Privileged white liberals will tell you that caring about trans rights & other "woke" stuff like that is a privilege that "regular, working class" people don't have. They have that exactly backwards.

They think it is a "privilege" to have opinions on this stuff because they are so privileged that they think of these opinions as accessories. It's a meaningless way of "expressing yourself." It's a game to THEM.

It's pure projection.

It's not that "regular" people are too busy with their "real" concerns to care if their loved ones, neighbors, coworkers, etc. are safe & happy.

It's that people who enjoy safety & comfort have come to believe that anything that doesn't pertain to them is frivolous & unimportant.

People who never have to be afraid for themselves will tell you that being afraid for yourself or others is a silly affectation.

We know better.

Like, thanks for letting me know that you think of real people's lives as fiction, I guess.

You can say that "regular" people don't care or know anything about trans people, but...some "regular" people are trans, & a lot of the rest of us know & love trans people.

Transness is not a fun game for rich kids to play. Most trans people aren't well-off & privileged, so why on Earth would caring about their well-being be just for "out of touch", privileged individuals?

I grew up in lower middle class conservative circles, so I don't have much personal experience with upper middle class liberal society, but it sure seems to me that it's pretty common for people in such privileged settings to treat their political concerns as little more than a way to manage how other people perceive them.

Then they have the gall to put that on the rest of us. They assume we're all just striking poses & wearing costumes.

It's gross as hell.

Some of us have skin in the game.

It took me a long time to understand that the term "virtue signaling" has some value (although I still think it may be too tainted for use), because I had mostly seen accusations of "virtue signaling" lobbed by alt right assholes at anyone who has principles.

But I have come to realize that a lot of liberal folks are very, very into virtue signaling. It's all they do. They don't think of the opinions they espouse as morally important. They are COSTUMES for some people.

So then they think they are being enlightened when they tell you that poor people "don't have the privilege" of holding these positions, because they assume we are all just wearing costumes. If you're poor & overworked & exploited, you don't have time to play dress up, right?

Only problem is...WE are not wearing costumes.

Every single axis of marginalization correlates to having less financial security, so it's fucking WILD for rich people to tell us that caring about marginalized people is a rich person's game.

Disabled people, queer people, people of color: all are more likely to be in poverty than abled, cis-het, white people.

So how on Earth can fighting ableism, queerphobia, & racism be treated like it's the domain of the wealthy & privileged?

When you throw queer people, POC, or disabled people under the bus (to name a few), you ARE—by definition—throwing poor people under the bus.

You can't "focus on economic issues" & ignore the systemic oppression that keeps certain groups of people especially financially insecure/desperate.

If you aren't anti-racist, then you aren't anti-poverty.