Black Trans Lives Matter – Ken Corbett

I took this video from my terrace on June 14, 2020, before heading into the streets, chanting for black trans lives, shouting while helicopters rasped and whirled overhead. I was conscious of having the breath to yell, during a time when breath has become radicalized. I shouted myself hoarse, and was glad for it. I was not aware of being a psychoanalyst in the street; I was a citizen. But when I came home, I promised myself that I would not die in “that chair.” This protest, and the many others here and worldwide ricochet with meanings: the forceful and unremitting opposition to anti-blackness, white supremacy, policing, and our national setting. Importantly, they also offer us the opportunity to examine our own radicalized psychoanalytic setting. Not everyone can breathe on the couch.

June 26, 2020

Ken Corbett is Clinical Assistant Professor at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is the author of Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities and A Murder Over a Girl: Gender, Justice, Junior High. Dr. Corbett has a private practice in New York City.