Passing: Profiling the Lives of Young Trans Men of Color (2015).
[ID: Excerpts from interviews with two trans men. The first, Lucah Rosenberg Lee, has a shaved head and a trimmed beard. The second, Victor Thomas, has curly black hair and a trimmed beard, and is heavier-set.
Lucah, talking about gender dysphoria prior to transitioning, says, “I was in a heterosexual relationship. I was female. I would question this all the time. Am I attracted to these men, or do I just want to be them? That was a big turning point in my own self-discovery.”
Victor, talking about the transphobia he’s endured as a trans man of color, says, “You’re subjected to something because they don’t understand you. And you have to watch the way you react, because you’re a man now. People take you as a threat.”
Lucah, in another scene, discusses feeling erased as a trans man, and racism in trans communities. He says, “Being so invisible within the LGBT community can actually feel so isolating. When people don’t know my history as a trans person, I feel sometimes that I’m viewed as more of an enemy.” END ID.]
Trans men of color deserve to be loved and appreciated, and made safe. Trans men deserve access to our own spaces, no matter how masculine and cis-passing we are. We deserve credit and recognition for the contributions that we have made to trans history, most of which are erased nowadays.
Being a man is not dangerous or wrong. Being masculine is not dangerous or wrong. Being a black man is not dangerous or wrong.
Please support trans men of color.
Please support trans men.
Men belong in trans spaces. Men of color belong in LGBT+ spaces. Straight trans men belong at Pride. Men do not have to be feminine to be queer.
