January 17, 2024 • 41 mins
Two incredible trans storytellers, Kristen Lovell and Cecilia Gentili, share how they found their power in interview segments you haven’t heard before. Kristen Lovell, the documentary filmmaker behind The Stroll, talks about how Martin Scorsese inspired her to tell a New York story that she knew intimately. The conversation explores the history of New York’s Meatpacking District and the community space that was lost due to police crackdowns. Then we hear from Cecilia Gentilli, the founder of Trans Equity Consulting and the author of Faltas. Starting with her childhood she talks about her life story, including the harsh realities of her transition, the moment she opened her eyes to all that trans people can be, and the importance of passing the torch to trans youth.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
After Lives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The
Outspoken podcast Network in partnership with School of Humans. Just
to heads up, the following episode discusses transphobia, homophobia, racism, violence,
(00:25):
police violence, sexual assault, and substance abuse.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Take care while listening.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Throughout this season of Afterlives, we covered a lot of ground,
from pop culture to policies.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
We talked to so many.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Incredible guests as we piece together Leileen Polanco's story. These
conversations were so enriching and expansive that we couldn't just
leave them on the cutting room floor, So we're bringing
them to you. I'm Raquel Willis, and this is Afterlives.
The After Show a collection of bonus episodes featuring unaired
(01:12):
excerpts of interviews with some of the brilliant folks we
met this season. On this episode, filmmaker Kristin Leavelle shares
the inspiration behind her award winning documentary The Stroll. I
kind of got inspired by a talk that Martin scores
Casey was doing about the importance of New York stories
(01:34):
in New York storytelling, and I was like, what better
New York story than the meat packing District? Our conversation
expands on the history of the meat packing district and
the ways policing in the area pushed queern trans sex
workers out. We'll also hear more from Kristin's own story.
(01:56):
I can't even tell you, Raquel, I can't tell you
the level of perseverance that it's hook. We've endure things
that most people can't even fathom, that they're not even
built for, you know what I mean. Then we'll talk
with author, activists and founder of transgender Equity Consulting Cecilia
Genteely about how she came to find her identity and
(02:20):
her power.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
For me, learning that somebody else was like me, it
was an explosion in my head. It was like I've
been leaving for seventeen years thinking that I was crazy.
I even thought that I wasn't extra to rest your
cong time. I thought that it was from another planet.
(02:43):
You know, things that we make up in our minds
to survive.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Plus, she opens up about her road to activism and
why she's ready to pass the torch to younger generations.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
They're always pushing the envelope and that's so inspiring.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
All right, the gun they should be able to do it.
They Don't need Me.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
First Up. Kristin Lavelle.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Kristin is the co director of the HBO documentary The Stroll,
an intimate portrait of the experiences shared by her and
other trans women who did sex work in New York's
meatpacking district from the seventies to the early two thousands.
The film blew me away with its end depth interviews
(03:30):
and rich retelling of a history that so often overlooked
and I Wasn't alone. It was well received by critics
and received a Special Jury Award at the twenty twenty
three Sundance Film Festival.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Talk about getting your tens.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
We heard from Kristin throughout the series as she opened
up about her time on Rikers Island, the realities of
anti trans violence, and her hopes for the future of
trans rites. I'm excited to share more about her career
and put a brighter spotlight on her work. Let's dive
(04:13):
into your role to becoming a filmmaker. You talk about
this in detail and The Stroll, but just give a
little bit more about why it's important for black trans
folks to tell our own stories. Well, you know, I
had been a subject of numerous periodicals and documentary work
(04:34):
and realized that I didn't have any control of my
story or how the story was being told. I was
just inspired to make our own films about twelve years ago,
right before the tipping point where we were seeing this
increase in misrepresentation of trans people in the media, and
it disgusted me because it showed that it gave us
(04:59):
no dignity. So me and a friend we put some
material together and we did a YouTube documentary called Trans
and Media, and it was highlighting how that violence impacts
the trans community. And so I just stayed on the course.
I was like, I'm going to figure out a way
to tell the story. I'm going to try to get
into the industry by any means necessary. So that was
(05:21):
like going on auditions and not booking, but just to
have the presence there, you know, in a time where
nobody was even talking about transitions. This was like about
two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. Eventually I
started to book and I had worked on a project
a few years ago called The Garden Left Behind, and
(05:43):
that's when I started producing. I got into the Artists
Academy at Lincoln Center, and it was in those hallways
that I was like I have to make this film
about the Stroll. I needed something I wanted to tell
a New York story, and I kind of got inspired
by a talk that Martin Scorsese's was doing about the
importance of New York stories in New York storytelling, and
(06:05):
I was like, what better New York story than the
meat Packing District. Absolutely, and I mean, you did a
phenomenal job. It's such a gorgeous documentary. I know a
little bit about the Stroll just from my experiences in Atlanta,
and of course pretty much everywhere has their own stroll,
and you talk so candidly about the different parts of
(06:29):
the stroll, right, So can you tell our audience a
little bit more about what and where the stroll was
here in New York? The Stroll was in an area
called the meat Packing District. It was on Ninth Avenue
and Fourteenth Street, around the Triangle building area and the
(06:52):
surrounding area which we called the back streets, which led
down to the Hudson River here and down to Christopher's
Street a few blocks down. So it was, you know,
a hot spot for LGBT people to come and congregate
and celebrate and meet one another. And a time before
cell phones. You know, that was how community was built.
(07:14):
And nowadays that community isn't there no more. The city
has changed so drastically. You know, our culture, the soul
of the city is gone, like as in New Yorker,
what do we do now? Like you know, and you
of course talk to folks of different ages. It's really
a multi generational story. Can you talk more about when
(07:38):
the stroll was active? Oh, my gosh, the stroll like
it depends on which era, right, I like to like
at least take it back to around the time before
Stonewall and the reasons why Stonewall happened. Today we see
all this talk about trans bands and attacks on transgender healthcare,
(07:59):
but that was one of the reasons why Stonewall began
in the first place, because they had a drag dan
and we're forcing trans people to wear one article of
the other clothing. And it was against the law for
homosexuals to consume alcohol. So these were the things that
started Stonewall to begin with. But we know that Stroll
had been going on maybe a couple of decades before,
(08:23):
or maybe even longer than that. I've heard some stories
about it going back at least one hundred years. And
we covered about fifty so years of that history. Yeah,
y'all got such a good span of just the history
in that particular area.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So I want to.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Take a second because I as I was watching, I
was really trying to, I guess, picture myself there. So
if you indulge me for a second and close your
eyes and just describe what it looked like, what it
sounded like, what it smelled like the first time you
saw it. I mean to be honest, the first time
(09:01):
I went down there, it was just this magical place,
like there was no other place in the sayy' like it.
