On the Risks of Activism
I like to think of myself as an activist, but activism exists on a spectrum, like gender and sexual orientation. Some risk physical injury and death, others psychological and social harm, and some find a way to move the needle with more benefits than risks.
At one end of the spectrum, the events of the past few weeks have highlighted how activists lose their lives in pursuit of social and environmental justice. Thousands of protesters have been killed, and hundreds of thousands injured, when they took to the streets of Iran to call for political reform, to address economic collapse and corruption, and to defend civil rights.
Renée Good’s death in Minneapolis was the first killing of a white person during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, following the deaths of at least three other people whose nationality and skin colour contributed to their stories going unnoticed by many. Renée Good and her wife reportedly encountered ICE agents and protesters on their way back from dropping their child off at school. They stopped to film what was going on, partially blocking the road. In the presence of masked men carrying handguns, their impulse proved fatal.
I’ve recorded violent interactions while yelling at them to stop, rolled my bike right up against the car doors of people who run stop signs in front of me and banged on the trunks of drivers who cut me off in crosswalks. I can easily see myself in Renée Good’s and Alex Pretti’s places.
Many have compared Renée Good’s killing to the 1965 murder of Viola Liuzzo in Alabama. She was a mother of five who drove from Michigan to Selma, Alabama, to participate in the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights marches. When she was returning to Montgomery on March 25 after shuttling protesters back to Selma in her car, members of the local Ku Klux Klan pursued and shot her because she was driving with a black man.
A month earlier (February 26), twenty-six-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot by an Alabama state trooper during an attack on his family for participating in a previous voting rights protest. His death inspired the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, including the first on March 7, when state troopers and a county posse beat and gassed unarmed marchers (Bloody Sunday). Between Viola’s and Jimmie’s killings, the Rev. James Reeb, a white minister, was fatally wounded by white supremacists after participating in the Selma marches. His death pushed President Lyndon Johnson to introduce federal voting rights legislation.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who helped organize the voting rights movement and the marches, was arrested twenty-nine times and assassinated in 1968.
Activist beatings and deaths related to desegregation, labour strikes, peace protests, environmental protection, and land rights are too numerous to count.[i] Even reporting on human rights abuses carries risks worldwide (e.g., the case of Jamal Khashoggi).
Beatings, torture, sexual violence, and death threats represent the next level of risk for activists, and, as the UN reports, women are often singled out. My friend Shalini Gera is a human rights lawyer in India who has faced death threats since 2016 and was beaten and threatened with death by police and pro-mining thugs in 2022. She and five others interviewed villagers opposed to an iron-ore mining project in Narayanpur District. Another activist was tortured earlier that year for protesting the same project.
The next risk level is arrest and detention. Beyond time spent in jail awaiting charges and trial, imprisonment and a criminal record are life-altering. Some of those arrested choose to take their own lives rather than face the dehumanizing conditions of prison or the professional and social consequences of being labelled a criminal. In the fight for 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, the risk of arrest was ever-present for consensual acts behind closed doors, gathering in pubs and bathhouses, or wearing gender-affirming clothes in public.
In March last year, Marcy Rheintgen, a trans university student from Illinois, drove to the Florida Capitol to challenge the state’s anti-trans bathroom law. Capitol police warned her they would have to arrest her if she entered the women’s bathroom, and they did after she washed her hands. She was detained overnight, charged with trespassing, which carried a sentence of up to sixty days, and had to return in May for her first court appearance.
She told the Associated Press, “If I’m a criminal, it’s going to be so hard for me to live a normal life, all because I washed my hands,” and added that she was “horrified and scared” about what might happen next. Fortunately, prosecutors failed to file the charging documents and the charges were dropped.
The Gender Liberation Movement organized several demonstrations in support of abortion rights and gender-affirming care, and against bathroom bills, including the treatment of U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride and others in the U.S. Capitol. More than twenty-four arrests were made at those demonstrations. The U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi, has equated organizing to fight for trans rights with domestic terrorism.[ii]
My first steps into activism were local marches and demonstrations, like the 2017 Women’s March (pictured above), the Dyke March, and the 2023 Vancouver SOGI demonstration. The 2023 SOGI demonstration was the first I’ve attended where arguments and fights broke out between groups, some wearing masks and eye coverings, like the “black bloc.” A couple of those wearing masks were carrying thick, wooden clubs disguised as flags (see links to pictures and videos below).[iii]
The next risks are threats and harassment. In July 2020, CBC Vancouver promoted a local podcast about gender and nonbinary people, “They & Us,” and invited listeners to submit their stories. Five of us volunteered to be interviewed and photographed for a web story with embedded video. When the video went viral on Twitter (now X), one of us had his photo reposted with the caption “Oh please someone shoot me in the face,” and another wrote his name in quotes as if it weren’t a real name. We were all called narcissists, and multiple TERFs came out to complain about how trans women diminish the “sex-based rights of women and girls.”
The CBC Vancouver newsroom decided to kill the story, delete the post on Twitter and issue a public apology, but keep the video up, where they could turn off comments or moderate them. The experience left an emotional mark on each of us. I’ll write more about it in my next story (“Trans Visibility in a Culture War”).
Amnesty International reported that three out of five young activists, particularly from the LGBTQIA+ community, faced online harassment globally (e.g., hateful comments, threats, hacking, and doxing). Twenty-one percent are harassed or threatened weekly. Some had sexual images (real or fake) posted without consent, and a third were harassed in person by family members, classmates, and police. Others were denied employment for their activism.
The final risks of activism to consider include burnout and damaged relationships. In 2019, after seven years of collecting testimony about public sexual harassment, twenty-three-year-old Anais Bourdet announced she was burned out and wouldn’t update her archive. Soon after, a second feminist venture shut its doors, and others began sharing their experiences with vicarious trauma under the hashtag #PayeTonBurnOutMilitant (Pay for Your Activist Burnout).
Activism inevitably causes chronic stress, with physical and psychological effects such as fatigue, depression, and emotional issues. The downward spiral damages relationships with colleagues, family, and friends unless interrupted by stepping back and practising self-care.
Flight attendants direct us to put on our own oxygen mask before helping others (cue this viral video of a Canadian flight attendant), but so many of us find it hard to heed their advice in our everyday lives. As you take on the challenges in your life, avoid these risks and care for yourself so you can continue caring for those around you.
[i] Here are more notable activist killings to read about if you want to follow me down some rabbit holes:
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre (British India, 1919).
February 28 Incident/Massacre (Taiwan, 1947).
Dian Fossey (Rwanda, 1985).
Tiananmen Square Massacre (China, 1989).
Rabaa Massacre (Egypt, 2013).
[ii] https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/6a/6c/c5feff2a460baba3db6b96ded309/attorney-general-bondi-memorandum-re-nspm-7-ag-guidance-12-4-2025.pdf
[iii] See my camera’s perspective if you missed these demonstrations:
Women’s March (2017)
What did you think? How are you doing? I’d love to chat…