Your Cool Uncle ItzyI think more white trans people should focus on reading things written by and talking to people of color. Because we understand oppression in a different way, in a way that has the benefit of generational knowledge. No one prepared me to be trans, there was no way for my family to know how my life would turn out and even if they did they had no experience. I was prepared to be Mexican. Adults in my life prepared me for a world that would treat me different due to the color of my skin.
A lot of the discourse that trans people have, is the same talking points that people of color have been discussing for generations. You don't have to create a method for living under oppression from first principles. My top example of this is the Vanishing Half, a book about two light skinned black women who are twins. One lives her life as a black woman, the other as a white woman. I feel like this should be required reading for anyone who wants to talk about passing or being stealth.
I was talking with a Palestinian friend on my rugby team about how the white trans leadership was failing us (trans players) with the current trans ban, but the black cis women on leadership were handling it so much better. Because even if they do not have the experience of being trans, they have the experience of being discriminated against. We don't have to refigure a lot of this out, it's already out there.
eestileib (she/hers)W.E.B. duBois's ideas of
"double vision" (the minority member sees themself with their own eyes, and with the judging eyes of the majority)
and
"the veil" (whenever people of different social status mix, there is a barrier between the groups that must not be crossed, but only the members of the minority can see it or acknowledge its existence)
Are both super applicable to the trans experience.
Matilda
zoë finja