Trump and Trumpers aren’t to blame for everything happening right now. It’s white supremacy culture, and you might be contributing.

By Chris Talbot, queer, trans nonbinary, mixed-race, neurodivergent activist, artist, writer, editor, and justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion consultant

…we’re letting far too many people and entities off the hook when we desperately need them to examine their behavior, beliefs, and actions that contribute to the oppression that those of us who are minoritized have always experienced and led to this fascist regime we’re sliding toward now.

It’s wild to have been the target of white supremacist attacks for the last 42 years (how long I’ve been alive) and watch as articles and statements from so-called liberal white folks and publications declare that this or that item from the Trump administration is “unprecedented” or signifies a great shift in our national culture.

I can’t even imagine what it’s like to watch these articles and statements come out as a member of the Global Majority whose nation has continually been under fire with oppressive USian policies and insidious political destabilization.

This is exactly what our culture has been since the colonization of Turtle Island.

I guffawed when I saw The New York Times (NYT) February 9th article “Trump’s Shameful Campaign Against Transgender Americans.” NYT has published hit piece after hit piece against gender-affirming care for children and adults; continually platformed Pamela Paul – a virulent anti-trans propagandist – for anti-trans pieces, as recently as November 14, 2024; and continuously uplifted non-science-based speculations by other transphobes for years. NYT articles have directly been cited by extremists in Capitols around the nation to justify the onslaught of anti-trans laws we’ve seen in recent years. Erin Reed wrote an excellent post detailing their hypocrisy and complicity, so I’ll redirect you there rather than expand on it here.

Besides all of these individual accountability shifts being ahistoric and ridiculous if you think about it for more than a couple of seconds, they’re also dangerous. Because it means that we’re letting far too many people and entities off the hook when we desperately need them to examine their behaviors, beliefs, and actions that contribute to the oppression that those of us who are minoritized have always experienced and led to this fascist regime we’re sliding toward now.

(I have started using “minoritized” rather than “minority” because not all minorities are minoritized. I had a white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled man tell me, in earnest, that he was a minority in a space that was navigated mostly by white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled women. He didn’t realize that his being outnumbered didn’t mean he was being oppressed in any way, and that marginalization wasn’t just about numbers, but about power and equity. So I feel the need to use minoritized moving forward.) 

Anti-DEI sentiment isn’t exclusive to Trump or Trumpers. Have you contributed?

Speaking of ahistoric, I feel the need to remind people that anti-DEI (I will be using diversity, equity, and inclusion moving forward because I think far too many people feel safe hiding their resistance and outright opposition behind the acronym) sentiment isn’t exclusive to Trumpers as all the articles and opinion pieces laying all the blame squarely on their shoulders are beginning to come out.

I’ve personally experienced anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion sentiments in the workplace from mostly white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled men and women who believe they’re liberal.

The first time I was told that I was a diversity hire was when a white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled colleague and I went after the same position, and I was chosen over him. In that tiny, predominantly white town and all-white except me workplace, he was considered as leftist as they come. My being chosen made perfect sense considering my CV compared to his and my position — it was a lateral move for me to get away from a supervisor who continuously weaponized her white woman tears, and it would have been a promotion for him. But his response was to tell me, to my face, that I was a diversity hire.

White, cisgender, heterosexual, abled, liberal folks tend to believe justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion work is great until they learn they have work to do or that building equity means that their marginalized colleagues are given a voice or power. Then it quickly becomes “mission creep,” “reverse racism,” “penalizing me for my privilege,” “creating dysfunction in the workplace,” or “injecting personal views and interests.” Because they see themselves as the default and all other cultures, opinions, and ways of being as “other” and not appropriate for the workplace, not realizing that is the textbook definition of white supremacy culture and exactly what Trump is doing on the national stage. 

When you operationalize that bias in the workplace by deciding that BIPOC colleagues can no longer share their personal views, cultures, and opinions because it made someone of privilege uncomfortable to hear, while having no such guidelines for white colleagues, it becomes oppression.

