Why Solidarity Is the Only Way Forward
Casey Grippo (they/them), PhD candidate in philosophy at Boston University.
This post adapts arguments from my work, “Against Allyship: The Case for Solidarity.”
Introduction
Well-meaning allies often cause grave harm, with cases abounding. Consider a standard example: a cisgender ally, disposed to correcting people when they misgender others, inadvertently outs her non-binary friend to an unsafe person—thus increasing risk rather than mitigating it. While such an instance might appear to be a mere failure of execution, it cannot be so easily categorized as such. In principle, the cisgender ally performed the duties expected of her: namely, to confront harm. Nevertheless, the result is an escalation in vulnerability.
Practices of allyship regularly alienate those they aim to support, further othering those already on the margins. However, attributing these harms to the failures of individual actors misses a deeper problem in the underlying relational structure of allyship. As an action-guiding framework for privileged individuals aiming to combat oppression, allyship is inherently flawed: it perpetuates a dehumanizing abstraction that reproduces the socially entrenched hierarchical relations it is meant to undermine.
Instead, the relationship of solidarity offers a just action-guiding framework for overcoming oppression. As a distinct structure of political cooperation that replaces deference with co-creation and categorization with shared cause, solidarity engenders just cross-privilege relations.
§1 What Allyship Asks
Allyship is characterized by a hierarchical and deferential relationship. In one of its most robust philosophical articulations, allyship is defined as a practice whereby privileged individuals undertake “well-founded actions aimed at mitigating oppression” that are “approved of or welcomed by the oppressed group” (Lawford-Smith and Tuckwell 2024). An ally acts on behalf of the group, contingent upon its authorization.
Allyship seems intuitive. In requiring appropriate deference, the framework centers marginalized voices while preventing paternalistic actions by allies—two features necessary to undermine socially entrenched hierarchical relations. Moreover, its demands are grounded in standpoint theory’s central insight that those who endure oppression have unique access to understanding its mechanisms of harm (and thus, how to dismantle them). Consequently, the role of the ally is to listen and act accordingly.
Nonetheless, the logic undergirding allyship harbors an inherent tension. In aiming to do right by an oppressed group, allies actually wrong individual members of that group. Allyship forces abstract categories to mediate the relationship between the ally and the allied. Herein lies the framework’s limitations and structural harm.
§2 Allyship’s Structural Flaw
Allyship necessitates that privileged actors perceive oppressed individuals not as unique persons, but as members of specific categories or intersecting identities. Engaging as an ally involves treating the group as a homogeneous entity with a unified set of justice-based interests, thereby neglecting the disagreements, diversity, and intricacies of individuals experiencing axis-specific oppression. Allyship requires that cross-privilege relationships aimed at combating oppression be mediated through abstract, representational categories, thereby imbuing what might otherwise be personal relationships with a necessary element of abstract formality. When acting as an ally, privileged individuals objectify those facing oppression by reducing their individuality to fungible embodiments of their identities.
Furthermore, although deference satisfies the demands of epistemic humility, it simultaneously creates an epistemic power imbalance. Allies retain exclusive knowledge of their own leverage—such as social capital, institutional access, and strategic positioning—while oppressed individuals are tasked with articulating the needs of their identities without full insight into the capacity and influence available to the ally. This practice does not constitute empowerment for people facing oppression; it constitutes epistemic exploitation. On theoretical grounds alone, allyship cannot serve as the basis for meaningful liberation, as it disempowers those it claims to support.
Allyship’s structural flaw becomes even starker in practice. Consider the case of comedy writer Graham Linehan, a vocal opponent of transgender rights. Linehan frames his anti-transgender actions as “allyship to women,” amplifying the voices of gender-critical feminists who welcome his actions. Because his actions are authorized by at least some women, Lawford-Smith and Tuckwell (2024) identify him as a paradigmatic ally.
