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Every month is Queer Black History Month; let's just get that out there at the outset. Just like every damn day is Pride Day! And if our current administration has anything to do with it, what with the amount of BIPOC erasure they've been committing this past year, one would think there never were any BIPOC people in America ever! So keep raising those voices high, loud, and proud! That being said, my buddy Chris pointed me to this recent post at Erin In the Morning about notable Black Trans history makers, and I thought I'd share what the writer S. Baum had to say.
Black trans and gender nonconforming people have always been at the forefront of change in this country—sometimes waging these battles from the most marginalized of spaces, and other times, doing so in the highest halls of power. (S.Baum, writing for Erin In the Morning)
As the writer points out, these individuals did not necessarily call themselves trans, or even non-binary or non-conforming. "..labels and notions about gender are specific to time and place." But as we view them through our contemporary lens, we see them as reflected through our mirror.
Obsessed with seahorses from an early age for their genderless qualities, Murray (who used feminine pronouns in her writing to describe herself) also contended that she was "a girl who should have been a boy." They sought out hormone replacement therapy and made inquiries of doctors for exploratory surgery to have a physical determination of their true gender, believing they would find undistended testes.
Murray was the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopalian priest, and the first Black individual to graduate with a JSD (Doctor of Jurisprudence) from Yale Law School. She would soon join Betty Friedan in creating the National Organization of Women.
Most significantly, Murray contributed to the end of segregation in America when they developed the legal theory which was later used by civil rights lawyers in Brown vs. Board of Education (1954.) This case would officially end segregation in American public schools.
Thompson's remarkable and film-worthy story started when she was born (male) on a Southern plantation. Incredibly, the family who laid claim to her recognized her femininity and true gender and provided clothing to reflect her true self. In a sense, she was able to transition there on the plantation.
Freed during an uprising, she began her life as a free woman in Memphis, TN, where she was witness to the Memphis Massacre in 1866, "one of the most consequential post-War atrocities against Black Americans." She was one of scores of victims of white men, many police officers, who murdered, robbed, and raped Black individuals. Thompson was one of five survivors who testified before Congress about their experiences. Their testimony, vital to Reconstruction efforts, was a lynchpin in the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment a few weeks later.
“At the heart of this historic transformation of the Constitution lay the testimony of five women who told Congress of being raped by white men, asserting that they must be protected from such violence like any white woman would have been [and...] their claim to equal protection included a woman who had become one through transition.” (Historian Jules Gill-Peterson.)
While her testimony resulted in the entire white police force of Memphis being fired, Thompson's remaining years were not happy ones. She became a spiritualist and fortune teller, but suffered a decade of police harassment. After being outed by a neighbor, she was arrested for "crossdressing" and sentenced to a chain gang, dying shortly after her release due to health conditions brought on by her brutal incarceration.
"Mama" to many, Griffin-Gracy for decades supported and cared for her family, both chosen and extended, and whoever else wandered through her sphere. A long-time community activist and trailblazer, she cared for people living with HIV/AIDS in NYC in the early 80s, and drove San Francisco's first mobile needle exchange. She was also the director of TGI Justice Project, a "team of transgender, gender-variant and intersex people, inside and outside of prisons, jails, detention centers, and other locked facilities creating a united family in the struggle for survival and freedom." (From their mission statement.)
“We used to accept this crap of: ‘We’re not worthy,’ and ‘We shouldn’t exist,’ like this government is trying to push down our throats. We’ve got to revolt, and we’ve got to reclaim who the fuck we are [...] If this world is going to get its act together, they have to support and put in the front to lead this revolution the people who are the most oppressed, which is my Black transgender community.” (Speaking to VICE in 2018. “
Johnson has come down in history as the spark that blazed forth from the Stonewall Inn on that fateful night for days after, the Stonewall Riots. Although white cis gay men have worked to distance themselves from their trans brethren, even going to far as to advocate their erasure from Stonewall in some films and stories, there are simply too many people who can place Johnson at the scene on that night, fighting back against police brutality alongside her trans brothers and sisters. Afterward, she founded Street Transvestite Activist Revolutionaries alongside fellow activist Sylvia Rivera. STAR "established deep networks of mutual aid and care for the trans street kids and sex workers either abandoned by the state or actively targeted by it," along with direct action against anti-trans and police brutality.
“Our main goal is to see gay people liberated and free and have equal rights that other people have in America. We’d like to see our gay brothers and sisters out of jail and on the streets again.” (From a 1970 interview.)
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