Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / SMNTY Interviews: Raquel Willis

Transcript

SMNTY Interviews: Raquel Willis · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and a of fome.
0:07
Speaker 2: Stuff I've never told you protective of iHeartRadio, and today
0:19
Speaker 2: we are so excited and a little nervous to be
0:23
Speaker 2: joined by the amazing, award winning activist, author and podcaster
0:27
Speaker 2: Raquel Willis. Thank you so much for taking the time
0:30
Speaker 2: out of your very busy schedule for kel of.
0:34
Speaker 3: Course, Well, thank you for having me.
0:35
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm returning home in a sense to Sminty.
0:40
Speaker 2: Yes, because you have been on Sminty before. We were
0:44
Speaker 2: just talking about this and we are going to talk
0:48
Speaker 2: about it a bit more because you did work at
0:51
Speaker 2: how Stuff Works as it was at the time you
0:53
Speaker 2: were on Sminty when it was Kristen and Caroline. You've
0:57
Speaker 2: been in Atlanta, which is where Samantha and I live. Yes,
1:01
Speaker 2: and we're very excited to see you again on an
1:03
Speaker 2: upcoming book tour.
1:05
Speaker 3: Yes.
1:05
Speaker 2: But for the listeners, as we were just discussing off Mike,
1:10
Speaker 2: you've done a lot since then, You've grown a lot
1:13
Speaker 2: as a person, but also done a lot since then.
1:16
Speaker 2: And that was a very simplified introduction I gave you.
1:18
Speaker 2: Can you introduce yourself to our audience? Please?
1:22
Speaker 3: Yes?
1:23
Speaker 4: Well, hello, sminty fam. I am Roquel Willis. I am
1:27
Speaker 4: a black transactivist, now author and media strategist, and so
1:33
Speaker 4: much of my work is dedicated to honoring the dignity
1:37
Speaker 4: of folks on the margins, which of course means women
1:41
Speaker 4: and folks of varying gender experiences, folks.
1:45
Speaker 3: Of color, and on and on.
1:47
Speaker 4: And I'm from Augusta, Georgia, so I'm a Georgia girl.
1:51
Speaker 4: We were joking about my accent coming in and out.
1:54
Speaker 4: It's because I've lived in a bunch of different places
1:57
Speaker 4: since i started in twenty thirteen with a media and
2:02
Speaker 4: journalism career. But I'm so glad to be on this
2:06
Speaker 4: amazing platform again.
2:10
Speaker 1: We're so glad you were on. I know we Andy
2:13
Speaker 1: and I have had like a little dream list of
2:15
Speaker 1: people we wanted back on the show. Were on the show,
2:17
Speaker 1: and you're on my list, and I'm like, it's finally happening.
2:21
Speaker 1: As I told you previously, I'm a little intimidated, and
2:24
Speaker 1: as most of our listeners know, when I get intimidated,
2:26
Speaker 1: I start stuttering or talking very fast. So go ahead
2:29
Speaker 1: and put that as a warning to everyone listening as
2:32
Speaker 1: well as to you. Okay, I'm very professional I'm very
2:35
Speaker 1: professional obviously, but you and I went to UGA as well,
2:40
Speaker 1: so you and our alums in that as well, And
2:43
Speaker 1: as I was reading parts of your book, I was like, oh,
2:45
Speaker 1: this is very familiar. Really okay, you're speaking about East
2:49
Speaker 1: Point and it's speaking about Uga, and I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, okay,
2:52
Speaker 1: I kind of get this.
2:54
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean Uga, what a time.
2:58
Speaker 4: So yeah. I went to school at the University of Georgia,
3:02
Speaker 4: studied journalism and had a minor women's studies, picked that
3:06
Speaker 4: up along the way. And it's so funny that my
3:11
Speaker 4: uncovering of my feminism happened at college alongside my coming
3:17
Speaker 4: into my womanhood as a transperson. So it's interesting. I mean,
3:22
Speaker 4: I really had kind of these teachers that were phenomenal.
3:29
Speaker 4: I mean it was folks like doctor Nicole Ray, Cecilia
3:33
Speaker 4: Hurlez at the University of Georgia, Blaize.
3:36
Speaker 3: Parker, so many more.
3:38
Speaker 4: And then I also on the journalism side, had these
3:41
Speaker 4: phenomenal black women writers like the late Valerie Boyd unfortunately
3:46
Speaker 4: she passed last year, and Cynthia Tucker of Atlanta Journal
3:51
Speaker 4: Constitution fame. So I was surrounded by like a crew
3:56
Speaker 4: of baddies if I must say so myself.
3:59
Speaker 3: In person, but then through the written word.
4:02
Speaker 4: I mean, it was black feminists like Patricia Hills Collins,
4:06
Speaker 4: it was Angela Davis, it was Belle Hooks. It was
4:09
Speaker 4: trans writers and scholars like Susan Striker and Julia Serrano
4:15
Speaker 4: of Whipping Girl fame, who really gave me a lens
4:19
Speaker 4: around my experience as a trans woman. So I was like, well, yoped,
4:25
Speaker 4: I guess at that time to understand systems of oppression.
4:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is amazing, because I will say when I
4:33
Speaker 1: started that story with you, I was like a little nervous, because, Uga,
4:37
Speaker 1: you can go either way. You could have some of
4:39
Speaker 1: the best experiences, you can have some of the worst experiences.
4:42
Speaker 1: It's an up and down of whether or not you
4:44
Speaker 1: find your crew, and it can be a hit and mess,
4:47
Speaker 1: especially in a southern university that is dated with a
4:51
Speaker 1: lot of unfortunate history, but good history, but changes as well.
4:56
Speaker 1: So I was like, yes, okay, good.
4:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, But you know, I think that's the story of
5:01
Speaker 4: the South right. It is like so often we talk
5:04
Speaker 4: about the struggle, but we forget that so much of
5:08
Speaker 4: the resilience and the resistance is also.
5:10
Speaker 3: A part of that story.
5:11
Speaker 4: And actually we should elevate that maybe more than some
5:15
Speaker 4: of the struggles that happen.
5:18
Speaker 3: So yeah, I feel you.
5:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, And you've touched on so many
5:25
Speaker 2: things that I want to come back and talk about.
5:27
Speaker 2: But I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here.
5:29
Speaker 3: I'm the one that often does that.
5:32
Speaker 2: So we do that too.
5:33
Speaker 1: You're right with those get very excited.
5:37
Speaker 2: Yes, we received a copy of your book that covers beautiful.
5:41
Speaker 2: I want to talk about that in a second.
5:42
Speaker 4: Two.
5:42
Speaker 2: The writing is beautiful. You do such a good job
5:45
Speaker 2: of like showcasing kind of the arc of your life
5:48
Speaker 2: from the South and then everything else that you've done since. Then,
5:53
Speaker 2: Can you tell us and the listeners what the book
5:56
Speaker 2: is about.
5:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the risk it takes to bloom on life
6:01
Speaker 4: and liberation is, like you said, Annie, it's about my
6:05
Speaker 4: experience growing up in the.
6:07
Speaker 3: South with a lot of traditionalism.
6:10
Speaker 4: I come from a very kind of classic black Southern family,
6:15
Speaker 4: middle class, so there was also that component. But we
6:18
Speaker 4: were also very Catholic, I mean devout Catholic, set in
6:22
Speaker 4: the front pew every Sunday, ugh, all of that.
6:27
Speaker 3: So it was a.
6:30
Speaker 4: Lot of wading through these expectations of who I was
6:34
Speaker 4: supposed to be, and so I talked very candidly about
6:37
Speaker 4: my relationship with my father, who.
6:39
Speaker 3: Was very loving and very very.
6:42
Speaker 4: Much a fixture in my life and also in that love.
6:45
Speaker 4: So much of it was about rearing me in a
6:49
Speaker 4: certain way to embody, particularly black masculinity, which was not
6:56
Speaker 4: really in the cards for me. Whether I tried or
6:58
Speaker 4: didn't try, I was just I was bullied. You know,
7:01
Speaker 4: it's called so many names, and along the way realized
7:05
Speaker 4: I was different. And so that's kind of the first
7:07
Speaker 4: half of the book is like, you get that journey
7:10
Speaker 4: all the way through what you mentioned Samantha me finding
7:13
Speaker 4: my trans womanhood in college, and then the kind of
7:16
Speaker 4: the second big chunk of the book is okay, well,
7:19
Speaker 4: as a black trans woman, Now, what kind of world
7:23
Speaker 4: is kind of emerging for me as someone embarking on
7:28
Speaker 4: a journalism and media career but also has this passion
7:31
Speaker 4: for social justice.
