Hey! I'm Rocky. I'm a transmasc dyke. This is my trans theory blog. Have fun!
I use they/them or he/him. Asks should be on. This is not my main; if you need that URL please message me.
Icon by maxineharlow from here.
TAGS LIST
I try to tag things based on where they're coming from and what group they're about. I may use multiple tags if there's multiple perspectives on a post.
I use "transmasc" as a term to encompass the experiences of transmasculine people, trans men, female-to-male or FTM, and anyone else who identifies under this umbrella. Similarly, I use "transfemme" as a term for transfeminine people, trans women, male-to-female or MTF, or anyone else who identifies under this umbrella.
I use "transmisogyny" to refer to violence against transfemme people. There isn't a specific accepted term for transmasc people, so I use "transandrophobia" and "transmisandry" together for posts including this type of bigotry.
I tend to discuss my thoughts in the tags of a post, and will occasionally add comments.
ART
queer art // lesbian art // transgender art // transmasc art // transfemme art // etc
queer thought // lesbian thought // butch thought // femme thought // transgender thought / trans thought // transmasc thought // transfemme thought // etc
HISTORY/FIGURES (reference tags)
queer history // lgbt history // trans history // lesbian history // etc
This is the documentary I'm watching, currently. It says it's free with ads on YouTube. If you have Netflix, it's there too, and if you get it any other way, well that's not my business. But I do think it should be mandatory watching 👀
I think it's a deep privilege to be able to hear a Black literary great speak on her creative writing process, her beliefs, and life experiences. I think we place so much space between ourselves and those who created before us, especially during Civil Rights, as if they are myths. The black and white pictures making it seem so much further away than it was. But she was real and human, and you have an opportunity to hear what she has to say.
Any recommendations for transfeminist writing by trans women?
I mean, do you want basic primer material or something deeper? Because Emi Koyama is the starting point.
Genuinely, don't let anyone tell you it's Juila Serano and Whipping Girl. It's Koyama and The Transfeminist Manifesto — which you can read [ here ] and access the rest of Koyama's writing on her website [ here ]. I find the postscript to The Transfeminist Manifesto to be incredibly important in my own understanding of what intersectional transfeminism can and should look like.
I personally think Hot Allostatic Load is written from a similar place that Koyama mentions as a blind spot / flaw of her initial articulation of The Transfeminist Manifesto in the manifesto's postscript, however it's still a decent introductory read and can be found [ here ]. Content warnings for mentions of emotional and sexual abuse, neglect, suicidality, social manipulation and harassment, among other similar potentially triggering topics (I apologize but I don't have the capacity to reread the whole piece to write a proper warning at the present — however it is written from a deeply traumatized perspective and should be approached with care if you are in a sensitive place).
Kate Bornstein is someone to just look into as a transfeminist figure, especially if you want a nonbinary transfeminine perspective. I recommend almost any interview you can find with her on YouTube. Her collections Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation are also both two of my favorite books when it comes to """earlier""" (90's pre-Koyama and 2010's) trans / transfeminist essays. I also recommend My New Gender Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving World Peace Through Gender Anarcy and Sex Positivity.
I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out. by Jennifer Coates is also essential reading in my opinion and can be found [ here ].
I have my qualms with Julia Serano, but she still makes the reading list as well. You can find her Medium [ here ].
I haven't gotten my hands on a copy of the book yet but A Short History of Trans Misogyny by Jules Gill-Peterson is on my TBR. I can't entirely speak to its contents because I haven't read it yet, but I've seen both enough praise and criticism of it to feel comfortable recommending it regardless, particularly as a follow up to a book like Whipping Girl by Serano.
You can also take your own time to dig through my reading list tag. In addition, because I encourage everyone to not just take my word or recommendations and do their own research, the website The Transfeminine Review has an extensive reading list of both fiction and nonfiction written by trans women and transfems that can be found [ here ]. I also recommend hitting up Trans Reads [ here ] and The Anarchist Library [ here ] for more research on your own as well.
Samantha Hancox-Li is also killing it over on Liberal Currents right now, I highly recommend both The New Gender Synthesis and The Crisis Of Gender Relations
To be only masculine or only feminine is to be half a human being.
We need to put the final nail in the coffin of the Patriarchal Bargain and find new ideals we can live by.
From the comments "In my experience clothing on anyone looks best when it is done with confidence. We are all different shapes and sizes. I was really struck by your post on dressing well that included John Goodman in a faded t-shirt and jeans. He rocks it!"
