Judge Edwin Cameron, who at the time was serving as one of the justices of the South African Constitutional Court had been requested to make opening remarks at the conference. His invitation was in recognition of his allyship and the role he had played, as a member of the judiciary as well as an activist, to advance the rights of transgender rights in the nation of South Africa. The judge, in all his opulence (I am a big fan, so I was completely enamoured by his stature and just the mere honour of being in the same space as this hero, who had spent his career and used his influence and privilege in service of HIV/AIDS and gay rights activism), took to the podium. We were all aware of his whiteness, maleness, and advanced age. All these placed him at greater privilege than many people in that room.
Put simply, he is top of the food chain when it comes to patriarchy. He opened with greeting all of us. Then, while we waited, pens and papers ready to jot down the undoubtedly important things he would have to say, he invited two of his staff members to come and deliver the opening remarks in his stead. He explained, that his reason for so doing, was that he recognised that he was not only privileged, but that there are those better placed to open and officially welcome participants to a conference of that nature. Both the people who spoke are transgender persons, who shared their experiences of being transgender in South Africa. They spoke about the risks they had taken with living their lives so openly and so publicly. From that moment on, I vowed, that where I can (to the extent that it does not endanger people), I will ensure that I do not assume myself an expert in the struggles and oppressions of others. I vowed that in exercising my agency, and putting myself in the frontlines of any social movement, it would be in the advancement of the inclinations of said movement. Specifically, that I would present myself a vessel, without ownership of the oppression, or the exertion of control or authority. This article interrogates the role of an ally in the achievement of social change. Specifically, we will start to look at the role of cis-gender men in the work towards equality and in the feminist agenda.
