“Spider-Verse‘s Gwen Stacy might not be trans, but her story sure is,” one article began. “[T]here is plenty of evidence in Across The Spider-Verse to suggest that the version of Gwen seen in these films is a canonically trans woman,” stated another. Over the course of Pride Month this year, dozens of pieces across media made the same connections in the story of Gwen Stacy (also known as Spider-Woman, and sometimes Spider-Gwen) in the recently-released Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse animated movie; connections I’d missed entirely while watching it with my kids. Perhaps it was a blind spot for me because the trans experience is not my own experience, and the references were not explicit; as many of the articles said, her story was “trans coded” – it used visual storytelling language that would be more obvious to transgender viewers. For those outside of that community, Gwen’s story passes as any other story of a character wondering where they belong and can find others like them. And of course, it would be easy to assume that any Spider-person has a community when they all wear variations of the same mask.
We all wear masks of some kind – these days far fewer of us are wearing physical masks than a few years ago, but we all wear metaphorical masks; choosing to hide some aspect(s) of our full identity from the people around us. This usually comes from wanting to ‘fit in with the norm,’ not wanting to be judged, of perhaps even feeling unsafe with openly expressing an aspect of our identity. Sometimes we openly ‘code-switch’ – speaking or acting differently depending on the setting we’re in (explored brilliantly in the movie Sorry To Bother You, in which the Black main character finds success in his call center job by using his “White voice“).
Sometimes we benefit from “passing privilege” – an aspect of our identity is not obvious or visible, so we benefit from appearing to belong to the normative majority. Many light-skinned Latinx people ‘pass’ as white – they are viewed as white and assumed to be white by many in the wider culture around them, even if their own internal experience is very different from that of other white folks around them. This passing can come with the privilege of not facing the microaggressions and outward racism that many people of color face. Similarly, many Jewish people describe their lived experience as “passing as white” – a controversial phrase even in Jewish communities, but one that signifies they do not face the same blatant antisemitism that so many others do.
Masking, code-switching, and passing privilege bring benefits that can’t be ignored. But what often is ignored is that they also come with a potential cost; a dismantling and even a loss of respect for our own true identity. When we hide what makes us unique, rather than expressing it, we are ultimately only suppressing ourselves and reinforcing the cultural norms built around straight, white, cisgender, able-bodied, English-speaking, affluent males, making that norm stronger and more rigid. It also robs us of a wider variety of lived experiences and unique viewpoints that could make your team – and your world – richer, more vibrant. Including those voices may even help you to relate to experiences outside of your own, whatever version of the Spider-mask they wear.
How can these concepts be helpful this week?
This Week’s Tip:
Take some time to reflect on masks, code switching, and passing privilege in your own life. Use these prompts to journal or reflect on your experiences:
- In what ways have you seen these play out in your own life, or in the lives of people close to you?
- What pieces of your identity do you choose not to share with others? Is that different depending on the setting?
- Are there pieces of your identity that you have kept hidden from people you work with?
- How have you benefitted from that?
- Have those benefits outweighed the cost of not being able to fully express who you are?
- If so, do you have other places where you can be fully yourself?
- If not, what small steps might you consider taking this week to share more of who you are with your team and colleagues at work?
Try this out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.
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Building Bridges Leadership 