Excellent advice, whatever gender or style one is looking for. Thank you
I'm a trans guy and Derek, I can tell you my wardrobe has improved a huge amount simply by reading your threads. The "dress for your body type" stuff never worked well for me; your threads about putting together an intentional look and for getting a good fit - that's 99% of the game.
I get this question a lot. I don't have strong views on how transmasc people should dress, but since I often get the question, I've thought
I wish kinky sex ed wasn't so stigmatized even among left-leaning "sex positive" circles. Everyone's all "uwu I'm a sub I'll do anything you ask" okay mommy wants you to read The New Bottoming Book so you learn how to sub without hurting yourself since your sex ed up to this point is porn and your ex boyfriend Jared who liked to choke you incorrectly
I’m so glad you asked! Let me list off what I’ve got for you:
Books I personally recommend:
- The New Topping Book and The New Bottoming Book, by Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy
If you’re having kinky sex at all, you need to read at least one of these two books. Point blank. They’ll teach you the very basics of negotiating properly (which is critical!), and help you identify what you are and aren’t into.
- Mindfucking Mindfully, by Sir Ezra
Where this book really shines isn’t actually in helping you “mindfuck” people, it’s in taking a close look at how to do so ethically. It’s a great answer to the question “how do I get someone to consent to something and still surprise and shock them with it?”
- Real Service by Raven Kaldera and Joshua Tenpenny
This is a slightly niche pick but there simply isn’t a better book on the subject. It’s written from a 24/7 M/s perspective, which is not what I do, but the book itself is an indispensable guide to giving and receiving service. The phrase “if the Master doesn’t want it, it isn’t service” will be burned into my psyche for quite some time. I love this book a lot. Maybe my favorite out of all of these.
- Enough To Make You Blush: Exploring Erotic Humiliation, by Princess Kali
This one’s high on my reading list; I’ve heard it recommended by a number of people whose opinions on these things I trust.
- Pretty Much Anything Midori Has Ever Done
Midori is a great resource for this stuff - I haven’t personally read much of her work, but she’s a well known sex educator and great at what she does. She’s known for bondage, but has a lot of range beyond that.
- This Negotiations Worksheet from Bex Talks Sex
This is what I default to using a lot of the time for negotiations. Forget BDSMtest, you don’t need that, it’s no good. Just look through this worksheet’s wordbank with your partner. Big fan especially of the “how do you want to feel?” section.
Books I can kind of recommend:
- The Ultimate Guide to Kink, edited by Tristan Taormino
This book is weird. There’s a lot of good info for experienced players, but some of what’s written here skeeves me out. I think if I had a top that thought the way some of the tops in here think, they would not be topping me for long. But there’s some good techniques and so on to pick up that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I liked the distinction one of the authors makes between being sadistic in the sense of inflicting pain and being sadistic in the sense of doing something your sub doesn’t “enjoy.”
- The Ritual of Dominance and Submission, by David English
Man, this book fucking sucks. The writing and editing are garbage, and the fear and protocol play described need way more careful negotiation than he ever lets on, let alone recommends. This is some 50 Shades bullshit. The only time I recommend this book is to tops like me who tend to be very affirming to their partners and need a guide on how to really scare them - when their partner consents and when you negotiate it, which this book sucks at teaching you. Really good content on fear, punishment, and protocol play, really terrible presentation of the topic though. Don’t read this if you don’t already know what you’re doing.
- Paradigms of Power, by Raven Kaldera
I love this book. Great book. Very focused on 24/7 M/s play though, and, being an anthology, some chapters are better than others. If you can’t read something and pick out what is and isn’t for you, don’t bother. But some really great inspiration, and generally pretty well written. Big fan of the discussion of leather throughout the book.
Hope some of these are helpful for people ^-^ for the average person reading this I recommend New Bottoming/Topping, but they’re all important parts of my library and I’ve recommended all of them to friends at some point or another.
May I also suggest Hell on Wheels and Kneeling in Spirit by Raven Kaldera, d/s companion books that address kink with a disability. They're a should read for everyone, imo. You never know when you or a partner are going to have changes in your body that affect what you can physically do. Temporary illness/injury and even just age can affect your sex life.
I'd like to suggest Better Bondage for Every Body! It goes really in depth on anatomy, pain processing, self-tying, and has chapters specifically focusing on how to do rope bondage on/for someone who is disabled or has chronic pain, which was really important to me.
So you said queer history didn't start with Stonewall, which is not even surprising at all. However, that's all I've ever been told, so I don't know anything about the time before Stonewall. Do you have a tag, a masterpost, or some articles or something for me to read so I can learn about queer history before Stonewall? And I'm sorry if this comes off as rude or anything; I just genuinely want to learn the untold history of the community I'm a part of. Thanks 😊
First, thank you for coming to us, you didn’t come off as rude at all.
