#black transness

[this-is-internoirism]

People saying that I'll pass better as a man because I'm dark skinned with hyperandrogenism... meanwhile I'm still read as an intersex Black woman even after 8 years on T and I'm treated horribly for it!!!

This is internoirism. Also, fuck those people. You deserve respect and to not be held to racist standards.

[boid0ll]

The world­view I am com­ing from in claim­ing Black transness-as-med­i­cine is that of an Afro-Di­as­poric Yoruba-Lu­cumí ever-evolv­ing and con­tentious tra­di­tion that un­der­stands that our orí, the seat of our con­scious­ness, is com­posed of orí odé and orí inú. Orí odé is the phys­i­cal or ex­ter­nal “head,” a type of guardian, while the orí inú is the in­ter­nal “head” where the com­po­nents of our per­son­hood and per­son­al­ity are man­i­fest. The Spir­its and then the Or­isha that claim our heads that can come down through the bod­ies of priests pay no mind to the gen­der of the body they are in­hab­it­ing. There does not even need to be any sem­blance of “co­her­ence” in or­der for pos­ses­sion to oc­cur or in or­der for heads to be claimed (for ex­am­ple, there’s noth­ing that stops a cis­man from be­ing claimed by Os­hún or Yemoja, for in­stance). Even fur­ther, some Or­isha have roads where they can ex­ist as more than one gen­der and some even akin to what we might now call in­ter­sex, non-bi­nary, or trans gen­der forms (Olokun, for ex­am­ple)!

As a spir­i­tu­al­ist and medium who has had ex­pe­ri­ences with spir­its as long as I have been alive, it is from deep know­ing and life­long prac­tice that this Black trans body, when sit­ting next to Olo­du­mare to choose el­e­ments of my des­tiny for this life­time, chose to be trans. I came as I de­cided and in this de­ci­sion, my tran­sit has sim­ply been a man­i­fes­ta­tion of part of my cho­sen des­tiny. Ad­di­tion­ally, I un­der­stand the move­ment and flu­id­ity of my gen­der ex­pres­sion to be a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of the mul­ti­ple Spir­its and an­ces­tors, across gen­ders, that ac­com­pany my walk in this life­time. One that I chose and one that has been spir­i­tu­ally sanc­tioned. As such, the phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of my transness was and is my way of hon­or­ing all of those who walk with me – a man­i­fes­ta­tion of a com­plex­ity al­ready within and sur­round­ing me. Though this is cer­tainly not re­quired by those of us who prac­tice tra­di­tions where pos­ses­sion is cen­tral, my transness comes from this place. The in­hab­i­ta­tion of the body by Spir­its and Or­isha of dif­fer­ing gen­ders hap­pens to cis peo­ple every day. The pos­si­bil­i­ties for Black trans peo­ple to also get to ex­pe­ri­ence this in­hab­i­ta­tion, “but from the po­si­tion of a trans body, heart, and mind, is sim­ply a mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of gen­der ex­pres­sion ex­is­tent in the realm of Spirit. When we be­gin to un­der­stand this, we can start to al­low our tra­di­tions to breathe, the peo­ple within them to set­tle into the de­col­o­niz­ing force of this re­al­ity […]

Hon­or­ing What We Know to Be True: Black Transness-As-Med­i­cine, Daniel B. Cole­man. Excerpt From The Black Trans Prayer Book.