This week is Diversity Week at Bath Spa University. There are lots of good events happening, and today I went along to a creative writing workshop on “Writing to Empower”. The tutor was Tanvir Bush who, in addition to being an author and lecturer, is also something of a disability rights activist. Prior to that she worked with people living with HIV/AIDS in Zambia, the country where she grew up.

We covered a lot of ground in the course, and one of the things we were given to look at was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”. King has been arrested for non-violent protest in Alabama, and he’s writing to a bunch of white pastors who have chosen to side with Governor Wallace rather than the black community. The letter is unfailingly polite and magnificently snarky at the same time. That guy could sure write. But what really struck me about it is how similar the discussion was to what we have today. People try to protest injustice, they get labeled as violent extremists by the government, and the nice, middle-class liberals throw up their hands in horror at the terrible tactics being used.

Here’s a brief extract from the letter.

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I feel your pain, Dr. King. These days I have come to the conclusion that the biggest stumbling block in the path towards trans rights is not the TERFs, or the religious fundamentalists, but celebrity white feminists. There are, of course, many women who are hugely supportive of the trans cause. However, those who have a platform, those who are likely to be listened to by government and large swathes of the population, are in this country unwilling to risk themselves to defend us. Part of this is due to relentless campaigning by the TERFs, and part of it is due to the constant attacks on trans rights in the media. All of it is due to a fear of being tarred by association.

There’s no question about the cause. A huge amount of what the trans community needs was set out, and backed with piles of evidence, in the government’s Transgender Equality Report. We know what needs to be done. But without political will nothing will be done. There are no votes in pleasing the trans community alone, there are too few of us. If the government comes to see feminism as hostile to trans people, because the only cis feminists they ever hear from are TERFs, then trans people don’t stand a chance.

I still believe that equality is better for everyone. But once you accept that equality is like pie, that giving equality to trans women means taking it away from cis women, you are accepting that only certain people are deserving of equality. That’s a very dangerous road for anyone, let alone feminists, to walk down.