“ While transphobia certainly exists in both subtle and overt ways, this lack of debate has contributed to an assumption that the political elements that are at the heart of transphobia do not affect men and women of color who are not trans-identified and who may even be transphobic. It seems that some transgender proponents assume that it is only the trans body that is under scrutiny or fails to live up to appropriate (read white) norms of gender and sexuality. It is true that there is a particular fixation to determine the genitalia of people whose gender expression is not easily “readable” and that such a fixation is bound to a desire to sexually interrogate and physically and socially discipline the trans body. Yet this fixation with genitalia and with the sexual “nature” of the body and the violence associated with such preoccupations are not limited to trans bodies. They affect anyone whose body is not white, regardless of the person’s gender, sexuality, or politics regarding either. While many of us, as women of color who identify as women, will be identified by the state and individuals as women, we need to confront the fact that the non-white body is never fully free from serving as gendered and sexualized spectacle. That is, all of our bodies are subject to scrutiny, exotification, appraisal, intrusion, and violence. The same goes for men of color who identify as men, regardless of how much they want to ignore how vulnerable they are to gendered and sexualized violence perpetrated by men and women. In other words, simply being non-white in the world means that our bodies are subject to a violent white gaze (which non-whites may adopt) that determines how our bodies are ranked, interacted with, taken in, or punished.

The possibility of transgender politics, then, is not simply to reaffirm the “real” gender existing within the body. Such a reaffirmation neglects the reality that all non-white bodies, to varying degrees, are struggling to define what makes our bodies and our internal sense of self “real” in a world in which whiteness serves as the ultimate standard for gender and sexual normalcy and blackness as deviance. This struggle often leads to a variety of problematic behaviors among non-whites, including attempts to secure physical whiteness (and move away from being associated with physical blackness) through bodily alteration, appeals to patriarchy, masculinity, and homophobia in an effort to “reform” or “rehabilitate” bodies from being perceived as deviant, or, in the case of some trans people, the use of tropes of blackness to show they are “fucking with gender” (and in turn, reaffirming the idea of blackness as deviance). Rather the possibility of transgender politics lies in its potential critique of bodily fixation, gender divisions, heterosexuality, and modernist aspirations that informs our lived experiences with and activist challenges to white supremacy and anti-blackness. Such an approach would serve a less solipsistic agenda and rather work to push vital and urgent conversations about racialized gender and sexual violence that happens to, and between non-whites, trans and non-trans.

“ I do not need to stress the importance of Transgender Day of Remembrance as a viable act of visibility and resistance. However, it is not enough for us to simply mourn these victims–we have to take the necessary steps to destroy the racist institutional barriers that perpetuate their deaths–and not leave the burden of responsibility on communities of color. Instead, predominately white led transgender advocacy organizations, which undoubtedly have the greatest access to resources financial and otherwise, must begin to seriously consider the lives of the most vulnerable members of our community by developing and enforcing policy that takes an intersectional approach to the identities of trans people of color.

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The fact is that transgender people—in particular, transgender people of color—have simply not experienced the same strides forward as their lesbian, gay and bisexual brothers and sisters. A landmark new report, ‘Injustice at Every Turn,’ presents undeniable proof. This report, released on Friday, is based on a comprehensive survey of over 6,000 transgender people and the findings are too shocking to ignore, especially when it comes to African-American transgender people.

Our transgender brothers and sisters are far more likely to lack proper medical care, to be unemployed, to live in extreme poverty, and to be HIV-positive—and that’s when compared to their white transgender counterparts, not just the general population. The survey’s respondents were four times more likely than the general population to live in extreme poverty. One in five reported having been refused a home or apartment, another one in five report having been refused health care. More than one in five, 22 percent, reported having been harassed by law enforcement, and nearly half reported fear of seeking assistance from police. African American respondents reported all of this in even higher numbers.