Creating Black Characters *with intent!: Image

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Q3: What’s a story you’d like to see of yourself in media? Are there current examples?

“As a Black trans guy, I just want to be seen in media period. In an ideal world, I’d like to see us in stories where we are treated as people with different life experiences, interests, and hobbies and are treated as multifaceted people and not a trope. Personally, I love to see a Lemon Demon/Jhriah-inspired trans guy who dedicates his life to evil experiments hehe (that’s just the autism speaking, though/lh).”

“I just generally want to see more explorations of gender that acknowledge Black cultural contexts (be it US Black culture or Carribean Black cultures or Afrolatino cultures or African cultures or anything else. As long as it’s grounded) and use those effectively to make characters that are both relevant and not just reflections of white experience in a Black person’s body. Haven’t found a good one yet unfortunately 😔”

“A Black trans boy who goes through transition and loops back to being gentle (softer, feminine, charming and so on...) about himself. It’s a sad thing cause we Black masculine people are expected to be tough and resistant, even as Black women... So in reality, how we’re perceived hasn’t really changed (all that much)(in my experience.) A story where being insecure, soft - gentle - nerdy - etc... doesn’t take away of his explored manhood or results in any unnecessary pain. :) A Black Trans person connecting with a Black girl. Solidarity!! Rivalry!! There are a lot of options!!! Just give your character agency please!!”

“Oh man, honestly, any of them really. Love stories, even if I’m not partial to them. Sci fi, fantasy, like anything.”

“I admittedly haven’t seen a whole lot of depictions of Black trans identities in general, but if you want to depict a Black trans person I would say, please whole-heartedly embrace *us* in our entirety. The queerness and the Blackness of a Black queer person are inextricably linked. You cannot show one while hiding the other. You have to stand at the intersection.”

“I don’t even hold out much hope anymore for one besides other people’s ocs but I’d love to see ANY kind of Black nonbinary character in a main role. Idc what they’re doing. Just any one. Because like I said the one I had known of was changed and im still bitter about it.”

“if there’s a story where someone goes from binary trans to bigender including their agab and can’t accept it bc it would mean they were ‘wrong about their transness’ by ‘going back to their agab’ that would be karaaaaaazy lol”

“more aroace stories with main aroace characters like in selah and the spades”

“Tbh I wanna see more Black trans guys in stories that aren’t slice-of-life dramas about The Trans Experience. I want stuff like Hell Followed With Us or The Spirit Bares Its Teeth where the character is transmasc but there is a plot happening other than “man, being trans is tough in this high school”. As a person that reads a lot of horror, finding a story where the protagonist is Black is hard enough, but Black and transmasc is even harder… I’ve been called unrealistic for wanting a book where the protagonist is like me and the plot isn’t just them being sad about their identity, but I’m tired of it always being done in metaphor. I want Black transmasc protagonists.”

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