It's like you entered this whole new world, right, And
to be a young adult, you get this sense of
like independence and being free because we were we were
coming of age, We were coming out of our teenage
(09:22):
years and into this life style that society was shunning
at the time. We couldn't find employment and stuff, so
there was a certain liberation and just being free, right
and breaking all the rules, and so the gritty dark
area that seemed so dangerous was just actually a safe
haven for us to just be ourselves. Everyone kind of
(09:46):
spoke to that empowerment and the joy, and then of
course how things kind of changed over time. People became
more disillusioned after numerous experiences of vibe lens or interactions
with law enforcement. So can you talk about the prevalence
of all of that struggle over time. Oh, I can't
(10:11):
say that it was ever an easy journey, especially then
I was living in the movie theaters and the stroll
has definitely had taken its toll on me. I was
exhausted and I wanted more out of my life. I
was tired of constantly being arrested and harassed by the police.
At a certain point, I gave up. I threw my
(10:32):
hands up. I thought that this is all that life
has for us, that I'm going to be the age
that I am now in and out of Riker's Island
doing this over and over again. And I couldn't take it.
I was able to clean up and get training and
embark on my professional career. And it took a lot.
(10:52):
It took a long time, but we're here. We're here,
And how did you protect yourself throughout all of that?
Speaker 4 (11:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I was talking to Carry and she was telling me,
you know, I remember, Kristen, you used to be so
standoffish and you had the mean, face on and everything.
I was like, you know, it wasn't personal, anything personal
to you, but I had to be able to protect
my energy, you know. I had to protect me, Like
I'm getting in and out of these cars alone. I
don't know what stranger I'm going with. So I always
(11:25):
had to have this reservedness to me, you know, Like
in the film, I jokingly called it Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Literally,
I felt like I was going out to be the
vampire Slayer and have to slay vampires in order to survive. Right.
I can't even tell you, Raquel, I can't tell you
the level of perseverance that it took. You know what
(11:46):
I mean, because I've seen so many people break down.
We've endure things that most people can't even fathom that
they're not even built for, you know what I mean. Absolutely,
I really had to reassess myself with like is this
my life? I know that I'm a trans woman. I
had to do whatever I had to do to survive
by any needs necessary. For that meant going in and
(12:07):
out of a Riker's island, then that's what I had
to do. And there was a time where when you
first start, when I was younger, I was getting community
service and getting sent home. As I got older, the
sentences got heavier. You know, now they're trying to put
me away for months, you know what I mean. And
so I got tired of that because I was tired
(12:28):
of constantly getting in trouble. I wanted better for my life,
and I knew that I could find better that. I
knew that, even though I was a trans woman, that
life can be better.
Speaker 6 (12:40):
It absolutely can be.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And I mean, you're a testament to that for so
many folks. So thank you for keeping going so thinking
about this timeline. Of course, you so masterfully weave kind
of what's happening politically, of course, like the change of
the guard between mayors, from Giuliani's broken windows policing, and
(13:07):
then of course Bloomberg's gentrification like overdrive. Can you take
us through the things that transformed how you and others
on the stroll were able to exist during that time
of immense change. Everybody goes off about Giuliani, even though
(13:27):
he was systemically trying to shut down trans and LGBT
nightlife in New York City, the arrest weren't as severe
and the consequences weren't as severe as they had become
during the Bloomberg era. As I was saying, like when
Giuliani was the mayor, we would get arrested and we
would get community service. When we got older, though, that's
(13:49):
when they started to really slam down on us. The
vice squad is out now during the Bloomberg era, and
they're just snatching you with imputiny when they're like trumping
up the charge arches so that you get longer stay
in Rikers Island than being on the street. And the
point was to discourage you to the point that you
don't no longer want to be there. And unfortunately I
(14:11):
was one of the girls that they beat on a
lot in terms of like snatching me and just sending
me in a Riker's Island. And so there was a
big difference in the different mayors on how policing was handled.
And I say still that after twenty something years since
Giuliani and nine to eleven and stuff, you know, the
(14:34):
impacts of them still persist today. We don't have trans
clubs and night life like we used to. The village
is a totally different place now. You cannot go there.
You do not see people congregating there like we used to.
Our community has still not recovered from the effects of them,
you know what I mean, Like it's where where where
(14:56):
do we go to congregate? Where are our clubs? We
used to have clubs and place is that we used
to go to. They're very hard to find out, you know.
The trans and LGBT community has still not recovered fully, right.
I mean, there's this beautiful scene in the documentary where
you're just reminiscing on what the high Line used to
(15:18):
look like, and of course the meatpacking District in general.
Can you talk a little bit more about what it
used to be, like, what that liveliness was, and how
it feels like now.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
To walk through there.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I mean, what they did there is cute, it's beautiful,
you know, but it still just doesn't have the allure
that the old meatpacking district had. It was just like,
I don't know, you had the meatpacking district, you had
the pier and then going down on Christopher Street that
was our area, you know, to frolic to frolic and
(15:55):
you know, and so it had this the grit to it.
You would see the leather daddy's, you would see the
girls decked out. There would be hundreds of trans women everywhere.
As they were slowly closing the stroll and ramping up
on policing. You would only see like maybe five or
six girls running along the back streets, but you wouldn't
(16:18):
see like the fifty or sixty girls on the corner
fourteenth or ninth, or at the Triangle building, all the girls,
you know, in their garbs, flashing the drivers at the
bus stop, or Josie strutting her stuff down the middle
of the block and just jumping in cars. It's not
like that no more. It was a certain beauty to
(16:38):
it to just see all these beautiful trans women just
being themselves and out in the streets. And now it's
like a needle in the haystack. Now to find another
girl like it's weird. I wanted to talk a little
bit more about visibility, So can you talk about what
(17:01):
it's like in this moment, and of course also just
how visibility can be a trap for trans women of color. Historically,
we have always been here, you know, and trans this
is not this new thing, and some people are confused
to think that this is just something that happened within
the past few years. And everybody's running to take hormones
(17:21):
because they see that trans people are on television or something.
So now there's a takeover and everybody's scared, you know.
So it's important to tell these stories right, to show
that we have history, that these things have been going
on systematically for a very long time. We're fucking tired of.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
It, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
We just want to live our lives. We don't want
to be sitting here over explaining ourselves to you over
and over again. Just let me be, like, I don't
care what you and your wife and your kids do,
you know, like, don't worry about what I'm doing. Just
let me live my life. I want to work, I
want to have a home, I want to drive a car,
I want to like, you know, I want to be happy.
(18:02):
To just let me be happy to.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
You know, all right, I think that's it.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Just shut it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Down as prison. Kristen's role as a storyteller is so necessary,
and so it's her perspective on New York City and
just a moment, we'll hear from another New Yorker who's
changing the way people view sex, work and trans riots.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
He said, no, I'm not a boy, Stop pulling me
a boy. And it was seeing a half I've been
transfer forty eight years.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
I'm not a face. This space is being here for
a while.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Trans icon Cecilia Genteely stick with us, Welcome back. Cecilia
(19:06):
Jen Deely was a recurring guest on Afterlives. She started
Transgender Equity Consulting in twenty nineteen after serving as a
Director of Policy at GMHC, the world's first HIV aid
service organization. She's also the author of a memoir titled
False Us Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn't
(19:29):
My Rapist. As a Latina immigrant and a formally incarcerated
sex worker, Cecilia has a very personal connection with Leileen's legacy.
