When Allyship Becomes Silencing: Accidental or a Choice?
Speaking for Us Isn't Solidarity: Step Back, We Know Our Needs
I’ve dragged my feet on writing and sharing this piece out of worry that it would make others upset or uncomfortable, that they might feel guilty of some of these things (a reflection point) and rather than looking to improve, they might pull away, be it from a relationship or this work. I genuinely hope that isn’t the case, and I don’t want to be responsible for the comfort of avoiding the hard things, for a better future. I invite you to listen and not turn away. I wouldn’t take the time to write this out and think it over for some time if I didn’t also hold hope some might read this and refocus, center the most vulnerable, and better understand their role in all of this.
When I turned 21, I made a big, terrifying, and exciting move from my hometown of Casper, Wyoming to Portland, Oregon. I was headed to finish my bachelor’s degree in Women, Gender, Sexuality, and Queer studies at Portland State University and running from conversion “therapy” (there is no evidence to support this practice works), religious community rejection, and also leaping at hope. I don’t know that I would still be on this planet if I hadn’t left Wyoming. I am endlessly grateful I had any chance of moving away at that time and even more so that Portland became such a safe place for me to figure myself out, build an enormous chosen family (even beyond Portland), and have access to life saving care as a trans person.
For the context of this piece, I think it is also important to note that I am writing as a white, 31 year old, trans masculine nonbinary person who grew up in foster care in Wyoming, aged out without a permanent family, survived conversion “therapy” efforts, survived attempts at taking my own life, and from all of that work passionately and diligently to create a world that doesn’t lead to so many of those things, for LGBTQ+ youth and families today. I have studied issues impacting trans, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming youth, families, and communities, including those impacted by systems like Child Welfare for the past 10+ years and find myself incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by some of the brightest trans people and allies I could ever know. I am not lacking in community support, access to information, basic needs, and most importantly, joy. I’ve created a successful business called Unicorn Solutions LLC that’s opened doors for me to do the work I care about most, with my values and integrity intact, and helped me carve out space as an international advocate for trans people. I know my power, my expertise, what I bring to those around me, and I also know that the value I hold is something others may take advantage of or worse, disregard. I don’t lose much sleep knowing that, but it’s boiled up to a place where this feels the best avenue to lay it all out.
I write this piece in hopes you might hear that I’m aiming to come from a place of love and deep care about how we collectively support each other and move forward, while also calling in things I’ve both witnessed and firsthand experienced in my young adult advocacy through my transition into being an advocate for, but more so with, youth. I write this piece having worked with countless amazing, truly passionate allies and colleagues who work hard to center Trans and Nonbinary youth, to pay them for their time and me, and to create projects and opportunities that do not just look like they did something – but actually impact and improve people’s lives. To those of you reading and who have created these opportunities and valued my expertise and what I bring to this work and community, thank you. Thank you all for reading. 🦄
Introduction:
In more recent years in my trans activism, I’ve become increasingly alarmed to see, and personally experience, cisgender straight and gay people speaking on behalf of trans and nonbinary people, but especially in my area of work, they can be found speaking on behalf of trans and nonbinary youth—acting as though they are the experts on trans lives, struggles, and needs. It is an out-of-body experience to be sitting at a conference and hear this occur. But where are the voices of trans youth? Where are the opportunities for trans people to speak for ourselves? Where are the paid positions to do work on behalf of our community? In too many spaces, we’re left out of conversations about our own experiences, replaced by those with little understanding of what it means to live in our shoes.
The exclusion of trans voices with lived experience in systems like child welfare or juvenile justice leads to misrepresentation, a watered down and even censored version of our real experiences and misses opportunities to create meaningful, lasting change informed by those living it. We must collaborate with trans and nonbinary youth instead of speaking for them.
Cisgender People Speaking for Trans Youth:
What we’re often left with are well-meaning but performative displays of support. Cisgender people—from activists to politicians, even well-intentioned organizational leaders—make statements about our needs, but those words rarely translate into real experiences and meaningful, tangible actions that improve our lives. True allyship requires more than empty platitudes; it requires creating space for trans and nonbinary people to speak for ourselves.
An ally can be defined by a series of actions taken by a person with privilege to support a cause or community that is oppressed. Key to this, is recognizing one’s privilege, active participation, listening and learning, and amplifying current and historically marginalized voices.
