On this Trans Day of Visibility, we want to visibilise the most invisible who continue to be ignored and forgotten by the mainstream white feminist and LGBT discourse. We also want to celebrate trans, non-binary, and intersex people of colour in all of their gender expressions as a revolutionary act of anti-imperialism and love.
As a group of migrant and ethnic minority women, trans and non-binary people, MERJ stands against transphobia as a form of oppression, inextricably linked to white supremacy and colonialism.
MERJ acknowledges binary gender as a white European colonial construct. We understand that different cultures have a fluid view of gender and that the strict division into the male/female binary came primarily as a result of colonisation and forced Christianity. To view transness only through the lens of whiteness and not acknowledge the existence of many genders of people of colour (POC) around the world and in Ireland who exist outside the white concept of transness is to uphold white supremacy and colonialism.
There is often a tendency to blame and act morally superior to the countries who have laws that discriminate against trans people without any recognition of the role colonialism has played in the creation of these laws. Transphobia is a colonial import to many of these regions which were robbed of their freedom of gender expression.
Ireland prides itself on never having colonised another country (though many Irish people absolutely participated in British imperialism), yet white feminists continue to ignore and discount trans, non-binary and intersex POC. If trans, non-binary, and intersex POC are recognised by white feminists, it is as an afterthought or via tokenisation used to deflect criticism about racism among Irish feminists. This mirrors the way white Irish feminists refused to listen to POC during and after the Repeal campaign, and now they are replicating the exact same racist, exclusionary white feminism in their fight for trans rights.
Trans people face discrimination that ranges from state and social to interpersonal violence. This violence includes laws that gate keep access to healthcare, housing discrimination, the alarming rise of TERF media in Ireland and getting kicked out of your own home. This violence also includes criminalisation of survival economies, incarceration, physical assault and premature death (Rest in Power, Sylva Tukula). The recent visible platforming of transphobic views and opinions is a symptom of white feminism – a feminism that only includes the experience of the most privileged who fit a rigid and exclusionary view of womanhood. This exclusion has real and material consequences for the most marginalised.
Although access to healthcare is precarious for all people the specificity of being a POC and trans needs to be acknowledged. Trans POC disproportionately struggle to access healthcare, including mental health services, while facing the socioeconomic barriers of being a person of colour such as medical racism, fatphobia, visa restrictions or even language barriers.
Trans and nonbinary POC can often be seen as a threat to white feminism in the same way that trans women are seen as a threat to womanhood by TERFs. Trans people do not threaten womanhood, but TERFs threaten all of our survival by participating in a fascist discourse that questions the right to exist of certain groups of people. In the process, they don’t mind joining forces with fascists who extend that discourse to all the other marginalised groups that don’t fit into their vision of the world.
White Irish feminists pride themselves on being largely “trans-inclusive” in contrast to the large presence of TERFs in British feminist spaces. This has led to white Irish feminists being complacent and uncritical in their politics, comparing themselves to trans exclusionary British feminists. While the white Irish feminists are busy patting themselves on the backs for being better than British TERFs, they are continuing to perpetuate harm by way of white, settled supremacy.
Claiming your politics are trans-inclusive is different from actually creating trans-inclusive spaces and showing solidarity with your trans, non-binary and intersex comrades. As such, we encourage white feminists to interrogate whether their events, organising and platforms are truly trans inclusive, and whether they acknowledge and include trans POC. We have witnessed the problematic treatment of trans POC by white feminists that matches up to how white feminism treats any minority group – as an afterthought rather than as a group who needs to be part of the conversation from the get go.
MERJ’s work is to create solidarity with other trans, non-binary and intersex POC, create networks of support and safe spaces, while fighting together against racial capitalism. In line with MERJ’s principles, we won’t be a part of any calls by mainstream white trans organisations for hate crime legislation. As an abolitionist group, we know how laws, prisons and the police are instruments of racial capitalism and are primary inflictors of harm on marginalised communities, especially queer people and people of colour. https://srlp.org/action/hate-crimes/
We stand against tokenisation as much as we stand against transphobia and believe that discourse around trans, non-binary and intersex experiences needs to be led by trans, non-binary and intersex people, particulary trans, non-binary and intersex POC. We won’t be used as a shield for white feminists to hide behind. We are fighting TERFs in our own communities and we won’t be weaponised to deflect their criticism of white feminist racism.
Solidarity with all of our trans siblings today and every day.
MERJ