7:33
Speaker 3: Oh and we're straddling the Obama and.
7:35
Speaker 4: Trump eras Oh and transmissibility is on the rise. Oh
7:40
Speaker 4: and the movement for Black Lives is happening. And then
7:43
Speaker 4: there's this feminist collective awakening happening with the unfortunate ascension
7:50
Speaker 4: of Donald Trump. So all of that is kind of
7:55
Speaker 4: packed into the second part of the book.
7:58
Speaker 2: Yes, and it it's a lot. Like I was, wow, girl,
8:04
Speaker 2: you have done so much, You have been all over
8:08
Speaker 2: and you're so open with your stories and so sharing
8:15
Speaker 2: and so vulnerable, like you talk about really what could
8:20
Speaker 2: be like very painful things. You did say that some
8:22
Speaker 2: of it was therapeutic, but for instance, you talked about
8:25
Speaker 2: your coming out to your family and how that sort
8:28
Speaker 2: of spread and like you started with your immediate family
8:32
Speaker 2: and then like could later other people. But how how
8:37
Speaker 2: was that for you? Like how was sharing those stories
8:41
Speaker 2: for you?
8:42
Speaker 3: Yeah?
8:42
Speaker 4: Well, I think at this point, you know, maybe a
8:45
Speaker 4: lot of people, well I won't say a lot, because
8:48
Speaker 4: there's still a lot of Americans in particular who say
8:50
Speaker 4: they don't know a trans person.
8:52
Speaker 3: But we kind of have this idea of like what.
8:56
Speaker 4: Coming out looks like in general or in vice in
9:00
Speaker 4: as some folks are saying now. But I think people forget,
9:04
Speaker 4: you know, I think they're like, Okay, well you're thirty two,
9:07
Speaker 4: why are you writing a memoir?
9:08
Speaker 3: Like what have you experienced? And as you said, Addie,
9:11
Speaker 3: it's been a lot.
9:12
Speaker 4: And I'm also an overthinker. So those two put together,
9:16
Speaker 4: you get a book, you get a memoir. Also, I
9:22
Speaker 4: think people forget that I was kind of coming into
9:25
Speaker 4: my career as a black trans woman, like literally two
9:31
Speaker 4: months before Orange Just a New Black premiered with Laverne Cox,
9:35
Speaker 4: the amazing who did an amazing conversation for my launch
9:39
Speaker 4: event in New York, which, oh my god, big moment.
9:44
Speaker 4: But that premiere two months after I graduated. So I
9:48
Speaker 4: was already kind of navigating being a black trans woman
9:52
Speaker 4: in the world before this kind of visibility era started
9:57
Speaker 4: to take off, and so it was important to kind
9:59
Speaker 4: of showcase is my personal trajectory within kind of this
10:05
Speaker 4: change in consciousness collectively around and public education and political
10:11
Speaker 4: education around trans folks existence. So that's been a thing
10:16
Speaker 4: I think. Also, I've been blessed to meet so many
10:21
Speaker 4: empowering folks along the way. I mean, whether it was
10:24
Speaker 4: LGBCQ students invested in making our campus more habitable at
10:30
Speaker 4: the University of Georgia, to Black queer and transactivists and
10:35
Speaker 4: organizers in Atlanta who were fighting against everything from mass
10:40
Speaker 4: incarceration to police brutality and on and on, to folks
10:45
Speaker 4: at Transgender Law Center who were working on so many
10:48
Speaker 4: different initiatives on a national level to make trans folks safe,
10:52
Speaker 4: on to Working It Out magazine where an amazing group
10:59
Speaker 4: of folks came together which I was so proud to
11:02
Speaker 4: be a part of, to kind of shift narratives around.
11:05
Speaker 3: The LGBTQ community.
11:07
Speaker 4: And so one of the things I think that has
11:10
Speaker 4: been a feature of so much of my career has
11:12
Speaker 4: been in spaces with folks invested in showing the breath
11:16
Speaker 4: of experiences on the margins.
11:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, as you're speaking of this, obviously
11:22
Speaker 1: you are a writer. Everything you say has so many
11:26
Speaker 1: things that you can picture with this. Your book was
11:28
Speaker 1: very much the same. You are a storyteller. Honestly, it
11:31
Speaker 1: kind of reminded me a little bit of the Southern
11:33
Speaker 1: Gothic that I love to read because of the Tales
11:36
Speaker 1: of Augusta, and you're growing up very southern level of community,
11:42
Speaker 1: which was familiar in that, Yeah, this is Georgia, this
11:44
Speaker 1: is this is what Georgia looks like in growing up
11:47
Speaker 1: with a family that is surrounding you. That sweet tea,
11:51
Speaker 1: that that description of your dinner at the very beginning,
11:53
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I know that, I know what
11:55
Speaker 1: she's talking about you know, the puckering up the lips,
11:57
Speaker 1: from it being so sweet, that whole level. You're an
12:01
Speaker 1: obvious writer in all of that. As you tell your story,
12:05
Speaker 1: How did this process go for you? Because not only
12:08
Speaker 1: it is a memoir, but it is a story, it
12:11
Speaker 1: is a novel in itself. How did you do all
12:14
Speaker 1: of this writing? What was your thought process as you
12:16
Speaker 1: were doing it?
12:17
Speaker 3: Well, shout out to my therapist.
12:20
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, I ended up finding a new therapist during
12:25
Speaker 4: the process because I kind of had a break between
12:30
Speaker 4: one that I had a while ago, and we just
12:33
Speaker 4: had some really important conversations. But I think that that
12:37
Speaker 4: kind of dovetailed with just kind of the emotional experience
12:43
Speaker 4: of talking about these stories. I mean, so many of
12:47
Speaker 4: us get our lives down to talking points, you know,
12:51
Speaker 4: and so.
12:51
Speaker 3: It's like this happened.
12:52
Speaker 4: I came out at fourteen as gay to my parents,
12:55
Speaker 4: and then came out at school, and then found my
12:57
Speaker 4: transits in college and all this stuff, and that I
13:02
Speaker 4: was a writer here the small town newspaper, and you know,
13:05
Speaker 4: and so it's the talking points.
13:06
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes getting.
13:10
Speaker 4: Our stories down to those little slivers acts as a
13:14
Speaker 4: shield for us to not dig into the deeper emotions
13:19
Speaker 4: of like trauma, of like the things that have pushed
13:24
Speaker 4: us to seek validation in a certain way. I mean,
13:28
Speaker 4: one of the things that was important to kind of
13:30
Speaker 4: get a grip on is like, Okay, in this career
13:33
Speaker 4: that I've built, you know what am I building it for?
13:39
Speaker 4: And at the heart of some of it, which I've
13:43
Speaker 4: been unpacking with my therapist, is like I felt like
13:47
Speaker 4: I had to present myself in a certain package to
13:51
Speaker 4: make up for those things that made me more.
13:55
Speaker 3: Marginalize in our society.
13:57
Speaker 4: And so I dealt with the expects hetions of you know,
14:01
Speaker 4: not being able to build this kind of palatable life
14:05
Speaker 4: that maybe my parents hoped I would have had, and
14:08
Speaker 4: kind of shattering that and being like, it's okay for
14:12
Speaker 4: me to exist, but also I don't have to work
14:18
Speaker 4: and achieve to make up for those things. Those things
14:23
Speaker 4: are brilliantly beautiful as well. My blackness, my transness, my queerness,
14:27
Speaker 4: my womanhood, my southernness as well, those are beautiful things
14:33
Speaker 4: that I don't have to work despite of, right or
14:39
Speaker 4: in spite of I'm working in this way because of
14:45
Speaker 4: those things. So that was kind of at the heart
14:48
Speaker 4: of it. I mean, I had to have hard conversations
14:51
Speaker 4: with family, with former partners and friends, especially for these
14:58
Speaker 4: moments where I talk about ten and conflicts, because I
15:02
Speaker 4: really believe in trying to tell my story in a
15:06
Speaker 4: way that it didn't infringe on other people's lives, right,
15:11
Speaker 4: So I also wanted them to be able to have
15:16
Speaker 4: their stories while I also told my story from my
15:20
Speaker 4: vantage point, and I wanted that.
15:21
Speaker 3: To be clear.
15:22
Speaker 2: I love that because we've been talking about that just
15:26
Speaker 2: being on this podcast. By nature of like, I'll tell
15:28
Speaker 2: a story and I know, like if it gets up
15:30
Speaker 2: to my family, oh, you know, I don't know how
15:35
Speaker 2: that's going to go. I think that's great that you
15:38
Speaker 2: reached out to people and had those hard conversations because
15:41
Speaker 2: telling such a story like this so personal.
