Video: Sitting Congress woman acknowledges her cisgender privilege

“I’m a cisgendered woman,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D). “I will never know the trauma of feeling like I’m not born in the right body. That is a privilege I have no matter how poor my family was when I was born.”

The historic admission by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(AOC) almost flew under the radar.

But AOC wouldn’t allow it retweeting HRC’s Charlotte Clymer who tweeted “I had somehow missed this statement from @AOC in the past week of cluttered news items, and I’m getting pretty emotional. As a trans woman, I don’t know how to adequately articulate how healing it feels to hear a sitting Congresswoman say this. It really stopped me in my tracks.”

.@AOC: I acknowledge my “privilege” in being born “cisgendered” “I’m a cisgendered woman, I will never know the trauma of feeling like I’m not born in the right body. That is a privilege I have no matter how poor my family was when I was born.” pic.twitter.com/QkviNMtLmv — Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 30, 2019

AOC’s acknowledgment came at the end of a podcast at The Intercept on January 28th, 2019 conducted by , and The wide-ranging conversation about AOC’s first weeks in office segued to white and social economic privilege to which AOC compared to her life growing up as a disadvantaged minority, albeit a cisgender minority.

AOC: Yeah, and like that is the majority of a lot of communities, how a lot of communities feel and it’s because if you haven’t had a transition in your life where, you know, you were maybe born poor or born without, you know, certain privileges and then especially as you transition into having certain privileges in your life, you actually see and feel and sense and taste and smell all of the differences. If you’ve never experienced different treatment in your life, you wouldn’t know what different treatment feels like or looks like.

And we can all — almost every single person this country can acknowledge some privilege of some type, you know? I’m a cisgender woman. You know, I will never know the trauma of feeling like I’m not born in the right body, and that that is a privilege that I have no matter how poor my family was when I was born. But it’s really hard for some people to admit. It’s part of this weird American dream mythology that we have, that for a lot of, in a lot of circumstances isn’t as true or isn’t as clearly communicated as we’d like for it to be, or we wish it were.

BG: Yeah I’m working on it. Maybe, maybe the next piece on privilege dialogues and how to make it more constructive.

RG: Look forward to that one.

BG: My mentions don’t.

AOC: It’s hard. I don’t envy you.

BJG: Well, thank you so much for coming and spending the time with us.

AOC: Of course.

Kelli Busey Editor in Chief at Planet Transgender | Website Kelli Busey an outspoken gonzo style journalist has been writing since 2007. In 2008, she brought the Dallas Advocate on-line and has articles published by the Reconciling Ministries Network, The Transsexual Menace, The Daily Kos, Frock Magazine the TransAdvocate, the Dallas Voice and The Advocate. Kelli, an avid runner is editor in chief at Planet Transgender which she founded in 2007.

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