Community Infighting, Passing Privilege, and the Trans Identity Struggle

What happens when societal expectations clash with personal identity, especially within marginalized communities? 

Join Shane Ivan Nash and Blossom C Brown for a poignant and eye-opening discussion as we sit down with our insightful guest, Arisce Wanzer. 

Together, we confront the heart-wrenching realities of community infighting and the labyrinthine journey of navigating identity intersections, particularly for those who are both black and trans. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

that you could say about that situation, because it's a sensitive subject. But it's a conversation that I feel needs to be had. But we have to have it in a sensitive way, where we're not attacking our trans sisters or even being perceived that way, because our liberation is tied and it's troublesome sometimes when folks don't have the language, because they may have that message in their heart but it's just not coming out of their mouth. The right way.

Speaker 2: 0:24

I think in that case, like I'm still close with Leight, like we're friends we live in the same building. Oh wow, he's watching my dog right now.

Speaker 3: 0:33

Nice, Awesome. Shout out to Leight Ashley, everyone yes.

Speaker 2: 0:36

But I think in that scenario we get so much infighting within the community. We get so much infighting within the community and people with with passing privilege and I'll say this from personal experience just in some people's eyes they will fight to misunderstand you because they don't want to see themselves in you, or they don't want to hear your point, even if you have one, or they don't want to see you in their shoes, like it's just like um being light-skinned. Some people, some people are like oh, not black enough, can't talk on that subject. Or, and no, can I talk about dark we?

Speaker 1: 1:15

can go anywhere. Answers no no. The answer is no, yeah no, I cannot.

Speaker 2: 1:19

I mean black issues, where they don't want us to speak up and I'm like no, I'm still a person. I still walk the world as a black person.

Speaker 1: 1:25

They do this to Blossom. Yes, it's like she can't be trans and black in the same space.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Oh my God, or can't talk about it in the same space the intersectionality that we are not allowed to have, that we are expected to navigate through, perfectly like a maze built for us, when really none of this is built for us.

Speaker 3: 1:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:42

And we're rejected from all of our communities at some point and, like you're rejected from womanhood, you're rejected from blackness, you're rejected from transness. If you don't do trans exactly how this influencer thinks you should be trans, yeah, and it's just. It's exhausting, yeah, it's exhausting. And that's where I will defend Laith, because I understood what he meant. What. Defend Laith because I understood what he meant, what he was saying.

Speaker 2: 2:08

But people were fighting to misunderstand him and I don't care if you want to cancel me in saying that fuck you, you ain't shit and you don't know me. Anyway, and you don't, and we all have, and it doesn't matter and I tell people this all the time it doesn't matter what level of fame or passability you get to as a trans person. You are just a trans person to everyone else in the world and you're going to walk the world through that because people are going to fight to misunderstand. You, fight to misrepresent, you fight to misgender. You Like. If I get misgendered these days, it happens very rarely, but when it does, I know it was on purpose. I'm like you did that on purpose and it was to flex that. I'm not like you.

Speaker 2: 2:45

And that I'm never going to acclimate into your world, which I never even wanted to do, by the way. I'm just trying to be the best me I can be. This is not. I'm not in a contest with anybody else, but your bank account, you want to just get this number. Fuck capitalism.

Speaker 3: 3:00

Fuck you I really would like just to have a new way yeah.

Speaker 3: 3:04

When it came to Leif, though, in that conversation I felt like he did it the best way he knew how, Because when I listened to it especially the part when he was talking about trans men being socialized female I actually understood that, because there's this nuance and this cognitive dissonance within our trans women and trans men community that talks so much about, you know, trans men having to learn to be the protector and trans women learning to fall back and be more of the nurturer, and those types of conversations are really, really important because they are a part of our lives and a part of our, like, social construct of what being trans is. And it broke my heart to see a lot of backlash, because I was actually one of the ones that defended Faith and I remember, like ISIS and a few other people defended him or whatever, because there were a lot of trans men that were kind of coming out, particularly non-black or non-POC trans men.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Always the first ones to attack.

Speaker 3: 4:00

That had a lot to say about that.

Speaker 1: 4:01

Well, I have a comment to come right after this.

Speaker 3: 4:03

Yeah, and I was just like but y'all are kind of missing the point because that's kind of one of the best ways you can explain it and be able to get what they're talking about Now that language to some trans men. Again, I'm not a trans man. We talk about this every episode. Now I can understand it being a little triggering because you know the vocabulary is still forming and we're trying to do our best, but you're not going to be able to please everyone and I didn't think late got that fair justice when that came about. But I can say, as a trans sister, I learned and it did make some kind of impact.

Speaker 2: 4:36

Yeah, and I did have. On the other hand, I think it's not so far removed from our own experience, because the trans male experience where it says they're socialized female, yeah, and that is no different than the way that cisgender women view trans women saying, oh, we were socialized as male. You don't know a woman's struggle when really we were femmes. Like I wasn't invited to the like, to the reindeer games, I wasn't invited to the boys sleepover. I wasn't. I wasn't allowed to play with, like you know, billy and Johnny, cause they didn't want to play with me and I couldn't figure out why. No one wanted to play with me but the girls, and so it's. And I liked playing with the girls, it was fine.

Speaker 2: 5:15

But, like, you try to fit in as best you can, and the more you try to fit in, the more ostracized you are, the more bullied you are, the more called out you are, because they know you're not like them. They know it and that's why when people are like, oh, kids don't know what they are, yes, yes, we do. And I'm not saying and again, I'm not saying kids are going to get surgeries because they are not fully, they're not, they're one, it's not legal percentage it's like people like I.

Speaker 1: 5:38

Just I need to say that from me too I know y'all know afford it when they're 18 plus. You think these kids are doing it. It's like one or two kids in history and they go documentary.

Speaker 2: 5:46

They're like the government's paying for their sexual reassignment surgery at five. I'm like that has never happened in the history of the world. Stop, no, stop the lies. You're spreading lies and propaganda and they're mongering. Yeah, but they don't want us to socially transition at that age when really it wouldn't do anything for the kid If I cause I would sleep on the girl's side at nap time just so I wouldn't be bullied, and the teachers knew that. And so it's like you clearly saw something was different about me. I was feminine and you should have just leaned into it.

Speaker 3: 6:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Because look what happened. Nothing changed. Fabulous, nothing changed. Yeah, no, but it didn't get any more masculine y'all. So it's like you're fighting something just because you don't like it, versus it just being in front of your face and you believing what it is Like you know, stop pretending you don't know.

Speaker 2: 6:33

And so, that being said, I think that trans women could empathize with Lay's statement, at least when we are called out for the wrong reasons, like oh, you guys were men before you had privilege. Pause, I was not. No, no, no, there was no male privilege anywhere. I was treated like a less than yeah, compared to any other male presenting person. Yeah, no, truly Truly. And we all were, like, most of us were yeah. The only person that wasn't was probably Caitlyn Jenner. Anyway, you know, I have a history with Caitlyn, I know, but I had to say it because that's someone who behaves how a lot of people think that we behaved before, like oh, they're just males using male privilege. And now, just, you know, in drag now, and I'm like absolutely not, I'm just being myself, I'm the same. I haven't changed at all. You.