January 10, 2024 • 43 mins
Enjoy unaired excerpts of interviews with two brilliant authors: Sydney Baloue and Tre’vell Anderson. Sydney Baloue, who is currently writing Undeniable: A History of Voguing, Ballroom, and How it Changed my Life and the World, dives deeper into the House of Xtravaganza’s legacy. He also opens up about his own foray into ballroom (which started in Europe) and reflects on his history-making performance at the Latex Ball in New York City. In the second half of the episode we hear from Tre’vell Anderson, the author of We See Each Other: A Black, Trans Journey Through TV and Film. Tre’vell discusses their own relationship with representation, talks about an early trans celebrity (and what her fame meant for future trans stars), and considers whether visibility can lead to true progress.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Afterlives 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, and violence.
(00:27):
Take care while listening. Throughout this season of Afterlives, we've
covered a lot of ground, from pop culture to policy.
We talked to so many incredible guests as we pieced
(00:48):
together Leyleen Polanco's story. These conversations were so enriching and
expansive that we just couldn't leave.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Them on the cutting room floor.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So we're bringing them to you. I'm Roquel Willis, and
this is Afterlives. The after Show a collection of bonus
episodes featuring unaired excerpts of interviews with some of the
brilliant folks we've heard from this season. On this episode,
(01:20):
writer Sydney Belou opens up about his journey in ballroom culture.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I won that ball I made history as the first
trans guy to win a voking category at that huge,
huge function.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And we dive into a deeper history of the House
of Extravaganza, the house Leyleen was a part of. We'll
discuss how queer and trans representation evolved as the Ballroom
gained traction in the mainstream.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
The way the media was portraying people living with HIV
and AIDS was so negative. People really thought that gay people,
trans people at that time were levers, that you can't
touch them, that they are diseased and disgusting and beneath
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We'll also revisit more of my conversation with cultural critic
of our times, Trey vel Anderson, and learn more about
their perspective on representation.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
If all you've ever seen of trans people on screen
is rooted in our tragedy and our trauma and our death,
it becomes a normalized thing then for you when you
hear about another trans person right being killed.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Plus, we'll talk about an early trans celebrity tent pole
TV series centering the trans community and whether they believe
visibility truly leads to progress.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Whether that's Tyler Perry as Media, whether that's Martin Lawrence
as Shane Nay, whether that's Jamie Fox's Wanda. The exact
same jokes that we see lodged at those time types
of characters played by these straight men are the exact
same quote unquote jokes that get lodged at us as
black trans women in films, on the streets in our communities,
and it is wild to know that in some ways,
(03:17):
being black in trans on screen is somewhat safer than
being black in trans in our everyday life.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
First up, Sidney Blow. We heard from Sydney in episode
one of our series. He's a TV writer, producer, and
journalist who's been in the ballroom scene for over a decade.
For the last four years, he's been in the House
of Extravaganza, the same house Leyleen belonged to. I knew
(03:52):
Sidney would be an excellent person to interview, especially because
of his encyclopedic knowledge of ballroom hiss. He's currently writing
a book titled Undeniable, A History of Voguing Ballroom and
How It Changed My life and the world. Our interview,
we've together his personal experience with stories about black queer
(04:16):
culture at large, and I knew you'd want to hear more.
