stella

A couple of weeks ago, I was just going home from university with my girlfriend, when she noticed a little slogan written on one of the walls of the uni building in red pen. She pointed it out to me, seemingly happy about seeing it here. I read it. “Protect the dolls”, it said. At the time, I couldn't make much of it. I didn't really understand what it was trying to tell me, but since my girlfriend liked it, I figured it must be something cool, and gave it a little chuckle of approval. We kept walking and talked about other things.

But my mind was still busy thinking about this slogan. What did they mean by it? Who are “the dolls”? The only thing I could think of was a couple of beings I had met on the Internet, identifying as “dolls” in direct reference to the physical toy, with intentional connotations of nonhumanity and being taken care of by an owner of sorts. They're cool. Maybe the slogan was referring to them? Felt like a rather niche thing to graffiti somewhere, but sure. I could accept that interpretation, and went on with my life.

A while later, I came across the slogan again. “Protect the dolls”. Not as graffiti this time, but on the Internet. I don't remember exactly anymore in which context, but I learned some things about the slogan.

I learned that “the dolls” did not in fact refer to who I thought it did. I learned that it in fact refers to trans women, and transfems in general.

This immediately made me feel weird. I'm one of those! But I would not want to be labeled as a doll... I then learned that this use of the word “doll” originates in 80s Usonian ballroom culture and is still found amongst PoC trans people over there. Huh. Not my field to speak on at all – if they want to refer to eachother like that, that's none of my business. But outside of that specific cultural sphere, the term is barely known at all. So a new question arose: How did this term get all the way over here, to the walls of a German university?

Soon enough, I found an answer. To quote from Wikipedia:

Protect the Dolls, usually stylized in all caps, is a slogan in support of transgender women that was featured on a viral white T-shirt by American fashion designer Conner Ives. First appearing in public at the end of his London Fashion Week show on 23 February 2025, it was worn by several celebrities including Pedro Pascal and Troye Sivan.

So that's it. The slogan was popularized outside of the original cultural sphere of the word by a fashion show, and made its way over here.

So far, so good. I now knew everything I needed to fully understand that graffiti. But I couldn't stop thinking about it. Something about it bothered me. I've been thinking about this for the past few weeks and I have come to the conclusion that not something, but everything about it bothers me. So I want to break it down piece by piece, and explain my issues with it.

Protect the Dolls

Dolls. A weird word, isn't it? As I mentioned before, the original cultural context of this word is not for me to speak on, and I have no problems with it. But it doesn't work outside of its proper context. It cannot refer to all transfems. The word carries connotations. Of objectification, of shallowness, of fixation on physical appearance. If someone called me a doll, I would feel offended (and I know I'm not the only one). I would interpret it was an insult, a slur even. And sure, slurs can be reclaimed – but that is something for every individual being to do for themselves, not something that can be mass-produced. If Ives had written “Protect the fags” on that shirt instead, how would you feel? With the slogan in broader use, it may even shape peoples' first impressions of transfems, and they're certainly not good impressions.

In the effort of constructive criticism, let me present an alternative:

Protect the trans folks

(note: I have no particular attachment to the word *folks*, feel free to substitute another for it in your mind)

This has the added benefit of including all trans folks, not just those on the fem side of the spectrum. Never really understood separating us out like that anyway. You may also notice that this version of the slogan highlights another issue that is also present in the original, albeit more hidden, and allows me to segue neatly into the next section:

Protect the Dolls

What is that definite article doing here? Makes it sound like “the Dolls” are a single, monolithic group. A centralized group, with a centralized name. In particular, a group that the author is not part of. Writing “Protect the Dolls” creates a separation between the author and “the Dolls”; in effect, it is a form of othering of trans folks – something we have been exposed to all too much.

Fixing this part of the slogan is rather simple – get rid of it! This article adds nothing positive to the slogan and can be removed without issue.

Protect Dolls

or, with the previous change:

Protect trans folks

Let's look at the last remaining word.

Protect the Dolls

Nothing wrong with protection, right? Sure. But there are still problems here. Asking others, in particular non-trans folks, to “protect” us, in turn implies that we are not capable of protecting ourselves. It implies that we are in some way uniquely weak and require special protection from cis people. The keyword this time around is infantilization. The reality, of course, is that we don't need to be protected by some cis folks with a savior complex. We can defend ourselves just fine – more often than not, from precisely those cis folks who claim to help us.

Of course, support from cis folks is still good and its fine to ask for it – but we can do that in ways that don't infantilize us. How about this version?

Fight with the Dolls

Putting it all together, a “fixed” slogan could be

Fight with Trans Folks!

Feel free to graffiti this on your educational facility of choice.

Context of Creation

Lastly, I want to talk a bit more about the context in which the original slogan came to be. To quote Wikipedia once more:

During the week leading up to his runway show at London Fashion Week in late February 2025, [Connor Ives] wrote in his phone's Notes app “make a T-shirt that says something.” The slogan itself was workshopped; an early idea was “We Heart the Dolls”, in reference to the “I Love New York” slogan, which Ives discarded as he did not feel the need to promote his “love for [his] trans friends” on a T-shirt and wanted something closer to a call and response. Another idea was also “For the Dolls”. He saw the protection of his trans friends, however, as “taken for granted”, though did not want to create a “feeling of peril.” Model and regular collaborator of Ives, Hunter Pifer, who was being fitted in the studio as he workshopped the shirt, pushed him to pick “Protect the Dolls”. [...]

He proceeded to create the original shirt the night before the show, finding a deadstock white T-shirt and using heat-transfer paper to print “Protect the Dolls” in all caps, taking two to three minutes to do so. The slogan appears in black in the Big Caslon serif typeface in all caps and is left-justified, projecting directness and authority.

As far as I can tell, Ives is not trans. Certainly not someone who would call himself a “Doll”. He is, in fact, exactly the problem – a bourgeois cis man speaking on behalf of trans folks, seemingly without coordinating any of this with any of them. Him being gay does not excuse this overreach.

So that's all this slogan is. A quickly puzzled-together virtue signal from a cis guy seeking to gain attention off of the backs of trans folks. What irritates me is that I've actually seen real trans folks adopting this deeply, deeply flawed slogan for themselves. I have to ask – Why? Why would you use this slogan, that came from outside of the community, and that fails to represent us properly? Is it just because it's the “hot new thing” right now? Why not instead use the many slogans that have actually come out of the trans community, that were written by us, not for us, and that actually represent us and our demands properly?

I don't know how to write conclusions so bye lol