Black Trans Women Seek More Space in the Movement They Helped Start

For decades, the idea that “we were all minorities was enough for people to just say, ‘OK, that’s what we have in common, so if I win, that means you automatically are winning, too,’” said Peppermint, a black trans activist who co-hosted the Black Queer Town Hall, a three-night series of virtual performances and discussions this month. “I think that the notion of intersectionality is becoming more readily available for people to understand that a win for one group or one identity doesn’t necessarily equal an automatic win for the other.”

While L.G.B.T.Q. people have secured many legal rights and protections, black transgender women are still killed so often that the American Medical Association has declared it an epidemic. Last year, 91 percent of the transgender or gender-nonconforming people who were fatally shot were black women, according to the Human Rights Campaign. This year, at least 16 trans people have been killed — almost certainly an underestimate, because many cases go unreported and many victims are misgendered.

“So much money and resources and energy has been put into legislative fights or judicial fights, which is important — those wins are important,” the activist Raquel Willis said. “But as a black trans woman, I often have to grapple with the question of, what do any of these protections mean if I am dead, if I am still at risk of literally being killed?”

Violence against transgender people increased after President Trump was inaugurated, advocacy groups found in 2017, and Mr. Trump has singled out trans people in his policies since the beginning of his presidency.

His administration reversed Obama-era protections for transgender students, reimposed a ban on trans people serving in the military and, just this month, erased rules protecting them from discrimination in health care. It also sought to define gender as an immutable trait assigned at birth — an effort that would, essentially, define trans people out of legal existence.