Additionally, if you don’t disrupt these conversations to operationalize that bias in the workplace, you are complicit in the creation of oppression. Not speaking up for your minoritized colleagues as white supremacy culture is being enacted is white supremacy culture. 

So what can this look like? If you believe (or don’t disrupt someone who believes) that BIPOC folks should be in your company to add legitimacy to that work but shouldn’t infuse themselves or their cultures into the way they work or share the perspectives their cultures and experiences give them, you are being anti-DEI and oppressive.

An example of this: At one workplace, I was tasked with giving land acknowledgments during events. As an Indigenous person, this gave legitimacy to the organization’s land acknowledgment that otherwise wouldn’t be there. At one event, I shared my personal land acknowledgment, sharing what perspective I was giving it from (an Indigenous person by way of Canada, but a settler on these specific lands), and included a Land Back statement that I expressly stated was my own belief. 

A colleague who clearly did not understand what Land Back meant (he believed that established white folks would be kicked out of their homes and replaced by displaced Indigenous people both on Turtle Island and in Palestine and Israel, as he also misunderstood the Right of Return), brought up how he opposed it in our next staff meeting. He began stating untruths as facts and began using anti-Arab dog whistles, and I disrupted it, saying I needed to have the conversation with a facilitator present to ensure it was rooted in fact and respectful. We agreed as a group to table it, but the group also decided I couldn’t so much as express that I support Land Back in future land acknowledgments. 

Two years later, we still hadn’t had the meeting with a facilitator, and I had given many land acknowledgments without a Land Back statement – providing legitimacy to the organization through my identity but not being allowed to show up authentically how my identity called on me to show up. 

That colleague ended up writing a hit piece to try to get me fired from my job and used the Land Back example as one of the ways in which I “inject personal views and interests” without a shred of awareness that his opposition was doing the same. Because that’s what we do in workplaces. We share our personal views and interests. But, just like Trump is doing, white supremacist workplaces make policies against or try to get minoritized colleagues fired when they do it.

Trump may have attempted to outlaw diversity, equity, and inclusion work, but there were plenty of white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled folks chomping at the bit for that work to end (for minoritized people, not for themselves; they appreciate it when it benefits them) and quick to jump when it is under attack and when no one is willing to stop them.

Be the someone who stops them.

Trump and Trumpers didn’t make you stop services to minoritized clients or remove mentions of their specific needs from your website. Did you choose to pre-comply?

I need organizations to stop obeying in advance. In Denver, Colorado (and all over the nation), healthcare organizations pre-complied with directives to end gender-affirming care to people under the age of 19 a mere three days after Trump signed an executive order, the intentionally misleading “Protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation.”

Those edicts haven’t even gone into effect yet. The directives require rule changes, which can take months, and a federal judge has temporarily blocked it, stating that it “blatantly discriminated against trans youth.” Hopefully, it won’t go into effect ever as there are a host of lawsuits to block it, including a joint lawsuit from Attorneys General all over the nation challenging the order – Colorado’s Attorney General was late to the party, but he did add Colorado to the suit on February 19. 

But almost immediately after the executive order was announced, Denver Health, UCHealth, and Children’s Hospital Colorado pre-complied, notifying children and 18-year-old adults all across Denver and Colorado that they would no longer be receiving their life-saving care.

Denver has some of the strongest protections for transgender people in the nation (the bar is so low, it’s in hell), so we’ve gotten a lot of transplanted folks for our protections and safety. But these organizations pre-complied and stopped providing puberty blockers, HRT, and gender-affirming surgeries overnight, despite those being the only medical treatments available for gender dysphoria.

The only way an order like this would have an impact is if those who purport to care comply. And Denver Health — a company that touted itself as the go-to place for LGBT healthcare for years and marketed itself on that, making some serious bank — folded within three days, before it even took effect.

