Why Trans People Don't Care About Congresswoman Sarah McBride

Congresswoman Sarah McBride is the most powerful and influential transsexual in the history of the United States government.  She is by any definition, a genuine trailblazer for trans representation.

Despite this, she has received little praise from actual trans people, and plenty of hate for not being more aggressive about fighting for our specific needs.  Why is this?

The antipathy that trans people feel towards her is seen as strange by many who still believe that the US government can be used to preserve and expand our rights.  However, few trans people feel that the US government can be trusted anymore, even when is it is staffed by people like us.  As a result, she is seen as a new face on an already unpopular system.

This is not helped by the fact that she has repeatedly declined to use her status as a trailblazer as a chance to use the bully pulpit on behalf of our dignity.  She has made it clear that she never wanted trans rights to be her priority, and that she is not comfortable with how far trans people are pushing for their own dignity.  

The only times where she has made a difference on our behalf, such as lobbying democrats to not support an adult HRT ban, and her co-writing the recent letter condemning the frequent use of slurs against her and others, were both done behind the scenes.  

Even when she does good things on our behalf, she refuses to make public statements explaining why she is doing them.  

And even then, the only reason we know she was involved in either of these actions was because of second-hand reporting on the subject.  

She could have positioned herself as a champion of trans people, but did not take the opportunity, even when it would have cost her nothing.

Frankly, it feels like she is embarrassed to be associated with us.

A Politician From the Wrong Era

McBride’s status as a trailblazer would have earned her endless praise, had she been elected to federal office in the 2010s.  Her success fits well with the 2010s girlboss era of status-quo ‘feminism’. That era’s pop feminism envisioned minorities integrating themselves into American institutions, rather than fundamental, still-needed change.

Had she won her post back then, after the trans tipping point but before the end of the first Trump term, she would have been a civil rights icon.  She would have been the most famous (and possibly the most respected) transsexual in America, and possibly in the whole world.  

She would have been seen by trans people as an example to be followed, not an outsider to be ridiculed or ignored.

So why doesn't her brand of politics work today?

Class Disconnect

Sarah McBride is a member of the centrist/corporatist wing of the Democratic Party.  She is a product of the Professional-Managerial Class (PMC), whose interests are in maintaining the status quo for the bureaucracy of this country.  

Within that milieu, questions of one’s identity (such as being trans) are only relevant insofar as they are not being used as a source of discrimination.  As such, McBride sees her transness as irrelevant to her broader political project, and her personal place within it.  

From her perspective, the problem of her being trans becomes solved the moment that explicit discrimination on the basis of being trans is made to violate the formal rules of whatever institution she is within.  These are the kinds of solutions that one aims for when your advancement comes from operating within bureaucratic structures, such as the United States Congress.

This puts her at odds with most trans people in this country, who have been so thoroughly discriminated against that they will never be allowed to have a respectable PMC job, and thus, will never have the benefit of living and working in an environment where their transness is not considered a matter of social importance.  

For most of us, being trans is a defining part of how we interact with the wider world, whether we like it or not.

The class-based gap between those few of us who can become respected in the eyes of the cissexual majority, and those who cannot, is considered to be a sore spot to many trans people.  There is a common attitude among those few in the former group that the widespread anger among trans people is overblown.  

This is by no means held by everyone in the group, but it is unfortunately common among those who have not felt the full weight of transphobic discrimination.

Sarah McBride exemplifies this attitude.  She cannot relate to the class interests of most trans people because she has lived a life that is foreign to most of them.

She is a product and representative of a social class to which most trans people are barred entry.

Cultural Disconnect

Because of her privileged class background, Sarah McBride comes off in a way that is utterly foreign to most trans people, but feels familiar to most well-off liberals and PMCs that she would interact with in Washington politics.  

This probably helps her career, but it is also why many trans people see her as culturally foreign.  That perception is made worse by the vibe that she doesn't interact with trans people outside of her own class, and therefore, does not have opportunities to learn from us.

If trans people know fellow trans women that act like her, they are probably either living in stealth, or are pick-mes.  In either case, they are not people who we associate with the best interests of the community.  I know that this is a crude simplification, but this attitude is commonly held.  It can't be dismissed as just the feelings of a few angry commenters.

Political Disconnect

However, the worst disconnect between her and most trans people is neither her class background or her resulting cultural aloofness; it is her politics themselves.