For years, people with lived experience—myself included—have fought to carve out spaces in which trans and nonbinary voices can meaningfully contribute to the work that affects our lives. We’ve asked not just for a seat at the table but for full, empowered roles in shaping the future. That means paid roles, fellowships, internships, and more. And yet, time and again, I see cisgender allies taking up space instead of making space for us. This isn’t accidental—it’s a choice. And it’s time to recognize that those who claim to be our allies can be, and at times, have been the very people perpetuating our exclusion.
Tokenism and Lack of Genuine Inclusion:
Over the past few years, I have seen a troubling trend emerge: people speaking about us rather than with us. For the longest time they weren’t speaking about us at all. Whether in conferences, research settings, or policy discussions, trans and nonbinary youth are either entirely absent or tokenized—used as symbols to demonstrate inclusivity without being given real power or opportunities. It’s not enough to mention us in passing; we need a seat at the table, with real decision-making authority. From not speaking about trans youth at all, to not letting trans youth speak for themselves – an alarming trajectory.
In recent months I’ve witnessed a mental health event about LGBTQ+ issues, where not a single trans person was on the panel—let alone trans people of color, who are among the most disproportionately affected by health inequities. Another, where the topic of a 1:1 conversation was LGBTQ youth, and not one LGBTQ youth was in the room. This type of exclusion is glaringly common. How can we discuss health equity without those who are most impacted? The absence of our voices isn’t just an oversight—it’s a form of culture erasure that undermines any claim to authentic allyship.
Not long before that, I read a child welfare opinion piece about LGBTQ+ youth, and it struck me how disconnected it felt. It was as though my peers and I—trans youth and alumni who have lived through the system—were being discussed like case studies, rather than real people. A choice was made not just by the author of this piece, but any editors who read it, approved it, and the news publication and journal that green lit it being posted, that this author could best speak to the current challenges and needs of LGBTQ+ youth in systems today. I would imagine, the career of the author, already well bolstered by years of being held up in the field as an expert was not only advanced further but brought back into “relevance.” Would it have been so hard to ask a trans person with lived experience in systems for their insight? The piece gave boiler plate ideas of what allies of system impacted LGBTQ+ youth could do while failing to partner with, center, or question how is it that these youth are over 30% of our child welfare system but continue to languish in it, daily. At a minimum I wish leaders in recent years had been speaking up for us even when it was hard and costly, rather than when it is convenient.
It also strikes me, how LGBTQ+ youth are talked about as invisible. Which reminded me of the Safe Havens 2.0 report released this year, co-authored by Unicorn Solutions, Lambda Legal, Center for the Study of Social Policy, and Children’s Rights, and what our research into nonbinary youth in systems experience. It is also worth noting that Safe Havens 2.0 would not be what it is without the partnership and contributions of 7 powerful trans, nonbinary, and gender diverse young adults from across the country. The research shows, “Studies of both nonbinary youth and adults discussed the challenge of navigating their identities within ‘institutional binaries,’ specifically in schools, that cause both hypervisibility and render them invisible: ‘they are invisible because they are erased by the binary system and its assumptions, while being hypervisible due to [being uncategorizable] within a binary system.’” (Carrie Paechter et al., 2021, Cristiano Scandurra et al., 2019).
That’s the problem when cisgender voices dominate these conversations and topics: we’re talked about as though we aren’t even in the room, reinforcing a harmful cycle of exclusion, culture erasure, and disempowerment – and missing the mark on understanding the complexity of our existence entirely.
Tangible Resources and Empty Policies:
Too often, the solutions we’re offered are symbolic rather than substantial. Policies allowing us to use the bathroom of our choice or advocate for ourselves without retaliation sound good on paper, but they’re often unenforceable (especially if you have no power, don’t know who your ombudsperson is or what a grievance procedure is) and do little to improve our daily lives. If we call authorities for help or to uphold “law” we have found time and again that we will experience doubt, dismissal, jokes, all the way to actual violence. We become a living test of if those things truly are allowed, and when they are not upheld, we suffer.
For me, the deeper issue with these measures is that they can feel designed to meet our perceived need while easing the guilt of those who do not understand us… not to meet our actual needs. In my work directly with trans and nonbinary young people across the country and being in community with them, they know what they need, and they don’t have time for what appears helpful – rather what tangible (and within a short period of time) improves their lives, and on their terms.
