Pride is almost here so I think it is good to remember pride isn't here thanks to world wide companies who "dress in rainbow" just for a month. Pride is here because trans women, butch lesbians, gay men, queer people of color and every other memeber of the LGBTQ+ community fought in the past and still fighting today. There are still a lot of things to fight for. So keep fighting until we are sure each one of us is safe and happy. Have a great pride month.
Also trans men. Because posts like this always mention trans women but not trans men. It is possible to support transfeminine people without perpetuating the myth that trans men have never been involved in our own history. Thanks.
Jamison Green, born in 1948. He was a pioneer for trans men after Lou Sullivan's death. He's still alive.
Carter Brown, a victim of workplace transphobia, and the founder of Black Transmen Inc.
Robert Eads, 1945-1999. Pictured with his trans female partner, Lola. I recommend watching Southern Comfort, which follows him throughout his final year of life. His story is a beautiful one, but also a tragic example of medical transphobia.
Loren Cameron, born in 1959. A photographer and artist, who curated exceptional and groundbreaking collections of trans photography.
Willmer Broadnax, 1916-1992. A black gospel singer who never medically transitioned, but lived his entire life as a male, in public.
Lucas Silveira, born in 1979. He is the first openly transgender man to have signed with a major record label. He is still alive.
Billy Tipton, 1914-1989. He did not undergo a medical transition, but raised multiple children, and had a successful musical career.
Jim McHarris, a black trans man born in 1954, who you can read more about here.
Reed Erickson, 1917-1992. You can read about his insanely important contribution to LGBT+ progress here.
Stop erasing trans male stories by leaving us out of Pride Month posts.
Trans men are not a footnote in history.
Trans men are not an afterthought.
We have always been around.
Erasure of trans men, and transmasculine people more generally, perpetuates the myth that queerness is inherently feminine. Butch lesbians, male impersonators, and trans men have always been central to LGBT+ progress and pride. I'm tired of people defaulting to anti-FTM mindsets, or at the very least, erasing trans men as their first instinct. I'm sick of the invisibility that we suffer. I'm sick of masculine lesbians, like Stormé DeLarverie, being treated as irrelevant. I feel so much solidarity with butches and lesbians who have been cut out of history, because the same thing is happening to trans men.
This Pride Month, when you see a post claiming trans women are the only ones who ever contributed to progress, remember to critically think. Remember all the work that trans men have done. Remember the masculine people, and men, who died so that we could live. Who stood alongside drag queens and trans women.
