I think I'm reverting a bit into some misanthropic and nihilistic tendencies, but at this point I feel like I don't even care about bad things happening to cis people. Everything feels worse for trans people, and I spend a lot of time helping other trans people with problems caused by shitty cis people. I genuinely think 90% of cis breeders hate their trans kids in some way and actively make their lives harder, even the lib 'accepting' ones. I'm like 60% of the way to thinking 'yeah I'm gonna be a terrible slumlord for cis people so I can make trans people live better lives, I'll house them for free by taking money from the cis by being an exploitative landlord'. I have the possibility of actually doing this. I doubt we're having a revolution, so like... isn't this an equalizer? There's also the fact that trans people basically have no familial support, being a landlord exploiting cis people would mean we are forcing society to actually support those without it. I could see alternative arguments, like maybe if you have access to a lot of housing you could just make cheap housing for trans people and that would foster a whole community rather than having a lot of depressed cis people slaving away for a handful of homeless trans people, idk. You'd probably have to deal with anti-discrimination laws with that scheme, whereas giving housing away for free to trans people can be contractless.
Obviously I'm a communist through and through, but why should I care about others outside the community when many cis people clearly aren't in the position materially to even begin to think about communism, let alone trans inclusive communism? Talking to them won't work either when they see you as a freak from the start.
Cismale here (feel free to tell me to gtfo) and I tend to agree with you insofar as many (most? All? Any?) cis allies haven’t done any sort of rigorous analysis on their own gender, socialization, and the massive privilege it begets.
Before I continue: How do you see us being better allies and comrades? Truly asking.
Personally I tend towards gender nihilism, but decades of having a penis and testicles, being socialized as, being perceived as, and ultimately “being” male (i.e. internalizing masculinity, patriarchy, binary gender, etc.) — especially at critical points in my biopsychosocial development — give me an unshakeable experience. No matter how much I choose to see beyond gender, to assert its lack of existence, whatever, I still inhabit a male body and feel at home in it and benefit from a society who privileges me as such. I am destined to fuck up, make mistakes, cause harm both implicitly and explicitly. Such is the burden of gender — and I have it the easiest.
My point is that yes, you are right to be dubious of us, because even the most well meaning are socialized as gendered people, and benefit from the privilege of gender and it’s more work than 99% of us can ever be bothered to do (at least, at present) to actually be the allies y’all need. I wish that weren’t the case, and I hope that it isn’t, but goddam.
I doubt that’s helpful at all. I dunno. I’m just ranting. Feel free to cuss me out if I’m making useless unproductive noise here.
Frankly I dont even know. Give a tithe to the local trans commune so they can expand? But obviously this amounts to not much money in practice even with frequent donors, you basically need a multimillionaire sugar daddy that will outright buy housing no strings to keep up with all the trans people going homeless. People love viral giving in an edge case scenario (like a dramatic event or cancer in someone photogenic), but anything that is persistent and actually works in helping people e.g. direct housing is shunned. I suppose maybe someone could make an app for housing homeless people in your own home, but even this sort of centralized planning could leave many people being exploited (what if someone poses as a homeless person to steal from a good person?). And of course, any trans person that is homeless would be wary of going to live with some random cis guy.
The reality is we only know if someone is going homeless through informal networks that aren't great. The local community is unseeing, unhearing, and amoral. Despite our lack of perfect information, we are still inundated with trans people dying or going homeless left and right. So the problem is much bigger than we can even comprehend, and our current ability to house anyone is... just us. We are the only people helping anyone. So in lieu of help, you have to take things at proverbial gunpoint. This is my reasoning on this.
You can argue say 'oh you shouldn't landlord because landlord bad' but the reality is housing is cheaper than commercial space (so you can exploit a business entity instead, and by proxy its workers) and housing has the dual use of: 1. a financial asset that can expand itself through exploitative passive income and 2. once it is paid for its paid for and can be emptied of occupants to fill with trans people.
I have a lot of thoughts on this, but the reality is trans people are dropping like flies at a much higher rate than cis people who have traditional support structures like families, churches, and homeless shelters. Most trans people dont have those in their corner. We can and have raised a ruckus about trans genocide in our community, but nothing happened as a result. The way I see it, trans people will be at the forefront of the revolution and will have no one behind them and will be crushed due to the current state of things. If it goes any further we'll all be dead and the cis libs will play the smallest violin for us as they continue their meager existence.