So tell us a little bit more about your book,
your tome that is coming out, really like, what inspired
and informed it and what are you most excited to
share from it.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Well, this book came about almost haphazardly because my ballroom
journey actually began to Europe I was living in Berlin,
Paris and London, and I got into the ballroom scene
there and it was when I was in London doing
my masters at the London School's Economics. Back then I
was studying to be an urban planner and I was
(04:57):
also doing ballroom on the side. It was just a
big part of my life as far as my social life,
and for me, it was really the genesis of my
transition to be in a community of beautiful black and
brown people who were queer in trans But I remember
back when I was in London, I was asked to
sit on a panel to talk about Paris Is burning
(05:18):
and I was really nervous.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
At the time, I was in the house of Omni.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I wanted to make sure I answered the questions correctly,
and so I reached out to the father of my
house at the time, Kevin Omney, who was based in
New Jersey, and I just thought we'd have a thirty
minute little prep conversation, and it turned into three hours,
and he was saying a lot of history, just things
that I had never seen written down anywhere. So I thought,
(05:43):
my God, who's documenting this? And I talked to my
thesis advisor at the time, and he said, you know,
said you should go for this. So I ended up
doing an oral history project at the time where I
went to New York City for a couple of weeks
and I interviewed icons, led, pioneers, anyone who would talk
to me. And I said, take me to a part
(06:04):
of New York City you think is the most relevant
to the history of the ballroom scene, and tell me
about your history within the space and the history of
the space. So I interviewed about nine people and some
interviews with thirty minutes some or four hours, I wrote
the thesis and I thought, my gosh, there's so much
more to explore here. So really that's what started the work,
(06:24):
and it evolved over time. When I ended up actually
like pitching the book with my agent, we decided there
was a lot of power in telling my story of
transition since ballroom was very integral to that, as well
as getting into a deeper dive into this unique and
fascinating culture and history that is very much underreported in
(06:45):
a sense or sort of underwritten about, considering how much influence,
especially right now, it's having on our culture at large.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Beautiful, you were in the house of Omni and then
you shifted into the house of extravagans. Can you talk
a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I was in the house of omni when I was
in Europe, particularly because at the time, and we're talking
like I mean, I was in Europe twenty eleven to
about like twenty seventeen, this scene had grown outside of
New York City. We all known, you know, ballroom comes
from New York and it's expanded to other cities.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
The expansion around the world.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Is because of a lot of dancer choreographers who oftentimes
pass through New York and they oftentimes fall into the
culture whether they go to a ball or do a
workshop with somebody, and a lot of folks.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Want to bring it back to their home country. For me,
I was always interested in voguing.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I really really loved Paris's Burning and I love the
way those voguers just moved in the film, and I
always wanted to do that with my body and at
the time, the people who were doing that style of voguing,
which is called Old Way performance because it's the original
style of voguing.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Obviously, voguing has changed a lot over time.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
People see different styles, whether it's on TikTok or on
YouTube or what have you. And the Omnis were the
folks who were doing that, and so I used to
walk balls and throw balls. I used to DJ balls
in London and in New York, but unfortunately they were
very unsupportive of my transition, which I know may shock
some people because they're like, well, ballroom is a place
(08:17):
for trans people, how can there be transphobia? But it's
also like ballroom is also a reflection of the world,
and there's also so much as far as even within
our LGBTQ plus community, where you have performative allyship or
fake allyship, or people who are just not upfront with
(08:37):
who they are and how they're moving. And when it
was very clear that these folks who I really saw
as family did not see me as a full human being.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I had to leave.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
And so actually what happened was when I left the house,
and this is in twenty eighteen, I ended up walking
the Latex Ball that's like the biggest ball in New
York City, over five thousand people who attend, and I
walk the ball is what they call a double O seven,
which is where you're a quote unquote free agent, so
you're not in a house and it's a way of
(09:11):
kind of signaling to the community that you're on the market.