Religious Right and Legislative Harm:
It’s crucial to acknowledge that the challenges facing trans and nonbinary youth are not merely misunderstandings. The religious right, also commonly referred to as fringe “Christian Nationalists,” often align with white supremacist and extremist ideologies, and are actively working to strip us of our rights, our voices, our lives, and silence us by spreading misinformation and anti-trans/transphobic propaganda.
I bring this particularly thorny issue up because I’ve watched it create an even bigger vacuum of support for trans youth and carved out a deeply felt silence. Again, this action is a choice, albeit a more devious side of the coin. I worry that many of the people who have gone quiet on the topic of supporting and affirming LGBTQ+ youth, but especially trans and nonbinary youth, have chosen to avoid controversy at the cost of these young people seeing a wave of support from organization, groups, and individuals who should have their back – especially when I read some of the codes of ethics for many working in this field. Rather than doing no harm, I fear the harm to come to LGBTQ+ youth for years to come, regardless of winners and losers of elections. According to the Trevor Project, 90% of LGBTQ youth were negatively impacted by anti-LGBTQ legislation in just the past year alone. Dangerous local and national political rhetoric and active legislative onslaught is not abstract; it’s a direct attack on our humanity.
What may come as a surprise to some, many LGBTQ+ youth (and even adults) want to maintain connections to their faith and spiritual communities, yet they often face rejection or attempts to "fix" them. Trans youth deserve to practice their faith without adults trying to change who they are at a fundamental level. This religious exclusion only compounds the harm we experience—especially when it comes from those who claim to love us but refuse to accept us as we are. Faith should be a source of comfort and strength, not another battleground for our identities.
The Need for Genuine Partnerships:
It has felt rare to see trans people with lived experience in systems like foster care or child welfare speaking publicly about our needs. Instead, cisgender people are consistently positioned as the “experts,” while trans youth are pushed to the sidelines. Genuine allyship means partnering with those of us who have lived these experiences—not speaking for us but standing alongside us as we share our own stories. What if the most trusted person in the room suddenly turned to the most marginalized person and said, they don’t need to hear from me, they need to hear from you. There is a power in privilege when it is used as a force for good and getting barriers out of the way.
It’s not a coincidence that cisgender people, who lack lived experience, are often the ones paid to speak at conferences or lead projects about trans and nonbinary issues. These events have long planning processes, meaning there is ample time to find and partner with members of the trans community from inception to closing. I say this from experiencing people and organizations taking the time to find me, reading me into the project/event, bringing me alongside them, and handing me the reigns to actually lead.
The fact that more organizations don’t take the time to partner with members of the trans community isn’t an oversight; it’s a deliberate choice keeping us out of these spaces, while benefiting from our stories and struggles. I can’t say for sure if it’s about palatability politics, like “our committee isn’t ready to honor a trans person coming into the space without misgendering them, so we’ll prevent harm by waiting to have them join us,” (a red flag about the culture of your committee). Or “I’m not sure if the group can handle their honesty” (aka rage.) But it sure has felt like folks can bear to hear about LGBTQ people and issues from cis, white, gay men and women who you could almost assume are straight, because at least the audience will listen to them…
Using our stories and identities, but not valuing us, is exploitation—plain and simple.
Exploitation in Academia and Research:
I used to believe that working with researchers and academics would allow me to learn from their experience, build on their legacy, and gain the skills needed to advance my own work. But I’ve come to realize that this hope was rooted in naivety. Many of these researchers are not interested in mentoring or partnering with me or my community. Instead, they exploit our experiences—using our stories to further their careers while leaving us behind. It’s a form of quasi-colonialism, extracting knowledge from our lives without giving anything back. Also known as “parachute research” – when a researcher enters a community, seemingly out of nowhere, and then disappears when the data is has been collected.
The truth is many of those speaking on behalf of trans and nonbinary youth still don’t fully understand the issues we face. They lack expertise and the connection to lived experience, but continue to be seen as authorities. Worse yet, they fail to credit the people whose knowledge they rely on—our community. Including us in a research study as participants is not the same as engaging with us as collaborators. This kind of performative research perpetuates a cycle of extraction and marginalization.
Call to Action for Allies:
If trans youth aren’t working with you, not just for you, but WITH you – in a paid, with benefits, and decision making power way, it may be a sign that your allyship isn’t as safe, authentic, or genuine as you think. Real allyship requires more than just showing up at events or making social media posts. It means creating space for trans youth to lead, standing with us in legislative battles, and advocating for our rights in your own communities. Allyship in action means reaching out, listening to us, and supporting our efforts to build futures where we thrive on our own terms.
