Efforts to bar transgender people from restrooms are nothing more than an attempt to codify discrimination before our country advances any further on transgender equality.
My whiteness, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, family support, and so many other factors shield me from some of the worst possible consequences - often fatal ones - that result from the toxic combination of misogyny, racism, and anti-trans sentiment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The author acknowledges their privilege in various aspects of life that protect them from severe societal issues faced by marginalized groups.
In this quote, Sarah McBride highlights the various forms of privilege she possesses, such as being white, economically stable, and able-bodied, which serve as a protective shield against the harmful effects of misogyny, racism, and anti-trans sentiment. This awareness of privilege underscores the importance of recognizing how systemic inequalities can disproportionately impact individuals who lack these advantages, emphasizing the need for societal change to address these injustices.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a panel discussion on social equity, this quote can be used to illustrate the concept of privilege.
More from Sarah Mcbride
All quotes →Access to public facilities like bathrooms is important for transgender people. But the fight for transgender rights does not begin and end at the bathroom door.
We can celebrate the speed at which LGBT equality has progressed, but we also have to acknowledge that it wasn't fast enough, because too many people didn't get to experience it. We can never be too impatient.
For me, having a gender identity that was different from my sex assigned at birth and that wasn't seen by society felt like a constant feeling of homesickness - that unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach.
Too often, when transgender people die, family members or funeral homes will end up dressing a body of a transgender person in the garments of the gender that they were assigned at birth instead of their gender identity. They're often dead-named and misgendered.
I've always been Sarah. My gender identity has always existed. I've always been a woman. Gay people aren't straight before they come out as gay, and transgender people are who they are before they come out and transition.
Similar quotes
In college, when I was kind of confronted with facts and figures about inequality in America, a big impulse I had was to go hang out with homeless people around my university and hear them out and understand their situation from their perspective.
In the racialized space of capitalist gentrification, police are not only arbiters of the peace, they are the muscle of retail racism: You can only be in this space if you transcend your blackness by showing us some green dollars. Even then, there is no guarantee that green will transcend your black skin.
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If you don't have a lens that's been trained to look at how various forms of discrimination come together, you're unlikely to develop a set of policies that will be as inclusive as they need to be.
When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our 'colorblind' society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure - the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate.