Watch: Dr. Van Bailey on helping keep the trans-Black community safe
TheGrio's Eboni K. Williams talks to the LGBTQ+ advocate about the safety of the trans-Black community and how we can help protect them.
In this year alone, there have been hundreds of anti-trans bills passed in the United States, which have attacked the trans communities’ way of life. A 2022 survey by the Trevor Project found that “86% of trans or nonbinary youth reported negative effects on their mental health stemming from the political debate around trans issues.”
The 2022 survey also showed that 45% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide. Dr. Van Bailey is a fashion curator and works for LGBTQ+ equity and visibility to make sure the trans-Black community is safe and heard.
TheGrio’s Eboni K. Williams talks to Dr. Bailey about what can be done to make it safer for our trans siblings.
The following is a transcript of their conversation.
Eboni K. Williams [00:00:09] Welcome to a very special episode of theGrio. I’m Eboni K. Williams. Now, for the entire month of June, we have been celebrating Black pride with our LGBTQ+ siblings. Now, in this show, we want to share parts of interviews that you never got to see and explain why ally-ship and co-conspiratorship are so important to their safety and all of our collective’s liberation.
I want to start with my childhood friend and the very brilliant Dr. Van Bailey. Our conversation was too good to cut short. Now, Van is a trans man who has been a champion of inclusivity from college campuses all the way to the fashion industry. Now we discuss how the political rhetoric and legislation are literally an attack on their humanity. Van, there’s a lot of fear and misunderstanding, as we know, around the trans community.
And this is theGrio, so we center Blackness here and we have our own challenges, right, with homophobia, transphobia and things like that. Then you’ve got all that’s going on in Washington, in various states, right? All of these bills, I think over 500 bills so far just this year, and we’re just in June trying to attack this community.
What are your biggest…I don’t want to use the word fears, but what keeps you up at night when you think about the safety of Black trans communities?
Dr. Van Bailey [00:01:30] You know, I think what keeps me up at night is just that I think, you know, people don’t know that actually where at over 800 bills as of today, and what keeps me up mostly at night is our youth. What people don’t know is just at risk our youth are and just the misperceptions that people have when it comes to our youth and just how missed believed our youth are, particularly our transgender youth, when it comes to just how much we need to protect our youth.
How much at risk our youth are when it comes to our transgender youth, and how much at risk our youth are when it comes to trans-affirming care. I think about how much suicidality happens in our community. Fifty percent, particularly of transgender men, are considering suicide. And I think about my own story when it comes to suicidality and how much we need to protect our trans siblings and when it needs to come to having these conversations more and more in our community.
And so, when we think about these bills, we need to really think about the protection when it comes to mental health. And we need to think about more and more when it comes to…I don’t know Eboni. I just need more and more of these conversations to happen in our community. And we really need to think more and more about just I don’t know…It’s just really, really sad.
Williams [00:03:19] And it’s a lot. It’s devastating. It’s intense. And it’s very all-consuming. So I appreciate the enormity.
Bailey [00:03:28] I’m just overwhelmed. Yeah.
Williams [00:03:31] Yeah. No, Because it’s overwhelming, Van…that’s why. Because it’s overwhelming. I only have two minutes left with you, and I have a bunch of questions for you, so we’re going to have to have you back.
But I want you to spend the last minute and a half telling me, what can people like me do, people that are not in the trans community but love and care about the trans-Black community and especially trans-Black children? What do we do to make it safer for you?
Bailey [00:03:55] Yeah, I think, first of all, you need to believe us. I think so much of these conversations I see online comes down to people really just saying that there is this agenda when it comes to our communities. And I tell people the only agenda is for us to live full and complete lives. That’s it.
I really just want to grow old and that’s just it. The agenda is for us to live full and complete lives. We are your brothers, we are your sisters. We are in your communities. And that’s truly it. I see when I was growing up and I tell people more and more that I wasn’t believed as a child. And that’s really what it came down to. I knew fully who I was at the age of five, and it took me trying to convince the older people in my life who I was my entire life. And it wasn’t until I was an adult and it came to people in my life catching up with me for them to believe me in my older age.
And so I would say the more and more that we can have these conversations and have authentic connections with each other, and the more and more we can have a full humanity right with each other. And so I really just appreciate these platforms for us to connect with each other and for us to really have these authentic conversations and for us to really fully love on each other. Really, this is about a love ethic.
And I really, truly believe the more and more that we can really love on each other, the more and more that we can really, really kind of break these chains amongst each other. That’s really what it comes down to. I’m tired of burying my siblings and that’s what it comes down to. Either amongst us killing each other or me literally having to bury my brothers who are killing themselves. And so, that’s what it comes down to.
You know, us in the Black communities, we have to save ourselves. And the more that we can love on each other, the more I see us being kind of revolutionary when it comes down to this love ethic.
Williams [00:06:13] I love the framing around a “love ethic”, and it truly captures the reality of this whole discussion really well. See, it’s not a question of whether or not people understand or approve. The only question is if you will choose to love someone entirely as they are.
Check out the full clip above, and tune in to “theGrio with Eboni K. Williams” at 6 p.m. ET every weeknight on theGrio cable channel.
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