We, transgender people of color, activists, youth, women, and allies denounce Caitlyn Jenner as our representative. While she pushes her agenda, the transgender community faces violence. Her visibility comes at the high cost of many lives of trans women of color around the world. The hardest part of being a woman is not “figuring out what to wear.”

Caitlyn, we celebrate that you are able to be your authentic self! However, if you want to represent and support our community, you need to be working for ALL of us, not just yourself.

Our demands are simple and we ask that you follow them closely:

1. You need to actively be donating some of your vast wealth to the community: trans organizations, individuals, and projects in need! This does not mean Human Rights Campaign, this means small, transgender organizations run by and for our community.* This means the projects that we labor over and get little recognition for.

2. You need to continue to recognize you do not represent us and you have to stop tokenizing trans people of color, youth, and low-income people. We know you’ve said you don’t represent the whole community – now act on it! Create a platform for long-term community members and activists to speak, particularly these people of color, youth, and low-income folks!

3. You have to end your support of racist, transphobic politicians and politics. They are directly violent to our movement, our lives, and the intersections of our identities. Conservatives have no place capitalizing off of our struggles. Challenge those in your networks who are perpetuating this violence. Along with this, change your anti-sex work position. Sex work is real work. Recognize that many trans women of color are forced into sex work and other underground economies due to violence.

*Here are a few organizations. We suggest donating to all of them:

Casa Ruby Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement Gender Justice Los Angeles Sylvia Rivera Law Project Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project TransLatin@ Coalition Trans Justice Funding Project Trans Student Educational Resources Trans Women of Color Collective

Reading list

We want you to read works by and for our community members. This includes: