Allyship - Blog Posts
I just saw somebody in my notes whose blog header identifies them as a "straight ally", followed immediately by a series of emojis depicting a gay pride flag, a trans pride flag, two women holding hands, a disco ball, and what appears to be the national flag of Denmark.
it’s so interesting to watch harry potter fans continue to try and distance the series/characters from the creator when jkr said this in 2023:
i get it, harry potter was important to me too. i played hogwarts with my friends, i started a harry potter club, i had a wand and robes. i almost took “religion and harry potter” as a freshman in college!! but when i found out that jkr was a transphobic nazi sympathizer? i dropped that shit so fast. it was kind of sad but mostly i was just angry at jkr. and i understood that the characters were fake while transgender people are real. you have to realize that transgender people are more important, right? and nonbinary people like myself because i’m pretty sure she hates me too but it’s mostly trans folks
and yeah you can interpret the characters however you want! you can make them black, queer, trans, whatever you want! you’re still using her characters, her series. her bigotry is inherent in her creations. you can’t separate it and the fuck would you want even the smallest part in it?? just let it fucking die, already, please. or if you can’t give up a mediocre fantasy series, you could at least admit that you’re not the best ally, huh?
The things I have heard people say about Jews are the worst things I have heard anyone say, about anybody.
Hot take but I really do think that some of y’all need to consider how/why/when/how often you’re making fun of straight people for being straight
I do it too, I’m not going to pretend I don’t make jokes about the hets, or the down with cis bus, or whatever
But I recently befriended a cis, straight dude and I have watched him be dismissed, degraded, and unambiguously insulted for the perceived “crime” of being straight — all in queer environments where he is allegedly “completely welcome” and surrounded by “friends”
This guy is not a toxic person! But I have seen him be made to feel so small and like his comfort and safety in those spaces are conditional on his silence and acceptance of being treated like a human dunk zone, and I think that some of y’all have had so much shit from straight/cis people that the second you feel like you’ve got an inch, you want to luxuriate in the perceived catharsis of bullying someone who— actually —doesn’t deserve it
And until he very, very carefully mentioned to me in private that it makes him feel bad, I didn’t even clock that I was involved in doing that, that it had become so instinctive for me to make casual jokes like that, and that— well meaning or otherwise —I had been contributing to an environment that made someone I really really like feel like shit
So, I dunno, I think maybe some of y’all should think about that too
Getting work done on my house and the contractor was like “I saw ur sign….. r u yknow in the community or an …ally?” And I was like doing the major side eye and was hesitantly like “……in the community…” and the guy whips out his phone and goes “cool let me show you a picture of my daughter and her 4 kids and her wife and did u know the baby is theirs biologically which is very cool and” then I got to listen to him tell me all about being an ally and how much he loves the queer community and also he thinks it’s despicable all the friends they lost when his daughter came out and they haven’t won the best yard since they put a pride flag out and how it’s about making sure people have safe spaces and know they aren’t alone- to my complete astonishment I really did get the full essay from him
For a friend who wanted links to some posts I made about antisemitism, allyship, and how to support Palestine without being antisemitic—which is both possible and easy to do!
How do you know if you’re antisemitic?
How to be a good ally for Jewish people. I responded to a wonderful ask from @faggotry-enjoyer about how to be a better ally and to discuss Israel/Palestine with people who are inclined to distrust Jews due to unexamined antisemitism.
Important post about the dangers faced by Jews as an extreme minority. There are good examples in the reblogs and replies and tags—both of great ways for non-Jews to provide support as well as if antisemites denying their own antisemitism. Therese even one example of ways Jews can and do disagree with each other while remaining respectful without delving into antisemitism OR Islamophobia OR denying the rights and dignity of Palestinians. Jews can do this and so can non-Jews. But that can’t happen if people hate us too much to listen to anything we have to say.
The emotional toll of antisemitism on Jewish people.
Example of the death threats we get that are designed to make us look like bad guys.
If Jews can learn about the Holocaust in detail before we even reach the age of ten, you can and should too.
