Tag Archives: trans women of color

Transgender Day of Remembrance/Resilience

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Laurie and Debbie say:

Trans people, especially trans women, and especially trans women of color are at great risk of personal violence. In the United States right now, the president and his administration are seriously threatening to erase the legal existence of all trans people.

So Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) must be honored. TDoR has been observed for almost 20 years, and began in response to the murders of Black trans women Rita Hester and Chanelle Pickett. In 2015, an organization called BreakOUT! in New Orleans founded Trans Day of Resilience to bring celebration in along with the grief and anger. This year BreakOUT! is partnering with Forward Together, and they’ve asked that folks “honor trans and nonbinary lives by sharing our art with your community today.”

Four posters for this year can be found at the Forward Together link. Check them all out, plus others from past years. Our selection, above, is by Ashleigh Shackelford in collaboration with SNaP Co. Here’s Shackelford’s artist statement:

We are Black, fat, trans, non-binary, and queer. We’re here, and we will not be invalidated, erased, or ignored. Trans Day of Resilience is about changing the narrative around Black trans folks and our experiences. This project is necessary and game-changing because Black death is constant, and Black trans death is the crux of that. Our safety cannot exist in a system designed to kill us.

Black death mobilizes most of our movements. However, when we talk about the nuances of our identities, our trauma, and how our existence is so much more than our death and tragedies – that’s when we begin the work to build a world without cages, a world with healthy boundaries. We must center and affirm Black trans people in all of our movements and within our visioning of liberation. We must transform our work and ourselves to create a Black trans future.

My piece centers Black trans sex workers of different sizes and deep complexions. I created this piece to celebrate, highlight, honor, humanize, and defend Black sex workers of trans experience. My specific focus as an artist, and as a regular degular fat bitch just tryna get free, is to uplift and create visibility for Black fat folks – especially Black fat hoes, bad bitches, and survivors. This piece was done digitally with inspirations from Atlanta (‘The Black Queer Mecca’) and the Black babes of trans experience who are constantly finding ways to survive a system created to destroy them.

SNaP Co.’s statement can be found at the link.

By the time you read this, it may not be Trans Day of Resilience where you are. Don’t let that stop you from sharing this art, and this message.

Shout Out to Folks with Dangerous Bodies

Debbie says:

Verónica Bayetti Flores has a manifesto at Feministing that I appreciated so much! I’ll start where she ends:

For those whose bodies are dangerous, I’m here to tell you that the life in your body, your life, matters. That it is in the interest of the betterment of the human condition that you live. That despite what is of interest to the media, your names matter while your hearts are still beating. I’m here to tell you that you are the most beautiful creatures to walk this earth. That even though the world wants to kill you, so many of us are out here fighting for your life.

Your bodies are how the revolution begins.

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She begins with a (necessarily incomplete) list of various kinds of dangerous bodies, often with references that underline the danger:

For trans women of color who are living in their truth,

For women who choose to wear hijab, 

For young mothers finishing up school while raising their kids,

For queer youth who know their rights in the face of a system that is killing them,

For women on government assistance who find joy in the news of pregnancy,

For black folks who dare to survive in the face of joblessness and divestment by selling loosies or turning tricks,

For undocumented women who dare to have children,

For those on the dance floor with a cane and those too sick to be out,

For those who dare to separate sexual pleasure and reproduction,

For femmes who wear femininity with pride

There’s a little more. I’m not going to reprint the entire post. I’m just going to say I hope you will read Flores’ whole post, and read all the links.

If dangerous bodies are not how the revolution begins, I don’t want to be part of the revolution.

Photo copyright (c) Laurie Toby Edison for Women En Large. All rights reserved.