An important conversation happening right now on and off of social media, led by Black trans women, is the very real difference of privileges and experiences within the trans community.
It reminds me of the way the term “Women of Color,” which then expanded to “People of Color,” at first allowed for coalition building and solidarity, but then eventually led to the erasure of the unique experiences of oppression of different people within that umbrella, particularly of Black and Indigenous folks.
Parallel conversations happen within disabled communities, AANHPI (even this jumble of letters) communities, and essentially all communities that move through history and awareness.
While “trans” is often used as an umbrella term, and this was an intentional application of the word to encompass the fact that trans is truly infinite, it has, as with many terms that have been reclaimed for liberatory identification, been also used to take power away from those it exactly was meant to uplift.
Under the trans umbrella, we have transgender, agender, nonbinary, non-conforming, multigender, genderqueer, genderfluid, and a multitude (truly infinite) of other ways of existing outside of cisness.
No one is less trans for being one or another of these identities, however, there absolutely are different trans experiences.
Those that have gone through gender-affirming surgery have a different experience than those who have not. Those who take gender-affirming hormones have different experiences than those that do not. A Black stud has a different experience than a white masculine-presenting individual. These are the facts of our extraordinarily diverse human experience.
In addition to how people want to exist in their bodies and identify, there are other external factors such as access, societal pressure, and cost.
But the fact is, there are reasons why the number is so high in murders of Black trans women who have had gender-affirming surgery. One of those reasons is transmisogynoir. Anti-Blackness and transphobia impact a Black trans woman who is taking gender-affirming hormones in a distinctly different way than, say, a white nonbinary person who is not taking hormones. Again, neither is less trans, but the trans experience is very different.
We have to name these differences to honor our differences.
Layered on trans people having different trans experiences, on accurate historical cue, cis people are nudging their way under the trans umbrella, too. In doing so, they are endangering trans people everywhere by taking up space that was created originally for non-cis.
The current administration banishing the conversation of the distinction between sex and gender also becomes an issue because it enables cis people to weaponize this conflation in language.
What I hope is that our trans community will understand the nuance and very real lived experiences of different trans people. This is why we exist, after all, to honor our multitudes of existence.
And what I need is for people who are cis to stop endangering trans people.
Comments are closed.