Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Well, it is Pride Month, and we are continuing to celebrate the voices who are shaking it up.
Queen Jean girl, thank you so much for joining me now.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. You are so beautiful. Absolutely stunning.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Thank you. You are stunning. I know. You're one of my fashion girl, right? Yeah. I met you when you were in a fashion program, ain't that right?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: That's right. At Guilford College.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: At Guilford College. I was speaking down there. This was pre transition.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Very, very much pre.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Yeah, very much pre.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: But still on the T. But still.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: On the T. Absolutely. But, you know, I saw you.
I feel like I saw my sister. No matter what was going on, I did see you. And you were just talk. Talk to me about. I remember at that time, you were telling me just how I inspired you and how to. For just not just my, you know, creativity, but how I use my voice.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: And I hear that, you know, that girl hears that a lot, but she is that girl, you know? But very few times do I see that manifest in ways like it is manifested with you.
I feel like you don't even need a bullhorn. But I know that helps you with your voice because you.
Because you really have made your voice heard. Your voice has been a leading voice at the intersection of art and activism, you know, and I think that a lot of times people feel like we're being radical.
And I, you know, I like the title radical, but sometimes I feel like I'm not being radical enough.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: What do you think about where we are right now and being radical and being seen as too radical?
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Angelica, for this question.
It deeply resonates with me.
I also just really want to say thank you for this conversation. I feel oftentimes we do not get moments for reflection, for pause, for deepening our education, for really actually putting this language and the time to ensure that things are not being missed.
You are truly a overall icon. Thank you. And a phenomenal actor. Thank you, actress Tiny. But most importantly, you are such a renaissance woman.
I've known you. I mean, literally, I met you, you were a rock star. And I was like, okay, she's a rock star. She be playing her music.
But then also to see your own evolution, you know, behind the scenes, on camera, and even really starting trans tech and ensuring that our community knew what coding was, knew how to code, and knew how to actually set up so you could have your own entrepreneurial skills, your own capital. And that way we are not always having to be subservient to these systems and to a Lot of these institutions that just truly see us as wallpaper.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: And not as valuable, integral assets who are shifting the paradigm. And you have shifted it.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: But what's, what's radical about that?
[00:03:19] Speaker B: You know, it's so interesting.
It's not. I mean, honestly, I think about it oftentimes, yeah. I get called radical because I'm going to speak the truth. So ultimately, as artists, I think so much about Nina Simone, who instructs. Right. That it is an artist's duty to reflect the times.
And I think about, I have to use my voice, I have to use my body. I mean, there are times where I feel like, to your point, we're not doing enough.
Why are we not flipping tables over in Congress at this very moment?
[00:03:52] Speaker A: But I want to ask you a question, though.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Who do you think you are as a black trans woman?
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: Who has your own problems to worry about?
Where do you get the audacity to care about other people?
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
The audacity truly comes from my grandmother.
I mean, obviously raised in Haiti, Haitian, proud woman. So the spirit of rebellion and revolution lives inside this body pre tea, after tea and everything they're trying to throw at me. But for me, it is.
It's not lost on me that we have stayed separate as a people because truly, because of the effects of colonialism, imperialism, that we have deemed transgender, queer people, other people, immigrants, asylum seekers, Palestinian people, as evil because they are trying to fight to exist. They are trying to fight to carve a peace so that they can live and that they can exhale in the place where they call home.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: And there's no ownership, there's no deed, there's no lease to that.
And so as humans, we have a responsibility and obligation to ensure that our people, myself, yourself, the people around us, have that freedom and that they're not tied to this antiquated idea that, no, I have to fight for my freedom independently and maybe I'll come back and get you. And so we find ourselves in 2025 with a no LGB, without the T. And we have to remind people that it was the T. It was truly revolutionary. Transgender, non conforming people like Stormy, like Marsha P. Johnson, my spiritual mother, and so many countless people who we actually don't even know their names, but who have stood up and fought back. We think about Sylvia Rivera and we literally think about how these individuals, Mother Griffin, Gracie, who said, enough is if we will allow this system, the nypd, any fascist system, to control and to dictate how we're moving, we might as well be. We might as well give it up.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: And those individuals were not ready to give up in 1969. They're not ready to give it up in the Compton cafeteria riots. Our ancestors were not willing to give up their civil human rights. So in 2025, I'm not giving up my trans rights, and I will not give up the humanity that. What it costs us to exist.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: And that means in this moment, we do not comply with fascism. We do not burrow ourselves. We do not hide because, oh, I might not get a gig, right? Oh, I don't want to speak out at this event or, you know, I don't want to post something because people will say something.