If no hospital complied, this couldn’t go through. There’s no way an entire state’s worth of hospitals could lose federal funding. Obeying before it’s even in effect lets us know how much you’re willing to fight for the most vulnerable in your community, which is not at all. You might tell news outlets, as Denver Health did, that you “recognize this order will impact gender-diverse youth, including increased risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidality.” But you won’t do anything to resist it. Because trans children are expendable to you.

But trans children aren’t expendable, and we need to fight tooth and nail for their right to survive their childhood so they can become trans adults who thrive.

Since Attorney General Phil Weiser joined the lawsuit last week, Denver Health immediately resumed its care, and Children’s Hospital Colorado has stated it will resume its care for trans patients under 19 years old starting today (if the judge that issued the temporary restraining order extends it to cover Colorado – again, waiting for political cover before doing the right thing for patients under their care). But that care should never have been pulled in the first place, and I’m terrified to know how many children took drastic, permanent, and dangerous measures while it was.

If you work in an organization that serves minoritized people who are currently under attack by the Trump administration, you should not comply with any of the edicts coming down to remove your services to them. And you especially should not pre-comply.  

Be someone who protects people and ignores unjust edicts.

Trump and Trumpers aren’t making you expect inhuman amounts of emotional regulation from your minoritized colleagues. Are you expecting more from them than would ever be expected of you?

I need people of privilege to realize that the discombobulation they feel right now because of how many horrible things are happening in the federal sphere, how quickly new attacks are coming, how powerless they feel to weather or counter them, etc., is how BIPOC, trans, and disabled folks often feel navigating predominantly white, cisgender, and abled institutions that haven’t done any or are just beginning to do their justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion work.

If you find yourself becoming dysregulated and having a shorter fuse, realize that has been your minoritized colleagues’ experience with you and your workplace, but they’ve stifled it because they aren’t allowed to be dysregulated at work. Because perfection is expected of them, and when they don’t achieve it, they are penalized.

They are navigating the same horrible things you are in this moment, except a lot of the executive orders and stochastic terrorism are aimed at them. Plus, they are navigating what you regularly subject them to at work. Their ability to continue to regulate may be at an all-time low. 

This is an excellent time to gain some perspective and empathy regarding what life is like for minoritized people so that you can learn to have the sort of grace, patience, and generosity of spirit you’ve been afforded in the moments and years your minoritized colleagues have emotionally regulated and put their relational responsibilities first, knowing you didn’t so much as see your responsibility to them.

Please don’t squander the opportunity.

You don’t get a free pass for not being Trump or a Trumper. What do you need to investigate?

Investigate how you think about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and how many times you’ve considered your white, cisgender, heterosexual, abled colleagues bringing their beliefs, values, and opinions to the table as normal, and how many times you’ve considered your minoritized colleagues doing the same to be inappropriate for the workplace or sowing dysfunction. Investigate how you’ve treated someone speaking up for diversity, equity, and inclusion when it made you feel uncomfortable. Investigate if you’ve silently allowed someone to abuse someone speaking up for diversity, equity, and inclusion, thereby being complicit in that abuse.

Investigate how your organization might be pre-complying with edicts that are immoral and discriminatory, if not downright terrorizing, to minoritized people and what message that sends. Investigate the true risk assessment of your organization if you don’t comply, remembering that if we all resist united, we build our power.

Investigate if you are showing your minoritized colleagues care, compassion, and grace in a moment that you are finding hard to navigate even as you aren’t the direct target of the stochastic terrorism being enacted. Investigate the discrepancies in how your minoritized colleagues are always expected to show up regulated, no matter what is happening for them, when other colleagues are allowed to show up how they show up.

You don’t get a free pass for not being Trump or a Trumper. Be curious about how you’ve contributed to white supremacy culture and how not challenging it head-on has led to this moment we’re all collectively experiencing. 

And then get to work to prevent it from getting worse in your sphere of influence.