A few weeks ago, a friend shared with me an article titled “I Was Socialized Trans”. It is an interesting read, but one particular line stood out to me: “I’m writing this, not to complain, but to explain why it’s so painful when transphobes argue that my upbringing has somehow forever tainted me with maleness.”
Why not complain?
There is a peculiar bias against complaining in socially progressive circles. It comes from two directions, which you could roughly say are the right and the left. From the right, there is a pressure for those subjected to cultural imperialism not to complain because complaining does not tend to win over those who are skeptical of their claims of being oppressed. From the left, there is a pressure for people in groups which hold societal power not to complain because they are doing something good. Both of these pressures are not justified.
While there are many people who do not care if someone is needlessly suffering, arguments from empathy do have a place. For many, it is their lack of awareness that leads them to perpetuate suffering. I can’t tell you how many times I have told someone a fairly basic bit of information about my life — about tucking, about how much it costs to get a legal name change, about how it feels to get deadnamed — and they were completely surprised by it. This is why I wrote Hostile Society — that, and a general depressed feeling created by living in a hostile society.
And while it is true that being a good person is a good thing to do, it is very hard to be a good person. There is a time and a place for complaining; you certainly should not be telling a Black person about how hard it is to be anti-racist, or a transgender person about how you have trouble seeing another trans person as their gender. But saying “I want to do well, it’s just really difficult” is not a bad thing. It is not an indication that you are a bad person.
In general, the ability for people in socially dominant groups to interact with one another productively is a critical part of social justice. There is nothing inherently unproductive about venting. The alternative is that privileged groups are asked to bottle it up, a request that will inevitably result in resentment. Similarly, there is much good to be found in a virtuous person in a privileged position talking to their in-group on behalf of those less privileged.
(It should not have to be said, but apparently does, that this does not mean that privileged-only spaces need to be constructed. For example, it is starting to become a thing where apparently progressive people create white-only areas for the purpose of discussing social justice. If a group is privileged, privileged-only spaces will occur without intentionally recreating segregated spaces.)
There is really nothing inherently wrong about venting, and we should not act like there is. Bottling up emotions rarely does any good. It is okay to sometimes say life sucks and it is hard to be a good person, because it is true.