Creating Black Characters *with intent!: Image

Creating Black Characters *with intent! on Tumblr

Image ID: pdf of a word document that reads as follows:

"Q1: What’s ONE thing you wish nonblack people would understand the most about your experience?
“I am both Black and queer. You cannot isolate my identities to better fit me in your perceptions of myself. Being trans is not a white people thing, and my Blackness is an inherent part of my transness in a way that you probably won’t understand, and that’s okay! We are not one or the other.”

“Mostly the ways in which expectations about Black people inform the way we are expected to perform gender. Black masculinity, more than any other kind, is viewed as inherently more aggressive or “lowbrow:” when first exploring my gender, I noticed a difference in how “ghetto” I was perceived based on whether I was basing my style off of white men I admired or Black men I admired. Same with feminine styles!! As someone not conforming to common ideas of gender, I felt a lot of pressure to make myself seem as unthreatening and easy-to-understand to the cis people around me as possible, and this perception of Black styles definitely influenced that.”

“I wish they could understand that some of us are more attached to our cultures/ethnic background than our gender. Others might feel like it’s intertwined together and they can’t seperate Blackness or Ethnicity from gender and I personally feel this way too. Changing gender has been more of a Black experience if that makes sense and I’ve found a lot of pride in exploring my history. So much so that I forgot about my current body dysphoria. I felt realigned spiritually when I learn about Black men’s and women’s experiences. and hearing about the pre colonial genders. You can’t drop your culture when you switch gender, it’s more like slightly switching routes, if that makes sense… For example, when I was younger I wasn’t interested in Black women’s fashion as much, assuming I had a very low self esteem. When I carved out my own safe space, I figured I literally just wanted to be a man but in no way I could be white! It was tough thing to realize my gender because of internalized racism. I don’t think I’ve seen it anywhere actually haha. Maybe Black transfems share this experience?... With the unfair beauty standards...? So in short, my gender euphoria might look very different from NonBlacks or White trans people because I have overlapping uh... hm... yknow what I mean identities(?). As well as my gender dysphoria and mental health problems are exacerbated by racist conditions.”

“The hypermasculinzation of Black women made it very difficult for me to determine whether or not I genuinely felt butch or if it was my response to having my femininity forcibly removed from me. I’m still cagey about being referred to as someone who comes off as masculine w/o effort for this reason. There was no amount of feminine I could be to make it work. And so, when I do switch, there’s an extra amount of effort into presenting femininity or feeling comfortable to even do so.”

“As someone who has lived all my life as a Black girl/woman, my femininity has always been denied to me. This isn’t new to any Black woman, queer or not. Femininity, and indeed womanhood and girlhood, is not for us. Decolonizing and embracing Black femininity, " End ID

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