Writing about the oppression of others is inherently problematic. It should be their voices that are heard loudest; others who lack their lived experiences risk drowning them out. Scrutinising what it means to be an ally risks self-indulgence: making it about you, rather than about them and their lives. “Woe is me. It is so hard to get this right. What a minefield it is to navigate,” you could end up thinking, rather than: “How can I be most helpful and useful?”

For a gay man, the rise of transgender rights brings into acute relief how we frame our support for those who confront prejudicesand oppression we do not experience ourselves. Will Young, a gay man, has just produced a hard-hitting music video for his new track, Brave Man. It features Finn, a 19-year-old trans man walking naked through the streets of Brighton, covering his genitals only, with photos of hisyounger pre-transition self. He encounters disturbing abuse from passersby as he makes his journey.

The Brave Man video is a fair portrait of trans life – it does not deserve your rage | Jack Monroe Read more

The video has provoked considerable debate among trans people and activists. The trans writer and activist Paris Lees thinks, on the one hand, that it’s a “nice sweet video” that’s coming “from a really good place”. She believes that there has been a “tipping point” over the last year: “trans is cool now, everyone wants trans people in their videos and on their TV shows. Trans is hot, it’s sexy, it’s aspirational.” On the other, she worries about a patronising “cliche that trans people are brave”. It’s the whole mantra of “you’re so brave!” when, as Lees puts it, “if society wasn’t so shit I wouldn’t be ‘brave’, it’s just who I am!”. And then there’s the nudity: the focus on “reducing trans people to body parts”, to a body that intrigues and fascinates people who are not trans.

CN Lester, a musician who is trans, similarly believes that everyone making the video “had the best of intentions and best of goodwill”. For some young trans people, the video could be a “lifeline”. Lester’s concern is that it shows a passive victim who is resigned to being abused. “Trans people are suffering and we face abuse, but I also want people to know we are fighting back and they can fight with us. That’s what an ally does; they don’t passively consume your pain and look at you with pity, but stands with you and says ‘I’ve got your back.” Trans people, Lester believes, are all too often portrayed as isolated when in reality there are extensive trans networks.

Fox Fisher, a trans man who helped cast Will Young’s video, argues the problem really lies in the lack of trans representation: “When it’s a trans person playing a trans role, trans people look for something that represents themselves, but you can’t represent everyone.” It is not a debate I am willing to adjudicate, but surely a debate that is important to have.

Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals owe many of their rights to trans activists, and should return the solidarity

An ally is somebody who will never quite understand what it is like to be trans. A gay man who is not trans – “cis”, as it is called – has some commonalities in experience, of course: both deviate from what is “supposed” to be the gender norm; both suffer prejudice; often (but not always) from the same sorts of people; both risk internalising the prejudice and oppression directed at them, leaving them at risk of mental distress. In a behind-the-scenes video, Will Young explains how he himself has struggled with the impulse to self-harm, and with thoughts of suicide. These are experiences common to both cis gay people and trans people. Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals owe many of their rights to the courage and determination of trans activists, and should return the solidarity.

But of course the experiences are strikingly different in other ways. The struggle against homophobia has a long way to go, but it strikes me that trans people are basically where gay people were in the 1980s: still seen as somewhat taboo, patronised as exotic or weird, feelings of disgust projected on them, sometimes portrayed as predatory, and so on. The likes of Caitlyn Jenner and Riley Carter Millington in EastEnders are examples of the growing visibility of trans people, sure, but being trans in Britain is still all too often an avoidable story of mental distress, prejudice, abuse and oppression.

Paris Lees is passionate about winning trans allies through the impressive awareness raising project All About Trans, and is irritated when there’s “a big backlash against anyone who tries to be an ally”. They should be given space to grow and educate themselves, she believes. But she puts the anger of many trans activists in an important context: “I don’t know of any trans people not deeply damaged by discrimination, and so there’s lots of angry people out there.” An ally will get it wrong and upset those they want to support. But the reaction surely is to listen and understand an anger that erupts from a toxic mixture of prejudice and marginalisation.

Stonewall is right to bring our trans brothers and sisters in from the cold | Owen Jones Read more

The struggle is complicated for another reason. When I wrote about trans rights earlier this year, I encountered one of the angriest and most determined backlashes against anything I have written. It did not come from knuckle-dragging bigots but from self-described radical feminists who are not, to say the least, inclusive of trans people. I was a misogynist; I was obsessively asked if I would perform cunnilingus on a trans man; female friends who communicated with me were informed I hated women; my trans friends were really “pouty men”; and so on. They do not want trans women in toilets, a cause being championed by the Republican right in the United States. It made me slightly anxious about engaging with this issue again. Again, this isn’t about me, but it educated me about the cruel perverse prejudice that trans people encounter, not simply from the bigoted right, but from supposed progressives too.

All opponents of trans rights are on the wrong side of history, just as history has imposed harsh and unforgiving judgments on those who opposed gay rights in the past. The rights of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals were won by building coalitions, ranging from trans people to ‘cis’ straight people. Solidarity – based on the principle of “an injury to one is an injury to all” – is a precondition of social change. Trans people must be the key voices in the struggle of emancipation. To be an ally is to listen and learn.