Activist Asanni Armon Reminds Us To Show Up For Black Transgender Women

It’s the last week of Black History month, fam! And we have had some major wins this February. Brooklyn “Hot Boy” rapper Bobby Shmurda was released from prison; Lauryn Hill made history as the first female rapper to reach diamond status in the U.S.; and Naomi Osaka won her fourth Grand Slam title at the Australian Open.

In this episode of “And THAT’s That,” drawing from the lens of Black history, the hosts imagine a future where all Black people have access to proper medicine and technological advancements, and imagine a moment in time where Black trans women are protected, loved and respected by all members of the community.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 27 transgender and gender non-conforming people were violently killed in 2020 — more than any other year since HRC began tracking this data in 2013. Asanni Armon, a transgender activist and founder of the organization For the Gworls sat down with Shaquille Romblay to explain why we have to continue to emphasize that “Black Trans Lives Matter.”

“It is not a myth that the majority of Black trans people that are murdered across the spectrum, the vast majority of them are harmed by Black cis people,” Armon told HuffPost. “I think that we cannot have a very honest conversation about Black lives mattering if we cannot talk about the ways that Black cis people harm Black trans people. It is not about talking about Black on Black crime, but it is talking about the ways that cis people do hold power over Black trans people. If Black lives are supposed to matter, then that means all Black lives. I think that oftentimes people who support BLM don’t want to admit that a huge portion of the people on the front lines of BLM are Black queer people and trans people.”

Listen to the full episode, including Romblay’s full interview with Armon, below.