As we find ourselves in a Pride season unlike any other, with the country battling a pandemic while rising up to tackle the systemic oppression that’s plagued Black Americans for decades, how has your personal definition of Pride changed or shifted this year?
I’m not sure. I’m trying to educate myself a lot. I have a lot of work to do.
How do you explain the importance intersectionality to family, friend or fans who support Black Lives Matter, but routinely leave Black trans people like Tony McDade, Nina Pop and Iyanna Dior out of the conversation?
Something that has been more successful than not is having individual conversations with people and asking them a bunch of questions as to why they are leaving out Black trans people. Talk about privilege, colonization, genocide, and binary Western gender roles/identity, trans history, current legislation and how it doesn’t protect everyone, and the multi-faceted discrimination and violence Black trans people face. Talk about how they are the most vulnerable and how we have the tendency to work from the top down, and how we need to stop that. Also, within all of that, there is a lot I need to keep learning and will need to keep learning—and listening—for my whole life. For our whole lives!