Privilege discourse is hugely useful for introducing the basic concept that people receive different treatment based on their proximity to the white, cishet, male, wealthy, abled, non-intersex, neurotypical template that is aggressively idealised in the world we live in.

It’s a way to start to understand the need for social change, and to add context to the experiences of an individual. It’s a starting point for people just beginning to understand that racism, misogyny, ableism, etc. are real oppressive forces.

Once you’ve learnt a lot about privilege, you’ll realise that some of the concepts that you want to talk about don’t really fit within that framework. It’s a useful tool for understanding how het people are are rewarded for being the ideal, for instance, but it’s not a good tool for talking about the lateral aggression between people with varying non-het orientations.



(Trying to force that conversation into a privilege framework has directly resulted in a lot of mutual lateral aggression between gay/lesbian people and bpq people who lacked other tools to describe their experiences.)



Not everything can be reduced to a privilege hierarchy, and that’s okay, because privilege discourse is just one possible tool. If you’re trying to talk about power, structures of violence, oppression and marginalisation, and what you’re trying to say doesn’t really fit well into the privilege framework, don’t try to hammer it in where it doesn’t fit! Look at other ways to talk about your ideas. Build a new framework if you need to. It doesn’t have to be about privilege just because privilege discourse is the first tool you learned how to use.

