are a small percentage of the population, so much so that we cannot effect societal change on our own. That means that trans right and trans liberation are, paradoxically and unfortunately, in the hands of cis people. This is discussed in detail in TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA, TRANS POLITICS 2: YOU MUST VOTE TO PROTECT US, and THE TRANS PANIC DEFENSE.
For that matter, STOP STARING AT US (trans people are human beings) and TRANS MICROAGGRESSIONS are also a good base to start from, to give you an idea of what kind of cis nonsense trans people have to put up with all the time.
Also see NO ESCAPE (from reminders I’m trans) and NO ESCAPE 2: SOME ESCAPE for examples of how acts of kindness and compassion from cis people can have a huge impact on trans life.
WIth those as a basis, hopefully you understand 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 means 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. See THE FETISHIZATION OF TRANS WOMEN 2: REACTIONS AND ORIGINS for some ways in which we’re entirely ignored and intentionally misunderstood when we try to talk about problems that affect us.
So what do I mean when I say 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.
Story time!
It’s no secret I’ve become somewhat well-known for my trans allegory deep-dives, all of which began with twenty-four Trans Tuesday essays that became my book, Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix. It’s a little weird to be best known for my non-fiction writing when I primarily write fiction, but I’m not mad about it!
Anyway when you live in L.A. and work in the entertainment industry, your friends know people who know people who know people, you know? It’s a situation where everyone kind of knows everyone, to some degree. It’s a small world.
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 segment with the actors, 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 the one question I might get to ask them.
I knew nobody else would be asking about the trans allegories of the movies, and I knew Keanu had mentioned the actors weren’t aware of the allegories during the filming of the original trilogy.
“That idea wasn’t introduced to me when we started production on the films. Lilly never shared that with me.”
This was before Resurrections had been released, so I couldn’t ask anything about the newest film in the series, as I’d not seen it yet.
I decided I’d 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?” type of questions that hundreds of other people would be asking them.
While I was 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 mass media made by 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 presh. None at all.
I completely missed the warning signs at the time, due to my excitement at the opportunity, but I see them clear as day now. If she was “so excited” to talk to trans people about a Matrix film… why hadn’t they intentionally sought any out? Why didn’t they get questions from many of us? Why was I only getting this opportunity because she was a friend of a friend?
Yeaaaaaaah. In hindsight, what happened next should not have been a surprise.
She told me I’d have to sign a release. No problem, that’s standard Hollywood operating procedure. 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!
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 have the exact wording of the question anymore, but it asked how they thought their performances in the original trilogy would have changed if they’d been aware that Trinity was Neo’s self-actualization, and they were playing two aspects of the same person. This is, famously, what my entire book is about, as the whole franchise tracks one person’s transition journey.
Here’s a quote from the lovely Lilly Wachowski:
“So when I look back at the way that we cast those two parts, I can see how obvious it is that they’re one part in a lot of ways; that they’re two sides of the same coin. It’s not like these were conscious decisions, but more like we’re finding our way instinctively as these two closeted trans women.”
I mean… this is a still from the teaser for Matrix Resurrections (that made me scream when I first saw it). It’s right there.
“Tilly, why don’t you still have the text of your question?” I hear you ask. “Tilly, why not just link us to the video of them answering the question?” I hear you cry. (I’d write better dialogue for you, but I’m tired and need more coffee, so them’s the breaks.)
The reason I don’t still have the text of this question is because my question was never asked. Because when I sent my question to the producer, only then did she tell 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 direct you to the essays on GENDER DYSPHORIA, PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS, and VOICE.
Where I’m at in my transition now, reflections and photos and my voice and videos are all great! You may have surmised this from how many selfies I post on the soch medes (sorry not sorry, see PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE for more).
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 at the time, it was the winter of 2020 and I’d only been socially and medically transitioning for five months. Photos were still largely awful, my voice was a dysphoric nightmare, and seeing myself moving and speaking in video was just torturous.
I could barely handle doing zoom calls with friends, who I was already comfortable with, by knowing they weren’t being recorded and just never ever looking at the video from my own camera.
So here’s this producer asking me to do a video, already very painful for me, for people I didn’t know, to show to artists I cared a lot about… and to be seen by the entire national and global audience of the show. Recorded for all time.
I just couldn’t. There was just no way.
At that time, if I’d 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. But that’s a big “maybe,” and the process would be so painful I’m honestly not sure I could have gotten a usable one.
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 for someone else to 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 went from having an amazing opportunity that I’ll likely never get again, and a producer who said she wanted trans perspectives (but would not even do the easiest damned thing to get said perspective), all snatched it away.
I cannot even tell you how livid I was at her equating gender dysphoria to being “camera shy.” Just writing about it here, my blood is boiling.
Do not do this.
Dysphoria is real and painful and awful and it’s not about being fucking camera shy.
She said she supported trans people. She said our voices were important to her. She said she wanted to be sure we were included.
But she would not do a single easy thing to actually make it happen.
And if this pisses you off, know that it gets even worse when a supposed “ally” does the work of our oppressors without even realizing. Check out PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP 2: FALSE ALLYSHIP to see how it can all go south really quickly.
And then see PROACTIVE ALLYSHIP (be an accomplice) and WHAT REAL CIS ACCEPTANCE LOOKS LIKE for what putting your allyship into practice actually looks like.
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 but do nothing at all to actually help us, is the last thing we need.
If you don’t actually help us, you are not an ally.
It’s not about your words, or your labels, or you feeling good about yourself.
It’s about action. It’s about doing the right thing.
If you can’t, you’re not an “ally” and certainly don’t get to call yourself one.
Do better. Or get out of the way.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
PS – Cis friends, you’re not done until you read PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP 2: FALSE ALLYSHIP, which I really, really need you to.