Black Media Transphobia Is Not Humorous To Black Trans Women

One of the things I'm really getting sick of along with the Black trans community and the parents of Black trans kids is the ongoing pattern in the Black community of our Black oriented media outlets, be they radio, television or on social media, spouting hate speech aimed at the transgender community.

It is anti-trans hate speech like this that results in Black trans women getting beat up or murdered.

The latest sorry instance of what I'm talking about happened on the New York based Power 105.1 FM radio show The Breakfast Club that is syndicated to 50 markets including Houston's KQBT-FM to an audience of 4 million people.

It is hosted by DJ Envy, Angela Yee and Charlamagne Tha God, and has has a problematic relationship with the TBLGQ community and a long history since the show premiered in 2010 of anti-TBLGQ commentary  

This latest episode of Black media transphobia started when Janet Mock appeared on the show last Tuesday to promote her new book Surpassing Certainty.

While the Breakfast Club team managed to actually do a respectful and informative interview with Janet on that day, it was painfully obvious they hadn't learned anything on Friday when they hosted the 'comedian' Lil Duval on the show.



The show went off the transphobic rails quickly starting at the 6:28 mark    In addition to Lil Duval using the t-slur, he then compounded his ignorance fueled descent down the transphobic rabbit hole by expressing the sentiment of killing a trans woman if he found out he was dating one, repeated the trans deception lie, and then topped it all off by dissing Janet Mock for laughs as the Breakfast Club hosts egged him on.

We have so far in 2017 lost 15 trans women to anti-trans violence, and 13 of those women are Black. Even more infuriating to me is many of those Black trans women we lost were under age 40.

I am sick and tired of along with the Black trans community and the parents of Black trans women, of cis Black folks peddling transphobia for laughs, ratings or your monetary gain.

It isn't funny. And I'm sick and tired of the fragile cis Black masculinity reflected in their anti-trans commentary.

When we have the Republican Party at the state and federal levels openly pushing harmful anti-trans legislation like SB 3 that we're having to fight tooth and nail in my home state and the POTUS peddling anti- trans policies, your jokes are leading to Black trans women being assaulted and murdered.

So no Breakfast Club, not tolerating your so called transphobic jokes or any upcoming weak azz apology for them, especially in light of the fact you have a long history of anti-TBLGQ commentary.  #BoycottBreakfastClub

It's past time for Black media outfits, whether they are Internet gossip blogs, TV talk show hosts who used transphobia to build their brand (Wendy Williams) or syndicated FM radio shows like the Breakfast Club to please chill with the Black media transphobia  .

It is getting Black trans women assaulted and killed.