Well, we don’t have a tag or masterpost, but I can create a list of articles we have up at this point (May 14, 2018) that focuses on queer subjects from before Stonewall.
Sappho, the Poetess
Kristina, King of Sweden
Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum, and Occam’s Razor
Josephine Baker, a Woman with Eclectic Talents
Queer Women and AFAB People During the Holocaust
Magnus Hirschfeld, the Founder
Institute of Sexology, a Place of Learning
San Domino, Gay Island
The Bitten Peach and the Cut Sleeve
The End of the World War 2 Series
Vita Sackville-West: Creating a Legacy
Langston Hughes: the Poet
The Marriage of Jane and Paul Bowles
Bjornstjerne Bjornson, the Advocate
Osh-Tisch, the Warrior
The Trials of Oscar Wilde
Sir Ewan Forbes, the Doctor
Frida Kahlo: Lover of Self and Others
Albert D.J. Cashier
The Golden Orchid
Queen Christina, Queer Codes and Queer Coding (Part 2)
Queen Christina, Queer Codes and Queer Coding(Part 1)Different from the Others, the Beginning
The Story of the Ladies of Llangollen
Wilfred Owen: Dating Your Heroes (And Writing Through Hard Times)
Virginia Woolf: Struggling (And Never Being Perfect)
Tamara de Lempicka’s Legacy
Tamara de Lempicka’s Life
Federico Garcia Lorca: Words that Scared a Country
Bricktop, and the Happy Ending
Bricktop, the Fabulous
Frank Kameny
Sophia Parnok, Russia’s Sappho
Annemarie Schwarzenbach
Alan L. Hart, Part 2
Alan L. Hart, Part 1
Defining Identities in North America, Part 2
Defining Identities in North America, Part 1
Alan Turing
Hatshepsut
Hamish Henderson
Elagabalus, the Empress
Billy Tipton and the Question of Gender
Takatāpui
Yukio Mishima
Kitty Genovese
Catherine Bernard: A question in studying asexual history
As usual, there’s historical and social context that I need explain! This lesson is not what sexuality is, or ‘how to write being gay while Black’. That’s… not that different from you. What this lesson is, is context on how Blackness plays a role in our presentation and understanding of gender and sexuality (as well as your perception of it), and how that’s something you should consider in your characterization, writing, and character design.
I DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING! The reason this took so long was because I read multiple books and wallowed in my remaining lack of understanding. I cannot join The Tumblr Discourse so do not ask. I tried to be as inclusive as I could, but I learn something new on this app every day, so if I miss something- and I’m bound to- I apologize in advance. Please have grace with me.
TW: Sexual assault mention, homophobia, misogynoir, cannibalism, misgendering
“That’s that White People Shit"
I’m putting the hardest part first; walk with me, you’ll be fine!
I will be honest: this section here, while I do think you should know, I don’t really expect nonblack people to incorporate it in depth. Not because it cannot be done, but because it is a sensitive topic that we ourselves are still struggling with. If you have struggled with anything else while writing Black characters up to this point, this one certainly isn’t for you to touch. Just keep in mind!
There’s an idea I’ve heard before on both sides that Black people are more likely to be homophobic, that queerness itself is white. That is a ridiculous belief, but the root of it ends up right back where you think it would: slavery! I’m sure that you saw me post while I was reading The Delectable Negro by gay Black author Vincent Woodard. I shared those increasingly uncomfortable quotes on purpose! If you have a desire to understand Black culture and Black thought, that means being willing to acknowledge Black pain. How can you avoid stereotypes if you avoid learning their source?
While I will be using quotes from the entire book, the specific chapter of “Eating Nat Turner” is a succinct explanation of why admitting to the presence of homosexuality, gender fluidity, and queer identity within the Black community is so difficult for my people. While I highly, HIGHLY recommend reading this chapter yourself, it essentially comes down to how admitting to such a potential vulnerability in the armor of Blackness, in gender identity and particularly Black masculinity, would allow white supremacy to destroy us as a people, to do validate doing even more cruel things to us when in a position of power over us. It’s a defensive reaction based in trauma that disregards and discards the queer members of our own community as a threat, a liability when it comes to fighting against the ubiquitous presence of white supremacy.
