Laura Kalbag

15 June 2020 09:32 IST

A transcript of the video in this tweet where Dr. Angela Davis speaks on the role of the trans and non-binary communities in the fight for the feminist abolition she advocates for:

“The feminism I’m referring to does not respect the binary structure of gender. And recognising the contribution of non-binary communities is so important, not only in terms of pointing out the concrete issues that we need to address. And of course many of us already know that Black trans women constitute the target of racist violence more consistently than any other community. We’re talking about state violence, we’re talking about individual violence, stranger violence, intimate violence. So if we want to develop an intersectional perspective, the trans community is showing us the way. And we can’t only point to… and we need to point to cases such as the murder of Tony McDade, for example. But we have to go beyond that, and recognise that we support the trans community precisely because this community has taught us to challenge that which is totally accepted as normal. And I don’t think we’d be where we are today, encouraging ever-larger numbers of people to think within an abolitionist frame, had not the trans community taught us that it is possible to effectively challenge that which is considered the very foundation of our sense of normalcy. So if it is possible to challenge the gender binary, then we can certainly effectively resist prisons and jails and police.”

Posted to Twitter on 15 June 2020.