What can you do (an absolutely non-exhaustive list)?
We live in a capitalist society, so money is an extremely powerful and impactful tool and a resource some have a lot more of than most trans people. Consider where you give your money, and if you oversee and disperse funding be it government or philanthropy, ask yourself, how much of those dollars make it to trans people most impacted by systemic harms and failures? A conveniently under researched answer. I welcome the day when that data shows abundance.
Which leads me to research. Consider what is researched or seen as worth researching, who are the people doing the research, who are the people funding the research, and if few to no trans and nonbinary people are part of all of that, but especially if it’s about youth and there are no youth collaborators… who have we centered as the expert to right the paper and speak to what is true?
Ethical Failures and Saviorism in Child Welfare: There’s an ongoing ethical failure in both research and the child welfare system where trans and nonbinary youth are often treated as subjects to be studied or "saved" rather than as full participants in shaping their own futures. This saviorism creates a feedback loop where cisgender academics and policymakers benefit from the systems they claim to be fixing, while trans youth continue to face adversity. The solution is not more studies about us—it’s about giving us the power to influence those systems ourselves.
I challenge you to consider if you need to address, hold yourself accountable, apologize, or even right a wrong when it comes to how you have or have not partnered with trans and nonbinary people and youth. What a powerful moment it would be to see individuals and organizations acknowledge their harm (be it active or passive), and commit to addressing it any way possible.
When you think you are about to give a keynote, conference workshop, write a paper, create a program, and more – consider if you are partnering with people with lived experience and if it is about LGBTQ+ youth and families, are they on your team, and should you be a background support, letting them take all of that space.
Policies that protect trans people and create the care environments that are needed are crucial, but if they have no teeth and no mechanism to be held accountable without retaliation, when they go wrong or don’t do what they are supposed to, then who are they any good for?
If you think there are no trans or nonbinary people in your life or around you, I want you to know you are very likely wrong about that. We are everywhere and have been for ages. When necessary for survival, we get good at hiding in plain sight to protect ourselves. You are lucky if you get to see our full vibrance. If you don’t, consider why that might be. Trans people don’t have to be “out” but our options should not be hide or death.
Gay experience does not equal trans experience. Experiences of cisgender LGB people can have similarities, and are still nuanced and different from Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse people. Inviting one identity letter of the LGBTQ+ community to represent all of us has got to stop.
Consider reading the short book Mutual Aid by Dean Spade, one that has changed my life. The books inside cover notes: “Mutual aid is the radical act of caring for each other while working to change the world.”
With gratitude to one of my framily members, Leah, who sent the following 3 resources in addition to reviewing this piece, consider reading:
Some guidelines for community based research that were created in partnership with community members and researchers: https://communityresearchcollaborative.org/guiding-principles/
Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizenship Participation: https://organizingengagement.org/models/ladder-of-citizen-participation/
Also, re: palatability politics and much more, read “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded.”
I need allies who will stand up for me and my community, whether or not we are in the room, whether or not you are the only person speaking up or pushing back, and who will think critically about what allyship means in action, rather than what is comfortable. What we need is real, tangible support—like financial assistance with no barriers, paid roles (internships, fellowships, consulting, all the way to full- or part- time jobs), comprehensive healthcare, stable housing, and access to food—without fear that these necessities could be taken away at any moment.
Conclusion:
If you truly care about trans and nonbinary youth flourishing, it’s time to step back and let us lead. Give us the space you’ve been occupying for far too long. We don’t need allies who talk about us—we need allies who pass the mic, amplify our voices, and fight alongside us for real change. If your work doesn’t include us, if it isn’t actively creating opportunities for trans youth to thrive, then you’re standing in the way of progress. It’s time to listen, step back, and make room for us to lead the change we deserve.
Thank you endlessly to the community of people and framily who have listened to me talk about much of this piece for over a year, those who pushed back and questioned which helped me wrestle with this ideas (and I will continue to), as well as those who read and gave feedback, be it writing or phone calls, your time is so appreciated. Every moment and insight has meant the world to me and despite what this piece might leave you thinking, I have more hope in community and what allyship really looks like then ever before. All my love - Elliott 🦄