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While taking part in a panel for Facebook Dating entitled Black Is Love: An Intimate Conversation on Dating & Self-Love with the likes of moderator Angela Yee, rapper Saweetie and matchmaker Devyn Simone among others, Internet and TV personality Ts Madison shared her feelings about the way Black love is portrayed in regards to trans men and women’s relationships.
The Miami native, who is a trans woman and calls out transphobia, talked about how she feels their relationships aren’t given the chance to be honored in the way other relationships are when we talk about Black love.
“We don’t have the opportunity to have our Black love celebrated because it’s so sensationalized,” she said. “So we don’t really get a lot of great representation in the media because they view us, they view our relationships as some type of freak show. So I would love, love to see more representation of trans women and men being together.”
She also stated the need for more images of unconditional love shown, and used, for example, the open acceptance Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union have shown for Zaya.
“For me Black love is definitely family […] the biggest demonstration of Black love is Black unconditional love and the best example that I’ve seen this year thus far has been Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union with the unconditional love that they’ve shown towards their trans daughter Zaya Wade,” she said. “We don’t really see a lot of that in the Black community […] and we don’t see a lot of a lot of love being displayed you know to us and then when I see that I’m like wow, this is possible.”
Madison is not the first person to highlight the negative way people look at the romantic connections of trans women and men, especially when they date heterosexual men and women. Just recently, actress Laverne Cox talked about her new relationship with a man who has never dated a trans woman before and the challenges he’s had to face.
“The issue over the years for me as a trans woman and other trans women is that the womanhood of trans women is often disavowed, that a lot of people don’t see trans women as women, and so the men who are attracted to women, people think they’re gay,” she said during a visit to The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “And like, if you’re a straight man, you don’t want people to think you’re gay, and so a lot of times they don’t want to disclose or want to let anyone know.”
