More Than Just 'Tragic Transsexuals'

"Black women in America are the luckiest on the face of the earth and it will be marvelous to be one."   Carole Small  JET Magazine    March 16,1967

While many of us are feeling Carole Small's comment, one of the things we haven't been lucky with is the whitewashing of our stories to the point that the memes that have plagued Black transwomen besides the 'unwoman' one that we share with our cissisters is the 'tragic transsexual' one

We rarely get any positive media coverage for the things we accomplish or do as African descended transpeople,  but let a Black transperson commit a crime or through no fault of her own be part of a sensationalized news story and it's splashed all over the news.

A positive Black transwoman character in the fiction world?   Unless we create them as author Pamela Hayes has done, they are about as scarce as Cleveland Cavalier wins this NBA season. .

And I haven't even begun to talk about the numbers of my transsisters who are killed and whose names get called every November during the Transgender Day of Remembrance every November.    But before they get to that point of being memorialized during a TDOR, they get disrespected by being misgendered in media news stories.

Yes, we're sick and tired of being sick and tired of  the 'tragic transsexual' role we're getting saddled with.

One of the major reasons I compiled that first annual TransGriot African American Trans History Quiz was not only being sick of erasure, whether it's inadvertent or deliberate, but to make you folks inside and outside of the TBLG community aware that my chocolate end of the trans rainbow has done much to not only build the trans community, it is doing its part to write trans and African American history as well.

We are more than just 'tragic transsexuals'.   We are people who are accomplished musicians, award winning leaders in our communities, bloggers, athletes, DJ's, models, clergy, college professors and teachers, attorneys, business owners, aunts, uncles, parents, and loving spouses.  

We can, do and will if given the opportunity to do so achieve anything we set our minds to accomplish.   Our destiny as African descended trans people is to do more than just transition or die in the attempt.   We deserve and demand something better
   
It won't be long before I ecstatically see trans African Americans running for and successfully winning public office.   Looking forward to seeing the first open African American trans model strutting down a catwalk near you, openly participating in her favorite sport, or making her stylishly dressed way in the business world.   

We are more than just 'tragic transsexuals', and it's past time that all the communities we intersect with realize that.   We want to contribute to our country and our communities.

All we need is the chance to do it.

Congratulations Kylar!

Congratulations to one of the people I look up to in this community, Kylar Broadus.

He recently received at the just concluded Creating Change Conference in Minneapolis the Susan J Hyde Activism Award for Longevity in the Movement at their closing plenary session.

Way to go Kylar!    He has been working hard to make things happen positively for our community for years, and it's nice to see good people get recognized for what they do for us.

Um Gabriel, Your Daughter's Black

35 year old French Canadian model Gabriel Aubry and Oscar winning actress Halle Berry split up almost a year ago and the most visible result of their relationship was their gorgeous 3 year old daughter Nahla.

A nasty custody battle is brewing over their daughter, and I'm chuckling over a report in TMZ that Aubry gets pissed when people refer to his daughter as Black.

Um dude, hate to tell you eh,  but yes, she is.

Thanks to the residue of the 'one drop' racial classification rule from slavery and the way society is still dealing with the toxic waste residue 150 years after the end of America's original sin, anytime a white person either fathers a mixed race child or gives birth to one, that child will be considered Black by society.

Hell Gabriel, all you had to do to see that one coming was talk to Nahla's grandmother and mother.

Halle is biracial, just like her daughter, but she let you know a long time ago how she and society sees her.

'Blackness is a state of mind and I identify with the Black community.   Mainly because I realized early on that when I walk into a room people see a Black woman, they don't see a white woman.   So out of that reason alone I identify with the Black community."

And that statement is true whether you are Alicia Keys, Victoria Rowell, Michael Michele, Blu Cantrell, Brooklyn Sudano, Carmen Egojo, Chelsi Smith, Thandie Newton, Dorothy Dandridge, Cree Summer, Jasmine Guy, Eartha Kitt, Gina Belafonte, Faith Evans, Gloria Reuben, Jennifer Beals, Leona Lewis, Lisa Bonet, Mya Harrison , Mariah Carey, Lori 'Lolo' Jones, Maya Rudolph,  Lonette McKee, Nicole Ari Parker, Sade, Salli Richardson, Shirley Bassey, Denise Matthews, Tia and Tamera Mowry,  Tamia Washington-Hill......

Shall I continue?

Gabriel is alleged in a TMZ report about have gone off the deep end about people and reports calling Nahla black.

Sources connected with the former couple tell TMZ ... whenever Gabriel would read a story about Nahla that referred to her as "black," he would go off, insisting his baby was white. We're told Gabriel would tell Halle and others they should demand a "retraction" when such references were made regarding his daughter.

As TMZ previously reported, sources tell us Gabriel has called Halle the "N" word -- and one woman previously involved with him referred to him as a "borderline racist."

If the TMZ story is accurate and it's true Gabriel's tripping about that and being a racist jerk at the same time, he needs to buy a vowel and get a clue.

That long list of biracial women in the previous paragraph that I posted includes several Grammy winning singers, award winning actresses, a Miss Universe, an Olympic athlete, models, and an author who are also seen as Black women..

We are not even close to being a post-racial society as much as people would wish it to be so.    The election of our biracial president who white Americans long ago let know they didn't consider him anything but Black and have treated him that way since November 4, 2008. 

But those same white Americans had a cow when he checked off African-American only on his census form.

So Gabriel, get used to something we call the 'one drop rule' and get used to your daughter for the rest of her life being considered a Black woman.