Building Sustained Texas Black Trans Representation Is Needed and Necessary

In addition to some blogger y'all know making a little speech, engaging with our elected officials and their staffers under the Pink Dome yesterday, and talking to the various people in different organizations, one of the cool things about a lobby day is also having the opportunity to have those one on one conversations with attendees and the general public.

There are also those unexpected moments that happen that tug at your heart.

I have said and been cognizant of ever since I started taking these lobby day trips to Austin in 1999 that it wasn't about me, it was about the next generation of kids who were behind me and making it better for them.

It it happened that my work to pass laws and policies that expanded trans human rights benefitted me in the short term, that was all good as well

In this one snapshot taken in the rotunda of our Texas state capitol building, there are three generations of Black trans women here.  I made my first lobby day trip before all of them were born, but we're here together on this March 20, 2017 day repping our community.

Every time I look at that picture, it not only makes me cry happy tears, but also puts a smile on my face.   To them, I am a respected trans elder who not only is passing down their history to them, I'm also role modeling what it will be possibly like to be a fab Black trans women when they hit my age.

I get to see these amazing Black trans women in their teens, twenties and thirties, and it reminds me of why I have been fighting since 1998 for visible Black trans representation in our movement, in the media and other spaces.

Because it matters.

It matters to Texas Black trans kids like Zuri and their parents.  It matters to Mia and Jessica to see their fourth generation Texas trans elder confidently speaking to over 1000 people with cameras trained on her firing up a diverse crowd before they went to their various meeting with state legislators under the Pink Dome.

It matters that our Black community knows that #BlackTransPeopleExist, we are concerned Texans who are expressing ourselves to our legislators about the issues that matter to us, and we thought it was so important to do so we took a day out of our lives to make it happen

It matters for me to be hugged by Mia  and Jessica, and having a two hour intergenerational conversation on the bus ride back to Houston about the issues we deal with as Black trans women and our hopes, fears, insecurities and aspirations for the future,

It also was heartening to know that these young women also shared my concerns about the media images of Black trans women and were determined to role model being quality Black women who just happen to be transgender.

It mattered to be called Aunt Monica by Zuri.  While it brought on a momentary twinge of sadness with the thought crossing my mind that I don't have biological kids of my on and at this stage of my life, it's probably not gonna happen for me, the trans kids are basically my kids as well.

But Zuri's presence also reminded me that this Texas trans human rights fight is about ensuring that she has a Texas and a country she can grow up in that will allow her to become the amazing Black woman she is well on her way to becoming.

Would I love to see more Black trans representation when we have these lobby days in the 2019 session?   Absolutely.  

That's one of the goals we need to make happen, and it become even more important in light of the fact some of the members of the Texas House and Senate share our ethnic heritage and history as Black Texans.

There are some arguments I can make while lobbying in a Black legislator's office that frankly, a white trans person can't.  It's one of the many reasons why we need to start being hired and paid as lobbyists or to do work in equality orgs that profess to work for the entire community but are still overwhelmingly white in their employment and staffing rolls.

It's either do so or don't get mad and whine 'Why are you separating from us?" when we form our own organizations to do the work you refuse to do or hire us for.   That's why BTWI, BTMI and Black Trans Advocacy exist in the Lone Star State right now.

And our right wing opposition has no problem hiring Black sellouts to deploy and use against you

And speaking of that sustained Texas Black trans representation, much of the heavy lifting and elbow grease required to make it happen also is on us Black trans Texans.   If you want orgs that rep you, you have to support them not only with your sweat equity but with your dollars so they can do the work you say you want and need to have happen.  

Do I hope to see in my lifetime Black trans women standing in the Texas House or Senate as elected representatives, judges or accomplishing whatever their heart desires and their skills take them?.

Do I hope to one day see an end to cadres of Black ministers selling out our community and preaching anti-trans hate from their pulpits as white fundamentalists and conservative Republicans smile?

Do I hope to have my Black community say in one loud voice that Black Trans Lives matter and I see an end to the obscene levels of anti-trans violence aimed at us?

I sure do.

It's why building Texas Black trans representation is needed, necessary and needs to expeditiously happen.\

Moni's Had It Up To Here With White Cisgender Males Playing Trans Women In Hollywood

September will witness television history when the CBS legal drama Doubt debuts with Laverne Cox playing the first main cast transgender character for a scripted network TV series.    The web series Her Story featuring my homegirls Angelica Ross and Jen Richards received an Emmy nomination.

Another reality show series featuring a trans cast in the Whoopi Goldberg produced Strut will debut September 20, and we are waiting to see if I Am Jazz gets renewed for a third season.

