Dear Prudence: Trumpista Friends

[minoanmiss]

content advisory: virulent transphobia.

Next year is my 50th birthday and to celebrate it, we are planning a big friends’ trip to go wine tasting in France. However, one of the couples involved are avid Trumpers, while the rest of us are gay, liberal, and despise Trump to the core of our beings. We generally avoid politics around this couple, but the last time we saw them (following a few bottles of wine), one of them started going on about children identifying as cats and using litter boxes in schools and how trans people rape women in bathrooms, all unprompted. This turned into a very heated moment where I argued back pretty aggressively (one of our good friends is trans). We eventually declared a truce, but it was very tense and I was very unsettled by how otherwise smart people can believe right-wing conspiracy nonsense.

Now that we are planning this trip, several others have voiced maybe uninviting them. With the result of the election, there’s no way the country won’t be in full-tilt crazy. I’m afraid they’ll bring it up after a few glasses and that the rest of us will have to self-censor to avoid an argument that would spoil the duration of the trip. Additionally, one of the other people joining us is our trans friend’s partner, which makes me even more on edge that one of them will say something hateful or crazy. So my question is 1) Is it a bad move to uninvite them? Should we just try to avoid politics for a week and a half? And 2) If we do uninvite them, what to say?

—Traveling with Trumpers

Dear Traveling,

It’s not unreasonable at all to uninvite jerks from your birthday trip. It sounds like the stuff they will say after a couple glasses of wine goes beyond politics or even conspiracy theories, and is outright hateful to trans people. Add to that the fact that you have your trans friend’s partner joining you, and that several others have voiced concerns about inviting them on the trip—this is not the dynamic you want for you or your friends in general, and especially not on your birthday trip. The best case scenario if they come is that everyone else spends the trip bracing themselves for a fight whenever the alcohol starts flowing.

As for what to say, I’d keep it short, and honest. Try: “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to take you off the guest list for France. The conversation we had when we were all drunk last April has stuck with me—I found some of the views you expressed quite hateful. I don’t want that kind thing happening on my trip.” End of discussion. Don’t respond to them arguing about it. If they do end up being gracious, thoughtful, and apologetic, maybe that’s evidence that there’s room for you to connect in the future (perhaps a birthday night out separate from the trip). If they don’t—well, that’s useful information for you, too.

Comments

in vino veritas

[minoanmiss]

Dear LW:

several tens of millions of your fellow citizens give you permission to yeet these horrendous bigots from your life.

[topaz_eyes]

If LW initially invited them, then uninvites them, what's the likelihood that the Trumpistas might try to show up on their own in France to create a scene?

[mrissa]

France is large, absolutely full of wineries, and expensive to get to, I would not bother worrying about that.

[topaz_eyes]

If the itinerary was already planned and shared before LW uninvited the Trumpistas, there's nothing to stop them. LW may need to consider a new itinerary.

[dissectionist]

Sigh. I get so tired of progressives calling truces with people who literally want people like me to die. Stop letting bad people have access to good spaces, stop letting bad people have good friends, stop letting bad people have anything good. They may well stay terrible no matter how many consequences they face for it, but some people reduce or even stop their bad behavior when the cost becomes too high.

yes, definitely

[redbird]

This isn't even the socially awkward edge case in which the invitation was issued ages ago, and then the LW just learned that their old friends are vocal bigots. Someone like that is never owed an invitation, but "sorry, you can't come after all, I told the hotel to cancel your reservation" might be more awkward than "I'm not going to invite you next year, because of what you did this year."

[ioplokon]

Yeah. Instead, basically, the cost becomes too high for trans people, who will be uninvited because their presence will set the 'phobe off (and they'll have to worry that any kind of normal interpersonal conflict in the group will be mined to gin up transphobia & possibly also shared in online hate circles...)

[dissectionist]

Oh, they won’t uninvite the trans folks. The trans folks will be forced to start avoiding the events themselves. Then the progressives will be like, “I wonder why they stopped coming? We haven’t seen them in ages” while willfully ignoring the fact that if you invite wolves to the party, the sheep will have to stay away for their own safety.

Source: witnessing many white liberal LGBT+ people bemoaning the fact that many IBPOC don’t feel safe attending Pride events, while those same white folks fight attempts to limit or remove uniformed police from Pride events. They refuse to accept that inviting the oppressor makes a space unsafe for the oppressed. So they fault the oppressed for fearing to attend, rather than the oppressor for causing fear.

