'LGBTQIA+ students—like all students—deserve to have their history and experiences reflected in their education.' 📝 Myeshia Price
Black transgender and nonbinary youth reported a suicide attempt in the past year—more than double the rate of suicide attempts compared to Black cisgender young members of the queer community. This staggering data further emphasizes the importance of applying an intersectional lens to understand the world around us and the disparities that exist across our most marginalized and vulnerable communities.
My Blackness is everything to me—it shapes how I perceive the world and how the world perceives me. But as a queer nonbinary Black person that holds multiple marginalized identities, the stakes are even higher for me. I am hyper-conscious of how I present myself in predominantly white spaces and often feel misunderstood or invalidated in heteronormative spaces. It’s a nuanced balancing act that I have to perform every day, and is a direct result of my intersecting identities.
Black LGBTQIA+ history is complex, rich, and, yes, traumatic. It’s the harsh reality of not only our nation’s dark past, but the current state of society. Attempting to censor classrooms from teaching about the contributions of Black LGBTQIA+ people will erase critical decades of history—from Bayard Rustin’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement and Marsha P. Johnson’s role in the Stonewall Riots, to the timeless literary works of James Baldwin.
Fast forward to today, and we have press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the first Black woman and openly LGBTQIA+ person to hold the position, and activists such as Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors inspiring a new generation of Black LGBTQIA+ leaders. Black, queer history is American history, and it has shaped nearly every aspect of our culture as we know it today.
Students shouldn’t have to wait until they potentially find themselves in a college classroom to learn about people with a shared identity. Black history, which is already primarily limited to our experiences in enslavement and segregation, must stress that Black people are not a monolith in order to fully embody the diversity that is the Black experience in America.
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