Natasha Martin’s arrest shows that though we may live in a time that transgender identities are entering the cultural mainstream, transgender people who are not white and upper class still experience unique forms of oppression. The article begins by citing the various ways transgender people have received cultural attention, making it seem we live in an “enlightened” time. This progress did not, however, protect Natasha Martin from vulnerability to arrest because her oppression is interlocking at the intersection of her race, class, and gender as she is both hypersexualized and seen a deviant from hegemonic ideals.
Black women experience hypersexualization that traces back to slavery, and there is stigma around transgender women that links them to sex work. At the intersection of her race and gender¬–gender as a women but also as transgender–Natasha Martin is made extremely vulnerable to being arrested …show more content…
In This Bridge Called My Back, doris davenport explains what it means to be outside of hegemony: “It is also apparent that white feminists still perceive us as the “Other,” based on a menial or sexual image: as more sensual, but less cerebral; more interesting, perhaps, but less intellectual; and more oppressed, but less political than they are” (82). This quote references the way women of color experience sexualization while also explaining the oppositional consciousness that creates the “Other,” an outsider to hegemonic ideals. Natasha Martin was seen as an “Other” in the area she was in because it is a site of gentrification, where poor, black and Hispanic neighborhoods, formerly “a place of bohemian and transgressive club life,” are erased for what is seen as acceptable under hegemonic ideals. Martin’s oppressions interlocked to make her an outsider to hegemonic ideals and therefore more vulnerable to arrest in
Black women experience hypersexualization that traces back to slavery, and there is stigma around transgender women that links them to sex work. At the intersection of her race and gender¬–gender as a women but also as transgender–Natasha Martin is made extremely vulnerable to being arrested …show more content…
In This Bridge Called My Back, doris davenport explains what it means to be outside of hegemony: “It is also apparent that white feminists still perceive us as the “Other,” based on a menial or sexual image: as more sensual, but less cerebral; more interesting, perhaps, but less intellectual; and more oppressed, but less political than they are” (82). This quote references the way women of color experience sexualization while also explaining the oppositional consciousness that creates the “Other,” an outsider to hegemonic ideals. Natasha Martin was seen as an “Other” in the area she was in because it is a site of gentrification, where poor, black and Hispanic neighborhoods, formerly “a place of bohemian and transgressive club life,” are erased for what is seen as acceptable under hegemonic ideals. Martin’s oppressions interlocked to make her an outsider to hegemonic ideals and therefore more vulnerable to arrest in