Privilege

Yesterday I went to a DHS meeting, and these things are often mind numbingly boring. And patronizing. Very very patronizing. I arrived a tiny bit late and there were no seats left, but one of the DHS people with whom I am friendly was standing up and not using his seat except to hold his stuff so he let me have it. These meetings tend to have a couple hundred people in them, as the directors of all the shelters must attend, plus various DHS staff, guest speakers, and whoever else might need to come. They are horrible and sometimes you just have to hope you wind up next to someone you can chat with under your breath to deal with four hours of stupidity, on a metal chair, early in the day.

Apparently DHS recently hired a new woman to work in the placements department and wouldn't you know it, she was trans. And because clearly the world revolves around me, lo and behold, she was sitting right next to me. So as I sat there at the meeting we occasionally chat as you do, and I contemplated to myself how great it was that she was hired (and clearly well supported because loads of people kept saying hi or coming up and patting her on the shoulder, etc). And I thought about what a profound juxtaposition this was to the unbelievable things coming out of the mouths of the people running the meeting. They tend to treat clients like commodities, not people, especially when under pressure. And activists had to work ridiculously hard for going on two years to get a policy passed so that clients can stay in the shelter according to gender identity and not based on things they would have liked such as legal identification or whether someone is taking hormones or was able to shave that morning, etc. But don't get me started on that because I'd rather like to have a nice day.

Well I took this woman's information down because the placements person we have assigned to our shelter is a complete moron and actually hinders our ability to place clients into housing. I thought perhaps we could find a way to be reassigned to this new staff member instead. She even rolled her eyes when I mentioned who we worked with and said "Please, say no more." It was understood, the whole office has issues with our placements person.

When I got back to my office, I mentioned to my Housing Specialist that there is a new woman in the placements office, and she seems really sharp, etc. Maybe we should try to get her assigned to us instead. Her reply? "Oh yeah, she's the one who looks like a man!" And a little cackling laugh. I promise you, flist, I found myself filled with unadulterated rage and had to contain myself to calmly respond that yes, she is a transwoman. Hence, WOMAN. To which the reply I received was "Yes, yes. She has long hair and nails and all that. But she looks like a man." and a laugh, followed by "Why are you so upset? I don't mean any disrespect." I tried to explain to her how it is privilege to not have to worry about nails and makeup, that her words were insulting, but the teaching moment was not to be had.

So today at the end of our weekly office meeting she brought it up again after I discussed all the important things from the meeting my staff needed to know, and I took the opportunity to talk a little bit about privilege and why it's rude and disrespectful to say that even if you "don't mean anything by it" etc. My staff asked why I cared so much (it's pretty damn clear I take a lot of ownership over this topic) and to break the tension they all started laughing and joking and said "Oh, maybe she's one of them". I told them perhaps I should wear a tie to work on Monday just to make them uncomfortable. But of course, even that would be a form of privilege because if I were seeking to transition then it would be ME that was more uncomfortable. Eventually, they all calmed down and this turned into a constructive conversation about the protocols for treating clients. One of my staff - who is an out lesbian - said she'd never seen anyone before who was trans. I told her "not that you know of" and she conceded. But again, I find it impossible to believe that a queer woman born and raised in NYC could say such a thing. And it reminded me once more about levels of privilege both within and outside the LGBT community.

And then as I was checking LJ I saw a link to this post about "The Do's and Don'ts of Being a Good Ally."

I can't wait to bring this into my social justice class.