Racial disparities Within the Transgender Experience
- Aubrey
- Jun 28, 2017
- 2 min read
Black and Latina transgender women were the ones to kick start the gay rights movement by deciding they had had enough and nothing to lose when they chucked those first bricks at police on the night of the stonewall raid, inspiring a fury among bar go-ers who previously would have just scattered back into society at the first sign of flashing blues. If they weren't arrested first. It's appalling that they remain at the bottom of the LGBT totem for average quality of life. High rates of murder, assault, harassment and rejection by men and women within their own communities compared to white trans women at the hands of white communities. I've never heard someone yell “world star” as they were beating my ass while walking down the street. I've actually never even been assaulted. They face a higher prevalence of sex work due to the difficulty of finding legal work as a result of the intersection of transphobia and racism. Higher rates of unsolved murder due to police simply not going all in on a case because well. "she was probably just a hooker anyway". Yet, white trans and gay people have the nerve to complain about pronouns, a place to piss and wedding cakes. White transgender people in particular have seemed to hijack this very specific issue (The murder rate) involving transwomen of color and the blatant homophobia and transphobia so commonly found within Black and Hispanic communities and used it to play a disgraceful game of oppression olympics at the expense of a group of people who need help and love from our society but will not get it so long as the issue remains represented by a highly vocal and privileged co-opter of a serious social plight, and the real cause not addressed.
*It should be noted that some of the violent altercations may have involved a case of a person not disclosing that they are trans before an intimate encounter had progressed. Murder is a disproportionate reaction, but nevertheless, there are cases that did not involve unprovoked hatred and violence
-Aubrey
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