15:44
Speaker 4: And there's power in it, right, Like there's power in
15:48
Speaker 4: being a storyteller and telling it on this level which
15:50
Speaker 4: you just spoke to for yourself, right.
15:54
Speaker 3: And I had a duty to.
16:01
Speaker 4: Not move from a place from that place of heart
16:04
Speaker 4: and harm and trauma, to not move from a place
16:07
Speaker 4: of vengeance, right, And which is something that people can
16:12
Speaker 4: easily do when they have a platform.
16:14
Speaker 3: We see it all the time.
16:16
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we do another thing I really loved because
16:31
Speaker 2: earlier you were mentioning all of these amazing mentors that
16:36
Speaker 2: you had, but you also speak about as you were
16:40
Speaker 2: earlier about like students or organizations are just like being
16:45
Speaker 2: on like a Yahoo group and finding people that way
16:49
Speaker 2: and finding mentors that way. And I really loved that
16:52
Speaker 2: because I do think Samantha and I both grew up
16:55
Speaker 2: in small towns in the South. I do think like
16:58
Speaker 2: finding that can be so eye opening of like, oh wait, wait,
17:05
Speaker 2: this is making so much sense to me. So can
17:08
Speaker 2: you talk about that kind of the power of finding
17:11
Speaker 2: your community, of finding these mentors.
17:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, Annie, thank you for bringing that up. I mean,
17:18
Speaker 4: it's so interesting to think about because life just kind
17:22
Speaker 4: of unfolds sometimes, especially when you're young. But I first
17:26
Speaker 4: found the LGBTQ community through the computer screen, right, which
17:30
Speaker 4: is not weird now because of social media and everything,
17:34
Speaker 4: But in the early two thousands, I mean the internet
17:38
Speaker 4: was a wilderness, you know, like the rabbit holes you
17:42
Speaker 4: could go down. There is something that I think younger
17:46
Speaker 4: folks may not be able to understand.
17:49
Speaker 3: But I found community through teen forums.
17:53
Speaker 4: Where we would talk about our experiences, whether it was
17:56
Speaker 4: from puberty and body changes and everything. You know, all
18:00
Speaker 4: those awkward things we could never talk about in our IRL,
18:04
Speaker 4: right in real life, as we say, but then also
18:08
Speaker 4: in Yahoo chatrooms as you said, and in chatrooms on
18:11
Speaker 4: AOL it's the messenger aim, if you will.
18:15
Speaker 3: That was kind of the.
18:18
Speaker 4: Experience that I had that helped me understand, Oh, there
18:21
Speaker 4: are other LGBTQ people out there, and I'm not alone,
18:26
Speaker 4: and I'm just I'm just different in this context, and
18:31
Speaker 4: so there are folks I can find.
18:33
Speaker 3: So that was a sense of community.
18:35
Speaker 4: And then going off to the University of Georgia, as
18:38
Speaker 4: you said, that was so eye opening because I had
18:42
Speaker 4: never seen queer and trans people like me who were
18:46
Speaker 4: so open about it, you know, and so that was beautiful.
18:51
Speaker 4: I met trans people for the first time really who
18:55
Speaker 4: were living openly, and that kind of shifted my mindset
18:59
Speaker 4: as well. Back in Augusta, there were other gay and
19:03
Speaker 4: by folks, but most of them were in the closet,
19:06
Speaker 4: or most of them, I guess, didn't wear it on
19:10
Speaker 4: their sleeve, maybe in the ways that I did, and
19:12
Speaker 4: I don't think I really did, but I was just
19:15
Speaker 4: outspoken about it. So yeah, I mean, those early moments
19:20
Speaker 4: of community were so key, and I think about how
19:23
Speaker 4: important it is for young people. You know, I young
19:27
Speaker 4: queer and trans people around the country are facing upwards
19:32
Speaker 4: of six hundred pieces of anti LGBTQ plus legislation introduced
19:38
Speaker 4: in the year of twenty twenty three, according to the ACLU.
19:41
Speaker 4: And the unfortunate thing is like, while we've had this
19:45
Speaker 4: rise in visibility for particularly trans folks, that also has
19:51
Speaker 4: made us more of a target to particularly conservative folks.
19:56
Speaker 4: So we see these politicians, we see a washed up
20:01
Speaker 4: why fantasy author coming after trans people. We see washed
20:07
Speaker 4: up comedians coming after trans people. We see washed up
20:14
Speaker 4: rappers and other folks coming after trans people.
20:17
Speaker 3: I think you see the pattern.
20:19
Speaker 4: Trans people make the haters relevant again in a way.
20:26
Speaker 3: So I say all.
20:28
Speaker 4: That to say that I think it's important for young
20:32
Speaker 4: people across the board, on the margins to have opportunities
20:36
Speaker 4: to build community because there's a lot of healing that
20:39
Speaker 4: can come with being surrounded by folks that you can
20:41
Speaker 4: compare and contrast the notes of your life with.
20:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree so much. I hate Like I've told
20:49
Speaker 2: this story before, but when I was in seventh grade,
20:52
Speaker 2: I was like, maybe I'm gay, and then I like
20:55
Speaker 2: trade to God, like I hope I'm not gay, because
20:58
Speaker 2: I knew it would mean like and I'm so scared
21:02
Speaker 2: of it, and I hate that I've felt that way.
21:05
Speaker 2: And I think that if I had had community of
21:08
Speaker 2: people like who even knew to the terms, like nobody
21:11
Speaker 2: even knew the words where I grew up, yeah, that
21:16
Speaker 2: it would have meant so so much. But you said
21:19
Speaker 2: something that I wanted to come back to you because
21:21
Speaker 2: you've spoken about this before. There is there has been
21:25
Speaker 2: this rise in trans visibility, which is great, but you've
21:31
Speaker 2: also spoken about how that doesn't necessarily equate to vitality
21:35
Speaker 2: and that can't be the whole picture. Can you talk
21:38
Speaker 2: about that?
21:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the visibility piece. I So let's get
21:43
Speaker 4: to the heart of it, right. There are people who
21:45
Speaker 4: are like, oh, well, we're always hearing about transpholks. I mean,
21:49
Speaker 4: I've seen in some comments for interviews I've done this
21:52
Speaker 4: week where people are like, I'm trans now, and I'm like,
21:56
Speaker 4: what are you talking about?
21:58
Speaker 3: You know?
21:58
Speaker 4: And a lot of it is people's anxieties around and
22:01
Speaker 4: particularly cisioner people, that is, folks who are not trans.
22:05
Speaker 4: It's their anxieties around not being able to be the
22:09
Speaker 4: default anymore because now that trans people have articulated our
22:16
Speaker 4: existence in a way and are empowered to own our stories.
22:22
Speaker 4: There are people who don't like the fact that they
22:25
Speaker 4: don't get the cookies of being seen as normal on
22:29
Speaker 4: that level of identity.
22:31
Speaker 3: Right.
22:32
Speaker 4: We hear the same thing from white supremacists who have
22:35
Speaker 4: a problem with the diversity efforts, who have a problem
22:39
Speaker 4: with people of color being main characters in Marvel films
22:44
Speaker 4: and Disney films. It's because they have a problem with
22:47
Speaker 4: not being seen as the default, and they don't want
22:50
Speaker 4: to interrogate that they are complicit in these systems of
22:54
Speaker 4: oppression that folks on the margins experience. Is I want
23:02
Speaker 4: to validate your discomfort, because that is real. How you
23:07
Speaker 4: feel is real, But I will never concede that your
23:13
Speaker 4: discomfort in any way as someone who is more privileged
23:17
Speaker 4: on a certain access of oppression, deserves the approach that
23:23
Speaker 4: you take, and that it deserves the same or equal
23:28
Speaker 4: billing as the discrimination and the violence that folks in
23:35
Speaker 4: the margins experience. So when we're talking about trans folks
23:40
Speaker 4: being visible, it can't just be that you have this
23:44
Speaker 4: idea that we've got it made because you might see
23:47
Speaker 4: us on a TV screen or hear us on a
23:52
Speaker 4: radio or a podcast, or see us in a magazine.
23:57
Speaker 4: Do you understand that we still have high rates of
24:03
Speaker 4: incarceration for black trans folks in particular, high rates of
24:08
Speaker 4: suicidal ideation across the board, regardless.
24:11
Speaker 3: Of race, for trans and non binary folks.
