I am insecure. This is a statement that one is not supposed to admit. It’s a statement that is followed up by inputs from others on why this is an asinine take and why I am supposed to know that I’m the baddest bitch I can be. Whatever I am insecure about, I am told that it is something I can get over and should get over. The consensus I get from the world is that insecurity is a state that will happen but that should be actively avoided and/or worked on by attaining whatever I am insecure about.
I told someone that I don’t watch trans porn. I said that watching trans porn made me compare my body against the actresses and in that typical ” trans goddess” appearance these girls tend to have, I feel like my body ain’t shit compared to theirs. The someone I told, a man ,followed up with you can work out, you can get surgery that pulls fat and places it in the boob areas, you can become the girls you are insecure of. And honestly its a take I’ve heard a thousand times and each time it falls flatter and more insincere every time I hear it and I roll my eyes. I can love my body yet still be conscious that a body like mine will not grant me the social acceptance that other types of bodies would. I can find beauty in my shape and still be cognizant that there is an indictment that my body is wrong. I can see where these so called areas of improvement can happen while still not wanting or feeling I need to change. The problem is the pervasiveness of messaging and messengers that promote some types and castigate others. The problem is people being bamboozled to feel like certain types of woman are acceptable. The problem is too many of us being unable to resist this detritus and hating ourselves as we try to conform to our oppression.
As a Black transwoman, I am tasked with trying to be my most sexiest self. To aspire to beauty, to aspire to an image of stacked and slayed and laid, to cleave to the worse tenets of Black girl oppression in order to survive. Being sexy and passable is a priceless currency for a Black transwoman . By the set up of this country, the forces of racism, sexism, transphobia , colorism, poverty and all the other fucked up social determinants, to be pretty and to be sexy and to be that sex siren type of Black transwoman is possibly the most potent ammunition needed to stay alive. I don’t knock the girls who have all the surgeries, the implants, the weaves, the expensive clothes and bags, the jewels the whole thing. I get it. But what I do dislike is when these tools are presented as requisites to our womanhood, our transness and our humanity. What I don’t like is how in seeking so much modification, we operate often from places of deficits and feeling like we aren’t good enough. And when you buy pieces to cover up that absence of confidence, you’ll never feel good enough. Confidence built strictly off materials ain’t sustainable. The harsh reality that many of us will never admit is that we often don’t feel as good as cis women. And how could we in a society and a world that has always invalidated and massacred our existences? Transwomen will fight for our womanhood until the day we die because by the constructs of society , we aren’t ” real” women.
I am working on my insecurity problem. I was told by my therapist that part of healing is naming problems. And I am warming up to at least admit that I am insecure and that I don’t like being that way. I am great as I am and I love myself more and more everyday. I wish that I didn’t look at other women both cis and trans at times and feel like I’m not as woman or feminine as them. I wish that sometimes passing those girls with the small waists and big breasts and nice asses and small bellies that I didn’t reflect on my own small breasts and my own well fed gut lol. My existence is resistance and it’s a harder way for sure. I choose to embrace me naturally and I can still admit to sometimes being insecure.
Big Black Trans and Beautiful 