If you wanna know what kinds of trans rights activist you are dealing with, don’t just look at whether they’re using the right language and know the word ‘intersectionality’. Also take a look at whether they ever focus on material things.

Non-material are things like, being accepted by your loved ones, being adressed with the right pronouns, positive representation.

Material is things like acces to health care (covered by insurance and without gate keepers), housing (that we can’t be evicted from for being trans), jobs (that we can’t be fired from for being trans), safety.

If someone is only ever fighting for non-material things and has no specific demands for the material improvement of trans lives, they’re a liberal
trans activist. They may not even realize it themselves, but this is what liberalism does. It sprinkles rainbows everywhere and ignores the material nature of our oppression.

The liberal approach to activism is tempting because it brings lots of little success stories. Politicians trying to look ‘progressive’ LOVE the non-material list because calling someone by their pronouns, meeting with a transgender celebrity and hosting a book presentation for a transfriendly childrens book doesn’t require any significant part of their budget. It’s free positive publicity. That’s why they’ll cosy up to liberal activists and will ignore our material needs. The moment we start asking for things that really keep us alive like housing and health care, we’re the inconvenient extremist fringe.