How many times have you heard some testosterone based lifeform part his lips to say it's easy being a woman?
Really?
If some of you were magically swapped into a feminine body, I doubt some of you parting your lips to utter that comment would last 24 hours if you had to confront the challenges women put up with.
And no, I'm not just talking about the obvious physiological ones.
Just for starters, let's begin with confronting all the isms that we have to deal with while navigating life as an estrogen based lifeform. There's dealing with being a moving target for sexual assault and violence. Women being considered less intelligent than the male species.
Don't even get me started talking about the additional drama women of color and transwomen have to put up with. In addition to all the challenges of growing up female in a male dominated society, we also have to deal with racism, internal group dynamics and expectations for us and a beauty standard that isn't designed with women of color in mind.
As for us transwomen, it doesn't get any more difficult than trying to become the women we are while starting with the problem of being in a mismatched body. Let's not forget having our evolution to womanhood denigrated, disrespected and resisted by family, society, and misguided people who are willing to use whatever means necessary up to and including violence to keep it from happening. Magnify that drama tenfold as a transwoman of color.
So no, it's not easy being an estrogen based lifeform. For those of us who are, we wouldn't have it any other way.
My African descended trans sisters have to deal with not only the brunt of the anti-trans discrimination and violence directed at us as we painfully get reminded of every November, but with erasure from inside and outside our community.
And like our African descended cis sisters, we have to deal with the 'unwoman' meme disproportionately deployed against all women of color.
So on this centennial International Women's Day know that I'm thinking about you. I wrote this open letter back in July 2010 to my young African descended transsisters, and it's even more apropos on this day to repost it.
I'm a Phenomenal Transwoman evolving to be the quality Black woman I strive to be. I'm aware that many of you consider me a role model, and it's a role that I embrace with pride.
As you continue to embark upon your various feminine journeys, keep these words from a 1988 Diana Ross ESSENCE magazine interview close to your hearts.
'I never considered it a disadvantage to be a Black woman. I never
wanted to be anything else. We have brains. We are beautiful. We can do
anything we set our minds to.'
So stand tall, embrace being you and your evolving Black womanhood. You are beautiful, intelligent, talented women who have had to fight tooth and nail just to get to this point in your lives. We may not have been born with female bodies at birth, but we tried to get here as fast as we could.
Love and embrace that beautiful woman you see staring back at you in the mirror. Know that for every hater that surfaces spouting ignorance, we have more cissisters who are supportive of us and cognizant of the fact that we are their sisters, and are willing to help us become those finer specimens of Black womanhood we strive to be.
Happy International Women's day, my African descended trans sisters.
When I began my transition in 1994, one of the things I was well aware of was the famous quote by French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir on womanhood.
Women are made, not born'
A few days ago I had an interesting discussion on my Facebook page about this very subject which ironically started in response to this comment.
Some ignorant elements of the Black community really need to chill with the transphobia and 'that's a man' shade aimed at Black women.
It was in response to the post I wrote slamming the transphobes at Bossip about the 50 gallon drums of Hateraid Fierce they were drinking over Wendy Williams.
One of the things I realized pretty quickly was that French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wasn't kidding when she said 'A woman is made, not born.'
When some people transition, I believe they fail to realize just how much of femininity is internal. Anybody with the money, time and a good plastic surgeon can buy a slamming female body. But if you still carry around those masculine attitudes and behaviors, you'll get 'sirred' in a minute no matter how much money you spent on your feminization surgery or the neocoochie between your legs.
One thing many cis people fail to realize is that I and many transwomen take their transitions seriously. We wish to be compliments to womanhood, not detriments to it as our detractors try to slander us with.
And let's face it, it you want to be good at something, you observe and talk to the people who live those roles in everyday life.
Cis women are born into their bodies, get to develop in them from birth, get the chance to get comfortable in your skin, get to ponder what type of woman you wish to project to the world, make mistakes along the way while being encouraged and molded by their families and society into their feminine gender roles.
Trans women for the most part are fought every step of the way by society and our families in addition to getting shame and guilt piled on us for daring to morph into the bodies that match our gender programming and the types of women we wish to project to the world.
And that's the situation before we even get to grapple with the sexism, being a moving sexual target, and all the other societal baggage positive and negative of walking around on this planet in a female body.
It's enjoyable when I get to have those kinds of thoughtful interactions with cis women about femininity and what it means to them.
'A sister is a friend who loves you unconditionally and will always tell you the truth even if it hurts' Deborah Cox
The second many of us transwomen begin transition, we begin the search for a sister.
Not the biological ones which many of us have, and in some cases, fit the role described by Deborah Cox, but another kindred spirit who is just as important in shaping your growth and development as a woman in our society.
Due to the societal slings and arrows Black women face, it's critically important for transwomen of African descent to have a sister (or two or three) in her corner as well.
That sister can be either cis or trans, the same age, younger or older, just as wise or wise beyond her years. But the most important qualification is that she has your back.
I've been fortunate at different stages of my life to have such women in it and in my post transition life. They have helped me sort out issues, helped me get my act together in terms of my personal style and presentation, helped me get over 'unpretty' days, been that sympathetic ear as I vented my frustration about various issues or another, taken me to task when I have been giving less than one hundred percent in pursuing my goals and aspirations I have for myself and helped me tap into that inner diva.
