WEBVTT

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Hello.

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Hey.

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(Laughter)

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As you just heard,

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my name is D-L Stewart,

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and I'm a faculty member here on campus
at Colorado State University.

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But what's most important
for you to understand about me right now

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is that I identify as both Black

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and as transgender, or trans.

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And yes, I'm going to talk to you today
about how Black trans lives matter.

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As I do so,

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I'm going to share
a few scenes from my own life,

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mixed in with the ways

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that race and gender have historically
and currently intersected

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to shape the lives of Black trans people.

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Ready?

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Audience: Ready.

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DLS: Scene one.

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I am at home with myself.

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My body, a sovereign country.

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Sovereign meaning

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it is superlative in quality.

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Of the most exalted kind.

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Having generalized curative powers
of an unqualified nature,

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unmitigated,

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paramount,

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possessed of supreme power,

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unlimited in extent, absolute.

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Enjoying autonomy,

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independent,

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royal.

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My body defies the restrictions

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of a society consumed
by boxes and binaries

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and "are you a boy or a girl?"

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Independent of such conventions,

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my body clings instead
to the long ago lore

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that understood its magic.

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I contain multitudes.

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From this supreme power to name myself,

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define myself and be myself,

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I stake a claim to myself

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and organize my resistance.

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A resistance that boldly proclaims
that Black trans lives matter.

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My body is a sovereign country

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and my first site of resistance.

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End scene.

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To say that Black trans lives matter
is a claim to sovereignty.

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As much as Black Girl Magic,
and #transisbrilliant,

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Black Trans Lives Matter
is also a chorus of resistance.

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Because Black trans lives begin
by defining our bodies

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as sovereign countries

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from which we first begin
to resist the messages

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that we have no place here.

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We push whole movements forward
on the strength of our vision.

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We set trends and create new worlds.

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We are the vanguard.

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Black trans lives have always mattered.

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And yet,

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caught at the time-traveling intersection

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of Juneteenth emancipation celebration

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and Stonewall's emancipation declaration,

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Black trans lives
are both seen but yet unseen.

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Unseen by the antiblackness
of queer and trans movements.

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Unseen by the transphobia
and trans-antagonism of Black movements.

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Our sovereignty and resistance are blocked

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by layers of systems and structures

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that have always sought

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to contain, define and erase
Black trans bodies.

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Scene two.

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I am with my therapist.

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The one whose testimony I must rely on

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to declare me man enough
to have my documents changed.

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The one who is to be believed.

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Despite my own declarations
that I am not this body,

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that this body is neither hers
nor yours to define,

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I sit with this doctor.

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And she fills out a form for me.

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And when concerning what all I've done

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to affirm my gender,

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"Has the patient's gender presentation

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aligned with their gender identity?"

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She decides that my gender presentation

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is more neutral, really.

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While I sit there, mind you,

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head to toe in clothing
from the section of the store

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where the dress buttons
go down the right side,

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and my pants give away
the number of inches around my waist,

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and my hair is cut
like Denzel's "Man on Fire,"

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but I'm still more neutral.

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Really?

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Because she still sees,

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and you see,

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a Black woman.

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And Black women's bodies
are always already made genderless.

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End scene.

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From mammy and Sapphire,

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to Mandingo and Sambo,

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Black bodies and our genders
have been caught in the White imagination.

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And the imagination
of whiteness is fanciful,

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and powerful enough
to turn its fancies into realities.

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Imagined as a thing,

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we were made to become that thing,

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and so we have been bred like horses,

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fed like turtles to alligators,

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branded like cattle,

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milked like sows,

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made into oxen to plow.

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Gender did not matter,

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so long as our body parts,

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our arms and legs and backs,

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our breasts and genitalia

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could be turned into profit.

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The Black body was made not White

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and therefore not worthy of gender.

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And under the weight of the gentile tulle

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and virginal lace that dressed
plantation mistresses,

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Black femininity has always been denied.

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Instead, she is either beast or porn star.

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Neither a proper gender, dehumanized.

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Made a social threat
that endangers civility.

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That puts civilization in danger.

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The angry Black woman cannot be escaped.

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Not even by a first lady
of these United States.

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Likewise, ill-suited for chivalry

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and outmatched as masters
and captains of fate,

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Black manhood lays flaccid

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in the hands of White man's dominance.

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Body measurements taken,

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speed measured,

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draft pick forecasted.

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This is the NFL combine.

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Body measurements taken,

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teeth and body cavities inspected,

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number assigned.

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This is the prison intake room.

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Body measurements taken,

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talents and abilities advertised,

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teeth and body cavities inspected,

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name and value assigned.

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This is a slave's bill of sale.

