I’m always on the look out for new, interesting facebook groups and today I found one called Trans Role models. It’s a group that, like many trans related activist groups, is rarely updated but has somewhat interesting posts. In this group, I saw a member named Mark Angelo Cummings. I thought that name sounded familiar so I looked at his profile. I remembered that he was the trans man that appeared on several television shows. I was even more fascinated when I saw an article that he posted recently from Shame On You Transgender, a website I’ve actually been featured on before. I actually had no idea that he was part of this website. I’ve seen this blog posted several times on reddit. I tend to avoid it as the title alone is very off putting to me, but there have been times I’ve read blog entries there that have actually surprised me in terms of positive they were and how much I agreed with them.

Today however, I decided to actually take a moment and read through the posts. Mark published an article about a project my friend Jen Richards is working on called The Trans 100. In his article, he essentially seeks to invalidate several individuals on the list. Including Cece MacDonald, a trans woman of color that stabbed a man in self defense during a hate crime and was sentenced to 41 months in men’s prison. Instead of considering the fact that Cece only murdered in self defense of a transphobic attack, he rails on her for the simple fact that she murdered.

I tried to overlook this one article. I’m really the kind of person that doesn’t like to necessarily write someone off as a “racist” or someone that distinctly has anything against TWOC…but I couldn’t help but notice a trend on this blog. There are several blog posts attacking almost every central TWOC figure you could think of: Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, and most notably, Monica Roberts.

Monica Roberts has been someone I’ve personally interacted with over the years. She’s posted many of my vlogs and has supported me quite a bit over the years. She runs a great blog called Transgriot where she talks about things not only from the perspective of a Trans woman, but specifically of a trans woman of color (TWOC). Mark has written several blogs attacking her and even citing Monica’s attacks against TERFs as ‘racist’. He even attempts to invalidate or rather ignore the reality of white privilege and attacks Monica for focusing specifically TWOC issues. In this, really uncomfortable to read article, a contributing author pretty much sums up feelings not only about Monica but about black trans women who speak out about racism.

I see it all the time from white trans activists. They don’t understand why TWOC groups exist. They don’t see the reason to specify needs based on race. Often times they’ll say things like “I’m colorblind” or “I have black friends” and will follow up with things like “stop pulling your race card” and long rants about how much more “racist” black people are than white people. The great irony of this is that they don’t realize that posts like this are the reason why these groups exists. If we’re being honest, the issues and concerns that trans women of color face are absolutely ignored by, I’d argue, the vast majority of white trans activists. I have seen so many white trans activists get up in arms about Rayon in Dallas Buyer’s Club even to the extent of rallying on the streets, but I have seen very few of the same people getting mad about the hate crimes committed against trans women, most of which happen to be black…maybe that’s why.

It always really astounds me when people within the LGBT community really believe with all of their hearts that being L, G, B, or T erases their white privilege. It really honestly floors me how anyone can live in America and not see white privilege. A contributing author goes on to list off bullet points about why white privilege isn’t real when you’re trans. The gist of it all is that trans people face too much discrimination be truly benefit from white privilege. White privilege is NOT “you have a perfect life because you’re white” or “you will never see discrimination or hate or oppression because you’re white”. It’s acknowledging that in almost any country in the world in almost any society your race alone will put you at an advantage over other races. They also compare the Black Panthers to the KKK ( a really popular and dishonest comparison ). These two groups aren’t really comparable outside of the fact that they both are grounded on the idea of racial pride. I find racial pride to be a very silly concept as pride is something you have when you’ve accomplished something. Being born black or white isn’t really reason for pride.

What they don’t recognize is that in a situation where both black and white trans people have the same amount of disadvantages, the white trans person will almost always be preferred. I see this in how often I see both trans men and women post “i’ve got a job interview” on one day and then come back the next day with the job. Meanwhile, i don’t see that at all from my numerous black trans friends and the black trans women I know that are successful and well off are escorts.

They also don’t really have much context for the position of black trans people within the black community. Go to any black media website with a story about Sydney Starr or Amiyah Scott and read the disgusting comments from black people about black trans women. Hell, dont even do that. Watch this interview on a popular radio station where they publicly harass Sydney Starr. I’ve known far more black trans women that have been rejected from their families than I’ve known white trans women that have had the same situation. In fact I can maybe think of one white trans woman off the top of my head that was rejected from their families. There are issues that are specific to the black community that should be discussed and addressed because while yes, the same may happen within white communities, they happen far more often within black communities. As do hate crimes against trans women. This isn’t “pulling the race card”. Just take a moment and flip through a Day of Remembrance page or read recent stories about slain trans women. Most of them are black and murdered by black men.

There’s a lot of time on this blog attacking trans women of color and actively shaming trans women in general for things like “narcissism” and when you start to read more and more entries by him and his other writers, you start to feel as though there’s some underlying transphobia present within them. Which I almost feel silly saying considering not only is Mark a trans man, but he’s also married to a trans woman (who owns and authors most of the website). There are a lot of things on that blog that I agree with…but I can’t overlook the constant attacks on trans women of color nor the constant attacks on the character of trans women.

I don’t hate Mark. I respect him for actively being a visible member of the Trans Male community. I respect him for his bravery and for his willingness to share his story with other people. I just can’t get over the common theme in his entries of saying what amounts to “I’m a better activist because I’ve always been out”. One thing I’ve learned by interfacing with the trans vlogging community is that not everyone is or should be an activist. Not everyone has the strength to be out as trans and I don’t believe in shaming or attacking people for simply not being able to do that. There isn’t a trans advocate that I don’t have issues with in some way (well, besides Laverne Cox). Janet Mock isn’t very graceful in her interviews and has, on accident, 'cissed’ people during her talks, Carmen Carrerra isn’t necessarily the most eloquent speaker in the world, Parker Molly tends to be a bit extreme, Monica Roberts can also be a bit extreme, but all of those things aside, in my view they’re all at the very least actively trying to better the world for trans people. And I honestly respect them immensely for that.

I personally do not believe defamatory blogs are helpful. I don’t’ think that they help the trans community at all. I’m writing this fully expecting for there to be some sort of response from him on his blog. I’m fully expecting this blog to attack me personally, maybe call me arrogant, maybe even call me racist. I just don’t think that’s helpful. As someone that used to routinely make videos of the same nature, I’ve realized how damaging and pointless the infighting can be. My only hope is that someone reads this blog and at the very least understands that blogs like Shame on You Transgender are the reason why TWOC activists and blogs are necessary. They’re the reason why women of color, like me will continue to address the issues and concerns that face black trans women. Because they have no true investment in those issues so TWOC need to bind together to fight for our slain sisters and against the transphobia, sexism and the racism that we face.

Kat Blaque

UPDATE:

See the writers of Shame On You Transgender Invalidate the TWOC community