“…I’ve also become accustomed to not being ‘something’ enough in my life. Its always been I’ve not been black enough… when I identified as a girl, I wasn’t passive enough…its always your not this enough your not that enough. And I think that hearing that my entire life once it came time for me to really take hold of my fem identity, it didn’t phase me anymore because I realize that even as just a Black person in America I’m not going to be enough…  I’m not going to continue to let people try to control who I am…When Even If I were a masculine heterosexual transman it still wouldn’t be enough.”

– Shaan Micheal Wade

Continuing our series focused on Queer Voices of Color, we talk to two people in our Real Queer panel who challenge the stereotypes many hold about TransMen. Nik Peet, a radical queer activist by his own definition, believes that being a man and having masculine identity doesn’t negate femininity. And, writer and activist Shaan Michael Wade talks to us about how TransMen who have sex with men are invisible within queer spaces, and the effects of that invisibility.

“To me being fem. is to go against what western society considers as powerful. Most often times masculinity is seen as powerful or more dominant or more acceptable. And to be fem to me is to revolt almost against that to say i can be feminine and i can be just as strong as masculine men.”

–Nik Peet