"So to summarize: I invited Faerie and Alex like you suggested, and it backfired in a big fucking way," I finished in a huff. "I don't know what I did wrong, and I'm even more confused now than I was before!"
The pressures of Dani's job were getting to her, and the strain was showing. New lines were appearing across her face, and she drank a lot more coffee than she used to. She took a big gulp before responding.
"I'm so sorry. It's terrible when Queer family fight each other."
"Do you think Faerie's right? Is drag sexist and transphobic?"
A look flashed across Dani's face that resembled panic. She didn't want to weigh in on the issue.
"I don't know. It can be those things. Too often, cis gay men will put on drag as an excuse to be racist or sexist or transphobic. They say, 'I'm just playing a character,' but the character is a reflection of them.
"Drag queens are given this enormous platform, and too many use that platform to exclude and undermine other members of our family. But I think condemning all drag risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Modern drag was invented by trans women to explore and push boundaries within gender.
"RuPaul's Drag Race was a hit all over the city, so Ru's vision of drag has expanded the audience. But the drag Ru showcases is designed to appeal to mainstream audiences. All the contestants on Drag Race are cis men, or at least they pass as cis men. I can see how Faerie might feel excluded and taken advantage of.
"But two things stand out to me in the story you described. For one thing, Nathan is sort of suggesting that gender is irrelevant. Of course, that's his perspective, but it might be unkind to say to a transitioning woman. See, to Faerie, her gender is a simple truth. It's as real as your arm. So when Nathan dismisses gender, in a way, he's dismissing something real and important to Faerie.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Of course, everything you do will offend someone. There's no pleasing everybody, but it's important to consider why someone might be offended. Ask if it needs to be said and if you're punching down. Because that's the difference between a fair fight and a bully.
"I see your eyebrows scrunching together. Let me explain. If you make fun of the president, it's not a big deal because he's so much more powerful than you. You literally cannot hurt him. But if you make fun of the president for being black, then in essence, you're making fun of Black people. That would be punching down because you don't experience race-based persecution. On the other hand, if the president made fun of you, he would be punching down, because you're effectively powerless to fight back.
"It's not always clear, but when drag queens make transgender people the butt of a joke, they're punching down, because drag queens have a stage, and they can stop doing drag whenever they want.
"Which brings us to privilege. First of all, I hate that word. It's become so weaponized it's almost lost its meaning. We all have various privileges. It doesn't make someone good or bad or better or worse than anyone else, but it matters because context matters.
"What stood out to me in your story was how privileged Nathan was relative to the rest of you in that room. For example, Nathan said gender and race were illusions. Maybe he's right. So what? It only takes a casual glance to see that the illusion has teeth. On average, women are paid less than men for the same job. The darker your skin, the less you're paid. Nathan's clever ideas don't stop the US census from asking you to fill in those boxes marked 'race' and 'gender.' Nathan might be right. I don't know, but what difference would it make either way?
"Nathan's opinions are interesting, but he is a fair-skinned, cis male saying race and gender don't matter. He lives in a society set up to benefit him in innumerable ways. That doesn't make him right or wrong; just don't take everything he says as gospel, yeah?"
I nodded and smiled. "Okay." How lucky was I to have Dani to help me sort through these kinds of things?
"Anyway," Dani said, "that's all I got. Maybe I'll think of something better later. Let's put a pin in this and come back to it another time. How is your book coming along? Have you written anything since the last chapter you showed me?"
"Yeah. Oddly enough, this whole disaster got my creative juices going. I wrote two chapters for my new favorite character. Their name is Rowan. I guess they are transfeminine and genderfluid. But they're a magical, shapeshifting firefox, so those definitions need not apply."