Draft:Georgia Black

• Comment: The main thing to remember when editing this page is WP:NPOV. It seems like the sources are there, but it has to be written in a more neutral, factual way. Sometimes this is more distant and bland than writing on other websites, but it makes sure that Wikipedia is educational.
  Also, the WP:MEDIUM source has to be removed since it's not considered reliable. BuySomeApples (talk) 05:42, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: tone is not appropriate for an encyclopaedia article. Theroadislong (talk) 18:55, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

---

Georgia Black, (born 1906, South Carolina), was an American Black transgender woman who ran away from home and rejected her sex from the age of 15. From escaping hard labor in the fields, exploring aspects of her gender identity that challenged societal norms of the rural south, and forming impactful ties to her community, Georgia Black’s life is a testament to the resilience and vivaciousness of trans lives.

Early life and marriage

Black’s decision to camouflage aspects of her gender began at 15 years old while rebelling against performing hard labor on a farm near Galeyville, South Carolina. Black ran away to Charleston, South Carolina, and was invited to become a house servant in which the retainer of the mansion was a gay man who dressed Georgia Black in women’s clothing and allowed her a space to explore her femininity. Later in Winter Havel, Florida, Black met Alonzo Sabbe, who was severely ill at the time. After Alonzo’s recovery, he asked Black to marry him. After their marriage, Alonzo and Black adopted a son, Willie Sabbe, who was the son of a cousin who deserted the three-week-old child after a visit to Florida. The couple moved to Sanford, Florida, and raised the child. Alonzo Sabbe died shortly after the marriage and Black later married Muster Black, a World War I vet, at the home of Joanna Moore, the principal of Sanford’s Black elementary school. Muster Black, unfortunately, died seven years after the marriage. Because Muster Black was a veteran, Georgia was able to collect a pension from the Veteran’s Administration.

Ebony Article

One Ebony article interviewed one of Georgia Black’s employers who said, “I don't care what Georgia Black was. She nursed members of our family through birth, sickness, and death. She was one of the best citizens in town.”

Georgia Black gained recognition after Ebony released an article titled “The Man Who Lived 30 Years as a Woman” in October 1951. The article was later republished in Ebony’s thirtieth-anniversary edition in November 1975 and reprised in Jet in 1989. This article was one of Ebony’s first coverages that focused on trans concerns. The article opens, “By every law of society, Georgia Black should have died a disgrace and humiliation and been remembered as a sex pervert, a “fairy”, and a “freak.”

The article was controversial because while it granted coverage of Georgia’s experience as a black transgender woman, which was incredibly rare at the time, the reporter did so with blatant transphobia and sensationalization. The article misgenders Black repeatedly and refers to her story as “one of the most incredible stories in the history of sexual abnormalities.”

The Ebony reporter, however, could not ignore Black’s large role in her community. When Black dies in June 1951, the reporter writes, “lining the sidewalks of the Dixie town that once barred Jackie Robinson from its stadium, [black] and white mourners rubbed elbows, bowed heads and shed genuine tears.” The article highlights the unifying force Georgia Black had in a racially segregated south and the large presence she had in the lives of her family, friends, employers, and church.

C. Riley Snorton's Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity

In the novel Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity, Snorton explores the “historical accounts of trans studies invention by excavating a black trans present and persona long before modern articulations of such”. In the novel, Black is cited as an example of a figure who emerges in the queer press and offers a way to “narrate trans embodiment in the postwar, early Cold War period” as her story reflects on the violence and aftermath of World War II, the decolonial struggles throughout the “Global South” and Jim Crow segregation in the United States. Snorton argues that the narrative of Georgia Black, as covered by Ebony, illustrates how black trans figures “were mobilized to meditate on intramural black life, not simply as it related to matters of gender and sexuality but also as it pertained to shifting notions of human valuation."

Death

Georgia Black passed away in June 1951 in Sanford, Florida. Georgia Black’s transgender identity was discovered by Dr. Orville Barks, the county physician who performed the autopsy on her body after her death. After discovering Black’s male genitalia, the physician publicly revealed Georgia’s information. Dr. Orville Barks expressed regret for involving himself in the leakage of information after the Sanford community’s backlash about the reporting.