We heard a lot about that in our series. Today,
I wanted to share more of Cecilia's unique and inspiring
journey through life, from her childhood to her work today
(19:53):
as an outspoken transactivist. I was just revisiting FALSEA your
amazing literary contribution. It's so perfectly in your voice, with
all the humor and the reverence and snark. But I'm
wondering if you can talk about your experience growing up
(20:16):
and then of course just I think the intersection of
finding your transness and womanhood within Latinidad.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I grew up in the seventies in Argentina at the
moment the country was in the process of getting into
what ended up being the most tragic chapter of history
of my country, which was the dictatorship.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
So you know, it was the seventies.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
It was no internet and from a very very small town,
it was no trans people that I knew of. So
I remember at age three and a half. I don't remember,
actually my mom told me that was when I was
three and a half years old. She was trying to
get me down from a tangerine tree. I love dangerous
(21:08):
and I always loved danduries, so she was trying to
get me down from a tangerine tree. So she would say,
little boy, come down, little boy, come down, and then
you say no. So then she asked me, what do
you mean no, you're not coming down? And I said, no,
I'm not a boy. Stop calling me a boy. And
(21:28):
I was three and a half. So you know when
people now say trans people are a tiktoking a face
with that, I'm like, I've been transfer forty eight years
and I told my mom forty eight years ago, and
you know, I'm not a face.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
This face has been here for a while.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So that was my first experience telling people that my
gender was more expansive than what they expected. And from
the beginning, you know, it was a hard experience, Like
my mom really didn't have the information to deal with me.
You know, as you can see in the book, it's
(22:08):
a lot of somehow recrimination towards my mom, but it's
also a lot of understanding.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
That she didn't have. She didn't have any.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Of the things that she needed to help me right,
And I tried to hold her accountable but at the
same time give her forgiveness. So because they didn't know,
nobody knew, we didn't know what a transperson was. It
was really hard because I was a very feminine person.
(22:37):
I was someone who was understood as a boy who
lived in a very feminine way, and it was difficult.
I think people fear things that they don't know, and
they didn't know trans people, and they didn't know me,
and because they fear me, they discriminated me and more
(23:00):
then they even hate me, I guess. But that's another
testament of the resilience of trans people, right I am
a testament that we go through so much and it's
just a testament that.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
We are strong people. We have to be.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
It's not a way to be trans and not to
be strong, right, we shouldn't be asking people to have
to be strong, but somehow we all are. So growing
up was hard. I didn't have the words or the understanding.
I kind of identify as a gay man, like kind
of like very feminine gay men.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
That was what it was.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I was like, this is the closest to how I feel.
But then when I was seventeen years old, I moved
to the big City to go to university and I
met the first trans person.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
That I ever met in my life.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
And I don't know if people can understand most people
do know somebody who is like them in life, right,
But for me, learning.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
That somebody else was like me.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
At age seventeen, it was an explosion in my head.
It was like, I've been living for seventeen years thinking
that I was crazy, even thought that I was an
extra terrestrial.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
For a long time, I thought.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
That it was from other planets, you know, things that
we make up in our minds to survive, right, And
when I met her, it was this discovery of belonging
somebody else is like me. So when I met this
trans woman. I realized that I was not a gay man,
(24:54):
that I was a woman, and that it was possible.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
It was an actual things you can be you.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
It was something that gives you permission to be And
I started transitioning. And because at the time we were
already in a democracy in Argentina, things were changing. It
was an explosion in culture and ways to identify. I
started my transition, but even Argentina was in a much
(25:21):
better space. It was not enough space to be trans
and something else like being trans was everything that you
could be. Right if you couldn't be trans in a
business woman you couldn't be trans, and a tennis player
you couldn't be trans and a student right, not that
(25:42):
now you can maybe a little bit more right, but
at the time it was no way.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
That you could do that.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Maybe you could be trans in a hairstylist, I guess,
or makeup addies as the association that somehow I hate
and love. Right, So I decided to stop going to school. Plus,
because I started my transition at the time, sex work
came with it, and street based sex work doesn't really
(26:11):
leave much room to anything else. It's hard work, you know,
So I tried to be trans and work in the
streets and go to school, but I couldn't do all
of it. It was just so much, so I didn't
continue with my career. I could be a French horn player. Now,
(26:34):
I always say I could be a miserable since gay
man horn player, but I am a joyful transformer.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, I feel like I've had a lot of those conversations.
Soon as I had thirty, I'm like, and even talking
to my mom, She's just like, yeah, I couldn't imagine
your life any other way.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
This was your path.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
More from Cecilia about heart experience, discovering activism and advocacy
after the break.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Every profession has the risk of harming you, and everything
that comes from capitalism of like, working so hard has
the risk of harming you, and we don't criticize it,
but it's easy for people to creticize sex work. So
I decided to beget my mission and I like to
(27:31):
try to change that to the best of my ability.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
This is Afterlives we've been hearing from transactivists and author
Cecilia Jintigi.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Let's jump right back in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
So let's talk about the LGBT Center. Can you paint
the scene of finding that center?
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I went to jail. I started talking from heroin in jail.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
It was terrible.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
From jail, I went to deportation detention, and because I'm trans,
they tried to put me with SIS women, and SIS
women didn't want me to be there. Thank you this woman,
and they put me with this man and it was
bad for me and for my safety. So they let
me out with an uncle bracelet do let me know
(28:34):
with rank racelet And they're like, you have to go
to treatment. I went to d talks first, and then
I went to twenty eight days, and then I went
to long term treatment. I did seventeen months. I'm in treatment.
I'm in treatment. My counselor is like, I never had
a transperson before. I don't know anything about transmitble. I
(28:55):
don't know if I can help you, right, So she's like,
what about if you go to the LGBT center, And
I was like whatever, when you were in treatment, like
you know, I used to smoke cigarettes, so you can't smoke.
So every opportunity that you have to get out of treatment,
it's an opportunity to smoke a cigarette. So I was like,
(29:16):
I'll just go to smoke a cigarette. Got and the
first time I had an escort, because you know, when
you are early in treatment, you can leave the facilities
without an escort, So I went with an escort. I
remember for my escort it was like, not about escorting me.
She was going to meet with her boyfriend somewhere in
the city. So we all did the first street to
(29:38):
to thirteenth Street at the LGBT Center for the wrong reasons,
me to smoke and her to meet with her boyfriend.
And I went to my first counseling session and my
counselor was Christine her Era, and I have never met
a trans woman that was not a sex worker, never
(30:01):
in my life a transforman that was not a sex worker.