[ioplokon]

Good point. :(

I think I was reading into the trans friend's partner being invited but not the trans friend.

[minoanmiss]

You are so, so, so right. I learned this the medium firm way.

Back when I believed in Respectability Politics and Being an Ambassador and all that bullshit I tried to ignore the growing signs of bigotry ffrom people I thought were my friends. All I ended up with was learning who thought I was "one of the good ones" when they turned on my demographic groups. I should have known better, of course.

Feh.

[dissectionist]

I think almost all of us have to learn that one through cold experience, except some folks who are lucky enough to have parents who teach them that. (I’d think more current kids are getting that lesson from their parents than during the time when we were growing up, just because a lot of activists are raising kids now. But during our youth? LOL, as if.) So no, I don’t think you should have known. We got told the world worked in a certain way - “if you educate people, they’ll understand and care” - and when we got educated ourselves, we cared, which proved the principle to us. So why would we assume others would act in an opposite, antisocial way?

I think it’s beautiful that we wanted to believe the best of people. We had to change our tactics when cold experience taught us our idealism was misplaced on many people, but it’s wonderful of us that we believed in people enough to believe that the only thing standing between every person and goodness was a lack of education. And it’s even more beautiful that we continue trying, even though we know most of the time it’ll be unsuccessful, because some of us want to help each other so much. And we learn and grow along the way (like learning to drop the albatross of respectability politics).

[melannen]

If there's some reason you can't uninvite them, then the best solution is probably to establish a blanket ban on politics discussion for the entire trip. This can sometimes work (and means you can cut off any attempt to start with a quick "remember, no politics!") and might be a welcome break for your other friends too. If they seem like the sort of people to "forget" that when drunk, or refuse to accept the agreement, then frankly that's a valid reason to univite them on its own.

But really, reconsider whether they need to come along. At some point you have to accept that some people aren't the kind of people you want to holiday in France with, and it doesn't sound like literally anyone else is looking forward to spending time with them. It sounds like you're early enough in the planning that now's the time to do it.

[mrissa]

This sort of thing always boggles me. The vast majority of people are not your friends. Like, if you look at the entire planet worth of people, no matter how gregarious you are, your friends do not approach 0.1% of the population. Not even close. So "I'm not friends with that person, and I don't invite them on international trips with me" does not require extensive justification that's absolutely perfect and unimpeachable. Just...don't, it is the default case.

If you're not willing to let transphobes experience the consequence of their actions of not going on an elaborate vacation to another country with you, literally what consequences are you willing that they should experience?

[ashbet]

MAKE HATRED UNCOMFORTABLE.

There absolutely SHOULD be social consequences for dehumanizing others.

Personally, I would’ve dropped them as friends after the initial horrendous behavior!!

[matsushima]

I hope LW uninvites them. It might be uncomfortable but LW isn't the one who made it weird - their friends ("friends"?) are, by being transphobes and failing/refusing to shut up about it.

Be honest, LW! You can use the script provided or, better, say, "This is a friends trip and I'm not friend with transphobes."

[starfleetbrat]

If this were me, I would be doing more than just uninviting them, they would be unfriended too and would have been the moment they started sprouting all that crap. (Though tbh I would have dropped them the minute I found out they are Trump supporters - and I say that as a non-US person)

There's a huge difference imo between someone having different politics, and someone being downright hateful and/or phobic - whether that is against trans, gay, race, women, CATS or any one else.

[teaotter]

Look, these aren't poor victims of misinformation. They aren't "good people who believe right-wing conspiracy nonsense." A truce isn't an apology from them and an honest attempt to do better. It's permission.

LW's rightwing friends are people who want to hurt others of LW's friends. It's really that simple. Forget the trip to France, even staying friends with them says something to LW's more vulnerable friends.

[conuly]

Did these people, what, give LW a kidney? Because if they did not give LW a kidney, it's okay to declare that they are Not Friends.

(If they did give LW a kidney then LW may feel obligated to try one more time. I wouldn't bother, but LW can make the effort if they really want to.)

[lokifan]

I didn't have to disinvite an old friend from coming on our annual trip after she became a TERF; she did it herself after we fought about it. But I absolutely would have.

It's sad because she's changed, but I've never felt a single moment of regret. Not after that last, clarifying conversation about what she actually believed. You've already had that, LW. Don't let bigotry be socially acceptable.