24:13
Speaker 4: Particularly youth. Do you understand the barriers of healthcare? Oh,
24:18
Speaker 4: because people are trying to pass legislation to keep young
24:22
Speaker 4: people and adults from accessing what we call gender firm
24:26
Speaker 4: and care, which is really just healthcare, you know. So
24:30
Speaker 4: I think it's important for folks to understand that visibility
24:36
Speaker 4: is great, but it often presents more issues when the
24:42
Speaker 4: material conditions have not changed for large swaths of a
24:47
Speaker 4: community on the margins.
24:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's kind of funny that and I
24:52
Speaker 1: say this funny as in sarcastically, that the idea of
24:55
Speaker 1: just being seen, which is the visibility to exist and
24:59
Speaker 1: then to have one out of what a thousand other
25:02
Speaker 1: types of gender ideas be there, and that's the cause
25:07
Speaker 1: and the focus when it's actuality is like, no, you
25:10
Speaker 1: just notice this one because it's unusual, which is the
25:13
Speaker 1: unfortunate part is that it shouldn't be that this is
25:16
Speaker 1: rare this should just be on that level of the
25:19
Speaker 1: population like as is in reality, it should be represented.
25:24
Speaker 1: And yet because it is unique, you are offended by
25:27
Speaker 1: something that is unique because we don't see enough of it,
25:30
Speaker 1: which is the conversation in itself that that should be
25:33
Speaker 1: the what we're focusing on, not the fact that they exist.
25:35
Speaker 1: It's like, what are you talking about. The reason we're
25:38
Speaker 1: talking about it is because more and more people are
25:41
Speaker 1: going after that one small group of population, not even
25:44
Speaker 1: that small. It's smaller than what you have heard before.
25:48
Speaker 1: So therefore all the attacks do not. The ratio is
25:52
Speaker 1: off The amount of the anti trains bills to the
25:56
Speaker 1: population that just wants to exist doesn't make sense what
26:01
Speaker 1: it should be against. There should be more antype cis
26:04
Speaker 1: white men bills, as we see in the statistics of
26:08
Speaker 1: it all. Should it not? Shouldn't the ratio be equal?
26:11
Speaker 1: I don't know. I say this as I'm just getting
26:13
Speaker 1: angry and like just common sense of men.
26:15
Speaker 4: No, you're right, I mean, come on from the pulpit,
26:19
Speaker 4: hunting us preaching.
26:20
Speaker 3: But you're you're right though.
26:23
Speaker 4: But the funny thing is when on the opposite side,
26:29
Speaker 4: when folks see groups on the margins getting rights so
26:34
Speaker 4: to speak. And it's really just protecting because the rights
26:37
Speaker 4: that we have are rights that are God given.
26:40
Speaker 3: If that's what you believe, they should already be a
26:43
Speaker 3: part of our existence.
26:45
Speaker 4: But protections for women, protections for LGBTQ plus folks, protection
26:52
Speaker 4: for people of color, immigrants, religious minorities, and on folks
26:58
Speaker 4: who have more power and privilege in a way feel like,
27:03
Speaker 4: oh well, if those protections are articulated, that means something
27:07
Speaker 4: is being taken from me. I mean, that's where we
27:10
Speaker 4: get all of this bs around the great replacement theory
27:13
Speaker 4: and all of this stuff, right, is that there's this
27:17
Speaker 4: idea that people are taking your spot as the main character,
27:22
Speaker 4: particularly of the American story.
27:25
Speaker 3: But you still get to be a main character, honey.
27:28
Speaker 4: But you have to understand that you have the capacity
27:31
Speaker 4: to be both a hero and a villain, to be
27:34
Speaker 4: both an oppressed sore and be oppressed. And that's everyone
27:37
Speaker 4: across the board. And so who are you going to
27:40
Speaker 4: be in this moment? Because the information is there.
27:43
Speaker 1: Honey, and the information including what you have written, which
27:49
Speaker 1: as you were talking earlier about gender ideals and the
27:53
Speaker 1: fact that really people assume something's a norm when actuality
27:58
Speaker 1: you talked about the fact that we're all gender non
28:01
Speaker 1: conforming in some way, and I thought about this earlier.
28:05
Speaker 1: I was like, because I'm not as as girly as
28:08
Speaker 1: I should be in accordance to what people said girly
28:11
Speaker 1: should be. And this is one of the reasons I
28:13
Speaker 1: had to fall out with religion in general, because I
28:16
Speaker 1: wasn't kind and gracious, like not kind. I'm nice, I'm nice,
28:20
Speaker 1: but I'm not gentle. I'm not looking to have ten
28:24
Speaker 1: thousand children. I'm not looking for marriage. I don't need
28:28
Speaker 1: someone to lead me. I just want I just want
28:30
Speaker 1: to be just leave me, yes, essentially, and that does
28:33
Speaker 1: not go in accordance to a lot of the religious
28:36
Speaker 1: things that I grew up with, which we talked about
28:38
Speaker 1: so often. But you talk about how this idea that
28:43
Speaker 1: we're all gender non conforming that is important and why
28:46
Speaker 1: your book is important for this conversation, can you can
28:49
Speaker 1: you talk about that but more?
28:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, when I talk about gender non conforming, there's
28:54
Speaker 4: different levels, right, I think in general, you know, we
28:58
Speaker 4: have to be having a conversation around how gender fells
29:02
Speaker 4: all of us. Cis hetero patriarchy and its expectations fell
29:06
Speaker 4: all of us so yes, I'm talking about my experience
29:10
Speaker 4: as a black trans woman, but it's not so divorced
29:16
Speaker 4: from what CIS gender men and boys experience around being
29:21
Speaker 4: told they literally can't cry without their validity being called
29:25
Speaker 4: into question, or like the color pink, or be affectionate
29:30
Speaker 4: or soft or sassy, as the girls talk about on
29:33
Speaker 4: TikTok these days. But then on the other side, of course,
29:36
Speaker 4: CIS gender women and girls are told exactly what you're saying, Samantha,
29:42
Speaker 4: that you can't be a strong, brilliant, capable leader, you
29:46
Speaker 4: can't be independent, you have to have your destiny attached
29:50
Speaker 4: to the domination of whatever random CIS head man is
29:54
Speaker 4: beside you. That is a gender failure, like that is
29:59
Speaker 4: a failure of the CIS hetero patriarchy. And I think
30:02
Speaker 4: with trans and non binary folks and queer folks and
30:06
Speaker 4: folks who understand that they are gender non conforming, those
30:11
Speaker 4: other folks have an opportunity to see us as windows
30:16
Speaker 4: of possibility in a world where we can all be
30:20
Speaker 4: a bit freer to like and live and love and
30:24
Speaker 4: navigate the world in the ways that we all deserve.
30:27
Speaker 3: And so that is a piece of it.
30:30
Speaker 4: I think also in the book I like to flesh
30:33
Speaker 4: out as well in terms of how gender racialized gender
30:38
Speaker 4: experiences play out, right, because there's a way also that
30:42
Speaker 4: people of color are inherently regarded as the other and
30:49
Speaker 4: in fact often seen as gender non conforming too. So
30:53
Speaker 4: one of the experiences that I witnessed in the Movement
30:56
Speaker 4: for Black Lives was that there was a decentering of
31:01
Speaker 4: a conversation around particularly patriarchal violence.
31:05
Speaker 3: You know.
31:05
Speaker 4: So the dominant frame was like, we can talk about
31:08
Speaker 4: state violence because that is easier, I think, or smoother
31:12
Speaker 4: conversation to have, because often we can talk about a
31:17
Speaker 4: white supremacist system, right, the criminal injustice system, and on
31:22
Speaker 4: and on. But when we're talking about patriarchal violence, well,
31:27
Speaker 4: now we're throwing in a whole bunch of nuance, right,
31:30
Speaker 4: because then we have to be able to own that
31:33
Speaker 4: even as folks on the margins, whether you're black or
31:37
Speaker 4: indigenous or any other kind of of color, right, that
31:42
Speaker 4: you also can be an oppressor even within your own
31:46
Speaker 4: group in that way. And so what does that mean?
31:50
Speaker 4: And so I try to talk about that. I also love,
31:54
Speaker 4: of course talking about within feminism, we've had a long
31:58
Speaker 4: history of schisms and fishers between various factions. I mean
32:04
Speaker 4: definitely it came to the four in the second wave,
32:09
Speaker 4: where you know, we're talking about the lavender scare in
32:11
Speaker 4: the way that lesbians and queer women were sidelined.
32:15
Speaker 3: Of course, Black women were sidelined.