Truly, I'll say this. Fuck your fear, because fear kept me hidden for my entire life.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: And I think about people being afraid to exist.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: People being afraid to tell the world who they are, because people will see them as evil, as a terror, as a problem, queer people. We are not a nuisance. We. We are not divine. We are divine.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Yes, we are.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: And so for me, it is truly my fist in the fight, the song that I have, because I recognize that I have to fight in this very moment because tomorrow they might come for me, and in the morning, they'll come for you.
And so why not? As a collective, we empower each other to fight and to resist. Now, literally, I don't know when this will be aired, but in this moment, right now, a few hours ago, an entire community in Los Angeles, they have armored themselves with the freedom of humanity, with the love of their neighbors, to ensure no one else is abducted.
And we have seen that spirit in that fire the past two years. We've actually seen it our entire lifetimes. But maybe you won't see it because you're not black, queer, or trans.
Right? Or you do not occupy the other identities that somehow someone tells you that you need to control, that you need to have total dominion over other people when other people have made your life so comfortable, so cozy.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Baby. Well, let me tell you something, but I want to say thank you, though, for doing the work that you do, because I got to witness firsthand how you make life comfortable for community that people are not checking for.
I was in New York. I don't know, this was a while back. I was in New York, and I was just strolling through the park one day and, you know, didn't think that anybody would really, you know, clock me and notice me or whatever the case is. But, you know, there was, like, a homeless trans Woman, you know, that was like, oh, my God, you know, And I was, you know, I said hello and all these things or what have you, and talk, you know, and it was a moment and just realizing as I'm walk, as I'm walking around and seeing folks that are not taken care of.
And that very night.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: I ended up in a hall with you.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yes.
A fellowship hall. Can you.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Because I'm not sure exactly what I walked in on, but what I walked in was you feeding the community.
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: You giving them space. And then I think there was a show.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: And one of the girls had performed.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yes, ma'. Am.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: And the girl that performed, she didn't have the RuPaul Drag Race costumes and things, but her performance, it brought me to such.
It moved me that I have. But nothing. But I think I found I electronically sent us some money or did something because I was like, I didn't have the cash at the time, but like, I was like found because to see someone have the space to emote, be creative and express where they usually don't, that's like a luxury to have access to that and you create space for that. What was that? What was that?
[00:10:00] Speaker B: You happened and divinely stumbled upon our weekly Wednesday fellowship, which is Black Trans Liberation Kitchen. Btlk around the way. And it is our commitment to the people that we love and the people that we have yet to meet that you have a place to call home. You have a place to fellowship, to literally be yourself, to exhale, to be greeted with love, and to be fed with dignity.
And that is our mission. Simply, we believe in liberation for all oppressed people.
I'm deeply grateful that I.
I found community when I moved to New York City.
A lot of people don't know this. I went to nyu. I was a grad student there, trying to carry out my dream to be a star. Broadway, whatever, all the things that all your aspirations. But I found myself homeless, unhoused during grad school. And I literally could not. I was so filled with shame because I was like, I'm around all these very well appointed students, their families and all these things.
But I was trying to figure out the shelters on 96th Street.
I was going down to Chinatown, you know, really.
And while I was trying to navigate the situation, you know, I didn't really have community.
I mean, obviously I saw queer people. Obviously. You know, I would go around HMI, there's that McDonald's on Broadway, if, you know, you know, and I would just always see people there and I would hear them, you know, we hear them talking about the balls, escolitos, you know, going to, you know, down to 42nd street and.
And just all of these opportunities and places that I was like, oh, you know, this is an opportunity to maybe like, find myself, find my truth. And it honestly wasn't until I found sisterhood that I was able to shape my own journey and being able to, you know, attend a lot of the balls, a lot of the Vogue nights on Thursday nights, and just seeing how people were so free.
