After her speech was interrupted by several kids releasing crickets into the audience, Jamie Reed has finally come out with a statement regarding the incident. It is an article titled Shields. It is at once strange, condescending, and deeply revealing. It’s worth diving into to learn her motivations, so that’s what I will do here. Content warning for abuse and assault.
She begins by saying she’s not mad, but actually has empathy for the person that did this. Showing that empathy Jamie intentionally misgenders this person (who is nonbinary I believe) throughout the response. “We need her [sic] connected and close and loved.” She claims, “We need her [sic] exploring every pathway to enlightenment she [sic] can find.” Jamie worries this person might later get into more trouble, lamenting that the next time they protest “it won’t just be crickets”. Presumably she means they might upgrade to other insects like beetles, but I digress. Jamie compares testosterone to heroin, which, considering her recently detransitioned ex Roxanne is still taking, seems bizarre. After all, the two co-parent their kids. Is she seriously saying that testosterone is just as bad as heroin? Why have someone on a drug you believe is worse than an opioid be around your kids?! Obviously, she doesn’t actually believe that, and simply wants to scare this young person into detransitioning.
For a response ostensibly to the cricket fiasco, the majority of the letter is about Jamie herself. She ignores the anger and pain the young person is feeling while claiming to acknowledge it in the same breath. As with much of the transphobic sphere of influence, actual kids in gender care are mostly silent here. There is not one word from the actual perpetrators of the cricket release, only a second hand account of LGB alliance co-founder Kate Harris talking to the kids. Jamie says Kate told her when they mentioned her name they got mad. The rest of the response is her pontificating about what the possible motives of these children could be, while throwing in her own stories to paint herself the hero.
There is no respect for the actual dignity of this trans youth, only condescension. She thinks they’re just dumb activist kids who need to grow up. Jamie is convinced from her years of being a “punk” that these kids are just trying to lash out at “the man”. She has a very simplistic and naive view of punk culture. She views it as simply being used as a shield against harm, rather than any kind of true conviction. She thinks this because it’s how she used it. There is an anecdote in the response wherein she is assaulted on an elevator. It reveals a lot about how Reed thinks. She believed her grimy punk appearance would save her from men accosting her, yet it didn’t. She also reaches out for help, to no avail. There is some real trauma here. Her defense mechanisms did not work. It clearly changed her as a person.
But why include that anecdote in this response to being protested against? Jamie lays it bare in her closing remarks: it’s because she thinks these kids are using trans identity as a shield like she used her punk appearance. She’s projecting. We know for a fact the kids, from their statements, are not protesting simply to get back at “the man” or using trans identities as a shield. They are protesting to be heard. To have a seat at the table in a discussion about their own healthcare. They want a voice. In perhaps the most damning part of her response, Reed does the exact thing the kids were telling her not to: she speaks over them. She says she will be their hero. She says she will fight the power. She claims to fight for these kids whose opinions she discards. “I will be the battering ram against the surgeons, who promise you that just cutting off your breasts, will make the pain and the anger go away.” Her pride makes her believe she knows best. In everything Reed does she wants to be the hero. Her twitter @ is literally jamiewhistle, as in Jamie the whistleblower. She’s self-aggrandizing herself, and in doing so, betraying the people she claims to defend. Being a true hero involves humility. It means knowing when to let the oppressed speak, even if you have to swallow your pride to do so.
There is a song on Tunisian band’s Myrath’s newest album, Karma, that I think is rather apt here. It is called, appropriately, Heroes. The song itself is about Gaza and the ongoing war there, but part of its chorus is rather poignant. It goes “We don’t need heroes, we are the heroes”. This is what Jamie fundamentally gets wrong. In her quest to save everyone, she neglects the very people she claims to save. She only serves to make herself look good and just. Trans kids are merely a set piece. She ignores their wants and needs in favor of what she thinks is best. There is no listening. Trans kids don’t need Jamie Reed to be their shield. Trans kids have asked Jamie Reed to not be their shield. Trans kids can hold their own shields, be their own heroes. They don’t need a savior. They never asked for a savior. They want a voice. But Jamie Reed is too proud to give that to them.