Tucker Lieberman
2 min readMar 26, 2023

--

I'm very interested in your four interventions, as they offer an alternative way to phrase a lot of what trans people have been saying about the current avalanche of organized hate against us.

"Denaturalize Power": Gender-based hierarchies aren't natural. They're political, created in contexts by people with agendas.

"Trigger Agency": Life is an opportunity to articulate our values and influence society. A group/type of person, even if they are a numerical minority, can't always sit back and let the majority set all the rules. Life means we have agency.

"ReSocialize People": Queer/trans isn't something we can *keep in the bedroom*. Saying *I promise not to come after you with a pitchfork, as long as I never see you* isn't workable. We are going to be out in the world together.

"Cultivate Awe": The "identity" isn't just private or individual; it's a way of belonging to a broader social category with others. Some people have a purity/scarcity model and try to gatekeep: *You're not a member of this gender." But when we allow our collective identities to flex and accommodate people, we'll appreciate others and have a better understanding of ourselves too, and we may feel awe. Taking a further step back, the "something greater" isn't only the broader gender/sexuality category (however it's defined, or however the definition changes), but the meta-question of why we care about these categories, who's asking, etc. There's awe in the meta-question. Which brings us back to the beginning: Denaturalize power, trigger agency, etc. Those questions about power and agency in themselves cultivate the kind of awe you're talking about (I think), as they are simultaneously individual and collective.

--

--

Tucker Lieberman
Tucker Lieberman

Written by Tucker Lieberman

Cult classic. Author of the novel "Most Famous Short Film of All Time." Editor for Prism & Pen and Identity Current. tuckerlieberman.com

No responses yet