“Intuitively, Black gay men understood the issue of homosexuality during slavery as a complex phenomenon shaped by a number of factors, including the nation’s unresolved relationship to the legacy of slavery, Black liberatory ideology dating back to slavery, and, most importantly, the maintenance of traditional notions of family and community that originated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The legacy and memory of slavery had a powerful effect that left many Black gay men feeling isolated from and rendered invisible within Black communities.
Joseph Beam said it first and best: “I cannot go home as who I am. . . . When I speak of home, I mean not only the familial constellation from which I grew, but the entire Black community: the Black press, the Black church, Black academicians, the Black literati, and the Black left… I am most often rendered invisible, perceived as a threat to the family, or am tolerated if I am silent and inconspicuous.” … As Philip Brian Harper has noted, the Black homosexual functioned in the twentieth century as an index for Black masculine anxieties. These ranged from the very personal and painful anxieties of lynching, castration, and the denial of civil rights to a larger set of anxieties rooted in historical erasure and cultural genocide.”
“Sex and gender they also conflated with homosexuality, made out to equal effeminacy. Many Blacks linked homosexuality to castration and the recent history of Black men who had been lynched and Black women who had been raped in the Jim Crow South and in the North. Homosexuality, in its metaphoric power, had an exhaustive function: It is equated with the absence of family, hatred of Black people, estrangement from one’s kin and culture, and all of those horrific aspects of Black experience about which Black people would rather not speak.”
An example of why nonblack people should consider the depth of such a topic- and their place to do so- before incorporating it into their story comes in the form of Styron’s Confessions of Nat Turner, and the backlash he faced from the Black community for such a sensationalized story from a white author.
“The ten Black male contributors [who wrote Ten Black Writers Respond] coupled cannibalism (overtly and covertly) with homoeroticism and effeminacy. For these Black men, homoeroticism became a way of circumventing and projecting their experiences and pain onto certain “effeminate” Black men: the consumed Black man these Black men equated with the homosexual man. Homosexuality served as a means of containing certain unwieldy and historically difficult topics pertaining to Black masculinity, such as the need for intimacy, gender variance, sexual and emotional vulnerability, and violation. It was as if, in this very powerful and discursive moment, threads that had been all along winding through history wove together in a manner that illuminated the past as much as they clouded and blocked full access to its complicated meaning.”
“On the surface, at least, I do not disagree with these Black men and women. I think their analysis regarding historicity and the diminishment of Black communal ties was mostly correct. Styron’s novel was historically inaccurate, depicting Turner as raised by whites rather than the Black parents and grandmother Turner spoke about in his original “Confessions.” Styron depicts aspects of Turner’s sexual life that are not validated in any documentation coming from the time period, and Styron’s exhaustive probing into the racial hatred and self-hatred of Turner clearly reflected something in his own psyche and white identity that he felt compelled to project onto Turner. Black men were put on the defensive by both the novel and by the institutions (literary production, the media) and individuals who supported Styron as an authentic interpreter of Black historical experience. Many Black men, like Bennett, felt that Styron was waging a literary war that paralleled the contemporary political and police state war against Black men…”
The problem with this mindset and approach within the community is that, while it attempts to protect our community, it silences both the prosperity and the pain of an entire section of it, as well as shutting down important conversation that needs to be had even by nonqueer members. And it’s doing it all to fight against a force- white supremacy- that is going to commit violence against us regardless! Respectability politics forces many Black people to stay silent, to not speak up on things that may rock the boat- but the boat needs to be rocked! Blaming fellow victims of racism is not going to save us!
“That was the irony of this moment. Black people invoked the cannibal discourse that could have freed up and complicated Black male perspectives on everything from social consumption to homoeroticism only to defend Black masculinity and Black culture. Black men were not interested in, nor capable of dealing with, the complex legacy of cannibalism and homoeroticism that so powerfully shaped their responses to Styron’s novel.”
But that does NOT mean that it’s a nonblack person’s place to make that argument! While I cannot stop you, I do want you to keep in mind that- as always with sensitive topics- you may have to face Black people who may rightfully be offended by your depiction if not done with care. Styron studied James Baldwin himself- who faced backlash on his end for saying that it was time for the Black community to face such a conversation- and even then, he still projected his white pathology and opinions onto the story of such a prolific hero in our history. Tread lightly!
“Well they don’t seem gay to me.”- A Eurocentric Standard of Passing
How many times have you heard this about a Black character? And if you’re Black and LGBTQ, how often have you heard it about people (or maybe even yourself?) How do we ‘not seem gay’? What is gay supposed to be? There’s this denial, almost, of Black LGBTQ folks, based in a complete disconnect of understanding of our own forms of gender expression and sexuality.