So without going into you know, the peer counsel in
sessions that she gave me, which was a lot of support,
just the fact of knowing her, just the fact of coming.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Across her was oh, I can do other.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Things that are not sex work, right, just because she
modeled it to me, and I think I was ready
to leave sex work, which is you know, I really
didn't fully leave sex work ever, but to kind of
like explore other things it wasn't because of her, it
(30:48):
was because of her right. So I went to the
LGBT Center. I met the first, you know, trans woman
that I knew outside the sex trade, and they sent
me to a meeting, you know, and I opened the
door or and it's this room with about sixty transformers.
It was no space for people. It was just a
shock for me to be in a room with so
(31:11):
many trans women that were not in the street trying
to get a client, right, that were there to talk
about their transness.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
And I was like, this is crazy. I love it
and I hate it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
And I was also introduced to the idea of trans
women looking, let's put it this way, I'm letting at
your trans you need a nose job, you need long hair,
you need hips, you need boots, you need you know.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
That was my idea that that was of transits.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
And then I got there and I realized that all
these many of these trans women didn't have any of
those things. And I came to understand that transnis is
who you are and know how you look. And it
was like, I was like, what the fuck is happening here?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
It took me a minute. It took me a minute
to understand all of that. And then they offered me
to do an internship at the center. And I take
an internship, and I remember I created a workshop, my
first workshop for this group of transformen.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I need this.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I made this drawing of like transition is from going
to point A to point B.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
The transformer were like, no this, some trans people are
somewhere else.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
There's no point B to go to it.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
And I was like, today, ended up giving me a workshop.
So my first workshop, they ended up giving.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Me to me my workshop. It was great. I love
I changed my life in so many ways.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Right, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I didn't know all of those details, and you just
so beautifully, like paint the scene. I want to kind
of juxtapose that workshop seeing with baby Cecilia, the organizer,
and yeah, I'm curious about how you came to see
(33:26):
your power. You've done so much, and I guess, for
the sake of this conversation, how that journey led you
into founding d CREM and why.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
You know people think that because my resort into the
criminal justice system and or the Terrabornese experience came from
either sex work or drug use.
Speaker 6 (33:49):
Right, But kind of like.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Put me in a position where I am against it.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
I'm really not.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It's not like I'm just not again said, I am
a huge defender.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Of people who are engaging sex trade or use drugs, right,
because I do understand that these two things that are
highly criminalized are not most of the time the result
of choice.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
Right, And sometimes it is right.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
If I choose right now to go in and have
sex with somebody for money, that would be a choice
because I can be making.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
Money in so many ways, right.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
But when I engage in sex work, I didn't have
any other choices.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
That was my only choice, right, And how much is
the choice.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
When you don't have other choices if it's the only choice, right.
So I have found empowerment in the work that I
did for many years, And I think that's part of
the problem with sex work. Is surrounded by this extreme
(35:08):
vale of shame. And it's not just because of sex work.
It's shame about sex, right. And if something that's shameful
sex is used as work, it's even more shameful.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Right.
Speaker 6 (35:21):
So I found empowerment.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
I found a lot of empowerment and a profession that
allowed me to survive, allow me to thrive, gave me
a wonderful community.
Speaker 6 (35:34):
And of course what's hard work? Right?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I met a psychiatrists on the phone for two years
through COVID, and now I had to go and see
him in person. It was the first time that I
saw human person and we had a conversation and then
he's like, you know, what did you do before you
do constorted? And I was like, what's a sex worker?
He gave me this long talk about like sex workers
(36:01):
as a hard profession and it was like, being a
psychiatrist must be a hard profession, right, He said, yeah,
but what I mean it's like, I don't put my
body into psychiatrist and I'm like, what are your bodies
here in front of me? You're using it for this.
(36:23):
He's like, yeah, but what I mean is that if
I have a daughter, I didn't want my daughter to
be a sex worker. And I was like, well, trust me,
if I had a son, I didn't want you to
be a psychiatrist. He's like, but what's the reason of.
Speaker 6 (36:36):
Being a psychiatrist? And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
When you deal with a lot of people, you deal
with a lot of trauma. It must be hard going
home listening to people trauma all day. It must be
hard to be with people who may be in unstabled
situations and maybe get violent. Right, he said risk Every
profession has risks, Like why do we keep thinking of
sex work as the only profession that has risd I'm
(37:00):
not saying that sex work is easy, but what profession
is not easy? Right? Every profession has the risk of
harming you. Right, Working has the risk of harming.
Speaker 6 (37:15):
You living in this.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Capitalistic work and everything that comes from capitalism of like,
working so hard has the risk of harming you, and
we don't criticize it. But it's easy for people to
criticize sex work or stigmatize sex work. So I decided
to make my mission and like to try to change
(37:39):
that to the best of my ability. And that's why
I support services for sex workers community, and we have
the coin Clinic where like every sex worker can get
medical services, mental services, or their medicines. Everything is free,
they pay zero dollars. So I focus on services. I
(38:01):
focus a lot on distigmatization of the profession through social
media and creating materials, and most importantly, I focus in
decomminalization of sex work and changing policy and legislation that
have created a system of criminalization that affect us so
(38:25):
badly historically.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I love that whole exchange with the psychiatrist.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I think that's so well. And how do young trans
people inspire you?
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (38:37):
I live for them. I live for them. I also
I'm an elder.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
I'm in a consistent, consistent, intentional effort to look and
feel young and relevant.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
So I am an elder.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
But you may see me dressing like bts right in
the effort to.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
Kind of like feel relevant and cool.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Right, I gotch But it is because like, you know,
trans kids are so amazing, Like you know, my children
are beautiful, like you know Google graam gelbe real. You know,
those are my kids, and they're doing amazing things, and
they're always teaching me.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
They keep me.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Young because they're always pushing the envelope. And that's so inspiring.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
And it's also I've been getting lately a sense, a
peaceful sense of like I can retire. You know, they're great,
they got these they should be able to do it.
They don't need me. So I'm inspired by youth. I'm
inspired by all of them.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I love I love a.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
So Cilia and Kristen are both living keepers of queer
and transce history and their stories are so vital. Definitely
follow them on social media. Pick up a copy of
Cecilia's book False Of and watch the stroll on Max.
(40:16):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. You can
find this episode and future ones on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave
us a rating and review to let us know what
you think. After Lives is a production of iHeart Podcasts
(40:36):
and The Outspoken Podcast Network in partnership with the School
of Humans. I'm your host and creator Rachtel Willis. Dylan
Hoyer is our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate producer
is Joey pat Sound design and engineering by Daisy Makes
Radio Productions and Jess Krinchitch, Story editing by Aaron Edwards
(41:01):
and Julia Furlan, fact checking by Savannah Hugiley. Our show
art is by Mackai Baldwin. Score composed by Wisley Murray.