32:19
Speaker 4: And created their own feminisms, Chicana feminisms, Third World feminisms,
32:25
Speaker 4: and so much more. But even before that, when we
32:28
Speaker 4: think about people like Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,
32:34
Speaker 4: who are harold as you know, white feminists, pioneers and heroines,
32:43
Speaker 4: they definitely turned their backs on particularly black folks. At
32:50
Speaker 4: that time. They were in conversation with Frederick Douglas and I. W.
32:55
Speaker 4: Wells Barnett and so many others, and when it seemed
32:59
Speaker 4: like it was going to be impossible to get women's
33:02
Speaker 4: suffrage as soon as they hoped for, because there was
33:07
Speaker 4: a prioritization of talking about, of course, emancipation from oh
33:13
Speaker 4: enslavement of Black Americans, they turn their backs on that cause.
33:18
Speaker 4: And so we have to be able to talk about
33:22
Speaker 4: even within our progressive spaces, so called progressive spaces, systems
33:28
Speaker 4: of oppression have played out throughout time and continue to today.
33:32
Speaker 2: And you do a great job of breaking that down
33:35
Speaker 2: in your book, Like, honestly, I have all of these
33:38
Speaker 2: bullet points I want to ask you about Andre like
33:40
Speaker 2: we don't have the time. Did you talk about you
33:43
Speaker 2: have conversations about like dating and stealthy at work, your
33:47
Speaker 2: experiences and activism, which I do want to come back
33:50
Speaker 2: to at the end. You do such a great I mean,
33:52
Speaker 2: go buy the book. Go buy the book and read it.
34:06
Speaker 2: It did want to discuss because I have it right here.
34:10
Speaker 2: The cover is so beautiful than you can you tell us?
34:15
Speaker 2: And you have a great story about the imagery of
34:17
Speaker 2: it and the title can you tell us about that?
34:20
Speaker 3: Yeah? So the risk it takes to Bloom comes from this.
34:24
Speaker 4: Poem that I first heard from uh at the top
34:29
Speaker 4: of an Alicia Keys album, so the third album that
34:33
Speaker 4: she released, the Element of Freedom. At the beginning, she
34:37
Speaker 4: adapts this poem by a woman named Elizabeth Apple from
34:40
Speaker 4: the Bay Area, and it says, and the day came
34:43
Speaker 4: when the risk to remain tight in a bud was
34:46
Speaker 4: more painful than the risk it took to blossom. That
34:49
Speaker 4: was the original version, and then Alicia Keys remixed it
34:53
Speaker 4: and said to bloom and I love that idea of
34:55
Speaker 4: the risk it takes to bloom because I thought.
34:58
Speaker 3: Of these moments that I'm chronically.
35:01
Speaker 4: In my life where I didn't know what lie on
35:03
Speaker 4: the other side of being vulnerable and being authentic, whether
35:07
Speaker 4: it was at fourteen when I was figuring out how
35:10
Speaker 4: it was going to come out as gay to my parents, or.
35:14
Speaker 3: At twenty when I was trying to figure out.
35:16
Speaker 4: How it was going to come out as trans to
35:18
Speaker 4: my family and the world, or what kind of career
35:23
Speaker 4: I could have after I was so deeply impacted by
35:28
Speaker 4: the death by suicide of a young trans girl named
35:31
Speaker 4: Leelah Alcorn in twenty fourteen, and on and on. So
35:36
Speaker 4: that idea of taking a risk and how that has
35:40
Speaker 4: played out beautifully throughout my life. I have no regrets
35:45
Speaker 4: whatsoever for anything, whether it was struggles and difficult times,
35:51
Speaker 4: moving through those things has allowed me to bloom. And
35:54
Speaker 4: I know that blooming, of course, is not a one
35:57
Speaker 4: time thing, just like I say revolution and it is
36:00
Speaker 4: not a one time thing at the epilogue of the book.
36:03
Speaker 3: It's something that we are called to do over and.
36:05
Speaker 4: Over again, and I hope that we can be encouraged
36:08
Speaker 4: to do that by sharing our stories like the ones
36:10
Speaker 4: I'm trying to share in this book. Now with the image,
36:14
Speaker 4: I was so proud to be able to bring on
36:17
Speaker 4: Texas Isaiah, who is a phenomenal photographer who I know
36:22
Speaker 4: in community, powerful black trans masculine person who is constantly
36:28
Speaker 4: showing up, has a deep sense of self determination and
36:33
Speaker 4: autonomy for black trans folks, believes in black trans power
36:37
Speaker 4: and really hooked me.
36:39
Speaker 3: Up with this and I was able to shoot it at.
36:42
Speaker 4: A black trans led organization, studio, black Transfems, and the
36:46
Speaker 4: Arts here in New York. So there's a lot of
36:50
Speaker 4: power behind the creation of this image and the crew
36:54
Speaker 4: that came on as well. So many black trans folks
36:57
Speaker 4: and black clear folks made it possible.
37:00
Speaker 2: I love how you described it as a tree of
37:02
Speaker 2: the magnolia tree from your youth, and like the roots
37:05
Speaker 2: of it, but also the blooming of it.
37:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.
37:08
Speaker 4: So one of the early short stories I tell is
37:13
Speaker 4: about this magnolia tree in my backyard growing up. It
37:18
Speaker 4: was our neighbor's tree was kind of reaching over this fence,
37:21
Speaker 4: and I remember the petals of the flowers being you know,
37:26
Speaker 4: powdery and fragrant, and these creamy beige petals and the
37:32
Speaker 4: waxy green leaves, and I remember the sense of joy
37:38
Speaker 4: and pleasure in seeing these flowers.
37:41
Speaker 3: But also this.
37:42
Speaker 4: Like lightning boat of fear came came and struck me
37:47
Speaker 4: because I knew that as someone being raised as a boy,
37:51
Speaker 4: I was not supposed to like flowers, and so I
37:54
Speaker 4: was not supposed to want to feel precious or be
38:00
Speaker 4: beautiful or soft or deserving of affection.
38:05
Speaker 3: And so that is a theme that I returned to
38:07
Speaker 3: throughout the book.
38:08
Speaker 2: Yes, another theme that you have throughout the book is
38:13
Speaker 2: that you write letters to the dead, and that kind
38:19
Speaker 2: of transitions really well into our next part because you
38:21
Speaker 2: also are so busy.
38:22
Speaker 3: You have a powerm on transition.
38:26
Speaker 2: I know, I'm really good. You also have a podcast
38:31
Speaker 2: coming out, yes, that is called Afterlives the Leileen Polanco Story,
38:37
Speaker 2: and one of the letters you have in the book
38:40
Speaker 2: is to Layleen. So can you tell us about this podcast?
38:46
Speaker 3: Yeah?
38:47
Speaker 4: So, Leyleen Polanco was a twenty seven year old Afro
38:51
Speaker 4: Latina transgender a woman who died in Riker's custody in
38:56
Speaker 4: June of twenty nineteen. I first heard about her from
39:00
Speaker 4: a dear friend and fellow organizer, Elil Cruz, who at
39:05
Speaker 4: that time was working at the Anti Violence Project in
39:08
Speaker 4: New York and within days it became clear to me
39:12
Speaker 4: there was this emerging movement from Eliel's efforts, but also
39:16
Speaker 4: from the sister of Leileen, Melania Brown, her efforts, and
39:21
Speaker 4: then of course this vast community that mourned her death.
39:27
Speaker 4: And it's so important for us to tell this story
39:30
Speaker 4: because we're having a conversation around state violence that we
39:34
Speaker 4: often don't discuss and neglect in particular of someone like Leileen.
39:40
Speaker 4: She had epilepsy and schizophrenia, and so being held in
39:44
Speaker 4: solitary confinement, which happened after she was already held on
39:48
Speaker 4: a five hundred dollar bill that her family did not
39:51
Speaker 4: know about, after already experiencing harassment and arrest around sex
39:58
Speaker 4: work from New York Police Department officers. She was held
40:03
Speaker 4: in solitary confinement at a point, and the UN says
40:08
Speaker 4: that that is torture, and so it's important for us
40:12
Speaker 4: to grapple with the literal torture that is happening to
40:16
Speaker 4: folks on the inside, especially black folks, especially trans folks,
40:21
Speaker 4: especially women, and so Leyleen's story gets at the heart
40:26
Speaker 4: of the issues with these systems of oppression. But we
40:29
Speaker 4: also have the opportunity to do something different with this
40:32
Speaker 4: true crime format that historically has been very exploitative. We
40:36
Speaker 4: get a chance to flesh out the rich environment that
40:41
Speaker 4: Layleen came from, whether it was her chosen family including
40:48
Speaker 4: her mom r Sellis and her brother Solomon, but also
40:52
Speaker 4: her chosen family. She had a community mother, but she
40:57
Speaker 4: also had the house of Extravaga, so we get a
41:01
Speaker 4: bit of the ballroom culture and how that influenced her life.
