Submitted by twovests in yourpersonalblog
I'm thinking about cis allies, but these thoughts apply more generally.
"You think you deserve a cookie for doing the bare minimum???"
This was a common refrain ~10 years ago, but, you know what? Metaphorical cookies are easy to bake and I like baking them.
Positive reinforcement for prosocial behavior is a necessity. Rewarding prosocial behavior is a necessity.
I was "trans" for the past ten years, but as I transition, I am walking the earth with visible titties, a smooth soft face, a voice that is cracking and high. I am clocky as a "man who is very weird, with man boobs too, why are his nails polished?" I'm a late-20s trans person who's undertaking the visceral element of someone who will probably never pass, but still wants to gender it up.
I've probably put 10,000 hours into understanding what it means to be trans by now, how trans people talk, why trans people say the things we do... Because, duh, I'm trans. My egg cracked as I followed that curiosity, that allure. I have the incentive. It was never work for me- This thing that was innate to me was the drive.
The cis people? They totally lack that drive. No dopamines or endorphins are coming from it. Questions they had about themselves are never being answered by trans peoples mere existence. The idea of "a woman can be a man!" or "a man can be a woman!" was never a compelling concept.
And yet... Cis allies are there for us anyways.
I'm talking about real allies-- cis people you know and trust. The ones other trans people would identify as allies. The ones you would identify as allies.
They deserve some form of validation. And we are obligated to acknowledge when people do the right thing. This is because we are the only authority on the matter. I think it is just a social necessity.
I've decided to start saying, "Thank you", "I appreciate you said that," "You're someone I trust," etc. I think it's important to acknowledge and appreciate when people with the privileges we lack are navigating things properly. It's just as important as telling them they're wrong.
People do deserve a cookie for doing the bare minimum.
And cookies are easy to bake, and I like baking them.
toasthaste wrote
I do think the borderline scorn toward allies, in addition to just like kinda sucking, was a horrible tactical move that set things back pretty badly (and like tbc I was totally on that bandwagon back in the day, I am not immune to social trends).
I think there's been a lot of nuance lost in the sense of like.... "It is not anyone's personal responsibility to praise an ally for being an ally" is true, but that is NOT the same thing as "allies should perpetually be on thin ice and shouldn't get praise for anything short of heroism and if they want to feel good about doing small good things that's proof that deep down they suck actually"
To the extent that anyone "deserves" anything, people deserve praise for doing positive things whether that's doing the dishes or deciding to stick up for marginalized people whose circumstances they might not viscerally understand. We are all just silly little monkeys made of meat and positive feedback has really consistent effects on our little monkey brains! That tiny little tickle of reward for doing the bare minimum makes people want to do the bare minimum more, and makes it easier/more appealing to take bigger steps past that bare minimum!