Decolonizing Work With Transgender People of Color

Abstract

Transgender issues have come to the forefront in recent years, with intense media coverage and bills focusing on bathrooms, sports, and healthcare. As trans studies broaden, as well as queer studies, we must recognize the impact colonization and antiblackness have on our current ideas of gender and sex. Understanding colonization as a reality in which many have lived and died is vital to understanding our experiences with gender, but in order to find freedom from colonization, we must look to and imagine a future that seeks to repair the damage as well as heal beyond it. This guide was created to introduce readers to ways they can decolonize their understanding of transgender topics, especially those concerning transgender people of color. This guide contains three chapters which focus on the past, histories of trans people of color, present, the current state of trans issues, and future, imagining decolonized futures for trans people of color. This guide is not a Transgender 101 course; rather, it focuses on the colonial impact on gender, especially for those who are racialized outside of whiteness in a US context. The project uses applied anthropology methods, including cultural intervention research and advocacy action research, to create a concise article that takes academic theoretical concepts and introduces them to a variety of audiences that may not have academic backgrounds but desire to practice critical work with transgender people of color.