00:00Recently, actress Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie faced a lot of backlash from when she said
00:08this in an interview for Britain's Channel 4 News.
00:11Let's take a look.
00:12So when people talk about, you know, are trans women women, my feeling is trans women are
00:16trans women.
00:17I think if you've lived in the world as a man, with the privileges that the world accords
00:23to men, and then sort of change, switch gender, it's difficult for me to accept that then
00:31we can equate your experience with the experience of a woman who has lived from the beginning
00:36in the world as a woman and who has not been accorded those privileges that men are.
00:41I don't think it's a good thing to conflate everything into one.
00:45Hmm.
00:46So Chimamanda later clarified her comments, but people still dragged her on social media
00:51as y'all saw.
00:52Merit Stravsham wrote on Facebook, I am a trans woman, a feminist, and I support you
00:56100% Chimamanda.
00:57It isn't transphobic to acknowledge the simple truth that there are differences between women
01:01and trans women.
01:03Molly Weinberg felt similar.
01:04Similar.
01:05She posted, sometimes cis women have issues you don't have, same as you have issues we
01:10don't have.
01:11Maybe try listening to us instead of speaking over us.
01:13But Nick Y Ara wasn't here for it.
01:16She wrote on Chimamanda's Facebook page, stop speaking for trans women.
01:21It's really not that hard.
01:22You cannot be an ally to LGBTQ people and be transphobic.
01:26So what do you feel like being in the position you are and how you identify, what did you
01:29feel about Chimamanda's comment?
01:31I don't necessarily think they were transphobic, only because I do partly agree with her.
01:37I do believe that as a black woman, my movement, my movement as a black woman is different from
01:43any other movement, whether it's a white woman, whether it's a trans woman, whether it's black
01:46men.
01:47I think the movement is different and far too often black women have been attached to
01:51every single movement.
01:53I always question when is it just our time to have our rights and have our moment, if
01:58you will.
01:59Do you know what I mean?
02:00I feel like we're always attached to something or we're always someone's ally or we're always,
02:04you know, just being the friend of others.
02:07And at some point I would like for black women to just be that, if that makes sense.
02:11Okay.
02:12And Lourdes, I really am interested in hearing what you have to say about her comments.
02:16Well, firstly, I am a black woman, just in response, like, so for me, I'm black before
02:22I'm anything else.
02:24And I think that it's important how we frame inquiries and that they're framed with context.
02:31I appreciate Chimamanda's comments regarding the particular issue because she's speaking
02:37of a particular experience.
02:39Black people are not monoliths.
02:41As someone who has identified and been affirmed as trans since I was born, I was never socialized
02:47as male.
02:48So when you talk about male privilege, that is not something that I have experienced.
02:53As a trans woman, I've been attacked for being who I am, you know, violently in school
02:57all throughout life.
02:58And so I think what is happening here is we're looking at a singular narrative, maybe one that
03:05is more similar to Caitlyn Jenner, who was socialized as a male, lived their life in this particular
03:11identity, and also had that very specific privilege that Chimamanda is speaking of.
03:17You know, at 65 years old, when you transition, yes, you have been socialized as male.
03:22But even still, being trans, that socialization does not really interpret or conflate to someone
03:29who identifies and is affirmed as a man.
03:33The biggest thing that I feel is I actually want to interrogate this idea of all this backlash
03:37that Chimamanda's gotten because I don't think that the backlash of getting laid out on Twitter
03:42is the same thing as the types of levels of oppression that lots of black trans women and
03:47trans femme people face.
03:49And so these are like very false equivalencies of just, you know, oh, she's being attacked.
03:52It's like, no, you know, when we're talking about the existence of the ways that it's,
03:56Lois was even talking about the physical ways in which black trans femme people and black
04:00trans women are attacked in our own communities as well as outside other communities.
04:05Because we still are, as black trans people, we still, you know, are victims of state violence
04:10and even more so, right?
04:12Especially when you're talking about black trans femme and black trans women people.
04:15Um, and so this, this, this place in which people feel like a need to protect her over
04:21some stuff that's not going to lose her income, not going to make her lose her house or is
04:24not going to, or her life, right?
04:26Um, and so that's, uh, so that thing needs to shift, right?
04:29This thing about feelings and theory, because this is not a theory.
04:32It's about people's actual lived experience.
04:33Right.
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