Higher Standards

July 4 has come and gone, and I spent most of the day doing some hard, solid thinking about the state of the trans community and the African American segment of it.

I'm not feeling much pride in a community in which I do not see myself or people who share my ethnicity represented in it's senior decision making leadership ranks.

I see my people along with our Latina sisters taking the brunt of the casualties from anti-trans hatred. I don't see the issues we consider important reflected in the priorities of a movement we helped jump off.

I'm also tired of the negative media images aimed at African descended transpeople and being ignored by our so called allies.

So what are I and my chocolate trans brothers and trans sisters looking for?

What we're looking for the day after our 234th birthday as a nation is for the trans community to live up to the ideals and concepts articulated in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in our Constitution.

You know, the 'all men are created equal' part in the second paragraph.

We too are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We wish to pursue 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' as well.

We're not only demanding fairness from our African American family, we're demanding it from our allies as well.

Since we're now seven months into a new decade, it's past time that we hold you to as fellow trans people the same higher standard of behavior and accountability that you are holding the president that shares my ethnicity to on TBLG issues.

It's unacceptable to have trans organizations that claim to speak for the entire trans community having no POC representation in them or on their decision making boards.

It's unacceptable that African descended transpeople don't have input or a major voice in the policy decisions of those organizations.

It's unacceptable that our opinions and thoughts aren't respectfully asked for and our grievances are ignored.

We are tired of being disrespected as well.

The only thing tougher than being a Black man or a Black woman in this society is being a Black man or a Black woman in this society with a mismatched body. We don't need our fellow vanilla transpeople adding to our burdens.

The reality is, there are differences between how a white person transitions and how a person of color does so, and that needs to be taken into account when policies are formulated and pursued that are alleged to represent the entire trans community.

We need y'all to rise to the challenge of holding yourselves to higher standards of ethical behavior than have been exhibited by the white dominated GL community towards us.

The choice is clear. Our frustration levels with this situation are rising. You can either rectify those problems or suffer the consequences for not doing so.

Why do I have the feeling that you'll take the King George III approach?