AUDACITY (n): We Move and Live Audaciously Because we Understand What it Means to be Alive
Audacity (n)
[ôˈdasədē]
To move in ways that prop up our most authentic, most truthful, most beautiful Black fat trans selves even when immense violence is the predicted consequence. Being so committed to our intimate politic that there is no other way to show up but in audacity of everything and everyone.
To move in audacity, you must grapple with the truth. wrestle it. actively refuse to center anything less. Let it be what it is. And then speak and move more honestly and boldly in spite of normal.
To show up in audacity,
is to be a threat to the delusion they’ve constructed
means being in on the joke by reckoning with your position in this world
The audacity to be seen and felt, and not elect to disappear our own selves is only the beginning of our power.
Audacity is for us.
It’s for the queer. It’s for the gender bending. It’s for the disabled. It’s for the kids. it’s for the bodies and spirits that are constant targets in a world that is lost and delusioned about life and living.
Audacity is our bullet in the gut to the system and it’s the sunflower placed in the eye of the gun.
To Live and Die In Audacity Must Become Legend, A Road Map for Us
The audacity to claim oneself
DUVALL PRINCESS
CYPRESS RAMOS
NAOMIE SKINNER
PALOMA VASQUEZ
TATIANA LABELLE
AMARIEY LEJ
The audacity to breath
Eric Garner
The audacity to take up space
Tyre Sampson
The audacity to speak
ELISE MALARY
To Live In Audacity, Stand On Strong Shoulders
The great Silky Nutmeg Ganache on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6, episode 10 teaches us all a lesson on living in audacity to a system that wants to see us joyless, erased and dead. Silky breaks all the rules and constructs of being Black, fat, loud, seen and experienced in all of her performances; she wrecked the construct every time that camera was in her face. She is who she is, and that human being is beauty, regardless of the individual and collective feels on Black queer bodies and spirits.
This is political.
T.S. Madison continues to show us how to live in audacity.
She has the audacity to claim Black womanhood with a renowned swinging penis in her pants. She is brilliant. The fact that she is radically open about her body is a legitimate strategy to take back our power from white (and our kindred invested in whiteness) cisgender heterosexual folks who work hard to misunderstand the trans experience.
T.S. loves on Black women, even when cisgender Black women don’t love her back. She loves on Black women with (other) deviant intersections (of living) by role-modeling moving beyond shame and towards joy; and she loves on Black fat women in real ways that matter, please see her interview with Mo’Nique.
This is political.
The audacity to live beyond our 30s is heavy among Stormé DeLarverie and Miss Major
Griffin-Gracy, both leading humanitarians of our time on this planet. Miss Major is alive at 81 years old and Stormé passed at the age of 93. Black trans people live, and they find ways to live with their dignity and politic intact.
This is political.
To Understand Audacity, Bear Witness Through Story
The audacity of Codi to not weaponize himself against himself. If he had just played the game, or met people where they’re at. If he weren’t so alienating…
If he weren’t so ragefully discontent. Imagine the good he could do.
Imagine how helpful he could be. But it’s the audacity of Codi to care for herself in real ways and not weaponize against herself. It is to be marveled.
The swinging of the door was symbolic that a new energy had entered.
they walked in with the black greek chorus behind them, and Codi had the audacity to know her power and hold on to it tightly.
They fired Codi a week before christmas, on a zoom call, when all student activists and conscious students were off campus during a global pandemic. The firing was executed in front of her best friend. It was a public lynching. It was a reminder to Codi’s friend to act right. After hearing the news, Codi had the audacity to calmly, without hesitation, grab her cup of coffee and take a long sip of whatever african brew resided in the cup.
All of this during a time when Black people are being routinely exterminated. During a time when Black trans people are found at the bottom of lakes, rivers and ponds.
They must think we love water.
They honored Codi with an award as a performance of care for Black trans people. Codi had the audacity to renegotiate what honoring her looks like. They didn’t take well to Codi’s understanding of her intimate power and subsequently stopped responding to her emails.
She asked for more structure in the session. Apparently, participants were uncomfortable with a floating conversation around anti-Blackness and white supremacy. Codi had the audacity to respond with, “yes, and you all lean on structure, crave structure and manipulate structure in ways that alleviate any personal and communal responsibility.” She didn’t like that response so she fired Codi from the job and hired Codi’s best friend. Again, the audacity of Codi to respond from a place of experience and truth knowing that there was a good chance she would be jobless after launching such a claim.
He said he loved, Codi. but their actions said something different, something lesser than love. It gave, I care for you but i remain unwilling to expand my politic to humanize people like you. Like many Black cisgender heterosexual folks, he attempted to play the long con on a Black trans person. meaning, he leveraged the dynamic of Black trans people making a little something, small pieces of humanity, into everything. And in time, that little something eventually dissipates into nothing.
Codi had the audacity to respond, “i’ll pass on this journey.” knowing that loneliness and isolation (and alienation) were soon to take hold.
And he knew that too.
Read up on the Following Themes to Deepen Your Own Self Work
The Black fat trans experience
Authors: Hunter Shackleford and Da’Shaun Harrison
The Positionality of Black trans people
Activists and thought leaders: Imara Jones and Miss Peppermint
Black Liberation in Poetry
Black Poets: Megan Pendleton and Jameelah Jones
Great Question Askers
Platforms: Son of Baldwin and Melody Toomer
Ancestors in their own words (youtube)
Lovers of us: James Baldwin, Marsha P. Johnson, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, Stormé DeLarverie and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
Consider These Critical and Implicating Questions
If the audacity of someone living a full and honest life threatens you, especially someone from a historically oppressed background, what does that say about you and your contributions to making this world better for Black fat trans folks?
Do you ever plan to hold and live a politic that strengthens and pours into Black fat trans people? Be honest, specifically to the Black fat trans people in your lives. Even the ones who don’t know they deserve so much more from you.
If we are your mirrors, and you hate mirrors, where is there room to love Black trans people?
What are you afraid to lose or let go of?
How many times in a day do you lie? Can you even count earnestly? living in audacity is in direct opposition to compulsive lying about your situation in this world.
How do you practice seeing yourself as you really are? (knowing that you hate mirrors)
Remember
Audacity is for us.
It’s for the dead. It’s for the disenfranchised. It’s for the erased. It’s for the lonely.
Audacity is for us.
It’s for the bold. It’s for the honest. It’s for the dreamers.
It’s for the kites. It’s for the balloons. It’s for the clouds. It’s for the bluejays.
Audacity is for the beautiful Black trans people who continue to push forth bravely and freely.
Audacity is for the humans who refuse to live without dignity and humanity at their center.
It is for those of us who crave liberation.
Audacity is for the Black and trans. So be audacious.
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.
Find Codi on TikTok and read more of Codi’s writing on Medium.
Read more of Codi’s writing for the Lawrence Times here. And if you have a little something to give (money) or an opportunity please visit Codi’s LinkTree.
