Trans activist and journalist Imara Jones speaks at MNSU

Maria Ly
Staff Writer

Imara Jones, who proudly identifies as a black trans woman, is an award winning journalist, social justice activist, and creator of the docuseries “Translash”. Students were given a chance to attend a screening of an episode and a special Q&A Monday at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

The event was sponsored by the LGBT Center, Women’s Center, African American Affairs and the sexuality studies minor.

Students learned more about Jones’ family history in episode three of “Translash”, where she visits her ancestral home of Albany, Georgia. In the episode she learns more about her mother and her family’s reaction to her transition, while also exploring the idea of chosen family and other trans experiences and perspectives on family.

Jones said, “The place is in the middle of nowhere but it is actually the locale of a lot of history and it is the locale of a lot of my history. It’s where many generations of my family were from and  are from now.”

Albany is home to her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. It’s the place where many pivotal moments in American racial justice history occurred from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement.

Jones’ family is known for being religious. They’re the type of family who would go to church every Sunday, and on paper, they would be the type of people who would stereotypically be anti-trans. When she transitioned, the reaction she got from her family was surprisingly positive.

Jones said, “I think what you’ll see is that people can surprise you, but the most important thing is for us to give people a chance to embrace us, to not necessarily make assumptions about where people are going to land.”

In the episode, students viewed a heartfelt scene of a conversation Jones had with her cousins. One of her cousins talked about how Jones’ transition encouraged her to come out as well. Her mother did not take it well, flipped out and had a huge breakdown. However, support from other family members was different. Her grandmother Darol, and Mama Rose who is the matriarch, decided to pull her mother aside to let her know that their granddaughter is not the problem.

“She said, ‘It’s your problem, you have to  figure it out. In this family we accept her and we don’t have an issue with it and we’re not going to have a suicide because you can’t deal with it,’” Jones recounted.

She continued, “All of the times we are made the problem and then in our family on my mother’s side said, ‘Oh no, this is your problem, this your problem as a parent.’”

After the viewing, students were able to ask Jones questions in a discussion facilitated by Dr. Shannon Miller, an associate professor in the sexuality studies minor and co-coordinator of the gender and women’s studies.

The two women talked about the importance of sharing one’s story, learning about other people’s stories, and learning about one’s history.

Jones said, “One of the really important things is that all of us wear our stories. It’s the thing that makes you truly you and denying people of their stories is a way to erase us, to erase people.”

Jones reminisced about one of her friends who is a black queer woman with a PhD in computer science and how she felt alone and like an imposter. Jones then asked her what difference it would make if she knew the story about how black women making calculations in a basement was the only way that America was able to get on the moon.

Jones said, “It’s really important that we tell stories so that we have our place in history because one of the weapons that have been used against us as marginalized people and the country as a whole is to erase the histories of the people that have helped us get here, and that’s one of the things we have to stop doing.”

The two also discussed the unnaturalness of gender and how what we’re taught about gender sticks with us our whole lives.

Dr. Miller brought up a time during both her and Jones past where they attended one of their chosen family’s weddings. It was a time before Jones decided to transition. She decided to wear a skirt and had a moment where she didn’t know what to expect at the wedding and how people would treat her.

Dr. Miller said, “There was an element of accountability and an element of surprise, because even within our chosen family, gender would be something that you would have to walk the world thinking about.”

Jones discussed the idea of how gender is something everyone thinks about our whole lives. She recounted memories of her childhood, being raised as a boy, and how boys around adolescence would practice things ranging from how they walked and how they talked.

Jones said, “Gender is a creation. Those aren’t things that are inherently natural you get policed into those things so we actually think about gender all the time. The gender distinction is the first distinction that we learn before anything else.”

They also discussed the obsession with bathrooms and the epidemic of black trans women being murdered and what cis-women can do.

Jones talked about how by helping transwomen, people are helping all women. She said, “If you don’t understand that misogyny is an enemy of us both then I don’t really know what to tell you. I don’t have anything to say to that because the same things that allow for people in your life to deny you opportunities, to deny you control over your body, to tell you how you should look, to tell you that in relationships to be subservient.”

She continued, “If you don’t understand that that’s the same force that’s telling me that I don’t exist and that I don’t have rights then I don’t know what to tell you.”

She talked about the accountability cis-women have and the importance of them speaking up. She discussed a post she made on social media about black cis-women and how if they’re not talking to the men in their life about protecting black transwomen, they’re failing.

This inspired her friend to talk to her sons and her son’s friends about transwomen and how to treat them.

Jones, when asked by a student when her journey ends, claimed that it never will. For trans people, it’s the fight of their lives.

She said, “I’m comfortable with the idea of it always being an ongoing thing and I’m comfortable with the idea of it never being completely finished. That’s what makes possibility in life. If we only have definite endings, if you only had  firm definitions, if things were fixed, there will never be any change. The only thing that allows for change, for love and for hope is the fact that we have growth and that we’re always never going to be completely set.”

What fuels this fight for their lives in the trans community is joy. 

Jones said, “There’s a lot of examples in history of how we use joy as a way to humanize ourselves and to connect and survive. It’s actually our secret weapon that people have not been able to take away from us.”

Header photo: Imara Jones speaks during the Family Erasure and Anti-Trans Violence event held in the Centennial Student Union’s Ostrander Auditorium Monday, Nov. 18, 2019 in Mankato, Minn. (Prasad Pol/ MSU Reporter)