I wrote the first version of this thought as a response to an online discussion about fighting for change and a person choosing (when) not to, and perceived feelings of responsibility on when to do that. I wanted to extrapolate this thought and give it its own place, elsewhere.
How do we choose when to fight what/who for, and when not to.
Can others expect us to fight.
I hear you, and I wasn’t seeing it as “her responsibility” it never is, and never should be. And I don’t hold that against you.
Like you, I am a minority. Some would – incorrectly, but they do so, nevertheless – say “by choice”, as I dare to say I am transgender), and I move often do than don’t pick fights that I feel I should (doing so for others who don’t want to, can’t anymore, or can’t yet, themselves), but are not strictly my responsibility.
And “strictly” is what comes in to play. Is it someone’s responsibility to look after someone else’s well-being? Technically no, but that just doesn’t feel right. Regardless of how and why that feels right; I’d like to believe we intrinsically know we should be. Almost all of the – [sic: incorrectly attributed] – Ten Indian Commandments explicitly comes into action here.
While I lived (that’s a misnomer, robots and marionettes don’t actually live) prior to daring to say I am a transgender woman, I fought myself even more than the society around (perhaps fought) me (society that seemingly told me I shouldn’t and couldn’t be me); I had internalised their perceived dissent, and added “some more” myself.
It makes me acutely aware of hostile environments (I observed and catalogues anything and everything I noticed, to anticipate my next move(s), in order to prevent feeling unsafe “again” – that is a story for a different blog entry) and being in one.
Feeling like I am in a hostile environment probably sounds tonedeaf, coming from a – then – white-passing male. With all of the privilege attributed to cisgender heterosexual white men in a white-dominated cishetnormative patriarchal society. But I never fit in, let alone belonged. While the world tries to tell me I fit in a lot less now (am I “passing”? – that too is a story for a blog), and belong even less. I very strongly feel that I belong, and I feel I fit in most of the times (guess I am over-compensating sometimes), and that feeling of belongingness gives me (more) strength to fight and pick (more) battles.
I live outside the USA where, for now, still, I can actually breathe (tearful reference to “I can’t breathe”), but I fear what may come in other parts of the world. The USA claims to be the leader of the free world. I think that is a lot of self gratulation, but in the mean time, the USA’s way of being is all too easily lapped up like “the gospel” through (social) media and entertainment.
And my heart breaks each day when I see how disparate society is in the USA, and how people are struggling every minute of every day. Until that time comes where I live, I have the freedom of choice to pick a fight or not, and OP [sic: the person who initiated the topic] has seen me (and defended me) do so more than once.
In E’s case, if E chooses to pick that fight, E has an amazing safety and support net to fall back into. And I support and applaud each fight E picks, regardless of the outcome. And I equally support and applaud any fight E chooses to not pick, E gets to choose that path.
As for you teaching your daughters to fight, I get that, and support applaud that… I wish for you, and your daughters, and their friends, that they could simpy BE without them feeling the need to keep fighting simply to stay alive.
In a society that teaches you that “if you don’t fight for yourself, why should others even bother?”, and “if you don’t fight, you don’t care enough! Fight harder (but only in the way we allow you to)” aside from the actual “just trying to stay alive in what is often a hostile environment”
It is an act of bravery simply to be alive. Whether one chooses to fight or not.