Don’t trust people who rely on bad sources. People do make genuine mistakes. Here’s an example of bad faith link sharing. Especially when Reblogging things. Even I don’t have time to always check every source in a post. Also, it’s possible that a link seemed legitimate when it was originally posted but the source is either no longer trustworthy or the OP got better at assessing sources. If an error in their original sourcing is pointed out, they should correct it publicly. If they are sharing a link as an OP they should always take time to be as responsible as possible.
There are plenty more posts under my #leftist antisemitism tag to look into about a variety of ways that antisemitism manifests in left wing circles.
Allies, please reblog with any posts you think relevant for a someone new to dismantling their antisemitism.
I wasn't thinking I'd need to blaze this, Tumblr, but I need your help with gathering resources for questions to be answered during a family crisis.
Recently, I publicly came out as transgender and my sisters are having a rough time trying to process it. For context, the three of us (all in our 30s) were raised Catholic and I started coming to terms with my being transgender in 2007, only wholly accepting the label in 2019. I had been in the closet wrt family with the sole exception of my father. I wasn't sure why, but I was most comfortable telling him that I was struggling with my gender identity.
I found out why in 2021 when I realized he was ordering and wearing clothing and accessories from the women's section and had pierced ears and regularly got French manicures.
My own coming out may have unintentionally helped kick start a crisis for my sisters, and my brother-in-law informed me that my sisters suspect that our dad is also transgender.
My brother-in-law has already voiced support as well as an apology in advance if he gets my pronouns wrong (I already assured him that I'd rather be patient than mean). He also communicated with me that I had the support of my father and my sisters, but that they weren't sure how to process all of this on an emotional level.
This is where y'all come in.
I'm looking for books and articles and podcasts that would best help cisgender adult allies understand the struggles of being transgender, ways that cis folks can help, and especially how to come to terms with having a transgender family member.
I appreciate any help I can get and I cede the floor to my fellow chaos gremlins that haunt this site.
As someone who has taken college courses on colonialism, can I just say that the idea that colonized groups or groups that were forced into slavery lived in these perfect societies where no one was discriminated against and everyone was happy until the white man came is literally based on racism. Like, it’s LITERALLY the myth of the noble savage. It’s the same concept that led to things like the Disney version of Pocahontas and other offensive misrepresentations of Native Americans and Africans across popular culture. It’s an incredibly harmful stereotype. No race, ethnicity, or group of people was ever perfect. No one had the answers. No one had everything figured out. Colonialism was BAD, but it wasn’t bad because it ruined paradise. It was bad because it killed and hurt people, destroyed culture, and had harmful impacts for generations to come. So can we stop pushing racist stereotypes as some “woke” ideology, please? Thank you.
On this New Years, I really want to thank every non-Jewish ally who has stood up for us ever since October 7.
Every non-Jew who has posted in support of Jews on your blog, a comment in the replies of our posts, or even just a like. Every tiny gesture matters, because even the tiniest shows of support for us can get you a lot of backlash, and I know it has. You’ve gone out of your way to help us when you don’t have to, during a time when it’s costing you the most and when the whole world is vilifying you for it.
We will never forget who abandoned and betrayed us since October 7. But we will never forget who stepped up for us either; who protected us, who argued on our behalf when we were too traumatized and exhausted to do it ourselves.
Years from now when everyone will claim that they totally stood in solidarity with the Jews when it wasn’t cool, you’ll know that you actually did. And so will I.
Happy new year!
I probably blocked most of the people this is relevant to, but a transphobe cannot be an ally to GNC people.
An ally is an ally to people who might be. They do not withold support until a peer-reviewed study has proven that they are, and they do not create an environment that prevents someone from discovering they are not.
Being GNC is not a pipeline to being trans. Nevertheless, there are quite a few trans people who start of GNC, before discovering it's not just how they want to present. An ally lets someone discover which one they are on their own terms. They do not say "you are trans, you're just in denial". They do not say "you aren't trans, that's mental illness".