Our production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers include me,
Raquel Willis, and Jay Brunson from The Outspoken Podcast Network,
(41:23):
Michael Alder June and Noel Brown from iHeart Podcasts. Virginia
Prescott Brandon Barr and Elsie Crowley from School of Humans
and The Cats Company.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
School of Humans,
After Lives is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The
Outspoken podcast Network in partnership with School of Humans. Just
to heads up, the following episode discusses transphobia, homophobia, racism, violence,
(00:25):
police violence, sexual assault, and substance abuse.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Take care while listening.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Throughout this season of Afterlives, we covered a lot of ground,
from pop culture to policies.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
We talked to so many.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Incredible guests as we piece together Leileen Polanco's story. These
conversations were so enriching and expansive that we couldn't just
leave them on the cutting room floor, So we're bringing
them to you. I'm Raquel Willis, and this is Afterlives.
The After Show a collection of bonus episodes featuring unaired
(01:12):
excerpts of interviews with some of the brilliant folks we
met this season. On this episode, filmmaker Kristin Leavelle shares
the inspiration behind her award winning documentary The Stroll. I
kind of got inspired by a talk that Martin scores
Casey was doing about the importance of New York stories
(01:34):
in New York storytelling, and I was like, what better
New York story than the meat packing District? Our conversation
expands on the history of the meat packing district and
the ways policing in the area pushed queern trans sex
workers out. We'll also hear more from Kristin's own story.
(01:56):
I can't even tell you, Raquel, I can't tell you
the level of perseverance that it's hook. We've endure things
that most people can't even fathom, that they're not even
built for, you know what I mean. Then we'll talk
with author, activists and founder of transgender Equity Consulting Cecilia
Genteely about how she came to find her identity and
(02:20):
her power.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
For me, learning that somebody else was like me, it
was an explosion in my head. It was like I've
been leaving for seventeen years thinking that I was crazy.
I even thought that I wasn't extra to rest your
cong time. I thought that it was from another planet.
(02:43):
You know, things that we make up in our minds
to survive.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Plus, she opens up about her road to activism and
why she's ready to pass the torch to younger generations.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
They're always pushing the envelope and that's so inspiring.
Speaker 5 (03:00):
All right, the gun they should be able to do it.
They Don't need Me.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
First Up. Kristin Lavelle.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Kristin is the co director of the HBO documentary The Stroll,
an intimate portrait of the experiences shared by her and
other trans women who did sex work in New York's
meatpacking district from the seventies to the early two thousands.
The film blew me away with its end depth interviews
(03:30):
and rich retelling of a history that so often overlooked
and I Wasn't alone. It was well received by critics
and received a Special Jury Award at the twenty twenty
three Sundance Film Festival.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Talk about getting your tens.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
We heard from Kristin throughout the series as she opened
up about her time on Rikers Island, the realities of
anti trans violence, and her hopes for the future of
trans rites. I'm excited to share more about her career
and put a brighter spotlight on her work. Let's dive
(04:13):
into your role to becoming a filmmaker. You talk about
this in detail and The Stroll, but just give a
little bit more about why it's important for black trans
folks to tell our own stories. Well, you know, I
had been a subject of numerous periodicals and documentary work
(04:34):
and realized that I didn't have any control of my
story or how the story was being told. I was
just inspired to make our own films about twelve years ago,
right before the tipping point where we were seeing this
increase in misrepresentation of trans people in the media, and
it disgusted me because it showed that it gave us
(04:59):
no dignity. So me and a friend we put some
material together and we did a YouTube documentary called Trans
and Media, and it was highlighting how that violence impacts
the trans community. And so I just stayed on the course.
I was like, I'm going to figure out a way
to tell the story. I'm going to try to get
into the industry by any means necessary. So that was
(05:21):
like going on auditions and not booking, but just to
have the presence there, you know, in a time where
nobody was even talking about transitions. This was like about
two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. Eventually I
started to book and I had worked on a project
a few years ago called The Garden Left Behind, and
(05:43):
that's when I started producing. I got into the Artists
Academy at Lincoln Center, and it was in those hallways
that I was like I have to make this film
about the Stroll. I needed something I wanted to tell
a New York story, and I kind of got inspired
by a talk that Martin Scorsese's was doing about the
importance of New York stories in New York storytelling, and
(06:05):
I was like, what better New York story than the
meat Packing District. Absolutely, and I mean, you did a
phenomenal job. It's such a gorgeous documentary. I know a
little bit about the Stroll just from my experiences in Atlanta,
and of course pretty much everywhere has their own stroll,
and you talk so candidly about the different parts of
(06:29):
the stroll, right, So can you tell our audience a
little bit more about what and where the stroll was
here in New York? The Stroll was in an area
called the meat Packing District. It was on Ninth Avenue
and Fourteenth Street, around the Triangle building area and the
(06:52):
surrounding area which we called the back streets, which led
down to the Hudson River here and down to Christopher's
Street a few blocks down. So it was, you know,
a hot spot for LGBT people to come and congregate
and celebrate and meet one another. And a time before
cell phones. You know, that was how community was built.
(07:14):
And nowadays that community isn't there no more. The city
has changed so drastically. You know, our culture, the soul
of the city is gone, like as in New Yorker,
what do we do now? Like you know, and you
of course talk to folks of different ages. It's really
a multi generational story. Can you talk more about when
(07:38):
the stroll was active? Oh, my gosh, the stroll like
it depends on which era, right, I like to like
at least take it back to around the time before
Stonewall and the reasons why Stonewall happened. Today we see
all this talk about trans bands and attacks on transgender healthcare,
(07:59):
but that was one of the reasons why Stonewall began
in the first place, because they had a drag dan
and we're forcing trans people to wear one article of
the other clothing. And it was against the law for
homosexuals to consume alcohol. So these were the things that
started Stonewall to begin with. But we know that Stroll
had been going on maybe a couple of decades before,
(08:23):
or maybe even longer than that. I've heard some stories
about it going back at least one hundred years. And
we covered about fifty so years of that history. Yeah,
y'all got such a good span of just the history
in that particular area.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
So I want to.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Take a second because I as I was watching, I
was really trying to, I guess, picture myself there. So
if you indulge me for a second and close your
eyes and just describe what it looked like, what it
sounded like, what it smelled like the first time you
saw it. I mean to be honest, the first time
(09:01):
I went down there, it was just this magical place,
like there was no other place in the sayy' like it.
It's like you entered this whole new world, right, And
to be a young adult, you get this sense of
like independence and being free because we were we were
coming of age, We were coming out of our teenage
(09:22):
years and into this life style that society was shunning
at the time. We couldn't find employment and stuff, so
there was a certain liberation and just being free, right
and breaking all the rules, and so the gritty dark
area that seemed so dangerous was just actually a safe
haven for us to just be ourselves. Everyone kind of
(09:46):
spoke to that empowerment and the joy, and then of
course how things kind of changed over time. People became
more disillusioned after numerous experiences of vibe lens or interactions
with law enforcement. So can you talk about the prevalence
of all of that struggle over time. Oh, I can't
(10:11):
say that it was ever an easy journey, especially then
I was living in the movie theaters and the stroll
has definitely had taken its toll on me. I was
exhausted and I wanted more out of my life. I
was tired of constantly being arrested and harassed by the police.
