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ID: Drawing of a duck billed platypus underwater, they're wearing a rainbow coloured t shirt and a pink bum-bag, and saying: "Ally is not something you can self-identify as, it's a title that you earn. Let your actions speak for themselves!"
Credit: Sophie Labelle
I agree with speaking with your actions here, but at the same time, this seems like some weirdly unnecessary gatekeeping.
Counterpoint: you can absolutely self identify as an Ally. For example, I self identity as an Ally and there ain’t shit this adorable platypus can do to stop me.
I’m an Ally because I choose to be, by my words and my actions and the example I set for my children every day. I don’t need an attaboy from any marginalized group to confirm I’m on the right side of history. We do what’s right because it’s right. Full stop.
While I agree with the sentiment, it's like labelling yourself "a good neighbor" or a "best friend". You don't get to decide if you're "a good neighbor" or not - your neighbors do. You don't get to decide if you are someone's best friend - they do. In the exact same way, you don't get to decide if you're an ally or not - the group that you're allied with does.
You can strive to be a good person and identify with being one if that label has been given to you, but certain labels, including "ally", aren't ones you can just give yourself.
I can also respect OP and the artists point of view (if they’re not the same individual, not sure if OP is sharing an original piece or someone else’s work) but I just disagree that people don’t get to “be called Allies” unless someone else gives them that title. Being an ally to me is not an honorific, it’s a series of choices.
It's a series of choices, but those choices can be misguided or wrong without maintaining communication with the group. It also easily slips into the "white savior" trope.
Imagine a person calling themselves a queer ally while actively protesting "LGB without the T". They are absolutely NOT an ally to the queer community, but without checking in with queer people, they wouldn't know. Queer people then have to argue with "an ally" to get them to understand why that rhetoric is harmful, which just puts everyone further back.
So, people can call themselves allies, but no one should believe it unless it's been attributed to them by the group they're allied with.
Before I realized and came out as bi, I was in the GSA (gay-straight alliance) in high school as a "straight." My state was voting to ban gay marriage at the time, and we campaigned against it. I got just as much if not more hate from people than the LGBT members. Maybe because they viewed them as a lost cause? It was usually adults yelling at a 17-year-old kid for being a "betrayer" and a "pervert lover" (I liked that one), just because I supported two consenting adults marrying regardless of gender. Staunch allies definitely earn the title.
I got mine from the Emperor of Gay People in the mail just this Friday. I framed it and put it next to my n-word pass on the mantle.
Slightly unrelated rant.
I'm tried of these culture wars. It's complete nonsense. I'm not particularly LGBT+ but it shouldn't matter. This is about freedom for fucks sake! People just want to live and exercise their human rights! Anybody telling others they mustn't exist their way is an enemy of humanity! The fact that people get denied jobs and even have their rights restricted, just because some asshole finds out the ID doesn't match is fucking repulsive!
Recently had a chat with my aunt and she just "you can't expect people to immediately accept changes", shut the fuck up! It's not a change! It's a core value that's been in our constitution for longer than any of us have been alive. But clearly, despite being raise on these values, I'm the only one who believes them. Like some fucking santa claus shit!
Divide and conquer is a strategy as old as time. Can’t fault you for trying.
Help us out though, what can we do to be better allies? I try to be a good one, but I don't know if I'm coming up short.
To the kind of person that draws and publishes a gay platypus comic? As much performative kowtowing as possible knowing that nothing can ever be enough. Consistently voting against conservative bullshit and treating gay people like you'd treat anyone else your entire life certainly isn't enough. It's like how the Westboro Baptists don't think you're a real Christian unless you're currently lighting a family planning center on fire. The people who are REALLY FUCKING INTO IT are mostly just making the moderates on their side look like puckered assholes.
Is it not about being as fair as you can? This is my approach at least .__.
I've had people misgender me and try to convince me not to transition and then go claim to be trans allies because they don't call people slurs and will say that killing trans people is bad if asked
That sucks. It's bigotry and then gaslighting, and then on top of it all we're somehow to blame for them being that way because we're not eternally grateful and fawn all over them for reluctantly giving us the barest of bare minimum decency and respect, and therefor leave them no choice (in their eyes of course).
This attitude is why I generally only speak to my sister about trans stuff (she is trans); because even though I support the idea and want to learn more to be more supportive, a good chunk of the time I've been labeled a transphobe. It's the one pattern I recognize with the community that irks me so much. The refusal to answer innocent questions about what shit is like for you, and assuming anyone who isn't trans asking about trans stuff is a transphobe simply begging the question.
We will seemingly never earn the right to be allies so long as we are CIS.
Cis is a prefix, not an acronym, you don’t have to all caps it. And if you weren’t cis then you wouldn’t be an ally, you’d be part of the community; allies are cis by definition.
Try to understand that for most trans people, they encounter a shit ton of dishonest “questions” that are actually just ways for people to be transphobic . If 9 people punch you in the face after saying “knock knock,” you’d be telling the next person that says “knock knock” to fuck off, too.
There is also a non-zero chance that whatever you’re asking is a right wing talking point you’ve absorbed after it’s been laundered through various dog whistles. Which isn’t a personal flaw, right wing shit is prioritized by algorithms and media. Even trans people have to unlearn a lot of this shit. It’s even possible you just independently came up with similar phrasing or reasoning without realizing it had associations with right wing shit. But trans people just seeing your comment in isolation can’t know that.
Given the unprecedented existential threats to trans people going on right now in the US (likely where most of these people you’re talking to are from), maybe extend a little grace. On top of the general trauma of living as a scapegoat minority, many are losing or may soon lose health care and other rights. Expecting people to behave perfectly in the face of that is unrealistic.
I’m not saying don’t feel however you feel about it when someone blows up at you, just recognize the context of it.