Looking back at the early days of my transition to the Phenomenal Transwoman I am now, I can see how necessary it was to have a sister in my life and why I felt so out of sync until my first sister came along.
Until I had those sisters in my life and assembled that sister circle of spiritually tuned women around me, it was a bumpy ride in going from zero to femininity.
Some of those women I still call my friends. Others have faded out of my life and returned, while others have done so after teaching me the lessons I needed to learn at that particular juncture.
And sadly, some I've had in my life for a moment, and they have moved on.
But having those sisters in my life, past, present and future, is vital to Monica being and continuing to evolve into the best woman she can be.
As I've stated before, I consider myself to be on an evolutionary path to become a quality black woman.
I have my days in which that road is surprisingly smooth and drama free, while others are full of potholes I either run into unexpectedly or see in enough time to avoid them.
One of the things that is vitally important as you embark upon this journey besides the spiritual roadmap, love of and confidence in yourself and a little divatude is having quality people around you in your sistah circle.
They not only have to be people who have various positive qualities you admire and wish to emulate, they must be people you know beyond a shadow of a doubt have your back. You need to have people in your life who will call you on your BS, give you a hug and positive reinforcement when you're down, praise you when you deserve it and give you a swift motivational kick in the rear when it becomes necessary.
If that cluster of people surrounding you in love happens to be older, younger, multiethnic, multicultural, cis, LGB or trans, blood relatives or relatives you chose, so much the better.
While it's important as a trans person that you have the sistah circle as part of the journey to quality Black womanhood, the cadre of quality people surrounding you also needs some testosterone based lifeforms in it. There are times when you will need to hear the male point of view as well.
I am blessed to have such a group of people surrounding me, and constantly challenging me to be a better person today than I was the day before. I can count on them to be chewing on my behind to ensure I'm a better person next week, next month, six months from now and next year.
And as a person striving to be a quality Black woman, I want to be farther down the evolutionary path than I am at the moment I am composing this post today.
While doing the research and searching through YouTube video for the Brittney Griner post, especially the one in which she's being interviewed, I noted that far too many comments from the haters ensued which questioned her femininity and made snide references to the movie Juwanna Mann in doing so.
In light of that I have to ask the question, who died and made y'all the femininity police? Are you little boys feeling jealous because some of you are Brittney's height or shorter and don't have her hoops skills?
You haters need to take some remedial science classes. The bottom line is that you get half your genetic material from mommy and half your genetic material from daddy. In addition to that, all human life at conception is female. You don't come out as boys on the other end of that nine month developmental journey inside mommy's womb until certain things happen during the eight to twelfth weeks of pregnancy that put the fetus firmly on the male development path.
That means, for the scientifically illiterate, if the hormone wash doesn't happen, you haters would have feminine names, be wearing heels and hose and wouldn't have the Almighty Phallus to grab at regular intervals.
It also means that you get a blend of physical characteristics from mommy and daddy and some interesting combinations as well. I know women who have deeper voices than Brittney does, and have you ever heard Toni Braxton sing certain notes? I also know men with feminine facial features and body builds, and women with big hands, long arms and big feet.
But this speaks to some of the larger issues I've talked about. The fact that Black women's images have been under attack for several centuries and we are considered less than beautiful and feminine. Too many times Black men, who are supposed to be our swords and shields in standing up for us and calling out the haters have aided and abetted in that image destruction. If you are a woman above 5'7" tall and have what are considered 'masculine' features, you're automatically assumed to be a transwoman or insultingly called one as Ciara and a depressingly long list of Black women have been.
Even the so called 'proof' of bearing children doesn't end that negativity hurled at them. Just ask our 5'11" First Lady, who was disrespectfully called 'Stokely Carmichael in a dress' by Faux News conservaidiot Juan Williams.
There was even a scene in one of my fave movies Love & Basketball that illustrates this. Sanaa Lathan's character Monica Wright is a high school superstar baller in this movie who could really care less about the feminine pursuits like her mother and sister until other women start chasing her love interest, her longtime next door neighbor and basketball prodigy Quincy McCall.
At her high school spring dance during her senior year she reluctantly gets glammed up for the event after losing the city championship game earlier in the day. She's enjoying herself, and while taking a dance break she's comfortably leaning forward in her chair with her legs spread instead of sitting ruler straight on the back of the chair with her knees together while wearing her dress. Two boys walk by and you hear them say loud enough for her to hear it "I'm a man" as they chuckle to themselves. Monica then instantly snaps into 'feminine' seating position.
It ain't just 'the menz' who are guilty of femininity policing. Women can be just as bad or even worse in some cases. Be a girl who is interested in sports or who isn't in their judgment 'feminine enough' for their tastes and watch the catty remarks come flying off their tongues.
The point is that it's arrogantly ignorant of men to think that they can and have the power to make that judgment call on who is and isn't feminine based on your exposure to the Jet Beauty of the Week, rap videos or Playboy and King magazine photo spreads and it needs to stop.
