So a little while back i wrote about how i”m using neutral pronouns again (‘they” ‘them” ‘their”). And now I”m officially stating, for the record, that I”m down with ‘twoc” and ‘trans woman of colour” as a way to locate myself within discourse and as a self-referrent. Also, importantly as a ~community~.

Everyone can continue on as they have been. You don”t need to worry or care about whether or not your shit includes me (to the extent that you may have been caring).

I”m out. I”m not in teh twoc ~community~ any longer. You can do your thing and I”ll do mine.

Reasons…

By and large, most twoc groups/communities/events that I know of aren”t organized with any intent to include girls like me. My identity as a bakla ladyboy (and how i embody it) is just as incoherent within most of these spaces as it has been in most other spaces. Which is fine. I don”t actually think that twoc spaces necessarily need to be spaces for me. I truly understand now that these spaces aren”t designed for me and I”m perfectly content to walk away from trying to be included. Especially in those cases where my desire to be included might be (or have been) harmful.

Anti-Blackness.

This is actually a big one for me atm. i wrote a while back about the AMC and how using ‘poc” necessarily means to centre Black ppl. ‘twoc” should be the same. Any non-Black trans woman who claims the identify of ‘twoc” should be 100% about dismantling their anti-Blackness and about centering Black trans women in their discourse. As ‘woman of colour” is a gift given by Black woman to other women impacted by white supremacy as a way for us to be included in their resistance… taking this gift and not centering anti-Blackness (and Black trans women) in your discourse/lives is outright anti-Blackness.

If i call myself a trans woman of colour but my only relationship to living Black trans women is to use their experiences of oppression (ie, tdor stats and the violence they experience), then i/we are no better than the white trans women who do the same. And, yeah, this happens a lot the decontextualizing and generalizing of Black trans women”s experiences into some nebulous ‘twoc” narrative. But I rarely see any real discussion about this from non-Black twoc (like me, or like i used to identify as).

There are other, perhaps more personal, reasons that I don”t much feel like getting into. I”m kind of annoyed with myself since from the beginning i”ve been careful to purposefully not identify with or align myself with any kind of movement. I should have done the same with ‘twoc” as an organizing concept.

Abuse culture is such that it appears impossible to create a community of any size that doesn”t also instatiate it. Twoc as community is no different. And… tbh, i want no part of it. My experiences within the twoc community let me know (as I suspected) that these types of communities are no different from any other kind. Susceptable to predators and abuser dynamics. Fuck, I”ve been complacent and complicit in my own way for supporting these structures and frameworks within twoc circles. I hate myself for it. This is another reason I”m walking away. For what it”s worth, I”m sorry to the people I”ve harmed in this way.

From now on… I have friends and everyone else. That”s it. I”m not in any communities. I”m not part of any movements. Don”t unconsentually assign me to one.

I”ll try to adjust my language and frameworks accordingly, although I can”t do much about stuff that is already written…. so.