41:05
Speaker 4: But we also talk about the legacy that came in
41:09
Speaker 4: the wake of her death in Rikers custody. So she
41:13
Speaker 4: became the glue between so many different movements, whether it
41:18
Speaker 4: was the movement to decriminalize sex work in New York State,
41:23
Speaker 4: or the movement to halt solitary confinement or to end
41:27
Speaker 4: bail for folks being held pre trial right in these
41:34
Speaker 4: harrowing conditions and Rikers, but also around why there's been
41:41
Speaker 4: so many folks calling to close Rikers Island for years.
41:47
Speaker 4: So Leyleen is a lightning rod, and her unfortunate death
41:52
Speaker 4: really galvanized so many folks and led to some changes
41:55
Speaker 4: to hopefully make it so that there are less folks
41:58
Speaker 4: dealing with the conditions as she did when she was
42:01
Speaker 4: still here.
42:02
Speaker 1: Well, you've spoke on a lot of things with the podcast,
42:05
Speaker 1: which is very, very exciting because there's so many questions
42:07
Speaker 1: to that as you know, I'm sure you know the
42:10
Speaker 1: things that are happening in Atlanta. Were talking about the
42:13
Speaker 1: Yeah Cop City and then the reopening of Fulton County Jails,
42:17
Speaker 1: which was one of the worst jails and honestly Georgian
42:20
Speaker 1: history with so many problematic issues. So all of these
42:24
Speaker 1: conversations are so important keeps coming back around. Unfortunately, I
42:27
Speaker 1: hate that it dies out and has to have something
42:29
Speaker 1: big to happen again in order to restart this conversation.
42:33
Speaker 1: But it's so important to have things like this podcast
42:36
Speaker 1: as a way to start up educational conversations but also
42:41
Speaker 1: empathetic conversations. And we've talked about how trashy I'm gonna
42:46
Speaker 1: just say that true crime has become because of the
42:49
Speaker 1: exploited natures and many of the times they just neglect
42:53
Speaker 1: the family altogether, or do it without permission, or do
42:56
Speaker 1: it like in a way that's so poorri Fine, almost
43:01
Speaker 1: like a fantasy storytelling level that just makes it so
43:05
Speaker 1: heartbreaking to hear because you know, this is torturing the
43:08
Speaker 1: families once again. But you do an amazing job from
43:12
Speaker 1: what we gathered that including the family making sure they
43:15
Speaker 1: are part of the story, that they're telling their story
43:17
Speaker 1: as well. Can you kind of talk about how that
43:20
Speaker 1: was working with a family as well as why it
43:22
Speaker 1: is important to do it this way.
43:25
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean when I was creating the editorial project
43:29
Speaker 4: that Afterlives the podcast is based on, I was still
43:32
Speaker 4: an out magazine. But I will say I think that
43:37
Speaker 4: was one of those moments in my career where my
43:40
Speaker 4: community organizing background really gave me the tools to hold
43:48
Speaker 4: court in a way for grieving families like Leyleen's because
43:54
Speaker 4: I knew that I wanted to make sure that we
43:57
Speaker 4: did our due diligence, that they were a part of
44:00
Speaker 4: this project that we were creating, and I was able
44:04
Speaker 4: to have some beautiful conversations with her sister, be in
44:07
Speaker 4: community with her sister, get her blessing to elevate her
44:11
Speaker 4: story because we also don't always see that. You know,
44:14
Speaker 4: when folks of color, particularly women, are murdered or killed
44:20
Speaker 4: or die by harrowing means, there have been many cases
44:24
Speaker 4: where the family was not affirming of them and so
44:27
Speaker 4: was not invested in folks knowing more about the story
44:30
Speaker 4: of their slain family. Member much less know more about
44:34
Speaker 4: them as a trans person who maybe experience the hate.
44:38
Speaker 3: Crime, so that was important.
44:41
Speaker 4: I think it's also just been key to let people
44:44
Speaker 4: know that trans folks aren't waiting to be saved, like
44:48
Speaker 4: we're coming up with the solutions every day along with
44:50
Speaker 4: our allies, the folks that love us, our comrades, and
44:54
Speaker 4: on and on and so that's also been something important
44:57
Speaker 4: for me as well, to elevate the activists, the organizers,
45:01
Speaker 4: the cultural creators who are trying to shift these dynamics
45:05
Speaker 4: in their various fields and industries. And I have to
45:08
Speaker 4: shout out the phenomenal team at iHeartMedia of course, which
45:13
Speaker 4: we know is fam here, the Outspoken Network, my homie
45:20
Speaker 4: in this work, Jay Brunson, executive producer for The Outspoken Network,
45:25
Speaker 4: has really been such a support and encourager, and then
45:30
Speaker 4: of course the School of Humans group as well, so
45:32
Speaker 4: we've had a lot of support, a lot of powerful
45:36
Speaker 4: people making this happen. I also got to shout out
45:40
Speaker 4: you know who I've been calling my right and left hand,
45:42
Speaker 4: Dylan Huer amazing producer, and Joey Pat as well.
45:48
Speaker 3: I mean, they've just I.
45:50
Speaker 4: Mean they are powerhouses, and I just have so much
45:54
Speaker 4: love for them. And then if I may, I mean, Samantha,
45:59
Speaker 4: I think your point of around cop City is so key.
46:03
Speaker 4: We have to be having these conversations around law enforcement,
46:10
Speaker 4: around the state, violence and brutality that happens. I mean,
46:14
Speaker 4: we can't talk about cop City without talking about Tortugita,
46:18
Speaker 4: an amazing non binary activists who was murdered by Georgia
46:24
Speaker 4: state troopers.
46:25
Speaker 3: Last year or earlier this year. It feels like it
46:30
Speaker 3: was last year, but it was.
46:31
Speaker 4: Earlier this year and really shone a light on not
46:36
Speaker 4: only how trans folks face violence from the state, but
46:40
Speaker 4: also how indigenous folks face violence from the state. And
46:45
Speaker 4: I think that that is such a salient thing for
46:47
Speaker 4: us to be having conversations around the indoctrination that many
46:51
Speaker 4: of us receive in this idea that our governments or
46:55
Speaker 4: our states are inherently benevolent.
46:58
Speaker 3: And that is not true.
47:00
Speaker 4: They are only as benevolent as the leaders we have
47:03
Speaker 4: in office. And this is completely tied to why we
47:07
Speaker 4: need a ceasefire, why we all need to be invested
47:11
Speaker 4: in the liberation of Palestinian folks as well from occupation,
47:15
Speaker 4: and why folks who think that none of this has
47:18
Speaker 4: anything to do with them need to come correct and
47:22
Speaker 4: check again. Because all of the violence and the oppression
47:26
Speaker 4: in this world and the domination that happens, it's fed
47:31
Speaker 4: by each other, right, and so we have to be
47:34
Speaker 4: willing to understand that as well as intersectional feminist right
47:39
Speaker 4: have to be able to understand that too.
47:42
Speaker 1: And that's that whole conversation that this is intersectional. Every
47:45
Speaker 1: bit of these different points and every bit of these
47:48
Speaker 1: conflicts are intersectional, and it does affect everything else. Just
47:52
Speaker 1: recently Coppcity, we've had at least sixty activists being arrested
47:56
Speaker 1: charged with RICO, which was originally done for honestly, in Atlanta,
48:00
Speaker 1: it was done for black gangs. Specific is a racist?
48:02
Speaker 1: Is a racist rhetoric? I've seen it. I worked in
48:05
Speaker 1: the justices. I worked in the juvenile justice system, was
48:08
Speaker 1: for It's not pretty. And this is what they're doing,
48:11
Speaker 1: and it's on a federal level. So what they are
48:13
Speaker 1: doing is making sure that they are silencing anyone who
48:17
Speaker 1: are activists literally, environmental activists, literally like all of this level.
48:23
Speaker 1: It's not just one thing. It's not just because they
48:25
Speaker 1: don't like cops, that's very clear. And who is being
48:29
Speaker 1: trained at these cops at these stations actually do affect
48:32
Speaker 1: what's happening in Gaza and Palestine. So just the intersectional things.
