Our Services Advice and Information Advice & Information Lives, challenges, and joys. This space is for understanding the lives, the challenges, and the joys that come for Black trans and non-binary people — and it is for everyone who wants to learn alongside us. The team at Black Trans Alliance are not experts in everything. We bring queer and trans lived experience — ours and our community's — and we share what we know and what we have learned. Use this page as a starting point. Bring your questions. Bring what you already know. Stay curious. If there is something you think should be here that isn't, tell us. The context this page sits in Racism inside queer and trans spaces. Research by Stonewall found that 51% of LGBTQ+ people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic backgrounds have faced discrimination within the LGBTQ+ community itself. For Black queer and trans people specifically, that figure rises to 61%. This is the depth of racism that exists inside queer and trans spaces — microaggressions, exclusion, and the feeling of being pushed out of a movement that Black trans women like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera helped to found. Racism is not the exclusive preserve of cis heterosexual people. UK Black Pride exists in part because of this. Their 2021 survey named the ongoing “erasure of and disregard for the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ Black people and people of colour.” Meanwhile, both the UK Government's 2017 National LGBT Survey and the 2021 Sewell Report sidelined the impact of racism on the Black queer and trans community altogether. This is the context for our work. It is also the reason this page exists — to centre Black trans and non-binary lives, in our own voice, on our own terms. The basics. Some terms and what they mean. Starting points, not the whole picture — language around gender keeps evolving as our community keeps learning. Trans Someone who does not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. Trans is an umbrella term covering Transgender, Non-binary, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, and more. Non-binary People whose gender identity is neither exclusively male nor female — or is in between, beyond, or outside both. Gender identity Your own personal understanding of your gender — and how you want the world to see you. Sex vs Gender Sex describes what you were assigned at birth. Gender describes the social roles and identities traditionally attached to being male or female — categories far more complex than the binary suggests. Gender dysphoria The discomfort or distress that can occur when a person's gender identity differs from the sex assigned at birth or from their sex-related physical characteristics. More from NHS GIC. Pronouns Someone may use he, she, they, or other pronouns. If a person tells you which pronouns to use for them, use them. Pronouns guide. Some lived guidance. Not advice from on high. What some of us have learned from doing the thing. Coming out as trans There is no right or wrong time to come out as trans to your family. Before you do, make sure you've come out to yourself first. Tell your family collectively or one by one — whatever feels safer for you. There will be questions. You don't have to answer all of them, and you don't have to know everything. Plenty of educational resources exist online — videos by trans people, articles, books — that family members can use to learn for themselves. Some family members may not understand immediately. That can hurt. Be patient where you can, but don't let it discourage you. Move forward. Finding the fuller version of yourself is a journey, not a single conversation. For parents and carers Supporting trans young people. If your child is consistently showing signs that their gender identity or expression does not match the gender they were assigned at birth, take it seriously. Let them live based on the identity they are clearly and persistently expressing. For more on supporting gender-diverse young people, our friends at Mermaids have decades of practice and resources to share. Below, Jodie Patterson, author of The Bold World, shares her story of raising her trans son. Rights and recognition. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) allows trans people to apply for legal recognition of the gender in which they live. The current Act needs reform: to be accessible to all, to be de-medicalised, and to strip away the red tape that puts legal recognition out of reach for too many. Trans people deserve to gain legal recognition of their gender identity without enduring an administrative ordeal. Community we show up for. UK Black Pride A definite mark on your calendar: UK Black Pride — Europe's largest celebration for LGBTQ+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, and Latin American descent. 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