We’re winding down after the long-awaited first Pride Parade since 2019 here in New Orleans. Some straight friends were excited to go and support, which is great, but it also begs the question – what do you do the rest of the year to support the LBGTQ community?
Allyship is when someone from a privileged group uses their privilege to advocate for an oppressed or marginalized group. Performative allyship is loudly professing your solidarity for a marginalized group or harmful event, usually for recognition, to look good amongst your peers, to hop on the bandwagon of social media. Performative allyship states support but is often done in a harmful or unhelpful way.
What does performative allyship look like
I’m seeing a lot of performative allyship in corporations and businesses during Pride month. This looks like selling Pride products that are not created BY the community, holding events where the profits don’t go TO the community, hosted by companies that don’t hire LGBTQ people and/or or actively fund laws that harm the community. Several breweries here are hosting events with no mention of where the profits are going. Fail. One gets a C – they created a Pride beverage where only a portion of the profits go directly back into the community, however, there are zero people of color working there, one single female surrounded by cis white men, and no LBGTQ people whatsoever. Not great! Still performative.
How to be a better ally
Regardless of your chosen cause(s), there are ways to be a more effective and supportive ally.
- Put your money where your cause is.
- Donate regularly, preferably a regular monthly contribution, to organizations that are run BY and FOR the cause. Investigate who runs the organization, who is on the payroll and see if they are part of the community they serve.
- For example, The Marsha P Johnson institute mission statement says, “The Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI) protects and defends the human rights of BLACK transgender people. We do this by organizing, advocating, creating an intentional community to heal, developing transformative leadership, and promoting our collective power. We intend to reclaim our relationship as BLACK trans people to our movement legacy. It is in our reclaiming of this that we give ourselves permission to reclaim autonomy to our minds, to our bodies, and to our futures. We were founded both as a response to the murders of BLACK trans women and women of color and how that is connected to our exclusion from social justice issues, namely racial, gender, and reproductive justice, as well as gun violence.” If you look at their About page, MPJ Institute is run by Black, queer women. Their 2021 impact report details where the money went and who it benefited. Check and check.
- Shop BIPOC and LGBTQ owned and operated businesses. Support communities directly. Think of the services you regularly obtain – can you diversify your providers?
- Get informed and stay informed.
- Follow organizations that give you up-to-date resources. Small actions on your part can create a big difference! For example, Louisiana Trans Advocates sends out regular newsletters with links to write your representative regarding proposed laws. @LouisianaBrah posts great information about how to write lawmakers as well, recently about gun control and women’s rights. It takes 5 minutes to find and email your local representative – they work for us. Worry less about saying the right thing and more about saying anything at all!
- Educate yourself on the history of our country, where your privilege lies, and how to have constructive conversations. Here’s a reading list to start by Laurie Hahn Ganser. It’s going to be uncomfortable, you’ll make it. Anti Racist Daily doles out a bite a day of helpful information.
- Pay people you’re learning from! Even sharing stories takes Emotional Labor, which is just as exhausting as physical labor. Buy the book, rent the audio, Venmo the creator, subscribe on Patreon – pay people!
- LISTEN.
- When people of marginalized communities share the harm they face, LISTEN. Believe them. Believe Indigenous stories, believe Black stories, believe LGBTQ stories, believe women. Listen to what they say, what help they ask for, and how they want you to show up for them – don’t assume you know better what they want and need (white saviorism).
- And listen to the responses your brain immediately comes up with – well it couldn’t have been that bad otherwise she would’ve left, well what neighborhood were they in?, well she shouldn’t have been…. Listen to the barriers instilled in your mind against these communities. What happens if we drop the “well” and sit in silence with these stories? Pretty upsetting, to believe it to be true as told? Yeah, you might get upset, outraged, angry. Good. Now take action. What is not helpful is sharing your tears over their stories, your outrage (white tears) – nope, keep those to yourself and your peers. But let them motivate you into sustained action.
- Listen to the history of the communities. Small progress in the past decade does not eradicate the harms of generations past. I heard a young queer person saying she didn’t understand the rainbow flag waving and hoopla around Pride. She didn’t grow up knowing people who lost all their friends to AIDS. It wasn’t that long ago that our country turned a blind eye to that plague because it was primarily affecting gay men at the time. I grew up with men who still told those stories. Listen to the elders and generations past.
- Have the hard conversations with your close circle.
- You’re the most likely person to reach your racist Uncle. When they say something hurtful say, “Hey I don’t appreciate you using that term. Here’s another word you can use in its place.” People get their defenses up if you call them out on the rug in public, in a group setting especially with their peers or family members, or when they’re intoxicated. Those are all great times to wait for a one-on-one later.
- This is hard work and it’s the most impactful work you can do as an ally for any cause. Plant small seeds and see how they flourish overtime.
- Don’t expect any praise or pats on the back.
- Do all of this without expecting anyone to see or know. Do it for your heart and soul, for the next generation, because it’s the “right” thing to do…. Do it in silence and let it be.
I hope this helps you to be a better ally. Questions? Great. Please do your own research first before reaching out, then I’m happy to decide if it’s within my energy, duty, and ability to respond.
*I updated this article to remove the term “good” as in How to be a Good Ally. It wasn’t sitting right with me. The goal is to share some actionable tips to improve the effectiveness of our allyship. “Good” feeds into the white supremacist and misogynist notions of reaching for a desired, unobtainable standard, and we’re not about that. We do our best, we can often do better, but we’re never going to be “perfect” because perfectionism is inaccessible to everyone who is not white, cisgender, heterosexual, middle-upper class, able-bodied, neurotypical male. We don’t aim to be good or perfect – we aim to grow.