And I not only desired that freedom, but I was like, how do I create this space for other people to also experience my beautiful sister. Her name is Whitney White. She's an iconic director, mother.
I mean, she is truly superwoman. Speak her name and a national treasure.
And she called me and was like, hey, my roommate is about to leave. I don't even know what happened when she was like, I have a space if you need a place to stay.
That changed my life.
Changed my life.
So I went from being housing, insecure, unstable, to literally having a piece of stability.
And from there I said, I have to pay this forward.
And so I've been really working towards that each and every day since then.
Obviously, you know, we fast forward to summer of 2020.
I felt like so many people enraged, enraged.
The unaliving of George Floyd was deeply heartbreaking.
That same day, I believe there was a beautiful young black trans woman, also in Minnesota, I believe, who had also been harassed, beaten.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Was that the one inside the kids convenience store at a convenience.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And literally fighting for her life.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: And I was against like a mob of people, right?
[00:13:44] Speaker B: An entire neighborhood of folks.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: You know, and so she ran into the deli. And I remember this conversation she had with Dede Waters at the time, I still remember, because it was on Facebook. And she had a conversation with Dee Dee Watters. And she was like, I was just trying to get anywhere where I knew that there are music cameras, and if I. And if they did get me, at least people would know what really happened to me. And I think as trans people, we. We have to. We are intimately laser focused on death because we are not able to live in peace and to thrive in that way. So we are often reminded about how. How close we are to violence. And so this young lady ran to the convenience store and she was like, I need help. And they were pushing her out of that store back into the hands of the mob. And in the footage, you see her gripping into an ice cream machine and.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Stuff like that to try to stay.
[00:14:40] Speaker B: In the store, to Stay in the stor. And so in that same day, I mean, again, I'm giving you all the context, but that same day was the 25th, I believe.
There was the bird watch, Central Park. Karen, who called the police and put this insane, heinous, and violent phone, you know, 911 call to the dispatch saying that she was being attacked by this, you know, big black guy and lit in the video, you know, and he was there accompanied with his sister. And so it was just. That day was just like, okay, what is happening? Something is off.
And then two days later, learned about the unfortunate murder of Tony McDade in Tallahassee, Florida. And the trans. Yeah, beautiful black trans brother who was unalived. And there was like, literally, I'm going online, trying to see what's going on. Is there a march? Is there something that's happening for him? There was nothing for him. So we ran out into the streets like everybody else, and I found myself in space where they were only amplifying black, heteronormative individuals. And I saw my sister out there, Tommy Playboy, who brought a shopping cart full of water, Gatorade snacks. And she was voguing down in the streets and literally making sure that everyone had supplies and water.
Tom is no longer with us. But she inspired me because I felt like I had to hide who I was to be able to tell the world that we're here. We're humans. We deserve to live.
Stop killing us.
And so I felt like, okay, this is time. This is time.
Everything was just coming into focus.
Two weeks later, I attended the Brooklyn Liberation March.
And I literally had not told anyone I was trans. You know, we were in a pandemic. And I was just like, okay, what do you do? You know, of course it wasn't going to give no, call me Caitlyn.
But it was something that I was like, well, how do I. Well, let me show up to this, right? At least if I could be present, I could start my journey. And I.
I came to the Brooklyn Liberation March.
I had no idea what to do, didn't know anyone there. I literally was.
I felt like an outsider somehow, like an interloper.
And I stood in the front. And at that time, I had no idea that I was in the company of so many legends. Sitting next to Lady Deja, my, you know, beautiful, beloved brother and sibling, Devin Norell. And it was truly incredible. Honey miss, you know, sibling D. Tranny bear. And I felt like I was in church for the very first time.
And it brought so many things of, like, aspiration beauty to be affirmed. And then you looked around and I turned around and it was just like a sea of. I mean, I believe it was like over 14,000.
You know, I call them army of lovers, all dressed in white and all screaming out that black trans lives matter.
And there were incredible speakers. I mean, I met my mother, Kay, and Doro show. She woke it up.