At a certain point, I gave up. I threw my
(10:32):
hands up. I thought that this is all that life
has for us, that I'm going to be the age
that I am now in and out of Riker's Island
doing this over and over again. And I couldn't take it.
I was able to clean up and get training and
embark on my professional career. And it took a lot.
(10:52):
It took a long time, but we're here. We're here,
And how did you protect yourself throughout all of that?
Speaker 4 (11:02):
You know?
Speaker 1 (11:03):
I was talking to Carry and she was telling me,
you know, I remember, Kristen, you used to be so
standoffish and you had the mean, face on and everything.
I was like, you know, it wasn't personal, anything personal
to you, but I had to be able to protect
my energy, you know. I had to protect me, Like
I'm getting in and out of these cars alone. I
don't know what stranger I'm going with. So I always
(11:25):
had to have this reservedness to me, you know, Like
in the film, I jokingly called it Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Literally,
I felt like I was going out to be the
vampire Slayer and have to slay vampires in order to survive. Right.
I can't even tell you, Raquel, I can't tell you
the level of perseverance that it took. You know what
(11:46):
I mean, because I've seen so many people break down.
We've endure things that most people can't even fathom that
they're not even built for, you know what I mean. Absolutely,
I really had to reassess myself with like is this
my life? I know that I'm a trans woman. I
had to do whatever I had to do to survive
by any needs necessary. For that meant going in and
(12:07):
out of a Riker's island, then that's what I had
to do. And there was a time where when you
first start, when I was younger, I was getting community
service and getting sent home. As I got older, the
sentences got heavier. You know, now they're trying to put
me away for months, you know what I mean. And
so I got tired of that because I was tired
(12:28):
of constantly getting in trouble. I wanted better for my life,
and I knew that I could find better that. I
knew that, even though I was a trans woman, that
life can be better.
Speaker 6 (12:40):
It absolutely can be.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And I mean, you're a testament to that for so
many folks. So thank you for keeping going so thinking
about this timeline. Of course, you so masterfully weave kind
of what's happening politically, of course, like the change of
the guard between mayors, from Giuliani's broken windows policing, and
(13:07):
then of course Bloomberg's gentrification like overdrive. Can you take
us through the things that transformed how you and others
on the stroll were able to exist during that time
of immense change. Everybody goes off about Giuliani, even though
(13:27):
he was systemically trying to shut down trans and LGBT
nightlife in New York City, the arrest weren't as severe
and the consequences weren't as severe as they had become
during the Bloomberg era. As I was saying, like when
Giuliani was the mayor, we would get arrested and we
would get community service. When we got older, though, that's
(13:49):
when they started to really slam down on us. The
vice squad is out now during the Bloomberg era, and
they're just snatching you with imputiny when they're like trumping
up the charge arches so that you get longer stay
in Rikers Island than being on the street. And the
point was to discourage you to the point that you
don't no longer want to be there. And unfortunately I
(14:11):
was one of the girls that they beat on a
lot in terms of like snatching me and just sending
me in a Riker's Island. And so there was a
big difference in the different mayors on how policing was handled.
And I say still that after twenty something years since
Giuliani and nine to eleven and stuff, you know, the
(14:34):
impacts of them still persist today. We don't have trans
clubs and night life like we used to. The village
is a totally different place now. You cannot go there.
You do not see people congregating there like we used to.
Our community has still not recovered from the effects of them,
you know what I mean, Like it's where where where
(14:56):
do we go to congregate? Where are our clubs? We
used to have clubs and place is that we used
to go to. They're very hard to find out, you know.
The trans and LGBT community has still not recovered fully, right.
I mean, there's this beautiful scene in the documentary where
you're just reminiscing on what the high Line used to
(15:18):
look like, and of course the meatpacking District in general.
Can you talk a little bit more about what it
used to be, like, what that liveliness was, and how
it feels like now.
Speaker 6 (15:31):
To walk through there.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I mean, what they did there is cute, it's beautiful,
you know, but it still just doesn't have the allure
that the old meatpacking district had. It was just like,
I don't know, you had the meatpacking district, you had
the pier and then going down on Christopher Street that
was our area, you know, to frolic to frolic and
(15:55):
you know, and so it had this the grit to it.
You would see the leather daddy's, you would see the
girls decked out. There would be hundreds of trans women everywhere.
As they were slowly closing the stroll and ramping up
on policing. You would only see like maybe five or
six girls running along the back streets, but you wouldn't
(16:18):
see like the fifty or sixty girls on the corner
fourteenth or ninth, or at the Triangle building, all the girls,
you know, in their garbs, flashing the drivers at the
bus stop, or Josie strutting her stuff down the middle
of the block and just jumping in cars. It's not
like that no more. It was a certain beauty to
(16:38):
it to just see all these beautiful trans women just
being themselves and out in the streets. And now it's
like a needle in the haystack. Now to find another
girl like it's weird. I wanted to talk a little
bit more about visibility, So can you talk about what
(17:01):
it's like in this moment, and of course also just
how visibility can be a trap for trans women of color. Historically,
we have always been here, you know, and trans this
is not this new thing, and some people are confused
to think that this is just something that happened within
the past few years. And everybody's running to take hormones
(17:21):
because they see that trans people are on television or something.
So now there's a takeover and everybody's scared, you know.
So it's important to tell these stories right, to show
that we have history, that these things have been going
on systematically for a very long time. We're fucking tired of.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
It, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
We just want to live our lives. We don't want
to be sitting here over explaining ourselves to you over
and over again. Just let me be, like, I don't
care what you and your wife and your kids do,
you know, like, don't worry about what I'm doing. Just
let me live my life. I want to work, I
want to have a home, I want to drive a car,
I want to like, you know, I want to be happy.
(18:02):
To just let me be happy to.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
You know, all right, I think that's it.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Just shut it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Down as prison. Kristen's role as a storyteller is so necessary,
and so it's her perspective on New York City and
just a moment, we'll hear from another New Yorker who's
changing the way people view sex, work and trans riots.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
He said, no, I'm not a boy, Stop pulling me
a boy. And it was seeing a half I've been
transfer forty eight years.
Speaker 6 (18:38):
I'm not a face. This space is being here for
a while.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Trans icon Cecilia Genteely stick with us, Welcome back. Cecilia
(19:06):
Jen Deely was a recurring guest on Afterlives. She started
Transgender Equity Consulting in twenty nineteen after serving as a
Director of Policy at GMHC, the world's first HIV aid
service organization. She's also the author of a memoir titled
False Us Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn't
(19:29):
My Rapist. As a Latina immigrant and a formally incarcerated
sex worker, Cecilia has a very personal connection with Leileen's legacy.
