Pass the Mic: Transgender Women in Chocolate City Tell Their Stories
by Akiba Solomon
Friday, December 2 2011, 10:51 AM EST
http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/12/young_black_and_trans_in_dc.html (http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/12/young_black_and_trans_in_dc.html)
Here is Danielle King's story in her words:
Before I began to transition in 2003, no one was really talking about gender. Being transgender was still associated with drag queens on the "Jerry Springer" show or with prostitutes. That was it.
We certainly didn't discuss it in my Catholic household in Camden, N.J. It took me until after I graduated from college at 22 to learn about and express my gender identity.
During the first five years of my transition, I had to educate my family. I would wage these personal wars with them, constantly telling them, "It is unacceptable to use inappropriate gender pronouns with me, to not refer to me as Danielle." After all, my middle name has always been Danielle! (My father contended that it was misspelled, but my mother told the real truth—how she'd carried me with the hopes of having a girl. But upon learning that I was born male, she made it my middle name.)