It’s extremely bizarre, because so much of pop gay culture as we know it is from Black LGBTQs (please refer to my infamous AAVE lesson), but… when we imagine an LGBTQ person, they're white.
If you’re Black and queer, you have to be this stereotypical, flamboyant RuPaul-esque figure. Can’t be regular degular. If you’re gay, you gotta be Uber Gay™. If you’re trans, you better pass with Complete Gender and Pizzazz. If you’re nonbinary, you’re not ‘androgynous’ enough. If you’re intersex or asexual, you’re practically not real. If you don’t fill this (white, western) mold, you must not be right. When all you have to be in order to be gay… Is be gay.
I shouldn’t have to put on extra performance to qualify as queer in your eyes! Do you know what looks are considered “androgynous” in my community? What behaviors are deemed “masculine” versus “feminine”? Do you know anything about my queer culture, or are you subconsciously comparing it to your own?
I want you to recognize that whatever image of queerness you have in your mind for your favorite or original characters, if Black people of all shapes and sizes aren’t included, there’s a problem! Because what are you seeing in others, that you’re not seeing in us? Is that, perhaps, a you problem? And why are we not worth the added effort of queer layering that others are?
THAT SAID!
“Oh I know what that’s like, I’m gay-”
This one mostly- if not always- comes from white queer folk. I’ve linked The Last Interview with James Baldwin. It’s so short. PLEASE take the time to read it. I’ve always adored how James Baldwin expresses himself, and while I could never stand so close, I have studied how he conveys his thoughts. But there’s almost nothing I could say that he doesn’t say better.
“A Black gay person who is a sexual conundrum to society is already, long before the question of sexuality comes into it, menaced and marked because he’s Black or she’s Black. The sexual question comes after the question of color; it’s simply one more aspect of the danger in which all Black people live. I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, into a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The anomaly of their sexuality puts them in danger, unexpectedly. Their reaction seems to me in direct proportion to the sense of feeling cheated of the advantages which accrue to white people in a white society.”
The idea that “I know what it’s like to experience this oppression as a Black person because I’m gay” is not true. It’s like saying “oh look at my tan, I’m as Black as you now”. Stop it. Think back to that first section on history we discussed- no, you and I are not the same. We can discuss our existing connections, our intersection and have sympathy and empathy with one another on human dignity. We don’t have to act like we’re the same to do that! So don’t go headstrong into your writing (or life) saying “oh I get that completely, it’s because I’m queer”. There are more tactful ways to express your intent of solidarity.
'Queer' vs 'The N Word'
We’re gonna nip this one in the bud, because we’re leaving that argument in 2024. You know the one- “saying queer is like using the N-word- as a reclamation/slur!” What this argument reveals, used by EITHER SIDE, is how y’all don’t actually have community with Black people.
It implies that either “we don’t like it” or “we do”. Yet another binary that does not exist! There are plenty of Black people that despise that word, regardless of context. That think it brings us down. And then there are those that use it as a reclamation of an identity that was used to demean and dehumanize. Either way, one party is not going to walk up to a stranger and force it on them- that would cause an actual fight! It’s not improving your argument. As a whole, I would say stop using Black politics in general to improve your arguments when you are unaware of the overlap, or maybe the lack thereof, between Blackness and queerness in your argument. It shows. I’m not your tool; I’m not your Negro!
I’m not here to tell anyone whether queer is a slur or not. I don’t use it as one, but I recognize when people are uncomfortable, when it is being used as one, and I will use different language when I am speaking directly to someone who says “I do not like that word, describe me as __”. I am just here to say that we’re leaving that argument behind.
Black =/= Gender
Blackness and the concept of Gender have a fraught, confusing history. Not human enough to have rights, but human just enough to fail to meet Eurocentric standards of gender.
One example of this is the term “stud”. Studs are an example of Black women traversing gender presentation, the origin of which is because Black people are perceived as having “lesser sexual dimorphism”- i.e. you can’t tell who’s a woman or not. It’s an in-community joke that doesn’t make sense spoken outside of its historical context (thus, no, your white butch is NOT a stud within this context).
Another example: Megan Thee Stallion is one of the most stunning, feminine women I have ever seen… And her entire career, people have called her a man. Because she’s brown-skinned, Black, confident, loud, and openly sexual, she’s deemed manly. I can’t stand it. Plus her height- and mind you, Taylor Swift, of the same height and probably a higher number of bodies over the years, has never once been called a man or lost any of her “feminine” charm despite it. Why is that? If one of her men had shot in the foot, trying to kill her, there would be an uproar. Why is that?
