As a part of it's month long look into the lives of black LGBT professionals, Black Enterprise Magazine explores what it means to be both black and transgender in America through eyes of Tiq Milan. Milan was biologically born female but later transitioned to male.
From Black Enterprise Magazine:
Some may recognize Tiq Milan from MTV’s 2007 reality series, I’m From Rolling Stone, where several aspiring writers competed for a chance to win a full-time position with the entertainment magazine. Back then, he still went by his birth name, Tika, and responded to “she.” Today, however, the education specialist/HIV prevention counselor and editor-in-chief of IKONS Magazine, a LGBT lifestyle publication, lives life as a transgendered man.
You may also remember Milan from the David Barclay Moore documentary "Realness", featured on loldarian.com in 2008. Transgender people are almost never understood by those outside of the LGBT community and are often marginalized, sadly there's still a lot of education that needs to be done even within the gay community about the lives of transgender people.
Watch Milan break it down in the Black Enterprise clip here.
It was surprising to know that he was a she because normally I would hear more about men changing into women. He had the luck of his sexual orientation not being identified beforehand and being accepting by the heterosexual community for his writing skills first. Also, he has a blessing of working for a GLBT non-profit organization and doesn't have to deal with a lot of the homophobic companies out here who might not have hired him if they knew about his sexual orientation.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago I attended a symposium on Transgender sponsored by Transgender. I learned two major things about the Transgender community's struggle, them not being able to get medical care and not have job opportunities in the private and public sector; I understood there's some medical care they are entitled too but doctors are reluctant to deliver because they are Transgender. There were some Transgender who argued that they can do no better than becoming prostitutes because no one is hiring them on count of them being Transgender.
Congratulations to this brother overcoming the obstacles on transitioning and being accepted by his family and work circle but he is an exception to the rule!