Do you think the fact that I’m black and trans makes me scarier, more threatening, more evil, and potentially more violent?

She is a white cis woman, and I have such strong internalized hatred that I legitimately am scared that she’s going to inevitably feel like I’m a villain who will hurt her because I’m black and trans.

I can’t get the racial essentialist ideas about black people inherently being more “violent,” “aggressive,” and “predisposed to crime” out of my head. I can’t erase the outrageous discourse fearmongering about “trans women forcing cis lesbians to have sex with them” from my mind.

Last night, I was despairing because of this, so I asked her the question you see in the above quote. She responded with:

No angel 😞 that makes me sad that these thoughts cross your mind

I can’t empathize [with your internalized racism and internalized transphobia specifically] because I’ve never experienced it, but I can sympathize because I am a woman. I don’t see you any different than any other human because of your [race and gender identity], it’s irrelevant to me. I see you as superior [to many other humans] because of your compassion 💚💚💚

She has gone through internalized misogyny and internalized homophobia herself, so she gets what it’s like to have self-hatred on the basis of a marginalized identity.

Oftentimes, I’ve always felt like I’m an inferior being because of the intersection of multiple marginalized identities that I have going on. I still feel that way, and for some reason, I still continue to perpetuate it by casually referring to myself with disparaging terms like “freak,” “subhuman,” “abomination,” and “disgusting.”

However, I’ve been using a new term as of late, and that’s “monster.” I’m now feeling like I’m a violent, evil threat because I’m black and transfeminine. I don’t have urges to hurt anyone, be it through my words or through my hands, but I know myself as nothing more than a demon at this point.

That being said, it does make me happy knowing that she wholeheartedly accepts me as who I am. I’m not used to this, and when someone does tell me that they do accept me for who I am, I often regard it as performative. Knowing who she is as a person, it feels nothing but genuine coming from her.

My internalized bigotry may not be even close to gone, but there is hope. I often struggle to refrain from practices that ignite it. I still find it hard to abstain from using such degrading terms when referring to “what” I am.

“Human” feels very wrong to say, but I hope, one day, especially given the love of my partner, I can call myself that word and not feel like I’m uncomfortably lying to myself.