There is an internal contradiction that being a Black woman is being inherently “gender nonconforming”. The first reason is that I will never be allowed to truly be a “woman” because to be a woman is to be white while doing it. White Tears, Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad is an excellent book on this dynamic in all women of color, and Black activists like Angela Davis and Kimberle Crenshaw have written and discussed the topic as well.
The second reason is I have to play the role of whatever ‘gender’ is expected to get me through this life. I have to be more ‘masculine’; strong, assertive, and proactive, a hard worker willing to sacrifice it all every day, in order to protect my family and myself in a world where a lack of resilience might kill me. I cannot allow weakness to stop me from taking care of my community, because Black women are supposed to show up and save the day. Find a Black woman! they say. She’ll fix it! And odds are, I do know how to fix it because I’ve probably had to address it before.
But then I’m acting ‘out of a woman’s place’ by being so ‘hard’ and expecting people to listen to my authority. So in order to play a Black woman’s place, I have to balance that with… Somehow not intimidating people by being more ‘feminine’, submissive, vulnerable, sweet and motherly (because if I’m not a good breeder and mother, I am a bad woman). I scare people if I don’t. If I don’t do that, then I’m not a good Black woman. But if I don’t harden myself and be strong and assertive to protect everyone, and tough through everyone’s problems with infinite sacrifice, then I’m not a good Black woman… You see how the cycle gets confusing! (The Delectable Negro and Black on Both Sides also speak on this, and how this is rooted in the creation of the Mammy!)
I spoke about it earlier, but that same inability to be defined as a human, defined as white, haunts many Black men in their goals to be seen as ‘equal’ to white men and receive equal treatment. By seeking to fit a standard of whiteness, they are never going to attain it (and often, that comes back home in not-so-good way)! E.g.: this is the original issue that Louis had in AMCs' IWTV- Louis never actually wanted to be a vampire, Louis wanted to be treated like an equivalent human- and that was unattainable to him not because he wasn’t a human being, but because he wasn’t a white one!
The Racist Counterproductivity of TERFs
Sigh. If you are of this belief, but here to better your writing, I feel like I should say this to you. I want you to listen to me. (TBH, I’m going to delete anything asking me for opinions on this because I don’t want to potentially entertain even a singular troll). Besides, my argument is pretty simple and resolute.
The gender binary is rooted in bioessentialism, and bioessentialism is rooted in white supremacy. You know what else benefits from white supremacy? The white patriarchy.
How are we gonna escape from the patriarchy and white supremacy… if the ideology you believe in… is rooted in white supremacy and patriarchy?
And it’s not just the TERFs- look within yourselves as well! How are we going to make the world safer for trans people, including white ones, if you aren’t willing to confront your own racist biases? If you are unwilling to release the shackles of gender essentialism and the benefits of whiteness, none of us are getting out of here. You are reinforcing the very walls you wish to dismantle!
To offer another side of the conversation, Black On Both Sides by C Riley Snorton has been an interesting read! Essentially, the conversation is on how Blackness and transness intersect, how being Black in and of itself can be and is a transitional, gender fluid experience. It, along with The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould and Medical Apartheid by Harriet A Washington, goes into the history of how the Black body was seen as a different species altogether, and how phrenology, biological essentialism, and examples of sexual dimorphism were treated as an example on how we are an inferior group. Yet, this lack of understanding of our bodies (despite the constant access to it) allowed for us to maneuver within such a system.
An example, of how Blackness has an effect on our perception of gender:
"Cobb suggests that this blackening may have been an anticipatory gesture; when James Norcom (Jacobs’s enslaver) published a description of her in the 1835 issue of the American Beacon, he presumed that she would be “seeking whiteness and dressing as a free woman, not accentuating her Blackness” and finding a “cross-dressing” and ungendered mode for escape. Although the description of sartorial arrangements seems to conform to passing’s logic of movement for protection or privilege, Jacobs’s use of charcoal to darken her complexion tropes—by inverse logic—on more commonly held beliefs (and fears) about racial passing.
As “passing” became a term to describe performing something one is not, it trafficked a way of thinking about identity not only in terms of real versus artificial but also, and perhaps always, as proximal and performative. Like a vertical line with arrows on either end, passing is figuratively represented by moving up or down hierarchized identificatory formations. This articulation of vertical identity also coordinates with forms of binary thinking, typified, for example, by the language of “the opposite” sex. …Brent/Jacobs’s blackened blackness gives expression to her condition as fungible within the logic of U.S. slavery, in which the system of colorism, as Nicole Fleetwood has argued, “produces a performing subject whose function is to enact difference . . . an act that is fundamentally about assigning value.”