We heard a lot about that in our series. Today,
I wanted to share more of Cecilia's unique and inspiring
journey through life, from her childhood to her work today
(19:53):
as an outspoken transactivist. I was just revisiting FALSEA your
amazing literary contribution. It's so perfectly in your voice, with
all the humor and the reverence and snark. But I'm
wondering if you can talk about your experience growing up
(20:16):
and then of course just I think the intersection of
finding your transness and womanhood within Latinidad.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I grew up in the seventies in Argentina at the
moment the country was in the process of getting into
what ended up being the most tragic chapter of history
of my country, which was the dictatorship.
Speaker 6 (20:45):
So you know, it was the seventies.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
It was no internet and from a very very small town,
it was no trans people that I knew of. So
I remember at age three and a half. I don't remember,
actually my mom told me that was when I was
three and a half years old. She was trying to
get me down from a tangerine tree. I love dangerous
(21:08):
and I always loved danduries, so she was trying to
get me down from a tangerine tree. So she would say,
little boy, come down, little boy, come down, and then
you say no. So then she asked me, what do
you mean no, you're not coming down? And I said, no,
I'm not a boy. Stop calling me a boy. And
(21:28):
I was three and a half. So you know when
people now say trans people are a tiktoking a face
with that, I'm like, I've been transfer forty eight years
and I told my mom forty eight years ago, and
you know, I'm not a face.
Speaker 6 (21:42):
This face has been here for a while.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
So that was my first experience telling people that my
gender was more expansive than what they expected. And from
the beginning, you know, it was a hard experience, Like
my mom really didn't have the information to deal with me.
You know, as you can see in the book, it's
(22:08):
a lot of somehow recrimination towards my mom, but it's
also a lot of understanding.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
That she didn't have. She didn't have any.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Of the things that she needed to help me right,
And I tried to hold her accountable but at the
same time give her forgiveness. So because they didn't know,
nobody knew, we didn't know what a transperson was. It
was really hard because I was a very feminine person.
(22:37):
I was someone who was understood as a boy who
lived in a very feminine way, and it was difficult.
I think people fear things that they don't know, and
they didn't know trans people, and they didn't know me,
and because they fear me, they discriminated me and more
(23:00):
then they even hate me, I guess. But that's another
testament of the resilience of trans people, right I am
a testament that we go through so much and it's
just a testament that.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
We are strong people. We have to be.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
It's not a way to be trans and not to
be strong, right, we shouldn't be asking people to have
to be strong, but somehow we all are. So growing
up was hard. I didn't have the words or the understanding.
I kind of identify as a gay man, like kind
of like very feminine gay men.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
That was what it was.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
I was like, this is the closest to how I feel.
But then when I was seventeen years old, I moved
to the big City to go to university and I
met the first trans person.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
That I ever met in my life.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
And I don't know if people can understand most people
do know somebody who is like them in life, right,
But for me, learning.
Speaker 6 (24:13):
That somebody else was like me.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
At age seventeen, it was an explosion in my head.
It was like, I've been living for seventeen years thinking
that I was crazy, even thought that I was an
extra terrestrial.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
For a long time, I thought.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
That it was from other planets, you know, things that
we make up in our minds to survive, right, And
when I met her, it was this discovery of belonging
somebody else is like me. So when I met this
trans woman. I realized that I was not a gay man,
(24:54):
that I was a woman, and that it was possible.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
It was an actual things you can be you.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
It was something that gives you permission to be And
I started transitioning. And because at the time we were
already in a democracy in Argentina, things were changing. It
was an explosion in culture and ways to identify. I
started my transition, but even Argentina was in a much
(25:21):
better space. It was not enough space to be trans
and something else like being trans was everything that you
could be. Right if you couldn't be trans in a
business woman you couldn't be trans, and a tennis player
you couldn't be trans and a student right, not that
(25:42):
now you can maybe a little bit more right, but
at the time it was no way.
Speaker 6 (25:47):
That you could do that.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Maybe you could be trans in a hairstylist, I guess,
or makeup addies as the association that somehow I hate
and love. Right, So I decided to stop going to school. Plus,
because I started my transition at the time, sex work
came with it, and street based sex work doesn't really
(26:11):
leave much room to anything else. It's hard work, you know,
So I tried to be trans and work in the
streets and go to school, but I couldn't do all
of it. It was just so much, so I didn't
continue with my career. I could be a French horn player. Now,
(26:34):
I always say I could be a miserable since gay
man horn player, but I am a joyful transformer.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Yeah, I feel like I've had a lot of those conversations.
Soon as I had thirty, I'm like, and even talking
to my mom, She's just like, yeah, I couldn't imagine
your life any other way.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
This was your path.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
More from Cecilia about heart experience, discovering activism and advocacy
after the break.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Every profession has the risk of harming you, and everything
that comes from capitalism of like, working so hard has
the risk of harming you, and we don't criticize it,
but it's easy for people to creticize sex work. So
I decided to beget my mission and I like to
(27:31):
try to change that to the best of my ability.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
This is Afterlives we've been hearing from transactivists and author
Cecilia Jintigi.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Let's jump right back in.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
So let's talk about the LGBT Center. Can you paint
the scene of finding that center?
Speaker 5 (28:06):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
I went to jail. I started talking from heroin in jail.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
It was terrible.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
From jail, I went to deportation detention, and because I'm trans,
they tried to put me with SIS women, and SIS
women didn't want me to be there. Thank you this woman,
and they put me with this man and it was
bad for me and for my safety. So they let
me out with an uncle bracelet do let me know
(28:34):
with rank racelet And they're like, you have to go
to treatment. I went to d talks first, and then
I went to twenty eight days, and then I went
to long term treatment. I did seventeen months. I'm in treatment.
I'm in treatment. My counselor is like, I never had
a transperson before. I don't know anything about transmitble. I
(28:55):
don't know if I can help you, right, So she's like,
what about if you go to the LGBT center, And
I was like whatever, when you were in treatment, like
you know, I used to smoke cigarettes, so you can't smoke.
So every opportunity that you have to get out of treatment,
it's an opportunity to smoke a cigarette. So I was like,
(29:16):
I'll just go to smoke a cigarette. Got and the
first time I had an escort, because you know, when
you are early in treatment, you can leave the facilities
without an escort, So I went with an escort. I
remember for my escort it was like, not about escorting me.
She was going to meet with her boyfriend somewhere in
the city. So we all did the first street to
(29:38):
to thirteenth Street at the LGBT Center for the wrong reasons,
me to smoke and her to meet with her boyfriend.
And I went to my first counseling session and my
counselor was Christine her Era, and I have never met
a trans woman that was not a sex worker, never
(30:01):
in my life a transforman that was not a sex worker.
So without going into you know, the peer counsel in
sessions that she gave me, which was a lot of support,
just the fact of knowing her, just the fact of coming.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Across her was oh, I can do other.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Things that are not sex work, right, just because she
modeled it to me, and I think I was ready
to leave sex work, which is you know, I really
didn't fully leave sex work ever, but to kind of
like explore other things it wasn't because of her, it
(30:48):
was because of her right. So I went to the
LGBT Center. I met the first, you know, trans woman
that I knew outside the sex trade, and they sent
me to a meeting, you know, and I opened the
door or and it's this room with about sixty transformers.
