They Can't Handle The Truth

Was perusing my FB page Sunday and stumbled across a comment thread in which a young trans activist was down and upset about being disrespected by a gay male wallowing in privilege.

Recently a gay man who hated my outspokenness said "you're a fucking tra**y, not a real woman"

It hurt her to the point where she was contemplating withdrawing from Facebook.


To my activist sister, don't go.   If you need to step off the online battlefield for R&R do so.   Just keep your uniform pressed nice and neat and have your combat boots shined and ready to go when you're rested and ready to get back into battle.

I've been calling out the racism and other issues inside and outside the TBLG community since 1998.  You think that's made me popular in many online spaces or to certain segments of the BTLG community?

No, but at the same time I have something-something sitting on my bookshelf my detractors don't- an IFGE Trinity Award, mad love and respect from my activist peers around the planet and heightened status because I will go there and tell the truth.  . 


They also hate you because you have something they don't- The intestinal fortitude to tell it like it T-I-S is and you are eloquently doing so as a beautiful POC transwoman proud of who she is.

The haters are also upset because their privilege addled white chocolate candy bar chomping behinds can't handle the truth you speak to their perceived power.

One of my fave quotes is from poet Gwendolyn Brooks, who said that 'truth tellers are not always palatable. There's a preference for candy bars.'

Remember as much as people claim they love the Rev. Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.now, when he was assassinated in 1968 his approval ratings were hovering in George W. Bush territory. 

Dr. King understood, as Frederick Douglass did when he uttered these words on April 14, 1876 that 'truth is proper and beautiful at all times and in all places.'


You know how much it hurts to have other transwomen run from you like Flo Jo because they're 'scurred' they'll be outed by simply standing next to an outspoken and 'controversial' transperson as moi?

Or how pissed off I was when a quisling running a sellout trans organization called me an 'uppity nigger?' during the 2002 Southern Comfort Conference and spread the lie that I was a 'violent racist?' 



They tried to break my spirit, get me to unilaterally disarm and silence my own voice, and for a minute I'll admit I was damned close to saying 'frack y'all' and doing so.

But I realized that if I did so, I'd be depriving the Black trans community of visionary leadership at a point in time during the last decade when it was sorely needed.   I took a break from it for a little while, then got back into the game refreshed, renewed.and even more determined to make my big mouth and even bigger pen speak with even louder volume on behalf of my chocolate transpeople.
 
And what happened?   I ended up with a much larger constituency and other blessings in the process..  

The point is if you let the nattering nabobs of negativity silence your needed voice, they win.   They also continue dominating and spinning the conversation to benefit them and erase you.. 

Yes, it hurts to have people hate on you for simply having the courage to be a truth teller and they can't handle it.   But that's their problem, not yours.     

I'm Not An Auto Transmission

One of the things that the trans community is beyond sick of at the start of the second decade of the 21st century is being disrespected.   Even though we expect it from our enemies, we're tired of it.

We are tired of being disrespected by our so called friends and allies in the gay and lesbian community    We are tired of having cis people thinking they have carte blanche to speak for us, presume they know what is on our minds, what is transpiring in our lives, what we think is best for us politically, and what does and does not offend us.

We have told you for years now that 'tranny' is an offensive word to us, yet you gay and straight cis people persist in using it, trying to 'reclaim' it, write articles that ask what's wrong with it, and get paid making  disrespectful movies that trumpet the insulting word in the title.

Hear me and my community.   The T-word is not hip and cool.  It has now evolved to be a mean spirited word used to demean, dehumaniize and denigrate trans women. 

Just because a few obtuse people in our community haven't gotten that point does not give you a 'get out of jail free' card to keep spouting the T-word.


That sentiment goes double for those of you in gay and straight communities of color who are just as guilty of that nekulturny behavior as your vanilla flavored counterparts are.

We catch enough flack as non-white people in this society.   the last thing we need is the people who we share a common culture with doing transphobic piling on and trying to justify with with long debunked 'religious' reasons.

Yes, we go though a lot of crap.  We have endured GRS in some cases, sat through countless hours of traditional and laser electrolysis and have shed a lot of blood, sweat, cash and tears to be us.  In many cases we have developed think skins to deal with the slings and arrows we take from society.

But even we have our emotional breaking points.

I'm not an auto transmission.  I'm a African-descended human being of trans experience.  Respect that and treat me and all my transpeople the way you wish to be treated.