Photography courtesy of Flower Boi Support.
Flower Boi
An illustration of the essence of Flower Boi Support, created by artist Kijani Parks.
What started as a small group of people gathered in a South St. Louis apartment has grown into something much bigger. Since the beginning, Flower Boi Support, also known as Flower Boi STL, has always strived to help masculine people recognize their role in perpetuating toxic masculinity and to encourage others to uplift trans women and femmes (individuals whose behaviors or expression is feminine in nature). Its very name represents the spectrum of masculinity: The "i" in "Boi" reflects how each individual falls differently on the spectrum and the "flower," which is connected with notions of femininity and gentleness, connects to the group's call for masculine people to be vulnerable in order to promote change.
While the group centers on masculine-identifying/presenting people of color, those who identify on the feminine spectrum may attend support meetings, and, of course, are encouraged to also attend the various protests Flower Boi hosts and those the group supports. Since its start in 2017, Flower Boi has gone further than encouraging conversations surrounding toxic masculinity. The group does everything from advocate for ways legislation can better aid the Black queer and trans community with congressional candidate Cori Bush to host virtual events such as their Black Trans Teach In, which connected the dots between abolition, Black freedom, and trans justice. Through it all, founder Charles Buchanan says they are making sure trans women and femmes of color are a part of the conversation in how to move the city forward.
What is Flower Boi Support’s mission?
Our mission is to protect women and femmes in our community by holding masculine beings accountable, by addressing the root of the harm and following the wishes of those harmed. We work on a restorative justice framework because it’s my deep-held belief that nobody is disposable, so we really believe in addressing people’s needs and giving them resources. Because we understand people are not innately bad, but they pick up bad habits and toxic things by trying to exist as their full selves, we really address the root causes of toxic masculinity and homophobic and transphobic behavior. It allows people to take accountability and not feel shamed, so they can change their behaviors and create a world where liberation is possible.
What sparked the need to create Flower Boi Support, and what was your goal in creating it?
I’m a trans-masculine being, and [when] transitioning from being socialized as a woman to experiencing manhood for the first time [in the Ferguson community], I realized that there was a lot of misogyny happening within community spaces. I was seeing a lot of Black women and femmes being disregarded and disrespected by other masculine people of color and Black men. [They] were allowing hyper-masculinity to run rampant within our community spaces. I wanted to create a space for masculine beings to not only acknowledge how misogyny affects our own lives, but how we invest in and embody misogyny and are complacent toward the violence that women and femmes experience within our community.
Much of Flower Boi’s work centers on people of color. Why is this important?
If you look at the history of how gender is enforced, it comes from white supremacy, and when you see African countries, indigenous countries, that have been colonized by Britain and France, you see a change in the way gender [is thought about], the way we treat women, and the way we treat femmes. Because of that, it heavily affects people of color. You can’t address toxic masculinity without first addressing internalized white supremacy.
Flower Boi has been around since 2017. What were the early days like?
We started off in my living room, just a couple of guys coming together every month and having conversations about Black feminism. We started working with Metro Trans Umbrella Group and doing programming and things at conferences and workshops. By really just asking the people who showed up [to be] honest about why they’re doing horrible things to themselves and to their communities, it allowed us to go deeper and invest more into the people who came, into ourselves, and into Flower Boi. In order to love the community, you have to know them, and so we aim to meet people where they are.
How is Flower Boi different today?
We’re getting more involved politically than we ever have been. I think we had no choice but to, really, because if you think of the death of Black trans women, most of the time it’s intimate partners, people who knew them. If we’re going to acknowledge one person’s accountability and call that one person in, we need to call in the whole community.
Flower Boi has partnered with organizations such as Expect US, Action St. Louis, the ACLU, and STL Offenders Accountability Initiative for events, discussions, and fundraisers. Why have you highlighted these organizations?
These are all organizations that believe in the liberation of Black people, and it’s our goal as masculine people to make sure that when we’re talking about the liberation of Black people that the people at the forefront of that liberation are queer women, trans women, and femmes.
