Genitals Don’t Define Our Black-Ass Gender
Welcome to the twenty-seventh installment of This Black-Ass Life! This week, Habanero Hitler is really ON ONE. His administration is working to create a legal definition of sex based on the gender you’re assigned at or before birth. Literally fuck that. So buckle in for why we can’t be free till ALL our Black Asses are free including and ESPECIALLY our Trans Black Asses.
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l. The Facts
Sunkist Stalin’s administration is launching the most drastic move yet to narrow the definition of gender to a person’s genitalia at birth. This is particularly troubling since Black Trans women are especially vulnerable to anti-trans policies.
First and foremost, genitals do not define gender. PERIOD. (I hate that the City Girls are homophobic).
The government is going against medical understanding of trans and gender nonconforming people to create their own legalized method of discrimination.
“The new definition would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.”
The legal erasure and dehumanization of trans people opens them up to unchecked discrimination in school, at work, in healthcare, and in their communities and beyond.
Trans people, especially trans people of color, experience rampant discrimination in each of these environments (and more) already.
Trans students face roadblocks at school like having their protections rolled back by this administration, being outed as trans, bullying, misgendering and even limited access to bathrooms.
According to Gender Spectrum, 75.1% of transgender students feel unsafe at school because of their gender expression, 63.4% of transgender students reported avoiding bathrooms and 41% of transgender or gender non-conforming people have attempted suicide.
Trans people of color have an unemployment rate that is four times the national average.
20% of trans people report they are denied healthcare and many more report experiencing discrimination when seeking basic care.
Trans people are on the receiving end of extreme, disproportionate, and sometimes fatal violence. And we don’t even know the full extent of it because victims are often misgendered.
Why is this important?
Trans people already experience staggering discrimination and we don’t need Papaya Putin to further codify that into law.
2018 is on track to be the deadliest year yet for (primarily Black) trans women of color.
The average life expectancy of trans women of color in the U.S. is THIRTY FIVE.
We can’t all get free until we ALL get free. Our Black trans siblings are under attack and dying; cis folks need to tighten all the way up as allies.
What can my Black Ass do? Give your time and money to these POC-led advocacy organizations:
Marsha P. Johnson Institute creates a crucial entry point for Black trans women and gender non-conforming femmes to obtain professional skills as well as financial and programmatic resources.
Black Trans Advocacy is a national social justice organization working to overcome violence and injustice in the world through the power, value, and love of all people.
Sylvia Rivera Law Project is a legal aid organization that serves low-income or people of color who are transgender, intersex and/or gender non-conforming.
Trans Women of Color Collective uplifts the narratives, lived experiences, and leadership of trans and gender non-conforming people of color.
ll. Other Things
Everything is trash.
Nigerian-American Chinedu Okobi, father and Morehouse graduate, was Tasered to death near San Francisco by a police officer this past week. He was unarmed.
So I (Jumoke) got very excited because I saw that Vic Mensa, a rapper who I know nothing about because I’m not a youth, denounced domestic violence abusers at the BET Hip Hop Awards cyphers. The very next day, I learned that he choked a woman out. Men are trash. #yesallmen. 🙄
Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s authoritarian president asked Kim K what she does for a living when she was in Uganda. I GUFFAWED but only a little because dictators are trash. #yesalldictators.
Netflix is targeting Black users with deceitful art work indicating Black people are starring in movies … when they’re not. Corporations and empty diversity initiatives are trash. JUST CAST US and you won't have to play these games!
Kenyans say Chinese investment in their country is bringing racism and discrimination. No Country for Black people. Racism is trash.
While players were spitting and throwing hands, one of Rondo’s dusty cousins came at Chris Paul’s wife, Jada. And then she and Rondo’s girlfriend got into it with Savannah James in between them! Security broke it up, but again, men are trash and led to Black woman on Black woman on an innocent Savannah James violence.
Our Black-Ass song of the week (Jumoke):
Amerie is back (without the extra i!)! Okay, so I actually didn’t listen to the entire album, but seeing her name made me revisit All I Have, the album and the song. It gave me #PEAK2002
Things we are looking forward to / things we are not looking forward to:
I (Mitu) look forward to finishing I Can’t Date Jesus by Michael Arceneaux. I cannot recommend this book enough - here’s where you can buy it.
I (Jumoke) am looking forward to good eatin’ this week. I meal-prepped my ass off this weekend and I’m about to eat real good.
lll. Text from a Black-Ass Mama
These are the sort of texts I (Mitu) get from my mom when we go one day without speaking.
Stay Black, thrive, support Black trans women and we’ll hit your inbox next on November 5.