It was no space for people. It was just a
shock for me to be in a room with so
(31:11):
many trans women that were not in the street trying
to get a client, right, that were there to talk
about their transness.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
And I was like, this is crazy. I love it
and I hate it.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
And I was also introduced to the idea of trans
women looking, let's put it this way, I'm letting at
your trans you need a nose job, you need long hair,
you need hips, you need boots, you need you know.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
That was my idea that that was of transits.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
And then I got there and I realized that all
these many of these trans women didn't have any of
those things. And I came to understand that transnis is
who you are and know how you look. And it
was like, I was like, what the fuck is happening here?
Speaker 1 (32:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (32:09):
It took me a minute. It took me a minute
to understand all of that. And then they offered me
to do an internship at the center. And I take
an internship, and I remember I created a workshop, my
first workshop for this group of transformen.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I need this.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
I made this drawing of like transition is from going
to point A to point B.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
The transformer were like, no this, some trans people are
somewhere else.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
There's no point B to go to it.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
And I was like, today, ended up giving me a workshop.
So my first workshop, they ended up giving.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
Me to me my workshop. It was great. I love
I changed my life in so many ways.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Right, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I didn't know all of those details, and you just
so beautifully, like paint the scene. I want to kind
of juxtapose that workshop seeing with baby Cecilia, the organizer,
and yeah, I'm curious about how you came to see
(33:26):
your power. You've done so much, and I guess, for
the sake of this conversation, how that journey led you
into founding d CREM and why.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
You know people think that because my resort into the
criminal justice system and or the Terrabornese experience came from
either sex work or drug use.
Speaker 6 (33:49):
Right, But kind of like.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Put me in a position where I am against it.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
I'm really not.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
It's not like I'm just not again said, I am
a huge defender.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Of people who are engaging sex trade or use drugs, right,
because I do understand that these two things that are
highly criminalized are not most of the time the result
of choice.
Speaker 6 (34:23):
Right, And sometimes it is right.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
If I choose right now to go in and have
sex with somebody for money, that would be a choice
because I can be making.
Speaker 6 (34:31):
Money in so many ways, right.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
But when I engage in sex work, I didn't have
any other choices.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
That was my only choice, right, And how much is
the choice.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
When you don't have other choices if it's the only choice, right.
So I have found empowerment in the work that I
did for many years, And I think that's part of
the problem with sex work. Is surrounded by this extreme
(35:08):
vale of shame. And it's not just because of sex work.
It's shame about sex, right. And if something that's shameful
sex is used as work, it's even more shameful.
Speaker 4 (35:20):
Right.
Speaker 6 (35:21):
So I found empowerment.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
I found a lot of empowerment and a profession that
allowed me to survive, allow me to thrive, gave me
a wonderful community.
Speaker 6 (35:34):
And of course what's hard work? Right?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I met a psychiatrists on the phone for two years
through COVID, and now I had to go and see
him in person. It was the first time that I
saw human person and we had a conversation and then
he's like, you know, what did you do before you
do constorted? And I was like, what's a sex worker?
He gave me this long talk about like sex workers
(36:01):
as a hard profession and it was like, being a
psychiatrist must be a hard profession, right, He said, yeah,
but what I mean it's like, I don't put my
body into psychiatrist and I'm like, what are your bodies
here in front of me? You're using it for this.
(36:23):
He's like, yeah, but what I mean is that if
I have a daughter, I didn't want my daughter to
be a sex worker. And I was like, well, trust me,
if I had a son, I didn't want you to
be a psychiatrist. He's like, but what's the reason of.
Speaker 6 (36:36):
Being a psychiatrist? And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:38):
When you deal with a lot of people, you deal
with a lot of trauma. It must be hard going
home listening to people trauma all day. It must be
hard to be with people who may be in unstabled
situations and maybe get violent. Right, he said risk Every
profession has risks, Like why do we keep thinking of
sex work as the only profession that has risd I'm
(37:00):
not saying that sex work is easy, but what profession
is not easy? Right? Every profession has the risk of
harming you. Right, Working has the risk of harming.
Speaker 6 (37:15):
You living in this.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Capitalistic work and everything that comes from capitalism of like,
working so hard has the risk of harming you, and
we don't criticize it. But it's easy for people to
criticize sex work or stigmatize sex work. So I decided
to make my mission and like to try to change
(37:39):
that to the best of my ability. And that's why
I support services for sex workers community, and we have
the coin Clinic where like every sex worker can get
medical services, mental services, or their medicines. Everything is free,
they pay zero dollars. So I focus on services. I
(38:01):
focus a lot on distigmatization of the profession through social
media and creating materials, and most importantly, I focus in
decomminalization of sex work and changing policy and legislation that
have created a system of criminalization that affect us so
(38:25):
badly historically.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I love that whole exchange with the psychiatrist.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I think that's so well. And how do young trans
people inspire you?
Speaker 4 (38:36):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (38:37):
I live for them. I live for them. I also
I'm an elder.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
I'm in a consistent, consistent, intentional effort to look and
feel young and relevant.
Speaker 5 (38:49):
So I am an elder.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
But you may see me dressing like bts right in
the effort to.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
Kind of like feel relevant and cool.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Right, I gotch But it is because like, you know,
trans kids are so amazing, Like you know, my children
are beautiful, like you know Google graam gelbe real. You know,
those are my kids, and they're doing amazing things, and
they're always teaching me.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
They keep me.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Young because they're always pushing the envelope. And that's so inspiring.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Right.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
And it's also I've been getting lately a sense, a
peaceful sense of like I can retire. You know, they're great,
they got these they should be able to do it.
They don't need me. So I'm inspired by youth. I'm
inspired by all of them.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
I love I love a.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
So Cilia and Kristen are both living keepers of queer
and transce history and their stories are so vital. Definitely
follow them on social media. Pick up a copy of
Cecilia's book False Of and watch the stroll on Max.
(40:16):
Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives. You can
find this episode and future ones on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please leave
us a rating and review to let us know what
you think. After Lives is a production of iHeart Podcasts
(40:36):
and The Outspoken Podcast Network in partnership with the School
of Humans. I'm your host and creator Rachtel Willis. Dylan
Hoyer is our senior producer and scriptwriter. Our associate producer
is Joey pat Sound design and engineering by Daisy Makes
Radio Productions and Jess Krinchitch, Story editing by Aaron Edwards
(41:01):
and Julia Furlan, fact checking by Savannah Hugiley. Our show
art is by Mackai Baldwin. Score composed by Wisley Murray.
Our production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers include me,
Raquel Willis, and Jay Brunson from The Outspoken Podcast Network,
(41:23):
Michael Alder June and Noel Brown from iHeart Podcasts. Virginia
Prescott Brandon Barr and Elsie Crowley from School of Humans
and The Cats Company.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
School of Humans,
Host
Raquel Willis
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