But is Linehan an ally to women? Not exactly. He aligns with a particular faction—gender-critical feminists—regarding a specific cause. His moral understanding aligns with their perspective rather than with that of women as an abstract collective. The framework of allyship, however, constrains our perspective on actors like Linehan; either he is an ally to women and therefore doing something right, or he is failing to be an ally yet aiming at something right. This oversimplifies the complex reality of political disagreements among feminist efforts into a singular, mythical group interest. Such is the inherent issue with the concept of allyship: it necessitates treating individuals as embodiments of categories rather than as complete persons in a shared struggle.
§3 The Solidarity Alternative
Solidarity offers a way out of this trap, as it is constituted by a fundamentally different structure of relation.
Solidarity is not directed toward a group of people, but against an injustice. It is cause-mediated rather than identity-mediated (Viehoff 2025). What binds people in solidarity is a shared moral understanding of a problem that must be overcome, built cooperatively through discussion and joint struggle rather than deference (Dishaw 2024).
This shift from identity-mediation to cause-mediation fundamentally alters the ‘who’ and ‘how’ of social justice. In solidarity, an individual’s role is not ascribed by their social category relative to another’s, but by their unique capacity to contribute toward the shared objective. For instance, a cisgender individual actively opposing transgender oppression is not characterized by an indebtedness to transgender persons, nor by an obligation to defer. Rather, their role is defined by how their specific skills, access, and influence can aid in dismantling oppressive structures—a goal they share with their transgender fellows. Furthermore, just as oppressed individuals possess unique epistemic insight into the systems of oppression they confront, privileged allies similarly possess special epistemic access into their own leverage. This cultivates a relationship of mutual cooperation, analogous to musicians in an orchestra: each musician performs a distinct, non-fungible component of the collective symphony, with variations in individual success and effort that defy the logic of interpersonal reciprocity.
Consider, for example, the student encampments for Palestine across universities in the United States. Students participating are not best understood as “allies to Palestinians.” Rather, they are in solidarity against their own university’s complicity in genocide. This shared cause reflects a moral understanding of an injustice that they are collectively committed to ending. The role of U.S. students in combating the Palestinian genocide is determined by their particular capacity to contribute toward this shared goal—namely, by exerting influence on U.S. universities to divest from corporations linked to Israel, especially defense contractors—rather than by a history of privilege or deference to those in Palestine directly experiencing genocide. The unity of solidarity is driven by the “against,” not the “with.”
§4 From Deference to Co-Creation
The transition from frameworks of allyship to solidarity alters not only our theoretical understanding but also our practical application of these frameworks, replacing a script of deference with a process of collaborative creation.
- Allies ask: “What does your group need me to do?”
- Solidarity asks: “What is my role in our shared struggle, given my specific capacities and our common cause?”
This distinction is more than a matter of semantics. Moving from allyship to solidarity shifts the cross-privilege relationship structure from external advocacy to integrated cooperation. In solidarity, a privileged participant’s obligation is not directed toward a single “oppressed group,” but rather toward the collective cause to overcome an injustice. Their accountability stems from a shared moral understanding of the cause, rather than from a record of authorization.
Abandoning the framework of allyship in the pursuit of social justice does not entail forsaking humility or disregarding the voices of those most affected by injustice. Instead, it involves engaging these voices not as oracles of group interest, but as equal collaborators in a collective endeavor. Privileged participants offer critical insights into their own leverage—such as social capital, institutional access, and strategic positioning—while oppressed participants provide essential epistemic understanding of their oppression. Solidarity requires that this knowledge be shared and collectively deliberated upon, not exchanged across barriers of deference.
Solidarity entails greater demands, requiring continuous, iterative efforts to cultivate shared understanding. Instead of seeing conflict and disagreement as indicators of failure, it treats them as integral to deepening understanding, thereby fostering greater honesty and empowerment.
Conclusion
Despite its intuitive appeal, allyship is fundamentally incapable of effectuating social justice. Its dependence on deference to group categories perpetuates the objectifying abstractions and classifications underpinning oppression. Allyship engenders fragile, hierarchical relationships that disintegrate under the strain of internal differences and conflicts.
Solidarity is necessary for sustained movement efforts. By anchoring collective action in a shared cause rather than in privilege indebtedness, it empowers all participants. For those dedicated to social justice, the task is not to become better allies—it is to foster deeper solidarity.