Saturday, September 28, 2013

We New Black Transwomen Define Us, Not You

The New Black Transwoman is an outspoken advocate for the dignity of herself and all transwomen, and refuses to submit quietly to anti-trans oppression and injustice.  

She is grounded in her spirituality, constantly evolving on her feminine journey and strives to be a compliment to Black womanhood and not regarded a joke or detriment to it.  

She fearlessly tackles the shame, guilt and fear issues we face and expresses pride in being a Black transwoman.   --TransGriot. Birth of the New Black Transwoman   July 20, 2012


It seems as though some peeps have a problem with New Black Transwomen standing up for ourselves, owning our power and calling out people who disrespect, denigrate and dehumanize us. 

And sadly, some of those people are in our own Black LGB and Black community ranks    

If you fall into that category and have a problem with African descended transwomen standing up for themselves and their humanity (and you know who you are) that's too damned bad. 

We are no longer going to allow disinformation and misgendering of Black transwomen to go unchallenged.by friend, foe or frenemy inside or outside this community.  W
e are tired of the media misgendering our people in life and death and getting a 'tude when we call them on their bull feces.  We are tired of misguided Black politicians hypocritically voting against human rights laws and ordinances that will go a long way toward helping to solve many of the problems that ail our community because you fail to grasp the concept that Black trans issues are Black community issues.  

We are
more than fed up with the misguided gay and straight Black cisgender people who arrogantly assert they know more about our trans lives than we do.  We're sick of their loud and wrong commentary about Black trans women when they have never walked in our pumps and won't STFU and listen when we try to tell them our stories.  

Enough is enough.   If you truly wish to be a standup trans ally to our community and intelligently talk about chococentric trans issues, 'ejumacate' yourself first. 

Google and Bing are your easily accessible tools to help you
gain that Trans 101 and beyond knowledge you'll need to facilitate these much needed Black family conversations.  

There's also an increasingly long list of African American trans women of all ages who are eminently qualified and willing to discuss our lives at a Trans 201 and beyond level and the challenging issues we face.

And that's before we even get started talking about the issues that our trans sisters in the rest of the African Diaspora face in the Caribbean, the Americas, and Continental Africa.

We New Black Transwomen define us, not anyone else.   We are the experts at living our trans feminine lives and navigating our 21st century world in them.  If you're spouting falsehoods and lies about our trans feminine community, we have every right to confront and call it out because we are tired of your lies and disinformation getting our trans younglings killed.

The ongoing
online and offline internal trans definition conversations are happening in our own ranks as we speak.  They are happening on our Afrocentric print and video blogs, in our online groups, at conferences, at community meetings and amongst each other.  

We New Black Transwomen are part of the diverse mosaic of human life and interwoven in the kente cloth fabric of African-American life.  We desire sisterhood not only with each other but with our Black cisgender sisters. 

We New Black Transwomen
simply want to live our lives in peace and relatively drama free tranquility.   We not only want to see our trans younglings get to experience their 30th, 40th, 50th and 60th birthdays, we want to work toward our ultimate goal of being a valued part of the greater society.
 
The sooner you realize that, the sooner we New Black Transwomen can use our talents, education, and skills to benefit not only our own community, but uplift ourselves and our people as well.  


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