hello, this is ym of lavender kitchen sinkcollective. and i wanted to talk to you. this is piggybacking, to follow up on a video that---thesecond video that i posted last week about where i see my place in the movement. andone of the things that i feel like, as someone who is basically a historian---i have an undergraduatedegree in history---and history kind of infuses all of the work that i do. i feel like it'sreally, one of my roles in the movement is to ground our work---black lgbtq liberationwork in history, in economic and political reality. and so i'm gonna talk about black people---specificallyafrican americans because that is my own background. i'm an african american from the southernunited states---which was part of the former
confederate states of america. born and raisedin north carolina, born and raised in the south. and i'm gonna talk about african americansand our, how [stumbling over words] cissexism, excuse me!---patriarchy, and gender are constructedwithin our community. and that's very important for those of us who do any kind of genderliberation work, as feminists, as womanists, as transgender, same-gender loving, lesbian,gay, asexual-identified folks who do this work around the world---but particularly inthe united states, it's very important to understand how colonialism, how white supremacyshape our understandings of gender. in a country like the united states, now weknow patriarchy can be in any culture---there's a lot of debate of when patriarchy first developedamong anthropologists, among feminists, when
patriarchy first developed as a system ofsocial organization and a system of social and political hegemony. as far as the unitedstates goes, patriarchy, cissexism in our culture is rooted in british colonialism.and british colonialism is where african american gender identity and african american genderroles are constructed. and now when i say that, you may get confused, you would say"well sexuality is inherent to humans because humans are primates and humans are animalsand so all humans have a sexuality because all primates and all animals have a sexuality."well, i'm not talking about sexuality in terms of the procreation, the desire to procreate,the desire for sexual pleasure----that's not what i mean when i say sexuality. i am talkingabout the construction of sex and sexuality
and gender as we understand it within humansocieties. that's what i'm talking about. and in this society, the united states---whichwas a british colony, where british colonizers stole, they fought indigenous people---well,a lot of european powers on this soil fought indigenous people to take over this land---buthere on the east coast, what we now call the eastern united states, and that includes theus south where i live, british colonizers took over indigenous first nations land. thisland where i'm at is traditionally cherokee, eno, and occaneechee land. and the britishtook over this land and they brought, they trafficked enslaved people from africa towork this land. and that's my people, african americans---people of british protestant descentthat are on indigenous land in the united
states. that's my culture. i come from a britishprotestant background, missionary baptist to be perfectly exact. and the constructionof gender roles that i grew up with from my parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles,our church community, the larger black community in the south, you know those come out of thechurch, out of our understandings of respectability, how a woman should behave, being a lady, takingcare of the household, maintaining her marriage, "keeping her man happy," how the man shouldbe the head of household, how he should work, be the breadwinner, be the provider, controlhis wife and children---that comes out of british colonialism. and the british protestantidea of what a family was and how the man was supposed to control his family. and that'ssomething that enslaved africans picked up
from the slave master, that is what we internalized. because our kinship systems, our family systemsof extended family from west africa, if you look historically at those ethnic groups fromwest africa---igbo, yoruba, asante, mende peoples, akan peoples---you know they havevery different forms of social organization that what we have in the united states, whichagain---our understanding of gender and family comes from the british. and so when the britishand other european powers, european colonizers and enslavers encountered african kinshipsystems, again, it's pathologized as abnormal, just like african religion and african culture,african cuisine was pathologized as abnormal. and the way a lot of times that in some kinshipsystems power and social organization was
