Navigating Identity, Femininity, and Culture: The Journey of E. Tejada III

A Follow-up on the Hispanic trans woman experience

E. Tejada III (they/she) is a trans genderqueer femme and a Latine person of color with Mexican heritage. While labels have never been crucial to E personally, they have found them helpful for others to understand their experience. Through sharing their story, E hopes to connect with readers on an emotional level and offer insights into the complexities of their identity.

This article is a follow-up to Hispanic Trans Women to highlight the personal story of Latinas.

E’s journey challenges the misconception of a singular trans experience. They didn’t come out as trans until the age of 30, dispelling the notion that every trans person knows they are “born in the wrong body” from a young age. Reflecting on their upbringing within a large Catholic Mexican family, they speak about the cultural and religious influences that made it difficult for them to envision a feminine space as something they could inhabit.

Now, almost forty years old and nine years into their journey of embracing their authentic self, E wrestles with these ingrained notions while introducing themselves with they/them pronouns. Internally, however, they feel more aligned with femininity, which fuels their passion, strength, and resilience. “Sitting on this side of myself, yes, I think there were signs, but being raised as I was,” they stated. “I was entangled within a web of chivalry, politeness, and obedience to order that comes along with those identities.”

About 40% of LGBTQ+ adults in the United States are people of color, including 12% who identify as Black. A recent report by the Williams Institute offers demographic data and key indicators of well-being, including mental health, physical health, economic health and social and cultural experiences, for adults who self-identify as Black and LGBTQ. (ama-assn.org)

Their life has been marked by the policing of their body and identities. As a perceived “male, brown, and large-bodied person,” they were often treated as a threat or an “other.” This projection followed them from childhood through college and into their professional life.

“Too often did people make up their minds about who I was and how they should treat me because of the conflation of the perceived gender, body size, and color of my skin,” E noted. “From child to college, and even as a professional, it continues to follow me: people have jumped to ideas that I am a threat, a thug, suspicious, unapproachable, someone to avoid, lazy, and the list goes on.”

Although the ideas of aggression and violence are projected onto E, it is the threat that is invoked on them that is the real concern.

In 2023, the Human Rights Campaign declared a National State of Emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans as a response to over 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state houses across the country. Of the 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced, over 220 bills targeted transgender people in a myriad of ways to limit rights including but not limited to: “limit access to school sports, school restrooms and locker rooms; ban access to safe, effective, age-appropriate gender-affirming medical care; and remove inclusive books and references to LGBTQ+ identities and experiences from school curricula.”

Such rhetoric has, unfortunately, begun to translate to real world violence: 2022 saw the highest number of anti-LGB and anti-trans and gender non-conforming hate crimes reported by the FBI to date, with the number of hate crimes based on gender identity increasing by over 32% from 2021 to 2022. (HRC.org)

“Reflecting on it later in life, I recognized this experience was parallel to anti-blackness and specific racist ideas we see projected onto Black men - how we jump to criminalization and threat and an "other" to avoid,” wrote E. “While I can never feel that exact experience, I can relate to what that may possibly feel like because I've felt it all my life. To be honest it's weird where it has shown up in my life: being at a store where I am simply shopping and always followed, by a college advisor whose first assumption is that I'm lazy rather than figuring out why I'm struggling, people avoiding me on the street because they perceive me as a threat, or even in the dating world where I was consistently fetishized, left out of spaces, or rejected for not fitting the mold.”

Reflecting on these experiences, E recognized parallels with the criminalization and threat perceptions faced by Black men, highlighting the intersection of race and gender in shaping their experience. These societal views, combined with the obedience taught in their Catholic and Hispanic upbringing, made it difficult for E to see themselves beyond these imposed identities.

According to Prison Legal News, transgender and gender non-conforming people are over-represented in the criminal legal system due to institutionalized oppression and increased poverty and criminalization. About 1.4 million people in the U.S. are transgender yet transgender people are significantly overrepresented in prisons and jails because of systemic discrimination against them. In the Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, it was concluded that one out of six (or 16 percent) of transgender people have been incarcerated at some time during their lives—a rate that skyrockets to 47 percent among Black transgender people. In a 2015 study of 28,000 transgender Americans also revealed that one in 10 (9 percent) Black transgender women and nearly 2 percent of all transgender people polled had been incarcerated in the previous year—five to 10 times the incarceration rate of the general population. Like the trans community, Black Americans constitute 2.3 million, or 34%, of the total 6.8 million correctional population as of 2014 - a growing percentage. The discrimination and criminalization of trans and gender non-conforming people, like Black Americans, emphasizes the barriers that exist due to systemic racism. These barriers are further increased as a result of intersectional oppression including: racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, classism, ableism, and ageism.

The turning point in E’s journey came in their thirties while in a graduate program. Embracing the label Queer allowed them to acknowledge their attraction to people regardless of gender, paving the way for deeper exploration of their own gender. Writing a thesis on trans identities and challenging gender normatively was pivotal in decoupling their race/ethnicity, gender, and queerness, revealing new possibilities for self-understanding.

“The path to myself, trans genderqueer femme bisexual badass, at 30 years old, wasn't easy, but it has been filled with moments of joy that has made the journey worthwhile” noted E. “I wasn't able to get out of my way or even question gender until I was able to decouple my race/ethnicity (Latine/POC), my gender, and my queerness from each other. It was then, funnily enough while I was writing my thesis on trans identities of college students and challenging gender normativity that I was even able to see those street signs that signed "Another Gender Ahead."

Media and family played significant roles in shaping E’s gender identity. As a sci-fi enthusiast, E was captivated by strong, independent women like Ellen Ripley, Buffy Summers, and Jean Grey. These characters embodied resilience, self-sacrifice, and a strong sense of self—qualities E admired and saw in themselves. “I was drawn and captivated by a specific feminity: one where the hero stands against others, society, or injustice and says, enough. And it wasn't just the strength or skills of these characters, but the motherly caring of Ellen Ripley, the willingness of self sacrifice of Jean Grey in service to others, or the devotion to her emotions, sense of self, and living her life free of obligation of Buffy Summers,” E explained.

They believe that the Latine community and society at large need to support Latinas in excellence and move away from outdated machismo. “It was also later in life that something that impacted my gender greatly were the Latina women in my family: my mother, my tia's, mi abuela Gregoria - that showed me the power of womanhood and feminity,” E explained. “In these women in my life, I found my passion for justice, the fire of advocacy, my morality, and the strength, not weakness, that they held.  And I believe that's where I found myself and why I align with femininity - my feminity is strong and resilient: a fiery Latina fighting for justice, a mother willing to lay down her life for her children, a kind and guiding hand, and so much more.”

The relationship with their family and cultural identity has evolved over time. Finding support has been difficult, especially with frequent moves. True support has come from other trans individuals and those who knew and accepted E before their transition.

“I'll be honest is saying that support systems have been hard to find.  Even now, I don't have many friends - with moving every two to three years over the last fifteen years, it's just gotten harder to find peers that share my experience or even relate. Even working within multicultural offices at colleges or universities, I am reminded that people will revert to ideas of how they think they should treat the identities they perceive, rather than who I am.”

E emphasizes the importance of standing together and challenging injustice. Empathy, compassion, and care should be the guiding principles, according to them. Celebrating diverse identities and rejecting supremacist ideals are crucial steps towards a more inclusive and just society. By supporting each other, especially within our own communities, we can create a world where everyone has the freedom and ability to live authentically.

“I'll briefly say this: being Latine and transfemme hasn't and I don't think will continue to be easy, at least for me,” said E.