As it relates to the scene of Jacobs’s brushing past Sands, her status as “it” also indicates how blackness-as-fungible engenders forms of nonrecognition, as Jacobs’s performance elucidates how blackness and going blacker become an embrace of the conditions that might allow one to pass one’s friends and lovers undetected. In this encounter, fungibility sets the stage for gendered maneuvers on a terrain constituted by modes of viewing blackness, in which Jacobs’s blackness and going blacker color her gender as well as her face."
The Black Trans/Nonbinary/Genderqueer Experience
Rather than try to summarize opinions on something I had not lived, I wanted to platform some Black trans, intersex, and genderqueer opinions for you all to consider! I asked three questions, and I’ve typed out the responses and placed them as their own post for the sake of space. I don’t care if it’s long- read them! You want to write these characters; you should hear the perspectives of the people you wish to write about!
Black Trans, Intersex, and/or Genderqueer Perspectives To Consider!
As a precursor to the next lesson I have coming up soon, I asked on this
The Black Intersex Experience
Nothing I could say that someone that is actually Black and intersex couldn’t say better!
Here is a page on Tumblr that compiles resources on the intersex community and its history that I found; while it’s not Black-specific, I have seen the page post topics related to.
The Black Aspec Experience
An interesting thing about identifying as asexual or aromantic while Black is that from all angles, people will simply not believe you because Blackness itself has been sexualized. I talked about this in my lessons on stereotypes, but one of the ways that the sexual assault and violation of Black bodies was dismissed, was to emphasize that not only were we incapable of being r*ped, but that we were naturally inclined to being hypersexual beings and that if we weren’t controlled, we would bring it onto ourselves. Black women were jezebels; Black men were mandigos, vicious savages that would assault pure white women if not chained like beasts.
Here is a page for Black people (!!!) with these identities to gather. Again, BLACK PEOPLE with these identities. Here's another!
The Bit You Actually Showed Up For
So! Given all that historical and social context: really, it’s just about application! You have to ask yourself certain things to catch when you’re about to dip into a bias or stereotype while you’re writing.
Before writing that Black queer &/or trans character, ask yourself:
Another set of resources that I've typed up for my upcoming lesson. I'm
Black Queer Joy- A Conclusion
I know I’ve shared a lot of history here, and it’s not been the happiest stuff. THAT BEING SAID!
I must personally say- I am honored to be Black and bisexual. There’s nothing else I’d rather be. I am so happy to be who I am. It’s hard as hell living at the intersection, but the intersection is lit! There’s so much love, history, culture, creation, and so much power here; I’m standing on the shoulders of cultural GIANTS and my chest is full, my chin is high with pride. I love it here!
Being Black and queer itself is not a miserable experience! Your characters should feel joy, because we feel joy! There’s so much that we have to offer the world, it’s practically blossoming from us. I don’t want anyone to walk away from this going “let me go pity the next one I see and tell them how hard their life is”. We don’t need you to feel sorry, we need you to have solidarity! Either show up and do the work, or leave us alone. You can’t join the party at the intersection and then flee when it’s time to fight for it!
Listen to Black queer people in your spaces- dear god, it never fails how conversations of queerness and gender and feminism will leave Blackness completely out, and then be shocked when none of us want to show up. Like I said before- you will never dismantle the walls barring you from your own freedom until you address ours.
Support Black queer creatives, content, perspectives, and people- when you tag on that “support Black trans women” bit at the end of your posts, don’t just speak lightly- understand what that means, and stand on it! Because it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!
a digital collage, poetry & prose zine about queer flags
will be printing this new zine (quarter-page size, it's a pocket guide) for an upcoming local zinefest, but you can get it as a PDF now for free or pay-what-you-want! original poetry, prose & digital collage on the subject of (fictional) queer flags. a gentle critique & an earnest tribute at the same time.
Trans women are assigned gender out of convenience for those who wish to control or abuse us.
One moment, we're a woman who can be spoken over, overlooked, and ignored. The next, (often when we have the gall to stand up for ourselves) we're men who are violent angry and abusive.
We have so little control of our own identities, we're a third sex to twist and transform to your convenience. No wonder we're so often scapegoated.
100% agreed, but I also want to bring up a similar concern specific to Black transfemmes: the intersection of gendered *racialization* and transmisogyny (as a subset of transmisogynoir)
By gendered racialization I mean the way that society views and treats us based on their categorization of us as Black Men and Black Women. While with what OP is describing it tends to be an either/or situation, for Black transfemmes, being openly/visibly Black and transfemme makes us subject to both concurrently. We do not get to leave being a “Black Man” behind even temporarily in the eyes of others, especially given society’s view of all Black women as being “masculine” no matter how “femininely” we present or behave.
