We Need To Handle Our Chocolate Trans Business

I'm not only angry and disgusted about what has transpired in Maryland over the last two months concerning HB 235, so are many of my fellow African descended transpeople..

I'm disgusted over the duplicitous and shady way that this bill was handled by predominately white dominated 'equality' groups.   They were aided and abetted by white sellout transpeople thinking only about their comfort, status and bank accounts.

Once again, they not only froze African American transpeeps out of the process of developing this law in a state with a 30 percent African American population, they used the deaths and stories of African American transpeople and appropriated our proud civil rights history to attempt to pass this unjust law.

And when we call their asses out on their all too familiar pattern of behavior, the white trans apologists have the nerve to attack us for pointing out how jacked up this situation is. .

You know, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired of seeing this crap happen again, and I am close to recommending that since the white trans community and their Gay, Inc overseers repeatedly won't do the right thing and pass comprehensive civil rights laws that help the entire community,  maybe it's time for us in light of what has happened in Maryland, for the African-American trans community to totally separate ourselves from the white dominated trans community and handle our own political business.

Why stay in a community in which we're not wanted or respected?   I'm chuckling about the recently released survey that highlights the lack of trans people in GLB orgs.  I'm willing to bet that what transpeople they do have working in them don't have melanin in their skin.

Bottom line is that we're beyond tired of the invisibility and it's time for the chocolate trans community to do what our Black sisters did in the late 80's and early 90's when they separated themselves from a similar jacked up situation in the feminist ranks.

As to what that independent Black trans community will look like?.   That's part of the Black trans revolution that will not be televised or talked about on this blog, Twitter or Facebook    But white trans community, know that you've had ample time and multiple warnings to clean up your behavior and the clock's ticking..

How long are we going to allow ourselves to keep getting disrespected?   How long are we going to see our transpeople bear the brunt of the discrimination and trans murder casualties as you continue to sell us out to gain the white privilege you lost when you transitioned and continue to pine away for?

It's nation time Black trans people.   Time to build that FUBU community.    If we have some righteous white trans brothers and sisters wishing to help, we'll gladly take you,, but know going in it will be a situation  in which we are going to call the march.

It is also going to happen after we finish closing ranks and have that in house conversation about how we want that Black trans community to look, collectively act, and the policies we will pursue to advance all transpeople's civil rights.

It's past time for the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of our civil rights warriors to show you how a civil rights movement is run properly.

We've been doing it bassackwards for the last 50 plus years and it ain't working out for us.   Time to try something different.

The Trans Community Ain't Monolithic, Either

One of the things that I hear repeatedly in some quarters of the trans community are posts decrying the sometimes acrimonious conversations we get into online, in our trans only spaces  and elsewhere.   Some peeps deploy the 'horizontal hostility' buzzword  and claim that getting transpeople together is like herding cats.

As Jennifer Lawson once stated, "dissension is healthy, even when it gets loud."   But contrary to the naysayers and the flapping gums of some separatist detractors,  there is a trans community.

However, it is not a monolithic community and never has been.   The divergent opinions we have on various subjects of interest to us proves that.    


Much of the impetus behind the contentious bickering that you see spilling over onto the Net is because we are passionate about wanting to do something to solve the problems that ail us.   We are willing to work together and dialogue with each other to come up with a reasoned and coherent strategy to make what we come up with become the political and legislative agenda of this community.

If there wasn't a trans community that didn't care about solving these decades old problems, do you think we'd even spend the time trying to work with the diverse elements of the trans community to do so?

Unlike our predominately monoracial opponents united in faith based conservahatred of us, we have the complications of dealing with race, class, the various isms we brought into our societal subset from our parent society, and internalized shame and guilt issues.

And that's before we even begin dealing with the trans themed gender specific issues and the trans socio-political ones.. 

It is unrealistic to think that we are supposed to be thinking the same thoughts and marching in lockstep 'kumbaya' unity.   But what we can do in these messy but necessary intracommunity conversations is hammer out consensus in terms of an overall trans community strategy for getting civil rights progress in this decade and beyond.

That strategy should have transparent, clearly identifiable benchmarks for measuring that political progress, and evaluate the fitness of people who are leading or wish to lead this community as to how they are (or are not) executing the plan we come up with

We are a proud, diverse trans community.   That is our strength and our best hope for progress against the Forces of Intolerance.    The sooner we realize that the better.

But we aren't monolithic, and nor should we be.