“Trans Atlanta: A Look inside an Evolving Community”

http://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/news/atlanta-news-menu/1500-trans-atlanta-a-look-inside-an-evolving-community

The Georgia Voice, a news outlet that focuses on LGBT communities, recently posted a story called “Trans Atlanta: A look inside an Evolving Community.” The post featured an interview with a black transman and discusses trans visibility, violence and discrimination against trans people, trans healthcare concerns, community building, and economic hardships. Also, the story has a list of trans-related definitions at the end of it, which is super-helpful for those who want to learn more about trans issues!

Dana Prosser, the transman interviewed in this story, speaks candidly about the decisions that he must make in order to stay safe on a daily basis. He speaks of the discrimination that he faces as a black man in the South (ranging from people crossing the street to avoid him to racial profiling by the police), and shares that the reality of possibly being arrested and imprisoned factored into his decision to keep his sex listed as “F” (for “female”) on his driver’s license. That way, in case he is ever arrested, he will not be placed in a men’s prison facility, where he would likely be assaulted by the other inmates. Prosser also says that while he doesn’t go around telling everyone that he is a transman, he will tell people if they ask him. “It’s about opening people’s eyes. I want people to know there are different people walking amongst you,” he says, “I am who I am.”

Prosser’s story of being black and trans made me think of Johnson and Henderson’s “Introduction: Queering Black Studies/ ‘Quaring’ Queer Studies.” As Johnson and Henderson note, in the phrase “black queer,” “black” and “queer” mark difference. “‘Queer’ challenges notions of heteronormativity and heterosexism, ‘black’ resists notions of assimilation and absorption. And so we endorse the double cross of affirming the inclusivity mobilized under the sign of “queer” while claiming the racial, historical, and cultural specificity attached to the marker ‘black’” (7). Basically, what the authors are saying is that the words “black queer” identify a different experience than just saying “queer” or “black”. For example, by identifying as trans, Prosser may be seen as being queer (especially in the sense of using the word “queer” as an umbrella term for LGBT folks); however, as he states himself, he is also black. He may not fit in with the black community because he is trans; he may not fit in with the queer community because he is black; and he may not fit into mainstream society because he is black and trans. However, by saying “I am who I am” and expressing a willingness to share more about himself when he wants to, Prosser proudly claims his identity in the face of a society that may devalue his experience, and negotiates his way in a world that can be hostile to him just because of who he is.

Janelle Monáe

Janelle Monáe, producer of thrilling music, great style, and general foxiness, is producing music with themes of anti-oppression and racial and class empowerment; though in some ways she is queering the way black women can perform gender and sexuality in pop culture, her music is not overtly criticizing homophobia or subverting heterosexuality.

Ruth Goldman's “Who is that Queer Queer?” discusses queer theory's tendency to ignore race and class in its project of disrupting heteronormativity, and thus calls for greater attention to race and class. In the case of Janelle Monáe, the marginalization of black and working class people is what she is critiquing. However, despite her displays of open support for the queer community and her habit of leaving her sexual orientation ambiguous (saying in an interview with Rolling Stone that “I only date androids” without specifying who qualifies as an android), some of Monáe's most popular music does not overtly address the oppression of sexual minorities. Thus, Monáe's work in some ways exemplifies Goldman's articulation of the alienation of people of color and working class people from queer theory due to its tendency to universalize the experiences of white, middle-class people and leave out people of color and working-class people.

Monáe is queering a number of things: she performs working class identity and a sort of androgyny by donning a tuxedo, bowtie and saddle shoes, terming it her uniform in homage to her working class roots: “My mother was a janitor and my father collected trash, so I wear a uniform too.” In her song “Many Moons,” she interrupts the song's melodic verses with a spoken litany of often marginalized characteristics or identities (Many Moons: minute 3:39), including 'hood rat,' 'crack whore,' 'closet drunk,' 'outcast,' 'black girl,' 'welfare,' 'HIV,' 'overweight,' 'tomboy,' 'heroin user,' 'coke head,' and 'Jim Crow.' Monáe names these markers of oppression – mostly class- and race-based with brief mention of size oppression and gender identity marginalization (tomboy) – as a call to those whose “freedom is in a bind” to “just come and I'll take you home” to Shangri-La, a mythic utopia. However, in comparison to her overt messages about race and class empowerment, homophobia and oppression based on sexual identity go remarkably unmentioned in this song. It's a bit of a bummer, really, that she doesn't take this opportunity to include a critique of the marginalization of black queer people.

Despite this leaving out of queer people, Janelle Monáe has set up her music, message and aesthetic as a powerful medium of criticism of social and injustices and oppressive systems; she could perhaps quite easily incorporate the oppressions of sexual minorities into this critique. I'm rooting for her, too, because she's already indicated that she supports queer rights, and because her presence on the music scene is so vibrant, thrilling, and powerful that if she gave a critique of sexual and gender normativity, people would listen.