Jenna J

"Whaaaaat?? But our whole economy runs on slavery!"

"NO slavery."

"What about prison slavery?"

"... ok you can have prison slavery."

Passing: Profiling the Lives of Young Trans Men of Color (2015).

[ID: Excerpts from interviews with two trans men. The first, Lucah Rosenberg Lee, has a shaved head and a trimmed beard. The second, Victor Thomas, has curly black hair and a trimmed beard, and is heavier-set.

Lucah, talking about gender dysphoria prior to transitioning, says, “I was in a heterosexual relationship. I was female. I would question this all the time. Am I attracted to these men, or do I just want to be them? That was a big turning point in my own self-discovery.”

Victor, talking about the transphobia he’s endured as a trans man of color, says, “You’re subjected to something because they don’t understand you. And you have to watch the way you react, because you’re a man now. People take you as a threat.”

Lucah, in another scene, discusses feeling erased as a trans man, and racism in trans communities. He says, “Being so invisible within the LGBT community can actually feel so isolating. When people don’t know my history as a trans person, I feel sometimes that I’m viewed as more of an enemy.” END ID.]

Trans men of color deserved to be loved and appreciated, and made safe. Trans men deserve access to our own spaces, no matter how masculine and cis-passing we are. We deserve credit and recognition for the contributions that we have made to trans history, most of which are erased nowadays.

Being a man is not dangerous or wrong. Being masculine is not dangerous or wrong. Being a black man is not dangerous or wrong.

Please support trans men of color.

Please support trans men.

Please support men.

So I'll be very clear: the goal of a large, inclusive queer community is to form a political bloc that is big enough and strong enough to get anti-queer laws overthrown and anti-queer policies (at schools, in workplaces, etc.) changed. As long as we are separate, no individual letter of the LGBT+ alphabet will be able to enact real changes. When we narrow who can be part of a movement, we weaken its political strength.

"butches don't have to be [everything I associate with being a butch]! They can [everything I have literal trauma about being forced on me growing up] instead!"

And they were ALL posted by lesbians, mostly by people calling themselves butches but insisting that doesn't mean any of the things it means to me, and that the things it means to me are toxic.

What the actual fuck.

I may be taking a break from Tumblr for a while because this is such a normal experience for me that it took me seeing five of them in an hour to prompt this post. And this shouldn't be being normalised. Me feeling like the entirety of my community not only doesn't understand me but thinks I'm toxic shouldn't be the fucking norm.

This is fucking why.

It ain't even any of the cishets. It's my own community.

"butches don't have to be [everything I associate with being a butch]! They can [everything I have literal trauma about being forced on me growing up] instead!"

And they were ALL posted by lesbians, mostly by people calling themselves butches but insisting that doesn't mean any of the things it means to me, and that the things it means to me are toxic.

What the actual fuck.

I may be taking a break from Tumblr for a while because this is such a normal experience for me that it took me seeing five of them in an hour to prompt this post. And this shouldn't be being normalised. Me feeling like the entirety of my community not only doesn't understand me but thinks I'm toxic shouldn't be the fucking norm.

"butches don't have to be [everything I associate with being a butch]! They can [everything I have literal trauma about being forced on me growing up] instead!"