It is a well known problem in the so-called ‘lgbt’ community that many of the white and/or cis people in that community make a regular habit of using the bodies and violence levelled against trans feminine iaopoc to make rhetorical points about their (alleged) suffering. Except… that this is our intersection and you are not our family.
These are two very important things for a subtler, insidious case of this. Now that we’ve screamed loud enough and long enough there are some ‘progressive’ corners of the ‘lgbt community’ that understand the history of ‘gay liberation’ and stonewall and pride parades and all the privileges that white and/or cis queers enjoy over and above any trans feminine iaopoc. And these progressive people will talk about our elders and our ancestors and believe that knowing the name of Sylvia Rivera somehow gives them leave to claim them.
We are not your family. Not your sisters. Neither are our dead for you to claim.
And here I am using ‘our’, but is Sylvia Rivera my ancestor? Is Marsha P. Johnson?
For we are also not a monolith and it feels like violence in my soul when I see these invocations of the dead. The utilitarian use of their names. So that certain people can appear progressive or knowledgeable about ‘our’ history.
And I cannot help but see how this is connected, deeply, with the ways that — in today’s communities and movements — the most you’ll hear or see from trans feminine iaopoc is the names of the fallen at a local TDoR hosted by some white trans d00d. And, again, there is a need to be specific, since many of the dead are Black and/or Latin@ trans women.
Are these my dead to claim? Is Sylvia Rivera my ancestor? Is Marsha P. Johnson?
I can’t even really call them ‘my’ leaders, despite the fact that they led. Because during their lives they fought and fought but the ‘lgbt community’ never recognized their contributions, wisdom, or worth while they were still alive. What does it mean that, now that they’ve passed on, so many are willing to speak their names? Invoke their spirits? All the while benefiting from everything they did and lived for? And not just benefiting…
You invoke their names, but what have you done recently for a trans feminine iaopoc? What are you doing right now to recognize the ways that we contribute to our communities and reap few (if any) of the benefits? When was the last time you actually followed the lead of a trans woman of colour? Do you even know the names of us still alive and still struggling and still working for our liberation? Can you understand how twoc were at the front lines 40 years ago and how we are still there?
Have you thought about the fact that we know of just a small handful of the people involved with the riot and who create/d the ongoing movements are named? Holding up just a small fraction of the people who’s lives and spirits went into creating both the gay movement and the trans movements, while not realizing that there are uncounted many who’ve likewise contributed, but we don’t know their names because we’ve been so effectively erased from our own history. That, still, even the few names we know, have their roles and importance constantly erased and minimized.
And, as you reverently whisper their names and call on their spirits, can you see the way that the trans movement is/has gone the way of the gay movement? That our leaders have become mostly white trans men and white trans women? That these super duper progressive leaders claim their positions of authority by netting ‘progressive activist’ points by knowing ‘our’ history and invoking the names of past twoc?
The ways that twoc leadership is almost always framed as a thing of the past. That these white trans people legitimately understand themselves as the inheritors of their legacies. That they truly feel that they walk in their footsteps, that they carry the torch they lit.
All the while, ignoring those of us still living and breathing. On capitalizing on our efforts/thoughts/art/lives. Serving as gatekeepers to the few spaces and resources intended for the ‘trans community’.
—biyuti
