Living Color: Love is Revolutionary When You're Black & Transgender

A year ago, with a beautiful photo of actress and advocate Laverne Cox on the cover, TIME magazine asked if we had reached the transgender tipping point. Then this year, Caitlyn Jenner was introduced to the world in a glamorous Vanity Fair spread.

Yet, when the conversation shifts from Hollywood to real people, the statistics for the community; which the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) places at ¼ to 1% of the population, there becomes little to celebrate—especially if you happen to be black and transgender.

In a 2008 study entitled: Injustice at Every Turn, NCTE teamed up with the National LGBTQ Task Force and the National Black Justice Coalition distributed the findings, and they were bleak.

Highlights:

• Black transgender and gender non-conforming people are likely to live in extreme poverty making less than $10K a year. Twice the rate of the transgender community and four times the black population
• Almost half of the over 6,000 respondents have attempted suicide
• Over one-fifth reported being HIV positive
• 41% experienced homelessness
• 53% of survivors of hate crimes are people of color, transgender and gender non-conforming, but 73.1% of homicides.

Despite these stark statistics experienced by the black transgender community there are so many beautiful stories that don’t bubble to the surface. The ‘Love is Revolutionary’ series seeks to highlight the love stories of black transgender couples and discuss why for them, loving OUT loud as proud transgender and queer black people is a revolutionary act.

We see mostly about the black transgender community are devastating headlines and data that would have us believe that love doesn’t reside here. We believe what we see, so in an effort to expand the narrative around the black transgender community we interviewed three couples who did us the great honor of sharing their love: Activists, models, artists, parents, husbands and wives, these couples help us paint a new picture of possibility—and it looks revolutionary.

This is Part I of “BLKOUT,” a special series focusing on telling the stories of LGBTQ communities of color. The 'Love is Revolutionary' video series seeks to highlight the love stories of black transgender couples and discuss why for them, loving OUT loud as proud transgender and queer black people is a revolutionary act.