Dead silence.
I’ve just asked writer/performer/activist Imani Henry—the trans man behind the critically-acclaimed theatre piece B4T (Before Testosterone)—how he thinks race impacts our experience of gender.
He’s replied with silence.
“Can I ask you one question?” Imani finally responds. “Besides my show, do you know anything else about me?”
I admit I’ve done some research.
“Alright,” Imani concedes. He’d rather talk about his politics than his art. “I think a lot of folks are like ‘You wrote a show about F2Ms? That’s great! I don’t care about the war; lets talk about your show!”
That show, B4T (www.geocities.com/Imani_Henry), is a multi-media theater piece that explores race, sexuality and gender expression through the lives of three Black, masculine, female-bodied people (all embodied by Henry). Henry describes B4T as a living document: “The show has evolved. The piece itself keeps going in different ways.”
Henry, a first generation American of Jamaican decent grew up in Boston and calls himself a desegregation baby.
“I was bussed and had rocks thrown at me. That [propelled] me into activism. We lost five black men one summer to police brutality. Being called the N word on my front porch, spit on. That’s how I grew up.”
A consummate activist, Henry has been with the International Action Center since 1993, organizing LGBT people and communities of color in social justice campaigns. His activism, Henry says, is central to his identity.
I’m an anti-capitalist activist or an anti-globalist activist or an anti-war activist or an anti-police brutality activist—who just happens to be trans,” Henry says.
Henry founded Rainbow Flags for Mumia—a coalition of LGBT people demanding the freedom of political prisoner, journalist Mumia Abu Jamal—along with Leslie Feinberg and Minnie Bruce Pratt in 1999, just before he transitioned from lesbian to man.
“There has always been LGBT forces in the anti-police brutality and anti death penalty movement,” Henry argues. “Stonewall was a struggle against police brutality.”
Henry believes his transgender identity impacts his search for solidarity and unity. “I definitely feel that what I love and am really proud of about being trans—I guess it’s really that our being does determine consciousness. Even folks that may come from a different class background from me, in some ways, will find some solidarity—or its easier for them to comprehend—because to be frank, being trans is pretty much the bottom of the barrel in society.”
Henry says when LGBT people ask him how the war impacts gay people, he is quick to respond: “Gay people are having bombs dropped on them too.” Henry argues that lesbian gay and transgender people exist in every culture, even if they don’t always use those terms to describe themselves.
“I never like to compartmentalize for this reason, because US imperialism [doesn’t distinguish].” He mocks U.S. policy makers, “You call yourself this? You call yourself that? I call you a commodity. I call you expendable. I call you slave labor.”
In his way of always bringing the conversation back to solidarity, Henry, says, “I’m always thinking, how many people can we get on our side? Of course, [respecting] all of our differences. Maybe some of us need to be at the front of the bus and some of us need to step back…so that transwomen of color can meet. Maybe the white straight guy could be making the sandwiches, so the sisters can organize demonstrations.”
More than anything, right now, Henry wants everyone to come together and oppose the war in Iraq (and prevent another one in Iran).
“I think it’s a heavy, heavy moment. …It is just outrageous that we are commemorating the third anniversary of the war. It’s unbelievable to me that at this moment they are, just day in and day out, creeping closer and closer to provoking something where there’s military intervention in Iran. It’s just ridiculous to me.”
“Just stop,” Henry begs to no one in particular. “Just stop and just bring the troops home.”
Trans writer Jacob Anderson-Minshall can be reached at jake@trans-nation.org
