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A Conversation on Black Feminist Thought and Trans Feminism
Kai Green and Marquis Bey, the authors of the article Where Black Feminist Thought and Trans* Feminism Meet: A Conversation, explain the Black Feminist Thought as a historical enterprise that pushes people to think about the limitations of gender binary. Black feminist thought brings in the perspective about the functioning of black cisgender women as a category. Additionally, the authors opine that the Black Feminist thought reveals the real material grievances and conditions affecting black cisgender. Black Feminist thought can help theorize liberation of intersecting forms of oppression in the sense that it criticizes the categorization of women(Green and Marquis 438). This school of thought results in pressure as regards the lack of ability to hold black women. Scholars invested in liberation must not always be women. Undoubtedly, if the category of “woman” would become more inclusive to include transgender, women, black and women of color, then the categorization would function usefully.
Just like the Black Feminist thought, trans feminism is an enterprise that has been historically imbricated. A transgender woman is a woman that is thought to be born male but lives in the current world as a woman. Similarly, transgender men are thought to be born female, but they live as male. Transfeminism is a movement that is vested in the notion that the rights of transgender women fall along the lines of the feminist movement, particularly the freedom to take on a gender identity that is different from the one assigned at birth. Transgender women are women too; it is not a question of if and buts because a woman’s concept of being female is their gender identity.
According to the text, the term “woman” must be prioritized because women have to deal with many issues that inform their problems. As if living in an unequal society where women are viewed as the lesser gender, women must deal with other additional problems brought about by race, class, etc. Women not only have to deal with being discriminated against along the lines of gender; these other factors of race only seem to exacerbate their negative experiences. Their skin color and social class only seem to overlap and cause an overlapping disadvantage.
In addition to being historically imbricated, the concepts of Black Feminism Thought and Transfeminism are similar in that they both name the refusal of trans antagonism, radicalized sexism, gender binary, antiblackness and a range of other sociohistorical and identificatory vectors linked to fatal hegemonic and hierarchical regimes. Both schools of thought call out these issues in different ways.
When using both Black Feminism and Transfeminism approaches, inclusivity is important as it brings in a new perspective on creative thinking. Incorporating all categories of women, including queer, transgender women, and black and women of color is critical to ensuring the participation of individuals that are keen to pay attention to the needs of groups that would otherwise be forgotten. Inclusivity makes it easy to ensure equality and non-discrimination.
Upon reading this text and reflecting upon it, I am convinced that there is hope for liberation from oppression. I believe that there is hope for attaining a gender-equal society. While the journey will not be easy and will take a lot of time to get there, we should take a day at a time. I cannot wait for the day when women’s categorization, whether queer, transgender, queer and black, will not be viewed as a hindrance to equality.
Works Cited
Green, Kai M., and Marquis Bey. “Where Black feminist thought and trans* feminism meet: A conversation.” Souls 19.4 (2017): 438-454.
