Mara Drummond, Black Trans People DO Care About Our Political Status

Every time I think that the vanilla scented arrogance and cluelessness of some short time transitioning well to do white transpeople can't get any lower, something is said or happens that just makes me shake my head while pondering the jaw dropping ignorance behind it.

It also makes me want to revisit the debate taking place within the Black trans community.    Far too frequent occurrences of bigot eruptions combined with a senior leadership core in trans rights orgs dominated by white transpeople who aren't showing concerns about the issues that ail our community have us questioning how well this relationship is working for us.

It also has us wondering if we should follow the historical example of our African American sisters when they had enough of the same bullshit within feminism and separated themselves from it in the late 80's and early 90's.

The latest jaw dropping comment was relayed to me courtesy of Sandy Rawls of Trans United.    There was a meeting last night to discuss future strategy in Maryland in the wake of the HB 235 debacle and two highly publicized violations of the civil rights of Chrissy Polis and another transperson inside the state.   .  

But it seems as though some people still haven't learned their lessons from that meltdown and forgot that African Americans make up 30% of Maryland's population and 13% of the United States population. .

Mara Drummond, one of the trans HB 235 supporters allegedly said during last night's meeting that 'Black transsexual/transgender folks don't care about their political status.'

Excuse me?   

You know, I'm really beginning to dislike any white transwomen in this community named Mara.

I know Sandy Rawls already read your behind like a cheap novel, but now it is the TransGriot's turn.to school your ignorantly clueless stuck on white privilege behind.

It's fairly obvious you haven't read this blog.   Speaking for myself, I've lobbied in two states and at the national level on behalf of trans rights, was NTAC political director until 2002, sat on the board of the C-FAIR PAC in Da Ville and was one of two IFGE award winning Black transwomen who were part of the multicultural team that founded NTAC in 1999.

2000 IFGE award winner Dawn Wilson was not only NTAC's first board chair, she was a precinct judge in my old neighborhood, is the current chair of C-FAIR and sits on the Human Relations Commission. 

Dr. Marisa Richmond, the 2002 IFGE winner, not only sat on the NCTE board, she currently runs the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.    In 2008 Dr. Richmond became the first African American transwoman elected as a delegate to a major party convention and was there in Denver to witness history as then Senator Barack Obama became the Democratic party nominee.  

Kylar Broadus currently sits on the board of the National Black Justice Coalition board.   That's before I even touch on people such as the aforementioned Sandy Rawls, Antonia D'orsay,  the late Alexander John Goodrum, the late Marcelle Cook-Daniels,  the late Marsha P. Johnson, Tracie Jada O"Brien, A Dionne Stallworth, Dana Turner, Miss Major, Rev. Joshua Holiday, Cydne Kimbrough, Louis Mitchell and other Black trans people I may not be aware of who are politically astute, active and care very much about the political life of the trans community, the African American one we share a common heritage and history with and the American one at large..

And those are the peeps I can think about just off the top of my head.    If it's one thing that Black transpeople know, we must have a healthy understanding of politics because we know intimately from our long history in this country how it can be used against you.    There are trans African-Americans, their parents and our cis supporters that I am constantly having political conversations and dialogues with on ours and other civil rights issues here and around the world with on a regular basis. 

And contrary to your vanilla scented opinion Ms. Drummond, it's not like we Black transpeople don't care about politics.   We want to be involved and part of the policy decisions that affect our lives since we're the one paying in blood for the anti-trans violence aimed at this community.

In many cases it's people who share your ethnic heritage and your misguided thoughts who have frozen us out of the process, have ignored us for decades, set up the political game in the TBLG one as a pay for play whites only one or flat out refuse to give us a seat at the table in many cases because we Black transpeople have divergent ideas about what should be the priorities of the trans rights movement and you are too fixated on getting your lost white privilege back..

Our focus is also coming up with strategies and legislation that fix the problems that ail us, not kick the problem piecemeal down the road..


Mara Drummond, what you ignorantly said (and word is filtering to the TransGriot that this is not the first time you've made that jacked up bigoted commentary) is an insult to every Black transperson who has given their time, spent their own money and put their asses on the line to get involved politically to advance the constitutional rights of all transpeople.

You owe us and the Maryland Black trans community an apology right fracking now for parting your lips to say something that stupid.

And if your attitude Ms. Drummond is representative of what your fellow white transpeople with means think, then maybe it's time for us Black ones to consider separation.

It'll be one in which we Black transpeople remove ourselves from toxic white GLBT people who think like you do and handle our own political business.   It's been obvious since the 90's and was reinforced in the last Maryland legislative session that you only care about crafting trans civil rights laws and policies that only benefit you and your ilk.

So yeah Mara Drummond, we Black trans people do care about our political status far more than you'll ever care to know.or are obviously cluelessly ignorant about.