Race Matters: "White Male Privilege"

C. Michael Munson

The joke's on the many of you Forge-ites who chose not to join us for April Fools at Ann Sather's. In addition to mountains of cinnamon rolls and other fine carbs, the dozen or so attendees brought a lively discussion of why there weren't more people to help eat the rolls. And so instead of the scheduled topic of GenderQueer, we looked at who came versus the myriads of individuals on the mailing list who did not. One member remarked upon looking around the table, that there were no visible members of color, and was FORGE doing enough outreach. This led to a longer, and somewhat louder, discussion of white privilege and the question of inherent racism within the FTM community as a whole. Which is why this edition of the newsletter contains articles on or about issues of race….

FORGE is an organization, like many across the country, in which the few who attend may or may not be representative of who actually comprises our community. Does community really only equal who is visible, or does community symbolize those who are not visible, and even those who may not know they could be included in that very community?

The "membership" of FORGE – at least the demographics of the newsletter distribution list – is quite diverse in many aspects, not just racially. Approximately 80% of our snailmail readership is white, while at least 20% are people of color. The ages of our "members" range from 16 to late 60s; ranging from perfectly able-bodied, to people who cannot stand from their wheelchairs. Some of our members are transitioning (or transitioned) FTMs who fully live as men, and relish their identity as men who easily blend into a bi-polar gender system, while others of our members are butch female identified, genderqueer, gender benders, masculine women, or people who pride themselves on their non-conformity. Many of our members are SOFFAs – paired or unpaired to FTMs. Several of our members are "helping" professionals (some LGBT, some not). Some of our trans+/SOFFA members earn minimum wage working at Starbucks or living on Social Security/Disability, while others are physicians who bring in incomes in the six figures.

One perplexing issue which (d)evolved concerning the act of outreaching to people of color with the broad-based assumptions that all POC are also economically disadvantaged. It’s ironic that we as trans+/SOFFA people can make such blatant assumptions that limit and minimize the realities of others. Why do we need to create additional assumptions about the lives of transgendered/SOFFA POC? One person suggested that one way to outreach was through Black churches. This is a great idea, presuming that we are outreaching to African-American trans/SOFFAs who are Christian/religious. Others suggested moving our meetings from Saturdays, when many lower income individuals might be working. This might be a great idea too, but this wouldn’t account for marketing to our Hispanic real estate agent who works mostly late afternoons through every evening and each weekend. Another suggested we could advertise in the LGBT BlackLines or other POC LGBT Chicago zines. While, this too, is a great idea, does it reach only those who are Black and who identify as queer – queer enough to be reading BlackLines?