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Made either stud or farce,
he is not for his own pleasure,

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but rather for profit and jest.

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Athletes and comics

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contained.

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Made not a threat.

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"My gender is Black," said Hari Ziyad,

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because Black bodies
and our genders have been caught

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in the White imagination,

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and we have always been transgressive.

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Transgressive meaning

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a violation of accepted and imposed
boundaries of social acceptability.

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Blackness is transgressive.

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And once set free

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from social acceptability,

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blackness challenges the limitations
of what gender can be.

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We have always been fugitives here.

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Escaping from gender surveillance

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to claim our sovereignty

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and right to exist and to live free,

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to proclaim as beautiful

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that which was made ugly,

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to defy convention,

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Black lives and trans lives
and Black trans lives.

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And yet, in this world, that fact

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that Black trans lives make a difference,

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make differences

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and make a matter of mattering
is doused by the fire hoses

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of past and current denials

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of our rights to exist and resist.

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We must fight to be seen

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as we see through fences

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into the play yards
that we are kept out of.

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Scene three.

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I am at school.

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The bell rings, it's recess.

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We line up to go outside.

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Those made boys on one side,

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those made girls on the other.

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We file out of the doors.

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The boys stopping
to fill in the closed off street.

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The girls and I,

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walking across the street.

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"Keep your eyes
straight ahead," we are told.

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Because there's a park across the street.

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But there is a wrought iron fence
that encloses that park.

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This is where the girls and I play.

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Mostly, I stand at the fence and watch,

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as my fellows play ball in the street

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and be loud

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and be rough

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and be sweaty,

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and I am behind the fence.

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Accused of thinking naughty thoughts.

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They have no idea.

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End scene.

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Sissified and bulldaggered,
we are all made up.

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Just boys in dresses and girls in suits,

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the Black transgressive body

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caught in fantasies of boxes and binaries

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that make our genitalia
representative of our gender,

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and our mannerisms our sexuality.

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Black trans lives are therefore
written off as merely gay effeminate

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or lesbian butch.

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And the overlay of femininity
on bodies marked as male,

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and therefore as man,

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adheres like a "kick me" sign,

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except the consequences
are much more deadly.

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The majority of trans people murdered
in this country are Black trans women.

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Because when manhood
is located between one's legs,

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and defined in opposition to womanhood,

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what's between one's legs

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cannot be seen as having anything
in common with womanhood.

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And this same acidic wash
serves to blanch trans masculinity,

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making it fade into nothingness.

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Black trans men
become illusions of manhood,

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women merely playing at being men
because you can't get a real man.

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Forever put in our place,

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we are indelibly marked as "woman."

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And at best, the looming threat
of Black trans manhood

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is contained, inoculated,

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made more neutral, really.

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Scene four.

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I am with my therapist.

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I tell her what I think about,

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as my body begins to slowly morph
into another version of itself.

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What will happen as I move

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from the social threat
of angry Black womanhood

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to the physical threat
of looming Black manhood?

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When will my neighbors
forget to recognize me and my pit bull?

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They've seen us nearly every day,

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predawn or after twilight,

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for what will have been
over two years by then?

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When and how soon

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after I am no longer misgendered woman

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will the cops be called
to come and contain

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and erase my presence?

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How soon before the purse clutching,

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the sidewalk crossing?

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What does it mean to become a brute?

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To turn my body
into another kind of threat?

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She's stunned that I'm already
recognizing this.

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I can't afford not to.

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End scene.

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Who can see me and my Black trans kin
in the skin we are in?

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Who dares to love us,

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who holds us close?

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To whom do we matter 
other than to ourselves?

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We're not looking for saviors.

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We have each other.

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As Lilla Watson said,

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"If you have come here to help me,
you are wasting your time.

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But if you have come because you recognize

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your liberation is bound up in mine,

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then let us work together."

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Let us work together
to make Black trans lives matter.

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The lived experience of Black trans people

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out into the world.

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And if you believe that your liberation
is bound up with mine,

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then I invite you

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to make Black Trans Lives Matter
your personal ethic

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by being transformative,

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loudly and mindfully.

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You can do that in three ways.

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Transform your thinking
about blackness and gender.

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Be loud by taking the risk

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to confront false assumptions
and other's fears and biases.

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Be mindful and pay attention and believe

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what Black trans people say
about our own lives.

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Being transformative loudly and mindfully

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takes practice.

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Just like getting
someone's pronouns right.

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Mine are they, them, their,
and he, him, his, by the way.

NOTE Paragraph

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And getting someone's pronouns right

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and being transformative loudly
and mindfully matters.

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Because Black trans lives matter.

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My life matters.

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My body is a sovereign country,

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and my first site of resistance.

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(Applause)