and leadership is built around the leadershipof women and mothers and grandmothers. and you see some of that vestige within, thatlegacy within the african american community today, where historically our kinship systemsare very much based on matrilineal lineage, and being raised by your mama, your grandmama,your aunties---so some of that survives. but because of antiblackness and because of colonialism,our matriarch, matrilineal kinship systems are pathologized as abnormal. as the womanran the man off, because the woman couldn't keep a man because she was---you know thestereotypes about black women: too demanding, too whatever, too controlling of the blackman, and the black man can't be the man of the household. we grew up with this idea andhow deeply cissexist it is and how deeply
patriarchal it is. and so when we're talking about cissexism,transphobia, transmisogyny, homophobia, femmephobia within the african american community, youhave to understand it in that context of british colonialism, christian supremacy, enslavement,and being forced to eurocentric ideas of gender and family structure, and power and male leadershipwithin a family. you cannot understand african american cissexism without that knowledge.also, what's very important, because when we're talking about femmephobia and particularlymisogyny, transmisogyny within black communities and black families, you gotta think abouthow femininity in general is pathologized for both female-assigned people and male-assignedpeople. femininity is pathologized on black
bodies. for female-assigned people, whetherwe identify as cis women, or non-binary people, our bodies---you think about saarjie baartmaan,who was the south african---what is now today south africa---she was kidnapped by dutchenslavers and brought to europe and then paraded around in the netherlands, and britain, andfrance, and when she died her remains were kept in a french museum, preserved as if theywere, her body was preserved as a relic. so this fascination with the black female-assignedbody---the buttocks, the breasts, the uterus, and you also remember the context of slavemasters sexually assaulting, raping black women, breeding black women so that slavemasters, british and eventually american slave masters could create more product, you know,because africans were products, create more
slaves and build the master's wealth. andso there's a lot of trauma among black cis women and black feminine-of-center peoplein general, but particularly black cis women and black female-assigned people around theso-called female body, meaning the female-assigned body---the body that gives birth. and that kind of intergenerational traumaof sexual abuse, of being forced to breed, being pathologized for how you give birth,and how you have children, how you raise children. and that extends to people on the transfemininespectrum as well----transgender women. you know, also just in general in the united statesto this day, just the lack of understanding of how sexuality and gender work. the lackof understanding of how the science of gender
and sexuality, the science of how gender identitydevelops in utero, a lot of ignorance around chromosomes and hormones, but that's for anothervideo. but when we're thinking about transfemininity,and how male-assigned at birth femininity is policed, is criminalized, that also comesout of colonialism. that comes out of the idea that when, well, the phenomenon of wheneuropeans, starting with the spanish, the portuguese, the british, the french, whenthey encountered male-assigned feminine-of-center people among africans, among asians, amongindigenous people here in the americas, that was used to pathologize and then justify crimesof genocide against people of color, indigenous people in the americas and africans and asiansaround the world. and so that's where transmisogyny
and femmephobia and deeply homophobic, femmephobicattitudes toward even cisgender men who are feminine and femme of center come from. andthat comes out of colonialism as well. and we have to think about how a lot of timesthe people that we would today call trans women or male-assigned femmes, feminine ofcenter people---a lot of times in our ancestors' cultures, they were the priests, they wererevered as goddesses, as lifegivers, as healers. but again when the european colonizers encounteredthem, this was something to be pathologized "oh my god, these people are male-assignedat birth, but they're feminine? what's up with that? these savages, these natives"---youknow, whether we were african or indigenous american or asian---that was used to pathologizeand criminalize our people and enslave our
people, and to take over our lands. the colonizersused that as justification. so you have to understand the whole makings of transmisogynyand femmephobia in that context in the modern world today. and in our day, 2015 going into 2016, europeancolonialism shapes most of the world. the british alone colonized two thirds of theworld, so you know the british empire was huge, all the way from here in the americas,to the indian subcontinent, to a lot of africa, to also a lot of asian countries and countriesin the pacific. also including south america, guyana, when you look at guyana, and thenthe caribbean. so the british were everywhere, and so british ideas of patriarchy, of masculinity,of the supremacy of protestant religion, bringing
