Nov 7, 2022
5 Reminders for Black Trans People as we Commit More and More to Ourselves
“The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.” — James Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work
Black trans people spend a bulk of our energy over explaining for no good reason. Therefore, there is no need for a traditional introduction to this piece. Simply, these are a few reminders for us Black trans folks as we journey through a world that wants to disappear us, and erase our very existence.
Let’s hop right on in.
- You are divine.
And I’m not talking about our connection to religion. I’m talking about our ability to hold the world fully, to create the world as we experience it, to heal our wounds and the wounds of others, our capacity to tell the truth and our commitment to live in the face of death.
We create. We build. We shape. We form. We inspire. We femmetor. We mother.
We remind everyone that their most important relationship is with self and confronting that relationship is the most necessary spiritual journey any of us will take. We force others to locate their best selves. We demand others to face reality and challenge *delusion. We create conundrums and complexities meant to shake the way we all live.
We are not the world’s saviors, but we’re the only ones who can unearth liberation in the dark.
Remember this. Hold this. Internalize all of this.
Especially in times that outsiders want to tell us about ourselves. The moments they want to ridicule us with lies and their projections and their much lesser thoughts and offer their plentiful advice. Remember they don’t even know themselves; remember they are the ones who are not brave enough to deconstruct the delusions white supremacy requires. Even the best of them remain cowards.
2. Invest in your unlearning (Implicate yourself in the mess)
We are all anti-Black which includes being anti-trans. Not to the degree of most people, but we too are products of this system like everyone else; therefore, we were taught and held accountable to an anti-Black politic by simply being born into this deranged world. This means that we must continue our own self work, and interrogate the -isms and the phobias that reside within us.
Paraphrasing Baldwin, he talks about how we can blame everything on white supremacy. Everything, and righteously so; and we still have a responsibility to be a good and helpful person. We are our own moral compass, not informed by white supremacy and white supremacists. We have unlearning to do which is why I say stop squandering your energy laboring for folks who are only interested in the *performance of it all. You must invest in your own unlearning.
We are imperfect too and understanding this is essential to our living; this allows us to give ourselves grace in a world that believes we deserve none and consistently acts on that belief.
A lot of times, the cisgender imagination wants to paint trans people in a box of perfection in order to discount our fight for our humanity. We can’t make mistakes without it contributing to their fantasy that we should not exist.
Don’t get stuck here. It is a trap. It is a strategic means to snatch our energy in moments and conversations that don’t matter. These moments will never get us to liberation or anything divine.
We’ve got to work on the ways we prioritize cisness; the ways we center the gender binary; the ways we perform for whiteness and the Black cishet clan; the ways we allow *desirability to take lead of our journeys; the ways we feed the cravings of our unhealed trauma; and the ways we continue to allow our sisters and siblings who are further on the margins to hold it down alone.
3. The craving of *white success is natural in this white supremacist system. And allowing this craving to lead us will shepherd us to our death. We must figure out what it is that we are truly craving
White success is attached to financial gains, accruing *faux power, being seen, being heard, being touched, membership to *faux community and being affirmed and celebrated for the performance of our lesser selves. To have our membership denied or revoked is to be alienated, immediately pushed aside and silenced and killed.
As Black trans people, we struggle with seeking out white success too as we hope this pursuit will lessen our trauma and somehow fill in the gaps of care we’ve always craved.
At times, white success is attached to an unwarranted sense of security as it gives us the illusion that we’re not in the severely marginalized category as there are people who are valued less than us in this treacherous system. The illusion includes us living in slightly better neighborhoods, sending our children to better funded schools, obtaining degrees and certifications which leads to promotion, recognition and opportunity. It is an illusion that can be stripped away at a moment’s notice. And it is an illusion that intends to kill Black people in our slumber.
Other aliases for white success are Black excellence, Black Girls Rock, Black capitalism/wealth, Black celebrity and Black achievement. The aforementioned proclamations are not concerned with Black liberation; they are concerned with how well a Black (cisgender heterosexual) person can navigate and withstand white supremacy. The believers of these proclamations either hold that it’s possible for the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house (which is ludicrous) or they have very little concern for the most vulnerable Black people dying on the margins.
Let this be our reminder that white supremacy is one helluva drug. It wraps our death into our system-informed ambitions.
It’s no easy feat to decolonize your dreams, your passions, your joy and all things that bring you pleasure and raise your serotonin levels. And, yet, we must strive to make our contributions to this world the most honest and earnest.
We must find affirmation from within. We must affirm each other. We must prop ourselves up. We must trust ourselves in the most radical ways as our entire human experience is actively being gaslit. Instead of internalizing their projections, we must be in the routine of mirroring those delusions back to the delusional.
4. When you hold yourself in the center, the world will make you crazy
The strategy in making us crazy is an effective one.
They do not have to hear us; they do not have to respond to any of our needs; they do not have to know us or recognize us as humans; they do not have to celebrate us or affirm us; they do not have to shift their living; they can lie to and about us; they can ignore us and alienate us and situate us as the problem; they will bond in their fear of us which is another way to say that they will unknowingly bond in the fear of themselves.
There is no accountability for the social, emotional, mental and financial death of Black trans people, and they all know this quite well. Accountability is of performance in itself.
They will make you feel like you constantly overreact; they will normalize lies and punish you for telling the truth; they will talk about you horribly behind your back to gather the support and affirmations of lesser people; they will alienate you when you prioritize your dignity, your safety and your pleasure and your joy; they will stop sending opportunities your way; instead of paying you for your labor, they will be threatened by your audacity to place your humanity at the center; they will steal your beautiful ideas and theories and make them smaller to fit into the white supremacist imagination and then promptly turn it into a profit; they will say they love us and have our backs and then proceed to double-down on an anti-Black (anti-trans) politic; and they may perform care but nothing in their *intimate politic shifts as they intend to have their cake and surely devour it too.
