"I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible... except by getting off his back." - Leo Tolstoy
The essence of privilege is not recognizing you have it in the first place. When it is present, we are inclined to simply assume that things are simply the way they are, and that no conscious decisions have gone into the construction of that reality. It's not until that privilege is threatened in some small way that the denial and violence emerges.
We are a society constructed by cis-white men in positions of power, on the backs of those marginalized groups that have literally and figuratively built the foundation upon which they stand. The structures, rules, policies, and laws of white supremacy are so deeply embedded into the infrastructure of this country that those who benefit are unable and/or unwilling to see how they inherently benefit from their own creation.
In those rare moments when oppressed peoples' voices are actually heard by those in positions of power, typically because the case has been forced through activism, most folks simply react with defensiveness. The response is an assertion of reverse racism/sexism (insert any of a number of forms of oppression here) in all of it's oxymoronic glory.
It would be bad enough if the response was simply to gaslight folks into questioning their own experiences and convincing them to feel grateful for what little they've been given. However, the response is typically much greater. It turns out that glass egos are even more fragile than glass houses. The response is to create an enemy where none exists. The creation of an embodied straw man can almost be predicted like clockwork following any and all calls for social justice.
The invented enemies for a quickly shrinking minority majority are vast today. Immigrants are painted with false narratives. Reproductive rights are curtailed in the name of protecting life while children are denied school lunches. A desire for "law and order" continues to ignore the daily murders of Black and Brown folks. The 2nd amendment continues to serve as a cover for ignoring the now daily mass shootings that occur in this country and this country alone.
Perhaps most baffling and illogical of all, trans people have become the target of an avalanche of attempts to restrict every aspect of their existence, often under the guise of protecting our children. If that was truly the goal, we would have oversight bills directed at priests and the overwhelming majority of cis white men that are the perpetrators of sexual violence. In 2023, almost 500 bills have been introduced to strip away the rights, freedoms, and resources available to trans folks in the U.S. Everything from sports to healthcare, to workplace discrimination, to education have been placed up for debate. For such a small percentage of the population, the oversized reaction should be a clear sign of the bait and switch attempts taking place.
It is in some ways not surprising that these debates over the very humanity of a group of people would be open for debate in a patriarchal society. That is, in fact, the very history of this country from it's founding and the institution of slavery. Trans folks are simply the latest invented enemy to become the target of a fragile cis white male power structure trying desperately to hold onto privilege and power. We invent enemies where none exist in order to distract folks from the real architects of their suffering. Something has always been rotten in the state of Denmark.