the bible to people around the world, youknow, you cannot separate modern understandings of gender from that colonial missionary enslavingcontext. and so, when we bring this back to african americans in the present day, youlook at the fact that black trans women in the united states as of 2015, trans womenof color in general but in particular black and latina trans women in this country, whoare the daughters, the great-granddaughters of both british and spanish colonialism herein the americas, black and latina women being murdered because our people are hoodwinked,as malcolm x said. our people, black and latinx in the united states are hoodwinked, they'vebeen bamboozled, they've been led astray. they've fell for the okey-doke of the colonizer.that the trans woman is abnormal and that
she must be controlled, she must be eliminatedfrom our community. a lot of cisgender men, in general also the ignorance around sexuality,a lot of cisgender men are attracted to trans women but because our society pathologizescismale attraction for trans women, cis men take that out on trans women. and insteadof being in solidarity with trans women who are harmed by male violence, cis women----andi'm speaking specifically of black cis women within the african american community---resenttrans women for so-called "taking our men" and "fooling" men as if men do not choosetrans women, do not pursue trans women. and that has to be talked about, that kind of,again, like most oppressed people who don't understand how the system works, black ciswomen have taken out their anger and frustration,
their anger at being oppressed, their angerat being objectified, at being marginalized, at being invisibilized by the society, they'vetaken it out on trans women's bodies. they've taken their resentment out on trans women,instead of naming, instead of studying their history, and studying the history of blackwomen in the united states, and studying british colonialism, and understanding the struggleof the african american woman. instead of doing that internal work, that historicalwork, black cis women have taken out their frustration on black trans women who are sufferingwith colonial patriarchy just like they are. and so i feel like as an lgbtq activist, particularlyas a female-assigned non-binary person who benefits from cis privilege, who benefitsfrom female-assigned at birth (afab) privilege,
i really see it as part of my responsibilitynot only to combat my own transmisogyny, my own femmephobia, but to challenge other female-assignedpeople: cis women, and non-binary female-assigned people, transgender men as well---to holdus accountable for our transmisogyny. and i do that not only in solidarity with transwomen and also in a desire to be accountable to black trans women in my community, butalso to combat this legacy of violence, this legacy of trauma against the black body inthe united states and across the entire african diaspora. to combat the legacy that the britishcolonizer left us with in terms of violent masculinity, violent patriarchy, rape culture---thatis my way of exercising those demons. because those demons live within me too. it's notjust, you know---the colonizer did this, the
american state does that, the police do this,social workers do that. that violence is within me. it's within ym. and i carry that legacyof violence. from my mother, my grandmothers, my forefathers, and i see it as part of myresponsibility to unpack, to unpack how i've internalized patriarchy, how i've internalizedtransmisogyny, how i've internalized cissexism and femmephobia. to combat those demons withinmyself. and to reach out to feminine of center black people across the diaspora, but in particulartransgender women within the african american community. i see that as my work. and i wantto join with other black gender justice leaders, whether you're an lgbtq activist like myself,a black feminist, black womanist, if you're a black man, a black cisgender man in solidaritywith the liberation of black women and black
lgbtq people, i would love to join with you.and how can we put our heads together, if we could figure out how to combat cissexismand heteropatriarchy within the black community in the united states, but also across theentire african diaspora. how can we do this work? also, trans women: please feel free to callme out, feel free to hold me accountable for what i am doing and how i am trying to combattransmisogyny and how i am trying to approach cisgender women and other female-assignedat birth people about our problem with transmisogyny and femmephobia. any advice that you can give,any---just let me know how you think i'm doing on this work. because it's not enough forme to say "well, i want to fight transmisogyny."
i have to be accountable to my community,i have to be accountable to trans women in my community about how i do this work. soi definitely want to hear from you on that. so yeah. just again, we want to, black people---wewant to figure out how to come together, how can we deal with our legacy of trauma. post-traumaticslave syndrome, as joy degraw says. post-traumatic slave syndrome. and cissexism and transmisogynyand heteropatriarchy are part of that legacy of post-traumatic slave syndrome. thank you.