Tangerine, a move featuring two trans actresses in Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez garnered attention for the Oscar campaign that was run for its two stars.

The indie movie Boy Meets Girl that's on Netflix right now, featured a trans feminine character named Ricky that surprise, surprise was played by trans actress Michelle Hendley, also got some well deserved buzz and attention

You would think that with all the interest in trans people's lives, that Hollywood would be planning to whet that appetite with movies that have transgender characters being played by trans actors.

But nope, hasn't worked out that way.  

And now after hearing Matt Bomer is going to be the latest white cisgender male to play a transwoman on the silver screen in an attempt to parlay that into an Academy Award nomination a la Jared Leto and Eddie Redmayne, it's time for Hollywood to have several sections of seats at the Rose Bowl about that transphobic practice.

As a matter of fact, here's a Change.org petition calling for the movie Anything to not even be released.

That's how fed up the trans feminine community is about this irritating pattern of seeing white cisgender actors repeatedly get to play trans characters on the silver screen to mine and our community's displeasure, and especially the displeasure of the trans actresses trying to make a living in Hollywood.

Jen Richards calls out the problems with why it's a big deal with cis men playing trans women and I agree with many of the points she made in her Twitter chain that is featured in the Mic post I linked to.

As for cis women playing trans characters, since I was asked about it at Chautauqua, I'll repeat what I said there.  Personally I don't like it simply because I want my trans sisters to have first cracks at those roles, and there is no equity yet in Hollywood in terms of trans actresses getting fair shots to play cis feminine characters.  

But if it's done by the cis actress in question with respect for our lives, I can deal with it.  If I'm forced to choose, I prefer a cis woman playing a trans woman instead of the reprehensible transphobic pattern going on right now.

One example of a cis woman who is respectfully playing a trans woman and nailing it is Karla Mosley, who plays model Maya Avant Forrester on the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful.

I've been impressed by how Mosley and the B& B writers have handled the nuances of Maya's character living as a trans woman, and the added bonus of that is it is the first time we have seen it play out in a Black family on network television

As for the tired trope of 'transwomen are men' trope that's a relic of disco-era second wave feminism, past time to give that crap a rest. especially in Hollywood.  Some of you Hollywood peeps need to show up at a trans pageant or a trans convention.  When you do so, you'll note that some of my trans feminine sisters will give Miss Universe a run for her money in the beauty department.

But even having a cis woman playing a trans woman has bumped into at times the entrenched Hollywood transphobia about trans women.

Several years ago Kerry Washington played a trans woman in the 2009 movie Life Is Hot In Cracktown, and she said in an interview in the runup to its release at the time she didn't get the part at first because the director thought she was 'too beautiful to play a transwoman'.

Even some of the cis women actresses playing trans women have had some interesting reactions and revelations about what we deal with while walking in our trans feminine pumps for their roles.

Chloe Sevigny admitted in an interview that when she played Mia in the British series Hit and Miss, because of the prosthetic penis she had to wear for the role, she not only cried every day when she had to put it on, she felt unattractive and questioned her desirability when she was in character.

Kerry Washington said this in an interview about her Marybeth character.

"The biggest thing I learned is that these are individuals who are born as women. They are women but their biology/anatomy has betrayed them in some way and that’s the fundamental thing to understand. I am not playing a man who wants to be a woman, I am playing a woman who has been born with a physical inconsistency so my body doesn’t reflect my emotional truth. That’s key to understanding who this person is."

Too bad the rest of Hollywood doesn't get the fundamental truth about trans women that Kerry Washington so easily grasped.

That being said, I still have a major problem with cisgender males playing trans women in Hollywood when there's a long list of trans women like Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette. Jamie Clayton, Mya Taylor and countless others ready, willing and able to do the job if given the opportunity to play these roles.

But the key reason I have a problem with it is because as Jen and other trans women across our community have stated, it reinforces the stereotype that 'transwomen are men', and that has negative life or death consequences for us.

The 'that's a man' stereotype repeatedly spat at trans women of all ethnic backgrounds is also negatively affecting the human rights of trans people and our allies around the country as HB2 and the repeal of HERO were Exhibits A and B of.

And with the Republican Party and conservative movement revving up bathroom fears of trans people in order to attack human rights laws and demonize trans people for their own political gain, we trans women of color are paying in blood for that and the desire of Hollywood cisgender men to get an Oscar.

So it's why I have had it up to here with lazy Hollywood directors and casting directors repeatedly putting cis men in drag to play trans women.