An Open Letter on Lateral Violence

Earlier this week, Wendi Nicholson, former president of Windsor-Essex Pride Fest, issued a number of transphobic comments during an interview discussing the recent decision to ban trans women from competing in the Olympics. 

I am not writing this open letter in response to this incident, nor am I writing this in response to the decision by the Olympics to ban trans women from competing. There are many resources that help debunk some of the myths that were shared, including my recent radio interview, and I strongly encourage you to explore those resources. 

However, I want to start off by saying – to all my beloved trans siblings who are feeling hurt, angered, betrayed, and scared by these statements and this type of legislation - I see you. Your feelings are valid. And no matter what any person or governing body may say, you are worthy. 

Instead, I write this as a call to action to everyone. Division among and between equity-deserving communities must come to an end. We see far too many examples of this: white “feminists”, “LGB without the T”, Zionists who claim that Palestinian rights are anti-Semitic, legal immigrants who attack those here as refugees or non-legal pathways. The list goes on. We see attacking each other within communities themselves if you are deemed not trans enough, Indigenous enough, woman enough, queer enough, and so many more examples. 

This in-fighting is lateral oppression. We direct our energy, our anger, our trauma onto each other rather than onto our oppressors. We instead (as Audre Lorde states) use the “masters' tools” to engage in surveillance and oppression against one another. In doing so, we fail to achieve coalitions for true liberation that comes from the dismantling of white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy. 

My message is to people in all equity-deserving communities. We must stop fighting each other, attempting to play oppression olympics, pointing fingers at each other rather than the oppressors. The oppressors benefit from our acts of lateral violence against each other. They are using the classic “divide and conquer” strategy. They dangle a carrot in front of us, tell us that if we target another community, if we are “good enough”, that they won't come after us next.

You can say that trans women don't belong in sports – and then when trans rights are stripped away, queer marriage is next. You can say that access to gender affirming care is mutilating children – and then reproductive rights will be gone. You can propose getting rid of DEI – and notice how women and BIPOC people who are overqualified lose their jobs to mediocre white men. Oppression is like the classic frog in a pot story – many people don't realize how quickly the heat is turning up, because we are focused on drowning the other frogs, at least until we get boiled.

They will come after each of us – because all liberation is bound together. From the United States to Palestine, Canada to Europe; liberation for one is only temporary, until the oppressors choose to revoke it. True liberation means an un-seating of white supremacist cisheteropatriarchy. 

Ideally, our rights shouldn't have to be at risk for us to care. We should all care about this, just based on the fact that we are all human and should believe in human dignity and rights. But some don't care until it affects them. Let this be a warning – you are next. The ultimate goal of the oppressors is to eradicate all rights and freedoms from equity-deserving communities. 

Don't let them win. 

The people united will never be defeated.