In the four years since Melody Maia Monet became a YouTube personality, the Central Florida-based softball player, singer and photographer has only rarely strayed from her usual topics of transgender sex, lesbian dating, and exploring her body in a variety of fun and interesting ways. Topics of suicide, transphobia, gender dysphoria and toxic masculinity are few and far between. But her latest video is perhaps her most serious, and most timely: exposing White transgender privilege.
Monet, 49, is a Long Island native who came out a decade ago. She graduated Princeton and has lived in New York, New Jersey, Texas and Florida. So she’s seen a variety of reactions to her being a transgender woman who’s also a Colombian-Puerto-Rican-American, or Latina, for short. And to boot, she’s a mom, with nearly 15K subscribers to her channel.
“White privilege has always been present in the transgender community,” Monet told her YouTube audience Saturday. “But since the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd, it has become very visible.” And in her latest video, she added that White gay people she knows have similar issues in not recognizing their own privilege.
But her focus this week is on White trans people, who Monet said need to be reminded that some of their responses to nationwide protests are examples of “Racial Gaslighting,” such as: “If you protested/said it peacefully, more people would listen to you,” and “What I said/did is not racist.” My favorite: “It was just a joke, calm down.” The irony, she said, is that all of these examples are also used by transphobes against the trans population.
“Early on, I realized the White transgender women around me hadn’t had similar experiences as being part of a marginalized group,” Monet said. “Being a White transgender woman is nothing like being a Latina transgender woman, and certainly not even close to being a black transgender woman.”
Watch Melody Maia Monet’s video by clicking here or below. Note that both at the end of the video and on her channel’s page for this video, Monet provides links for viewers to lend financial support to organizations advocating for justice for Black Americans and to support protesters.