For us, gendered racialization compounds each other, leaving us to be treated as both Strong and Aggressive Black Women and Virile and Violent Black Men at all times. We are often “positively” reduced to the ways we can support those around us or our sexual prowess/characteristics (real or rumored), while the second a nonblack person has something to gain from our suffering there’s no issue painting all of our actions as intimidating, aggressive, or forward. Of claiming a fear of violence, of harm, of impropriety that will be believed by many nonblacks no matter how we truly act or what we do.
Recently, another Black transfemme I know was accused of being a “homeless attempted coercive rapist” for commenting that she was going to take a nap in her car (before going back to her apartment) because she didn’t feel sober enough to drive responsibly. Later on, a white trans woman who was leaving at the same time used this to try to claim that she was trying to force her to let her come home with, and sleep with her because “she was homeless and sleeping in her car” despite the Black transfemme having an apartment at the time and the white trans woman knowing this.
The white woman’s reasoning? Another white trans woman had a crush on the Black trans woman, and the first white wanted to fuck the second, so she was willing to try and use these facets of gendered racialization to try to eliminate the Black trans woman from the “competition” on a whim.
This isn’t a rare occurrence, and for many Black transfemmes not in majority-Black spaces, this happening is a “when” not an “if” and a constant consideration we have to account for. If there’s not another Black transfemme around (such in small queer communities or isolated friend groups) we may be taken completely unawares by something that’s just.. sickeningly common.
Which is why I feel it’s important to highlight this on the back of OP’s post - because even nonblack transfemmes have no issue using this against us if it benefits them. Even the staunchest transfeminists aren’t immune to the allure of using transmisogynoir to their own benefit. But you have to know to be a hypocrite, and now y’all can’t say you ain’t know.
white t girl i love you. and also do not forget that you are not the modern martyr for the oppressed voice. that's still black girls. it's always been black girls. stories of black martyrdom simply don't make it into the news cycle until the unrest caused by its reporting can be packaged as a "riot" segment between traffic reports. i know you suffer, but whatever you're experiencing, i beg you, when interacting with your community and building nuanced understandings of each other and the system which binds us, to not forget that a black tgirl has felt it 100 times worse before positioning yourself as an authority on all systems of oppression for having suffered unjustly at all. because you have suffered unjustly, but suffering unjustly as a white person means something so much different.
serenely reblogging this once more after deleting responses from white people saying "talking about this is actually unhelpful because im oppressed too" yeah i know. i wrote that down in the post i made, and i also wrote down why remembering the difference is important. did you read it?
there is no malice in my reminder. no "you need to do better", just a reminder. do not read it as such. i didn't write it as such.
again. i did not say you were not oppressed. this post is literally about how you are oppressed. it is a reminder that you are not the most oppressed person in the world, a way i've seen a lot of white transfems acting lately. maybe not even necessarily in a detrimental way, but in a way that definitely leans towards the "white is default" lane of thinking, which erases black suffering, which erases progress towards black safety. this, to me, is troubling, which is why i made this post. it's important when building solidarity within our community to understand who the most vulnerable of us are, because the safety of the most vulnerable of us will ultimately be the safety of all of us.
please do not be offended when you are reminded that your skin is white. im not calling you evil. im asking you to remain aware of yourself.
Thing is that I’m not the only Black trans woman writing theory on transfeminism, Black transfeminism, or trans intersectionality - I’m just lightskinned and won’t shut up so I’m one of the most visible ones, and crackers STILL get mad at me for saying the most basic-ass concepts like “white people are still white even if they’re otherwise marginalized”
In many cases, intracommunity racial intersectionality fails because given the choice between solidarity with nonwhite trans people and white people (trans or cis), white trans people will almost always side with other whites in the hopes of preserving a degraded position within white supremacy, because they internally see being “lesser” within whites supremacy but still above nonwhites as preferable to solidarity with nonwhites that loses them that positionality.
I wanna toss this link on here because it’s directly related to the whole “lack of intracommunity solidarity when race is involved” thing and has a specific example from my local community.
💬 0 🔁 132 ❤️ 218 · 100% agreed, but I also want to bring up a similar concern specific to Black transfemmes: the intersection of gendered
- Gender Warriors: An Interview with Amber Hollibaugh by Leah Lilith Albrecht-Samarasinha in Femme ed. Laura Harris and Elizabeth Crocker (Routledge, New York, 1997) p210-222
