Learning to be an ally.

I've been thinking a lot about being a better ally recently. As a queer person and someone who has mental health issues I have one especially important ally - my boyfriend. He is not homophobic, he is not dismissive or scared by my mental health problems, he supports me constantly and knows when I need to talk and when I should be distracted with tea and Netflix. A lot of these things don't necessarily make him an ally though, not using homophobic language makes him a decent human being, it's coming to Gay Pride with me or talking to me on the phone during an anxiety attack that makes him an ally.
I think this difference is important. I read a wonderful blog post on it a few years ago, which sadly I can't find now, about how being an LGBT ally is more than just not actively being homophobic, it's about taking the next step, such as campaigning alongside LGBT people, or explaining to other straight people why their language is not acceptable. Importantly, it's about doing this because it is the right thing to do, not because you expect the LGBT (or black, or disabled, or sex worker etc) person to bow down at your wonderfulness.
I'm on both sides of the fence, I have allies, and I try to be an ally. I really think it is something you have to work at, you don't just wake up one morning and go 'I am an ally'. However, it is also not that difficult, so here are some simple steps:

1 - Listen. Listen when minorities talk, and pay attention to what they say. Resist to urge to interrupt them, and remember,what they are saying is their lived experience, a trans* woman talking about transmisogyny is not discussing an abstract experience, she is talking about her life. Listen to what you are told, and think about it.

2 - Educate yourself. If you are in the majority or the oppressor you should not expect the minority/ oppressed to be responsible for educating you. If a word you don't understand is used look it up, Google exists. Go further than that, read blogs and article, follow people on Twitter. I've only recently started reading sex worker blogs, the amount it is possible to learn in just a couple of days is amazing, and when people have put so much effort into making information available it would be rude to ignore it.

3 - Think. Think before you speak, think about what you are thinking. Why do you think mentally ill people are dangerous? Why do you need to know the state of a trans* persons genitals? Or how exactly two women have sex? This might lead down some unpleasant trains of thought, you might have to confront some pretty awkward things about yourself, I have in the last few months, but I think I am a better person for it.

4 - Step back. Sometimes the most important thing an ally can do is step back and shut up. Let the oppressed person speak for themselves is they are able or willing to. I might call out another white person's racist joke, but not if there is a POC in the situation. A good phrase to consider is 'nothing about us, without us'. It's used especially within disability rights groups, but is useful to remember in other situations, for example a conference on women in society, attended only by men.

4 - Listen. Listen again, keep listening. If someone calls you out for being racist or sexist or whatever, listen to them and look at what you said or did. It's very unlikely they're calling you out to be abusive, this goes back to point three - think about what has happened and why. If you're going to apologise do so in a heartfelt manner, understanding why you are doing so.

I'm trying really hard to follow these steps, I know I wrote that they were simple, but sometimes they aren't. It isn't nice to examine your behavior and realise you acted badly, but it is worth it. I have so much more to learn, and there is so much more to this topic. I found this blog post good, more points for me to think about, and more for me to learn.

The 'Equal' Marriage Act.

Today should be a really happy day for me, The Equal Marriage bill has received royal assent, and is now the Equal Marriage Act, it's all official. I'm bisexual, if I wanted I could now marry roughly half of the people I'm attracted to. I always said I would never get married at all unless I could marry either a man or a woman with equal ease, and that a civil partnership didn't quite cut it. But.
There are so many buts.
Firstly, I could now marry a man or a woman, but if I were already married I would have a Spousal Veto if my partner were trans, if I did not want my partner to have gender reconstruction surgery they would have to divorce me in order to do so. I think this sentence the link above sums it up pretty well 'This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. "I don't want to divorce you, but I'm going to veto your rights until you divorce me." I've not seen any major press coverage of the spousal veto, but then then of course I haven't, not when one of the major charities pushing Equal Marriage are Stonewall.
Stonewall are possibly the largest LGB charity in the UK, does that acronym look odd to you? That's probably because you're used to seeing LGBT or QUILTBAG or GLBTQIA or something else that acknowledges the presences of the trans* and queer people who were at the forefront of the Stonewall riots that Stonewall takes it's name from. They use the name of one of the defining moments of queer history, but don't address the problems and discrimination of the very people who started the riots. Other people than I have written amazingly about this, Stoptransphobia is a good place to start.
The main thing that has been bothering me increasingly, and especially today, is that so much campaigning has been poured into equal marriage, and I worry now it will just all drain away, but there is so much more to do. I can't even feel happy because I am so sad and angry about the appalling state of trans rights and disability rights in the country at the moment, about the huge stigma mental health carries, about how we are apparently in a 'post-racial' society, or the worsening state of LGBT rights in Russia. At least it's not just me, there's this amazing article, and this piece in the Independent.
The Equal Marriage act is something that could potentially make a huge positive difference in my future, and I know I should be happy about that, but it's not enough for me, I want everything to be equal, and truly equal, for everyone. Now I just need to try to feel angry rather than overwhelmed, and try and change more things for the better, while reminding others that just because it's now possible to marry someone of the same sex doesn't mean everything is perfect for LGBT people.

This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. “I don’t want to divorce you, but I’m going to veto your human rights until you divorce me”. - See more at: http://www.sarahlizzy.com/blog/?p=154#sthash.wSG3uN7q.dpuf

This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. “I don’t want to divorce you, but I’m going to veto your human rights until you divorce me”. - See more at: http://www.sarahlizzy.com/blog/?p=154#sthash.wSG3uN7q.dpuf

This creates what is possibly the most passive-aggressive legally sanctioned way to initiate a divorce ever, i.e. “I don’t want to divorce you, but I’m going to veto your human rights until you divorce me”. - See more at: http://www.sarahlizzy.com/blog/?p=154#sthash.wSG3uN7q.dpuf