She was, like, in the middle of the lineup, and I was just so affirming. She was saying, no, we are giving back to our people. We are buying land. We are getting housing. And I was just like, this is what we need.
And inside, just truly spiritually feeling awakened by everything that was shared, all the testimonies. And then I've shared the story a lot, but it just begs to be named that. Raquel Willis came and mounted the pulpit and looked around and she said, I believe in my power.
I believe in your power. I believe in our power. I believe in black queer power.
I believe in black trans power.
And that ignited me, that radicalized me.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: To know that my power is attainable and I didn't have to go searching for it.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: It was here the whole time, and it's undeniable.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: Your power is absolutely undeniable. I have to say that sometimes, you know, people forget, like, when you, you know, are an artist and things like that, you know, sometimes people, you know, forget some of the work. Like, for myself, I'll say, you know, I have always been an artist from diapers.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: I was a ham in the first grade, play all the way through school, you know, community plays, all these different things. I learned to play piano by ear in the fourth grade.
But once I realized that going into entertainment and being who I actually was, I was going to have to learn to advocate for myself just to use a bathroom, let alone to stand on a stage.
And so I think a lot of times, you know, because my stardom sort of shot up in these ways, you know, but I started out advocating for myself as well.
How do you, you know, deal with that balance?
You know, because you are someone who really focuses on trans representation in performance spaces and in public spaces, you know. But how do you see fashion, theater and protest coming together as, like, tools for liberation?
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Yes, I jokingly say this, but I mean it with every part in my soul.
I love clothes as much as I love my freedom.
To me, clothes serve as your armor.
And being a trans person, openly, proudly, undeniably trans, you have to find your armor in order to literally step out into the world to face society each and Every day. And for some people, you don't even have the tools for your armor yet, or you're figuring out, how do I keep shining it? And so when people in this society, our own loved ones, lovers, partners, all these people constantly try to make dents into your armor, constantly try to chip away at the very thing that makes you so powerful and beautiful and unique. They try to literally put this beautiful voice that you have back into a cage. And so for me, it has been integral that there is not a.
We're not dividing ourselves. Right? It's not about, you know, King Solomon. I don't have to chop up this black. You know, this my black arm. This, my trans arm. This, the queer nails. No, no, no. This is an entire human that's in front of you that demands for respect, that demands to be paid equally, to be paid on time, to be paid in this industry that constantly wants you to work for free, but most importantly, to bring your full self to a set or to production. Right, because I work in production.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: But people bring you to a production, and yet, you know, the dressing rooms are just as they are.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Mine was a closet when I was working, doing Dragon. I won't name them, but go ahead.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Okay. You know, but. And so as the artist, as a queer person, but as a human, you have to navigate all these things in order to just get through the next day. And for me, it has been a guiding light that I know that this has to change.
The industry will change. India Moore said this so powerfully a while back on a podcast.
People will hire you and want you to play the revolutionary, but you cannot uphold the revolutionary's principle.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: You can't be the revolutionary. Right. You can only portray them.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: You can't advocate for people on set to actually have equal meals, to actually have an equal per diem. You can't advocate for us to actually get the very things that the other artists. The number ones and twos on the call sheet yet. Right. I can't ask for equitable production allowance when I'm doing the designs because, you know, somehow I have to still cut my teeth. So I have to prove myself and my intellect.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: They think the opportunity is paying up for you, but that does not pay the bills.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: And there's a myth of meritocracy that is woven and embedded in the American system.
Somehow they force you to pull up your own bootstraps. Dr. King spoke about this literally a year before he was taken.
Right. That you want a black man to pull up his boots, but where's his boots?
[00:23:37] Speaker A: Where are they at?
