Beyond Periods.

For the last few days cis Black women have been engaging the discourse regarding gender, womanhood and trans folk online after a video went viral from comedian Jess Hilarious. In that video, Jess appears to be responding to the video of a trans woman, and in that video Jess uplifts menstruation and reproductive organs as having primary significance for womanhood and defines this as what it means to be a “real” woman.

I have been thinking about how to enter this discourse as a racial justice advocate who is cis gender, Black, heterosexual, married, Christian and a whole host of other identifiers. I want to be careful in my public response because I do not want to speak “for” trans women. They are speaking for themselves. I also do not want to speak as an expert on gender because I am not one. So I offer to you, who I am and why I am grateful for the very existence of trans women.

I got my period at 10 years old. And when I told my father and stepmother, you would have thought someone had died. The room went silent and I quickly realized that this “defining moment” I had been waiting for would not be met with celebration but instead with mourning. I then learned there were a lot of rules regarding my period. I should not tell anyone. I should not talk about it in public. Even in the house we would call it “that time of the month” so as to not make the men in our household uncomfortable. I was to hide my feminine products when I did need them- under the sink or buried deep within my purse. I have even now, at almost 40 years old, never seen a woman pull out a pad or tampon in mixed company and carry it to the bathroom.

Having a period was treated more like a curse than a gift. ( I want to pause here and acknowledge that even my use of the phrase “period” instead of menstruation is indicative of the silence surrounding menstruation, but I use it here because that is the term I use in my daily life and I’m not going to pretend otherwise, even if doing so would make me look more enlightened.) In fact, there were women who called it “the curse” and I certainly learned in my Christian elementary school that God made periods and labor hurt because we were cursed.

Cursed. The same way I was told that Ham was cursed and that’s why Black people became enslaved in the US. Cursed. The same way Black women’s bodies were told that we are too thick and too dark and too sexual and too loud and too angry and altogether too much to be desirable. Cursed. At fourteen I became a minister in my church and I knew there were other churches who would not let me past the first pew because I was a woman and woman could not teach, could not preach, could not lead anyone but children. Cursed. Every day in school I walked the halls where uniforms were not only expected to be worn, but expected to be worn properly on Black women’s bodies- they were not made for us, but we were being immodest when the skirt hiked up in the back because there was no room for our hips and butt. We were immodest when our full breasts tested the strength of the buttons. We were treated differently because clothes not made for us did not fit and that unfittedness became a tool for assessing our spiritualness. Cursed.

And so I was stunned when I read the Bible for myself and discovered that Eve did not trick anyone, including Adam. I was stunned to find that Ham was not cursed and his skin color never mentioned. At 14 I knew my vagina didnt stop me from preaching the roof off the church. I knew that uniforms being uniform meant they didnt fit us and that was the problem of the manufacturer, not my soul. And there are a million other ways that my Black woman-ness has been policed over the years. There are a million other ways that I have been told that my woman-ness is a curse. There are a million other ways that I have been told that I cannot be trusted with decisions about my body, my autonomy, my vote, my voice, my reality, my will, my giftedness all because I am a Black woman.

Having a period and some reproductive organs has never made me a “real” woman- it has only ever made me a target for injustice.

And so I had to go on my own journey to define womanhood for myself. I had to decide if womanhood was a curse or a gift. I had to decide what clothes made me feel good in my body. I had to decide when I would raise my voice with or without permission. I had to decide which policies I thought were right for me and recognized my own autonomy. I had to define myself for myself. And for me, having a period and ovaries and a uterus does not make or break me as a woman. For years, I was not sure I wanted to have children and I was still a woman. When I wasn’t sure I would carry to term, I was still a woman. There have been months when my period disappeared and one day when it will disappear altogether and I will still be a woman. It is entirely possible that like Black women who suffer from cancer, fibroids, tumors and a host of other medical complications, I may one day have to remove my reproductive organs, and I will still be a woman. My womanhood has nothing to do with organs and everything to do with the way I see and understand myself in relationship to the world.

And in this I have personally been blessed by the existence of trans women. Even if they never wrote books or created documentaries or shared about their lives or made music or acted in movies/shows or contributed to my personal world- their existence would still be a gift. Because they reveal to us how to define our womanhood beyond the curses the world has decided it is. Trans women formulate their womanhood from the inside out. They look within themselves and ask “what is true to me?” And I am blessed by the insight and courage it takes to respond honestly in a world that refuses to affirm her answer. They remind me, link arms with me and tell me that what the world believes about my womanhood is irrelevant compared to what I believe.

By this I do not mean to signify that all trans people are our teachers, the same way white people should not assume that all Black people are their educators. I do not mean that all trans people would or should dedicate themselves to my freedom. I mean only to say that their being invites freedom- whether we accept that freedom or not. I want to receive that freedom.

Now I must turn to a question that Jess Hilarious asked more than once in her video. “Who will stand up for us? Who will stand up for real women?” And to that I want to respond as a cis gender, Black woman. I do not need trans women to stand up for me when I am the one with greater privilege. It is I who need to stand up for them.

As a Black woman and racial justice educator I often am tagged, messaged, emailed, etc about the experiences of non-Black people of color. When a racial incident goes down in America, non-Black people of color will accuse me of doing nothing or ask me why I am only standing for “my” people, or imply that I do not really care about racial justice. It happens all the time. Instead of going to the most powerful, the most privileged, I am expected to carry the woes of the world on my shoulders. And more than that, it is assumed that I am not already fighting for everyone all the time. It is assumed that the pursuit for racial justice in the Black community is somehow apart from the ones for all other people of color. As if the contributions my people have made havent directly impacted all other people of color in this nation- and often in ways far more profound than for Black people themselves (hello affirmative action).

This question from Jess Hilarious sounds the same to my ear. How wild and inappropriate to ask one of the few groups who receives more violence than cis Black women to stand for us. And where did we get the idea that they dont? How could we possibly look at a group of people who choose to defy the white supremacist project in their very bodies and suggest that they arent already turning the world upside in our favor? How dare we participate in the same dehumanizing project that has sought our undoing and decide who is “real” and who is not. Haven’t we had enough of wading through cursed waters to now drown someone else?

Either we are for this white supremacist project or we are for people- all people. There is no middle ground, no half way, no neutral. Trans people are not the enemy. Trans people are people and they are as lovely, imperfect, beautiful and messy as all the rest of us. Which is why they are deserving of protection, of civil rights, of love.

And quiet as its kept, its in your best interest to make sure trans people have the same rights you want or that you already enjoy. Because let me tell you, any law that is used against them (is already) and surely will be used to subtract from our own dignity. Let’s not make the same mistake as those who told us that we are cursed. Let us not become the oppressor. Let us see those who are more marginalized than we are and stand side by side and say, “you will not take away her dignity just as you will not take away mine”.

***

If you are learning more about trans people, I highly recommend the following accounts who regularly offer to teach their audiences, but I sure expect you to learn quietly and not start any dehumanizing mess.

Disclosure

Laverne Cox and especially this video.

ALOK

Tre’vell Anderson

Angelica Ross

Raquel Willis

The Stroll

The National Center for Transgender Equality

Human Rights Campaign

Paris is Burning

*** I know you all just got a substack from me two seconds ago. But this was weighing on my heart and I needed to set it free as soon as I could because lives are at stake. Please believe I will delete any comment I deem to be dehumanizing, and if things get out of hand, I will disable comments altogether. This post is not a debate nor is it an invitation to agree to disagree. This is where I stand and this will be a safe community for all LGBTQIA+ Black persons. Also please forgive the typos. I am too am human. ***