Navigating Knowledge and Authority: Cisgender Allies’ Experiences of Epistemic Conflict in Trans Activism

• In Event: Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Participants, Allies, and Opponents: The Landscape of LGBTQ Movements

Abstract

Social movements prioritize identity-based experiential knowledge of movement beneficiaries over other forms of expertise in accordance with standpoint theory, which holds that marginalized people possess epistemic advantages. Yet what happens when the professional opinions and knowledge of allies in social movements diverge from those of the marginalized communities they support? This study explores how allies navigate these kinds of epistemic conflicts and the implications of their choices on social movements’ access to knowledge through semi-structured interviews with 35 cisgender allies nominated by trans activists in Israel and the United States. We find that prioritizing identity-based experiential knowledge led to the experience of relational precarity, characterized by suspicion and fear of exclusion, and epistemic precarity, marked by devaluation of allies’ knowledge. These precarities lead allies to self-silencing, where they withhold advice, professional opinions, and constructive criticism they believed could advance movement goals. Some allies challenged identity-based epistemic hierarchies, proposing complementary rather than hierarchical relationships between experiential and professional knowledge. We argue that straightforward applications of standpoint theory in activist contexts create epistemic hierarchies that can have unintended consequences for social movements. We suggest that movements may benefit from developing explicit frameworks for integrating diverse knowledge forms while maintaining accountability to those most affected by oppression.

Authors

• Ruth Blatt, Bar Ilan University

• Gilly Hartal, McGill University

• Orna Sasson-Levy, Bar-Ilan University