âThe experiences of transmen of color further show the hierarchical relationality between embodiments of maleness. Transmen of color can experience a loss of freedom as men. Jack, a Latino, and Trey, a black man, both realized they physically passed as men when women started clutching their purses tightly when they walked by. Trey notes, "On one hand, I was like, 'Oh, I am passing!' and then I was like, 'Oh, but you think I am dangerous.'" Keith, a black man, says, "It is interesting now to see it from both sides. I know why the black man is angry! I do. He doesn't start off that way.... It is just so weird to get that vibe from people. I just manifest... their fears, everything they fear. I am every black man who has been accused of something." He encountered frequent racist treatment, such as being pulled over by white police officers for driving in the "wrong" (that is, wealthy and white) neighborhoods and being followed in storesâall common experiences for black men in the United States (Bolton and Feagin 2004). Trey faced a similar experience in Texas. Walking a friend's dog in a predominantly white, affluent neighborhood at night, he was stopped by neighborhood patrols and police officers three times in a span of twenty minutes. Shocked at this treatment, he asked his older brother how he dealt with it. His brother was surprised that Trey didn't realize "how it was" and told him that soon he would become accustomed to such treatment. Socialized as black girls, Trey and Keith did not have the same embodied strategies as cisgender black men for navigating this treatment. While schools and families socialize black boys into accepting and adjusting to stereotypes of black, masculine criminality (Ferguson 2000; Oliver 2003), black girls' socialization often focuses on regulating their sexuality and maintaining their self-respect (Kaplan 1997; Orenstein 1994). Becoming a black man means finding interactional strategies that address the expectations of black male criminality.â
â Just One Of The Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality by Kristen Schilt, pages 59