[00:23:39] Speaker B: And so understanding that, literally, to me, that that means every human, right. A human is supposed to be able to. To live and to prosper. Yet we have people that are making $10,000 an hour. Politicians, lobby groups, you know, you have misleaders. I call them misleaders because they're not leading us nowhere good.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: Maybe that's a word. Yes.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: But we have these individual making $10,000 an hour, yet they're telling us, and the American people, it's the person making $5 an hour, the undocumented person, the immigrant person, the trans person. They're the evil peer. They're who you should be focused on and all instill. We now see people being abducted, children ripped out of their mother's hands, trans people being told, you can no longer fly, you can no longer have access to exist. You have young trans children being told that your medical care right, was in jeopardy at the very beginning of this year. Shame on you, nyu.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: And even, you know, trans adults are, are, are, are, are. You know, it's being criminalized to be trans in certain places, everywhere.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: So.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: So I want to ask you.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: This Pride season, because, you know, I'll be honest, because I spoke up on a lot of things.
I haven't been at Corporate Pride in years because they don't want me there.
They know that every time I hit a hot mic, I'm going to find a moment to amplify what needs to be amplified at all times.
So this Pride season, I decided to celebrate in my own way. Since I was not invited, I decided to invite the voices who inspire me, the people I know I'm actually in community with, and I want their voices uplifted. And I want you, because there's so much conversation around Pride, and there's some sort of, like, sayings, catchphrases that people have. And folks, we have to make it this way so that it gets embedded in people's mind.
Either one. But for this Pride special, I want you to. To explain for folks what it means either to not want to have cops at Pride, or.
What do you mean what. What we mean when we say there's no Pride in genocide.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: It is so abundantly, crystal clear to me what is the truth.
And that if we believe, as a people that having institutional robots that were slave catchers to come and to police us for an event that we have once out of the year, it is not a parade for them. It is protest to remind the world that we are still fighting, still fighting, still fighting to this day.
And yet that heritage of pride, all these individuals, these groups that will then force feed and try to placate and to weaponize safety, this is all too common a theme here. But they will weaponize safety to say, oh no, we have to have these people here, right? Or my favorite, well, there are trans cops too, they're gay cops too. But yes, when they put on that uniform, it is a symbol of oppression.
And ultimately. And I'm not demonizing the person, no, I know it's. But I'm saying that this role that you're playing deeply, critically and fundamentally is oppressing my existence.
And to lie about that, to veer away from it, or to say, well, you know, I know a couple good folks, but the reality is we have seen the police, how they have treated the people in New York City, how they treat queer people all the time, how they treat uncle undocumented people all the time, unhoused people on the trains, how we see them treated 19 year old college students on campuses all around our city.
It is enough. And enough is enough. These are not public servants, they are public terrorists.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Because what they are doing, they are terrorizing the very wellness that we have. And so the safe space, that person could literally feel like, you know what? I'm going to put on my rainbow sticker today. I was that individual for the first time. I was like, I'm going to wear my rainbow.
I spoke to my sister last night, we're saying, and she said to me, queen Happy Pride.
And it wasn't rooted in a sponsorship from Nike, from Google, from TD Bank. Because these individuals that will say, happy pride. I can't go in there the next day and get a loan. I can't go in there and say, hey, I actually need support. I have a business that needs a brick and mortar. Can you help fund me? We cannot go to these places and extra scholarships, they will not support us outside of the performativity of a parade. So that is how we are dismantling every route that placates us, that pits us against each other, that tells us no, you will be accepted. When you perform, when you smile and tell us how happy you are, we are not happy.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: How grateful you are just to be invited to this table.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Yes, Jesus died poor.
The very people that are raising money that are truly supporting and funding genocide, that's why there's no pride in genocide. Jesus died amongst lepers and said, I will be with my people, so I will fight with every soul in my body until there's Palestinian liberation, until there's trans. Black, trans liberation.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Let's be very clear.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Because there are people in our community who are doing just fine, but they have platform services. Again, they are afraid to say something because of what will happen to them. Darling, we're already in it.
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Not only are we in it, but you won't have to be so afraid when you've got community that you know is going through the same challenges. But white supremacy wants us to separate ourselves and wants us to attribute to this individual over community.
[00:29:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Capitalism over community.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: That's why I love.
Please, please never stop.
And I know I'm saying this to you as I look into a mirror and tell myself the same thing.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Yes, ma'. Am.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: Because I have moments where it gets heavy, it gets hard.
Thank you for calling me. The day you called me.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Yes, ma'. Am.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: And reminded me of who I was.
And I'm hoping that I have the opportunity over and over again to remind you of who you are.
