Whose cause is it, anyway?

Against my better judgment (and even against some of the things I write just a few paragraphs down)—I’ll blame the fever I’ve been running—I’ve got some thoughts about the last few weeks…

This has all the makings of a frozen conflict. On one side are women whose minds and contributions I greatly respect, who are saying, in effect, ‘just make a statement distancing yourself and our cause from [objectionable groups].’ I get why the refusal to issue such a statement feels like a slap in the face to these women. It seems like such a small ask. And even if the request started out somewhat pro forma, when the women it’s asked of balk, suddenly everything feels much more dire: why is it so hard for you to do this one thing?

But I also understand why women on the other side of this divide won’t issue such statements. Because they don’t agree it’s a small ask. A renunciation creates the impression of an association that doesn’t exist. To be honest, I wouldn’t issue such a statement either—not because I’m soft on the far right but because it would feel like apologizing for holding a public event. In an open society, anybody can show up to a public event and start filming. Public events are full of risk and possibility for exactly that reason: anyone with any affiliation and any motivation (curiosity, civic-mindedness, animosity, provocation, violence) can show up. In our shared public spaces, it’s possible to reach people who haven’t picked a side but also to say to those whose politics we may despise: no matter what you’ve been told, this open society thing still works. Don’t dismantle it. Rejoin it.

What do you do when the far right shows up—at the fringe of a rally or on the margins of a society? Do you suppress them using every tool you’ve got, including the tools that have been used to suppress you? Do you denounce them, the way you’ve been denounced? Or do you try to carry yourself the way you wish your own political opponents had carried themselves, despite disagreements that couldn’t be more fundamental? From my point of view, the rise of the far right imposes responsibilities on its opponents: the responsibility to mend tears in the social fabric that fellow citizens may otherwise slip through. The responsibility to understand the appeal of such movements and help people who’ve been radicalized find a way back to a place in an open, liberal society. The responsibility to make those open, liberal societies work better. The responsibility to have better arguments and make better meanings. The responsibility to live up to our values. The way you comport yourself in public life is all the renunciation anybody should ever need.

Of course, the divide that’s surfaced again in recent weeks runs much deeper than a single event and a couple of Tommy Robinson supporters with smartphones and a right-wing woman who works at GB News and has some thoughts about gender identity.

And it’s not just about the far right—whose support no one wants—but about whether and how to work across less dramatic political differences. What do you do with a loose coalition of people, many of whom agree on almost nothing else except for what we oppose? Whose cause is this, anyway?

As a leftie and a feminist, of course I want this issue to resolve in a particular way. Of course it depresses me that in my home country, the most visible opposition to transgender ideology comes from the right, that Tucker Carlson provides the biggest platform for objections like mine. Of course I wish that weren’t the case. Of course I wish that the left could talk about this—could fix this. Because it is embarrassing. Because I still want my old friends and colleagues to come around and admit they were wrong. Because I want to win this on my own terms. But does it look like that’s happening?

Sure, the left ate itself over this issue first, but now this issue is eating our societies whole. Everybody and anybody gets to care about that. Even if I wish they didn’t. Even if it’s inconvenient for my optics or my politics that they do. Even if I was here first or have the most comprehensive analysis. Anybody gets to object. Even if I object to their objection. Even if I’d like to take every opportunity to clarify how differently they arrived at their objections that I arrived at mine.

At a certain point, left, right, progressive, conservative stopped meaning very much to me. The distinction for me became that I could talk to anybody that could talk and listen to anybody who could listen. Around the same time, I lost the ability to make disclaimers and statements of positionality, laying out what right, what grounds I have to speak. I have the same right to speak as everyone else. No more or less. I oppose this ideology for reasons that are both widely shared among gender dissidents of many stripes and also utterly individual to me and the life I’ve led. Every person in this fight has his or her own reasons. Maybe you’re a parent and see families like yours being torn apart over this issue. Or you’re a radical feminist who sees transgender ideology as just the latest innovation in generations of female erasure. Or maybe you already left one patriarchal religion and resent being subjected to another. Or maybe you’re a lesbian and refuse to be pushed back into the closet. Or maybe you know you’d have been transed if you’d been born in 1995 rather than 1965. Or maybe you have a duty of care, a duty for which you would forfeit your career. Maybe you won’t be made to lie about reality, no matter what it costs you. Or maybe it’s because you’re a writer and language matters. Or you’re a public servant and process matters. Which is all to say that nobody owns this cause. A thousand individual paths lead to these frontlines.

And a thousand paths lead away. In the future—if we’re lucky—there will come a point when some of us will be satisfied with what we’ve achieved and go home to resume our regular lives. And there are others who will fight on, because theirs is a bigger fight and always has been. Can we find a way to walk together up to that point in the road, disagreeing all the way, if necessary?