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.