Accomplice > AllyPart III

{ Julie Bowditch }

None of us is just one thing. We carry identities shaped by our race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, age, culture, faith, family, health, finances and so much more. Sometimes these identities shift and change throughout our lifetime. Some of these things are visible the moment we enter a room. Others we can choose when, where or even whether to share. Some of our identities afford us privilege and access; others can make navigating the very same world considerably more difficult.

         This is not linear. The nearly countless possible combinations of identities and labels make this a unique and personal experience for each of us.

         We have a habit of talking about advocacy as though people can be neatly sorted into categories. We talk about LGBTQIA+ rights over here, social justice over there and accessibility somewhere else. We build organizations, movements, events and even months of recognition around singular identities.

         But we cannot be sorted so neatly. Which means that seeing and showing up for people as their whole selves—in all their various layers—is work that belongs to all of us.

         There is a word for understanding how these identities overlap and shape the way we experience the world: intersectionality. This term was coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe how the things that make us unique can create distinct experiences of discrimination and disadvantage. A Black woman, for example, does not experience racism separately from sexism. Those identities intersect, creating an experience that cannot always be understood by examining either one alone.

        The concept has expanded the way we think about identity, privilege and oppression. And I believe it should also change the way we think about and approach accompliceship.

         If we are serious about moving from ally to accomplice, we must be willing to see the whole person—not simply the parts of them we already know how to show up for. Not just the parts we can relate to. All their beautiful and distinctive pieces.

         That requires us to confront something that can be uncomfortable: We can experience marginalization and still hold tremendous privilege, and vice versa.

A queer person can be white.

A white person can be disabled.

A disabled person can be cisgender.

A cisgender person can be a person of color.

A person of color can be wealthy.

A wealthy person can be a woman.

A woman can be able-bodied.

An able-bodied person can be queer.

And round and round we go with countless combinations and intersections everywhere we turn.

         A queer person in a same-sex relationship may be perceived as straight and move through certain spaces without ever having to disclose otherwise, should they so choose. Someone can both know intimately what it feels like to be marginalized in one part of their life and still benefit from systems that disadvantage someone else. One does not cancel out the other.

          This is where I think our understanding of accompliceship has to deepen. It can be easy to recognize privilege when we are looking at someone who seems to have more of it than we do. It is much harder to recognize it within ourselves—especially when we know what discrimination feels like.

          Experiencing injustice does not automatically make us incapable of perpetuating it.

          Being part of the LGBTQIA+ community does not mean we cannot perpetuate racism. Being a woman does not mean we cannot be transphobic. Experiencing poverty does not mean we automatically understand disability. Being discriminated against because of one identity does not give us a pass on examining—and then leveraging for good—the power and access we hold because of another.

         And perhaps most importantly, belonging to one marginalized community does not make us an authority on all of them. Our own experience with discrimination may make us more empathetic, but it does not automatically make us more informed. That is where accompliceship asks something more of us.

         It asks the white queer person to care about racism within and beyond the LGBTQIA+ community.

         It asks the cisgender gay person to stand up for transgender people even when their own rights are not immediately threatened.

          It asks those of us who are able-bodied to notice whether the spaces we call inclusive are actually accessible.

          It asks people with financial security to understand that “just leave,” “just move,” “just hire an attorney,” or “just find another doctor” are solutions available primarily to people with resources.

         It asks those of us whose queerness is not immediately visible to remember that the ability to decide when, where and if we disclose an identity can itself offer a kind of protection that others do not have.

         None of this requires us to feel guilty about the privilege we have. Guilt, on its own, is not particularly useful. Awareness is.

Privilege can create access. It can grant credibility. It can mean safety, resources, connections, mobility, a platform—or simply the ability to take up space more comfortably and loudly.

         I am not suggesting we should apologize for possessing any number of those privileges. The question is: What are we doing with them?

           Maybe we use our seat at the table to ask who is missing from it—and invite them in.

         Maybe we stop speaking for communities when we could instead make room for people to speak for themselves.

           Maybe we notice whose needs were overlooked when an event, policy, workplace or movement calls itself inclusive.

            Maybe we simply listen to learn when someone tells us that an experience is different from our own without immediately grasping for ways it is similar.

           And maybe we become willing to advocate just as fiercely when the issue at stake does not affect us personally.

         That last one matters. Because solidarity gets tested at the intersections. It is relatively easy to fight for equality when we can see ourselves in the person whose rights are threatened. Accompliceship forces a reckoning of whether we will pull punches when the person whose rights are threatened looks nothing like us, has different lived experience and carries identities we do not share.

         Intersectionality reminds us that there is no single LGBTQIA+ experience. There is no single experience of womanhood, race, disability, poverty, immigration, parenthood or any other identity we carry. We arrive in every room as whole people, carrying all of our identities with us, looking around to see if we belong, who is safe, how real we can be.

         So perhaps the work is not to decide whether we are privileged within our Pride. Most of us will find ourselves on different sides of the equation depending on the day. The work is to notice. To recognize where society makes things harder for us—and where it makes things easier. To hear when someone standing at a different intersection tells us what they can and cannot see from there.

If allyship asks us to really see someone, and accompliceship asks us to stand with them, intersectionality asks us to see all of them. None of us is just one thing. Our advocacy should not be either.