Monday, July 31, 2017

Janet Mock's response to The Breakfast Club mess


After appearing on The Breakfast Club, Janet Mock found herself in the middle of a mess. Some stupid fool, Lil Duval, said some hurtful things on that show about trans women. He said:

“This might sound messed up and I don’t care. She dying. I can’t deal with that. You manipulated me to believe in this thing. If one did that to me, and they didn’t tell me, I’mma be so mad I’d probably going to want to kill them.”


Well, Janet responded in a piece in Allure magazine:
The hosts laugh after using my image as a literal prop — just days after I was a guest on the same show — for laughs, vitriol, and a deeper call and justification for violence. Just so we are all clear: On a black program that often advocates for the safety and lives of black people, its hosts laughed as their guest advocated for the murder of black trans women who are black people, too!

This was not the first time that I’ve been misgendered, dismissed, told that I am an abomination, that I need medical help and God, et cetera, et cetera. Boo boo: You are not original. Everything you’ve spewed has been said to me and my sisters before — hundreds of times. But there are deeper consequences to this casual ignorance.
It’s this deplorable rhetoric that leads many cis men, desperately clutching their heterosexuality, to yell at, kick, spit on, shoot, burn, stone, and kill trans women of color. It’s something I’ve written about extensively and even explored in my conversation with actress Amiyah Scott, who lost her sister Chyna Gibson when she was shot to death in New Orleans in February. Chyna was the fifth trans woman killed in 2017.

There have been at least 15 reported deaths of trans women of color so far this year, according to GLAAD.
Until cis people — especially heteronormative men — are able to interrogate their own toxic masculinity and realize their own gender performance is literally killing trans women, cis men will continue to persecute trans women and blame them for their own deaths. If you think trans women should disclose and “be honest,” then why don’t you work on making the damn world safe for us to exist in the first place? The “I’d kill a woman if I found out” rhetoric is precisely why so many women hold themselves so tight — the stigma and shame attached to our desires need to be abolished.
Activists and allies are coming for the Breakfast Club and lil Duval by using the hashtag #TransFolksAreNotaJoke. Please do yourself a favor and check it out

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.