48:37
Speaker 4: Well, let's add one more element there, because when we
48:40
Speaker 4: think about so many of the mass shootings that are happening, right,
48:46
Speaker 4: especially thinking about this person in Maine recently, he was
48:50
Speaker 4: someone who had been trained by law enforcement, right, right,
48:54
Speaker 4: And there's an exchange between Israel and the US around
48:58
Speaker 4: law enforcement and the the practices that brutalize our people's too.
49:03
Speaker 3: I mean, honey, it's deep, it's deep.
49:06
Speaker 1: We could talk about School of Americas here in Georgia
49:09
Speaker 1: as well, and how they trained a lot of Israeli soldiers.
49:12
Speaker 1: We can talk about that, but we're not gonna on
49:15
Speaker 1: my social work level.
49:16
Speaker 3: Don't get me there.
49:16
Speaker 1: I can, we're going there, but there's so much necessary.
49:32
Speaker 1: Your lists and accolades. Girl, you're on all the lists.
49:36
Speaker 1: Like every time I look up women to talk about,
49:38
Speaker 1: you're on every single one of them. I'm like, son
49:40
Speaker 1: of them. Why can't we get her? So again this
49:44
Speaker 1: is my fantasy. I'm like, yeah, she's on the show.
49:46
Speaker 4: Oh.
49:47
Speaker 1: When Joey brought you up, I was like, yes, please immediately,
49:51
Speaker 1: But like you have done it and seen it all
49:54
Speaker 1: you have like just ran with uh, the amazing things
49:59
Speaker 1: you've done in Atlanta alone. Can you kind of talk
50:02
Speaker 1: about your experience from the beginning of your activism to
50:06
Speaker 1: where you are today.
50:07
Speaker 3: It's a lot, but I'll work on it.
50:10
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, gave me some story.
50:12
Speaker 4: Well Atlanta, you know, Atlanta, I say radicalized me. That
50:17
Speaker 4: was where I met black, queer and trans community organizers
50:20
Speaker 4: for the first time who were.
50:21
Speaker 3: Very very clear.
50:25
Speaker 4: In articulating that they were working on all of these
50:29
Speaker 4: systems of oppression at once. You didn't have to pick
50:32
Speaker 4: and choose in some of the ways that I kind
50:34
Speaker 4: of felt like I had to, especially in college right
50:37
Speaker 4: I felt like I either had to be in the
50:39
Speaker 4: LGBTQ student groups or be in the black student groups.
50:42
Speaker 3: I couldn't be in both.
50:44
Speaker 4: But in Atlanta, people brought it all together, were very
50:47
Speaker 4: aware of the history of movements. I think about different
50:52
Speaker 4: groups like Sister Song, which is at the front lines
50:57
Speaker 4: of reproductive justice efforts. I think about Song, which is
51:02
Speaker 4: also Southerners on New Ground, which does phenomenal work across
51:06
Speaker 4: different axes of oppression. But my political home to today
51:12
Speaker 4: is solutions, not punishments collaborative with the amazing Tony Michelle
51:17
Speaker 4: Williams at the Helm. Now, when I first met them,
51:21
Speaker 4: I was an intern, so I would leave my house
51:23
Speaker 4: stuff works job and then go do community organizing with
51:29
Speaker 4: solutions not punishments. Collaborative and so we were doing work
51:32
Speaker 4: around the police profiling of particularly black and brown transsex
51:38
Speaker 4: workers in Atlanta at that time. Eventually I moved into
51:43
Speaker 4: doing more national work, which came with working at Transgender
51:47
Speaker 4: Law Center with some phenomenal folks. I started a project
51:51
Speaker 4: called Black Trans Circles, which focuses on the healing justice
51:56
Speaker 4: components for what I consider to be the survivor that
52:00
Speaker 4: we don't acknowledge, which are the black trans women who
52:03
Speaker 4: are left behind in communities when a murder happens and
52:07
Speaker 4: no real interventions are made.
52:09
Speaker 3: So that was a powerful project to work on.
52:13
Speaker 4: And then of course my activism dovetailed with working at
52:17
Speaker 4: Out magazine. And I know that folks are like, well,
52:19
Speaker 4: how right, but they're such an important place for the
52:24
Speaker 4: cultural organizer, which I think is at the core of
52:28
Speaker 4: the work that I do. So even in my podcast work,
52:32
Speaker 4: you know, to be talking about these systems of oppression
52:35
Speaker 4: that marginalized folks face on this level. That is cultural
52:39
Speaker 4: organizing for me, because I believe we can get political
52:42
Speaker 4: education out, we can also galvanize even more folks to
52:47
Speaker 4: be invested in dismantling some of these systems.
52:50
Speaker 3: So that's a lot of my work.
52:52
Speaker 4: I consult with Glad and we also do newsroom presentations
52:57
Speaker 4: and interventions around how to cover LGBTQ issues so that
53:02
Speaker 4: because we know that our again, our media landscape is
53:06
Speaker 4: not inherently benevolent. You know, we got the New York
53:09
Speaker 4: Times out here being a mess on so many different
53:12
Speaker 4: things as an institution, right, but of course there are
53:16
Speaker 4: powerful folks even within that institution that are trying to
53:21
Speaker 4: course correct and keep communities on the margins articulated in
53:26
Speaker 4: the ways that we deserve. So this is this is
53:29
Speaker 4: just a snapshot of the work that I do and
53:32
Speaker 4: have done, and I'm excited for what's next.
53:35
Speaker 3: I feel like there's a new era emerging around me.
53:39
Speaker 1: You know, I forget you're so young. I say you're
53:41
Speaker 1: young because you're significantly younger than me. But I'm like, God,
53:44
Speaker 1: she's done all of this. What have I done? I
53:46
Speaker 1: may it is good today?
53:49
Speaker 3: What do you speak truth? To power every week.
53:55
Speaker 1: I talk about my dog a lot. So that's what
53:57
Speaker 1: I do, you know, That's what.
54:00
Speaker 3: That's kind of necessary.
54:03
Speaker 1: True speaking of because I think, like, like I said,
54:07
Speaker 1: my previous field was social work, and I still have
54:11
Speaker 1: a lot of people a part of it that still
54:13
Speaker 1: work in that field, as well as I still dabble.
54:15
Speaker 1: I'll say, come on, but how do you find that
54:21
Speaker 1: balance of trying to be transparent and sharing your stories
54:25
Speaker 1: and your experiences to also making sure that your self
54:30
Speaker 1: you're preserving yourself and your sanity and and your spirit
54:33
Speaker 1: and your joy as well as protecting the fact that
54:39
Speaker 1: yes you're willing to share, but you you do not
54:42
Speaker 1: owe people your story like that balance.
54:45
Speaker 4: I mean, I talked about this the other day when
54:48
Speaker 4: I was in conversation with Laverne Cox.
54:51
Speaker 3: Not to name drop, but.
54:54
Speaker 1: But I was like, everybody you've interviewed with recently, we're like,
55:00
Speaker 1: oh damn.
55:01
Speaker 3: What I know.
55:04
Speaker 4: But I mean, I think about this kind of accountability circle.
55:07
Speaker 4: That's kind of the language I was using that I have,
55:11
Speaker 4: you know, whether it's my family, my mom, my sister,
55:14
Speaker 4: and my brother, or my chosen family, my sisters like
55:19
Speaker 4: Tony Michelle Williams, Risid, my friend Chris Guitarelli and so
55:24
Speaker 4: many others. Right, they are a part of this circle
55:28
Speaker 4: that I can just be unruly and messy with right
55:34
Speaker 4: and kind of be held accountable to my values around authenticity, vulnerability,
55:41
Speaker 4: showing up for community.
55:42
Speaker 3: And on and on.
55:43
Speaker 4: So that is key, but it's also healing to be
55:45
Speaker 4: able to vent about the world. So friendship is so key.
55:50
Speaker 4: That also has to be at the heart of all
55:53
Speaker 4: of our feminist discussions as well.
55:55
Speaker 3: You know that love isn't.
55:57
Speaker 4: Just love is important, you know, It's not necessarily this
56:02
Speaker 4: like you gotta be a bride kind of thing in
56:05
Speaker 4: this particular way. Love is so much more than that,
56:08
Speaker 4: whether it's romantic, whether it's platonic, and on and on.
56:12
Speaker 3: You know.
56:12
Speaker 4: So I think that that part is key for us
56:15
Speaker 4: to reclaim as feminists love on our own terms. But
56:19
Speaker 4: also it's building in space and grace, you know. So
56:24
Speaker 4: I'm lucky to have a team now who supports me
56:27
Speaker 4: and making sure I'm not too stretched than even though
56:31
Speaker 4: I think to other folks, I always am here and
56:35
Speaker 4: there and everywhere, But I do have my moments to breathe,
56:38
Speaker 4: I have my moments to nap, CrossFit keeps me grounded.