We’re insatiable.
If you do end up believing them a few days out of the week, make sure to pause, to breathe and consume Black trans art, media and creations. Lean on your siblings and make the words of our Black trans ancestors anew. This is a radical and necessary practice for the sustainment and nourishment of Black trans people.
5. We must cherish the convictions that we arrive at that are not informed by white supremacy
Most of our convictions are rooted in the protection of *white supremacy principles. It is a normalized practice, a trick of the system. We make empty proclamations, with little to no evidence that the proclamation is true, but again, in a white supremacists system truth has no place.
For example, when we proclaim that we love children and are advocates for the youth. Is that true? What is the evidence? All children? Which children? What have you risked for the plight of (Black) children?
Children are the ones being shot up in their schools, churches, parks, malls and streets. And we’re not even willing to create gun laws to protect children from white men and white boys and the greater system of white supremacy. That’s why it’s critical to understand that white supremacy will see us all dead.
The system of schooling is anti-Black, anti-trans, ableist, xenophobic and classist. The list goes on and on and on and on.
We’re unwilling to teach the truth about who we are and how we live (and lived) in school curriculum; We’re unwilling to supply schools with what they need to actually show up for the most vulnerable children; We have administrators expelling Black kids at an alarming rate; we have grown ass adults refusing to use a child’s proclaimed pronouns; we have curriculum referring to chattel slavery as indentured servitude; and sex and human trafficking of children is a multi-billion dollar global industry and yet rarely addressed in schools and institutions children engage.
We put children in cages, deny them gender affirming care and strip them of all body autonomy by time they reach adulthood. We continue this cycle of death.
And still they will say, with their full chest, that this society loves and cares for children.
Another proclamation we hear as Black trans humans is, Black trans lives matter.
How does truth show up in this proclamation? Where’s the evidence? How does this proclamation show up in real and tangible behaviors in the people who say they care for us? How do they shift their living and level up their intimate politic to actually hold us?
It is important that we never misinterpret these proclamations as care and safety or chances are violence will come our way, including death.
For us, convictions outside of white supremacy could be degendering facial and body hair; could be divesting from the gender binary; could be forgoing cis approval to live our full lives; could be investing and expending our energy on encouraging us and uplifting us; and could be centering our dignity and righteousness in every moment.
Our convictions must be tested and tried by truth and practiced in real time. They must be reckoned with and prioritized in our intimate politic. They must be malleable and bend to the demands of present living.
It’s quite difficult to make thinking outside and beyond this system a habit. Yet, we do it everyday from the margins. And that alone should be marveled, studied and celebrated.
Remember,
we are ferocious,
lion-hearted,
righteous
and prepared.
*Old Skool Word Bank — Codi’s “non-academic” definitions
(but still a bit jargony):
Intimate politic — in reference to what you hold most important and who you hold in your center. And how you live in alignment to the concepts, issues and people placed in your center.
Delusion — white supremacy requires that we all create and present a lesser version of ourselves to participate successfully in the system. This lesser version of self is rooted in lies and niceties. Truth is a threat to this lesser version of self. As you begin to tell the truth, and attempt to live in truth, the lesser version of self dissipates leaving you bare. Leaving you an opportunity to delve into who you really are outside of the dictations of white supremacy. Stripping yourself bare is the scariest thing you’ll ever do (if you’re brave enough to do it), and it is the most beautiful journey you’ll ever take. Once you strip bare, put on your seat belts because white supremacy will administer unending lashings and you will experience joy and pleasure in their truest forms.
White success — the benefits, the privileges and the advantages that are rewarded to people who navigate white supremacy successfully while sacrificing both truth and liberation. This concept is rooted in desirability and production.
Performance — taking that delusion we create to participate successfully in white supremacy and engaging a journey of acquiring white success. It is insincere, inauthentic and aims to keep the white supremacists structure powered. It is not concerned with addressing social issues; it is only concerned with being seen as good but committed to not performing any actual goodness.
Desirability — it’s beyond being pretty and the humanity that pretty grants you. In the context of desirability, pretty is an expansive term and concept. For Black trans people, ugly shows up in our very being — living in alignment with our proclaimed gender, the queer ways masculinity and femininity show up in us, our disabilities, being fat and being Black. In fact, anti-Blackness lies at the foundation of desirability.
Truth-telling is not desirable, being your authentic self is not desirable, disruption is not desirable. Desirability not only encompasses ugly people but also *ugly living. desirability informs who receives love and prioritization in this system. And we all participate in it!
Ugly living — living a life predominantly uninformed by white supremacy and its principles.
White supremacy principles — the routines, the habits and the values associated with performing successfully in a white supremacist system.
Faux Power — perceived institutional power of Black and brown people; most often defined by position; local power associated with Black and brown people becoming agents of white supremacy.
Faux Community — a sham defined and powered by white supremacy; it’s community rooted in performance, half-truths and niceties. The ultimate goal of faux community is to glamour the most vulnerable people into believing actual care exists for them, yet, keep the white supremacists institutional structure intact.
Codi (all pronouns) is the Founder and Executive Director of Haus of McCoy, a queer and trans community center in Lawrence, Kansas. Moreover, Codi is a writer for the Lawrence Times, a life facilitator, a cultural critic and a dreamer who critiques pop culture at the intersection of Black trans liberation. Codi enjoys trash TV, spending time with beautiful Black trans people and loving on their dog, Monét.
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