56:42
Speaker 3: I love it.
56:43
Speaker 4: I'm still sore from the other day, honey. I love
56:47
Speaker 4: a good walk, I love a good massage, I love
56:49
Speaker 4: good music. I love good podcasts like Smanty, So.
56:56
Speaker 3: I'm building space for that.
56:57
Speaker 4: I play Fortnite when I need to do, I do
57:01
Speaker 4: Fortnight sometimes a call of duty.
57:03
Speaker 3: It's a lot, But sometimes.
57:07
Speaker 4: I'm excited for the next generation of the Sims because
57:11
Speaker 4: I still think.
57:13
Speaker 3: See you just you, just shaded. I'm sure a segment
57:17
Speaker 3: of your eyes that's on you.
57:21
Speaker 1: That is true that they know none but I do
57:29
Speaker 1: gage in the story.
57:30
Speaker 4: But yeah, so, I mean it's those things, and it's
57:33
Speaker 4: also just the little boring things, you know, like sometimes
57:38
Speaker 4: I try to find the ease and laundry when I'm not, like,
57:42
Speaker 4: you know, short on time, or being able to have
57:46
Speaker 4: a slow day or be able to go to my
57:47
Speaker 4: bodega and they know my order, you know. Finding those
57:51
Speaker 4: little moments of liberation that we can bake into our
57:54
Speaker 4: everyday lives is so key.
57:56
Speaker 2: I love that and that that is one of the
57:58
Speaker 2: things I love about your work is that you do
58:02
Speaker 2: You're very open about because I think a lot of
58:05
Speaker 2: us have anxiety about and we're not on the same
58:08
Speaker 2: level as you, but about being an activist and when
58:09
Speaker 2: you're like in that space and people are like constantly
58:12
Speaker 2: judging you and are you not perfect? And you didn't
58:14
Speaker 2: do this right or you didn't do that right, and
58:16
Speaker 2: you've just been very open about that, which I think
58:18
Speaker 2: is amazing because I feel like that scares people away
58:21
Speaker 2: from They want to help, they want to do work,
58:24
Speaker 2: and they should be but they get scared because they
58:26
Speaker 2: can't be perfect and no one is perfect they are.
58:30
Speaker 4: So it's seriously, You're absolutely right. I mean, the perfection
58:35
Speaker 4: piece is hard for a lot of us. Yeah, but
58:40
Speaker 4: the beauty is. The beauty is in the hiccups. It's
58:43
Speaker 4: in the awkwardness. It's in the anxieties. You know. I
58:48
Speaker 4: love when somebody is like, I'm anxious, like just being
58:51
Speaker 4: able to name it. Well, it's so it's so refreshing
58:57
Speaker 4: because we're told to hide those things, you know.
59:01
Speaker 2: It is it really is in you mentioned earlier that
59:05
Speaker 2: you feel like you're like on the precipice of something.
59:07
Speaker 2: Do you have anything else on the horizon that you're
59:10
Speaker 2: excited about?
59:11
Speaker 3: What else do you want?
59:13
Speaker 2: I'm like, no one's perfect, do more stuff.
59:18
Speaker 1: We're trying to wait for you to say you're coming
59:19
Speaker 1: back to Atlanta and hanging with us on the regular.
59:21
Speaker 1: That's what we really do.
59:23
Speaker 3: Have a tour. I do have a tour.
59:25
Speaker 4: Do have a tour, have a tour, so please check
59:28
Speaker 4: me out on the tour. I'm going to several stops
59:33
Speaker 4: from DC to Atlanta for Athens, Georgia, Gusta, Georgia, Charleston,
59:39
Speaker 4: South Carolina, Baltimore or Baltimore as I say, Philly, Massachusetts.
59:48
Speaker 3: That's almost everywhere. I think I'm blanking on somewhere, but Minneapolis.
59:55
Speaker 3: There's a lot.
59:56
Speaker 4: And then there will be a second leg starting in
59:58
Speaker 4: January twenty twenty four, so I have a little holiday break.
1:00:01
Speaker 1: Your new podcast has just released.
1:00:04
Speaker 4: New podcasts, just release after Lives. It's chronicling the story
1:00:10
Speaker 4: of Leileen Pilanco and her legacy. It is out on
1:00:13
Speaker 4: all platforms and so proud of that. And then there's
1:00:18
Speaker 4: another podcast forthcoming called Queer Chronicles in January twenty twenty four,
1:00:23
Speaker 4: which will follow the lives of queer and trans youth
1:00:27
Speaker 4: living in political battleground states in the US.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, and uh, the as we record this,
1:00:38
Speaker 2: the first episode of After Lives came out and then
1:00:41
Speaker 2: we listened to it and it's so good. Oh, you
1:00:43
Speaker 2: did such a good job of like painting very intimate,
1:00:47
Speaker 2: empathetic podcasts well like weaving together all of these pieces
1:00:51
Speaker 2: and it was really beautiful. So I'm very excited and
1:00:55
Speaker 2: story but excited to hear.
1:00:57
Speaker 4: Now it's a lie a lot, but you know, our
1:01:01
Speaker 4: our team has been so intentional. Yeah, and I shouted
1:01:05
Speaker 4: out some of our producers. I have to shout out
1:01:08
Speaker 4: Aaron Edwards and Julia Farlan on the story support. Shout
1:01:12
Speaker 4: out Virginia Prescott. So I could go on and on
1:01:16
Speaker 4: so many folks. Of course at iHeart No Brown, Michael
1:01:20
Speaker 4: Alder June on production, Daisy uh Makes Radio as harmonicer
1:01:28
Speaker 4: on sound WISEI Murray one of my dear friends from
1:01:31
Speaker 4: Movement who acted as composer giving us the soundscapes that really.
1:01:37
Speaker 3: Drew it all together.
1:01:39
Speaker 4: So and y'all know this, right, It really is a
1:01:42
Speaker 4: collective effort to get out one episode of anything.
1:01:45
Speaker 2: It really is. It really really is. And I'm glad
1:01:48
Speaker 2: that as a podcast industry we've moved away from pretending
1:01:52
Speaker 2: that it isn't because we kind of used to pretend. Yes,
1:01:57
Speaker 2: like we'll just say it was just this person.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: Nope.
1:02:02
Speaker 2: Yes, well, thank you, thank you, thank you so much
1:02:04
Speaker 2: for taking the time for being here. I hope that
1:02:08
Speaker 2: we get to see you in Atlanta. You're like our
1:02:10
Speaker 2: best friend.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: Now.
1:02:11
Speaker 3: Oh well, come out.
1:02:14
Speaker 1: Checked off my dream list, so thank you for.
1:02:16
Speaker 3: That, of course, and I'm always here.
1:02:19
Speaker 4: Just look over your shoulder, honey, I love it.
1:02:24
Speaker 2: You are welcome back anytime. Where can the good listeners
1:02:28
Speaker 2: find you?
1:02:29
Speaker 4: Yes, well, you can find out about all of these
1:02:32
Speaker 4: projects at Roquelwillis dot com, including the tour, and of
1:02:37
Speaker 4: course follow Afterlives dot pod on ig But you can
1:02:41
Speaker 4: also just find after Lives wherever you get your podcasts.
1:02:45
Speaker 2: Yes, and get the book. The book is out now.
1:02:48
Speaker 3: Yes, the book book book is out now.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: Yes.
1:02:51
Speaker 2: Yes, the risk it takes to bloom. Go check it out.
1:02:54
Speaker 2: It's amazing. Go check out the podcast. It's amazing. You're amazing.
1:02:57
Speaker 2: Thanks for coming. We love to have a thank you,
1:03:01
Speaker 2: And if you would like to contact us listeners, you
1:03:03
Speaker 2: can our emails stephaniemom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
1:03:06
Speaker 2: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, or
1:03:08
Speaker 2: on Instagram and TikTok at stuff One never told you
1:03:11
Speaker 2: We have a tea public store, and we have a
1:03:13
Speaker 2: book that you can get wherever you get your books.
1:03:15
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our executive
1:03:17
Speaker 2: producer Maya, and our contributor Joey, who was the associate
1:03:20
Speaker 2: producer on Afterlive. So go check that out. That's another
1:03:23
Speaker 2: reason to go check it out. Thank you and thanks
1:03:25
Speaker 2: to you for listening stuff I Never told you. Instruction
1:03:27
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you
1:03:28
Speaker 2: can check out the iHeart Radio ap Apple podcast or
1:03:30
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.