And I won that ball.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I made history.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I was the first trans guy to win a voging
category at that huge, huge function, and all of a sudden,
it was like college where I got like ten different
offers from houses and everybody wanted me, and you know,
it's that moment where you're hot. And Gazelle, my mother,
who's the mother of the House of Extravaganza, she was
on that panel that night, and for me, it was
(09:38):
a very, very big moment because I remember in the
final battle, I just had this feeling. I was like,
you know what, I don't think these people know that
I'm trans, because there's very few trans men or trans
masculine people who vogue. I was like, you know, I
think they need to know. And so I made sure
to take off my shirt because I wanted the panel
(09:59):
to see my skar and I wanted them to see that, look,
I'm not like everybody else who's here. It's taken me
even more to get to the stage. And that definitely
made a moment. And I remember Gazelle said she and
so many of the other panel like judges, they had
no idea, and she was so impressed with my performance
and how I carried myself and so on.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Not only that, but one of the great things.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
About the House of Extravaganza is that it is a
very trans friendly house. There's so many trans women in
our house and trans women of all shape, sizes, backgrounds,
which is very nice. So it's just like coming from
a place that was really transphobic to then be in
a place that's so trans friendly. It was the healing
that I needed to have, especially within the ballroom. And
(10:45):
I think having a trans mother, especially when like Gizelle,
who's very caring and very wise, was like the bomb
that I needed for my life at that point.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The bomb.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I love that. Oh my gosh, it's such a rich story,
and I mean, it's the wild that you made history,
not exactly fresh out of the gate in your ballroom life,
but very early on. Let's zero in on the House
of Extravagants. Can you talk a little bit more about
that origin story of that particular house.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
So the House of Extravaganza was founded in nineteen eighty two,
and the lore goes that there were a group of
people who used to hang out at the Path Subway
station on Christopher Street, And specifically I mentioned that location
because back then the pier was very different from what
it is today. But back then it was kind of
(11:41):
like the LGBTQ plus hangout spot, or probably what they
would have called it back then, you know, just a
gay hangout. The Path Subway station is significant because that's
where a lot of Puerto Rican young LGBTQ plus people
would like come into the city because there were a
lot of folks who were living in New Jersey and
so that's how they would come to hang out at
(12:03):
the pier. By the time the eighties roll around, the
scene is kind of already established with houses. So you
would have the House of Dupre, the House of Pandarvis,
or the House of Labasia as Crystal Lebasia was the
first mother of the scene, the first house to come
into formation in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Those were the hot houses.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
So if you're hanging out on the pier, everybody would
be like, oh, what house, So you went it'd be like, oh,
I'm in the House of Pandarvis.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Oh that's a fab house, right.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
So this group of LATINX people were kind of keeking
about that with each other and be like, oh, what
house you went, and be like, oh, I'm in the
House of Magnafique.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Ooh, Magnafique, I'm Extravaganza.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And so it's really started as a key key and
then it actually turned into a real house. And the
thing was, in those early days, ballroom was heavily concentrated Harlem.
It was very much an African American event, and it
was held late at night. But in those early days
it was actually very hard for the House of Extravaganza
because there was a kind of, let's say, a sort
(13:04):
of protective sense, you know, that people had over the scene.
They felt very threatened by this new group of Latinos
who want to join the scene. Some of it was
because for Latinos there's a wide range of backgrounds. You know,
some people are lighter than others, some people are darker
(13:25):
than others. Some people really saw that as a threat
In a competition that's based off of beauty and fashion, right,
it's like, well, how are we going to judge if
somebody's more beautiful? If you know, the outside world has
a very white Western standard of beauty. So actually, in
those early days it was very hard for the House
of Extravaganza to prove themselves in the scene, and there
(13:46):
are these stories about how they would just chop the
girls and it wasn't even about whether or not you
have the merit or the talent.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
It was like, oh, you're too light, not for you.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And this became a real issue and the early days
this kind of like over corrective way of judging beauty standards.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But one of the stories that kind of.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Emerged was how Angie Extravaganza, the mother at that time,
She's like, you're not gonna play my children. You're not
gonna play my face like this, and I'm gonna let
you know it. And that, to me is one of
the beautiful powers of ballroom because it's not really always
about the trophies or winning. It's also about how you
play the game, which is you show up and you
(14:28):
show out. So really the house had to really show up,
show out and earn the respect of the ball community.
And although Extravaganza, I mean, yes, it was a heavily
Latin house, but it was also very much like kids
living on the pier, people who were homeless, because there
(14:49):
was a very big class divide at that point. Of
those three big houses which were seen as the uptown
houses versus the downtown children. Again, they had to really
really keep coming and keep turning it in order for
people to finally accept them. And then once they did,
it was, you know, the rest was history.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Let's jump in here then, because you know, we have
to ask you about the relationship between ballroom and of
course pop culture. So can you give us a little
bit of tea, a little bit of your thoughts on
how ballroom culture has been represented in pop culture. Can
(15:32):
you talk about that relationship and the tensions the benefits
of it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I feel like a lot of my thoughts about a
lot of these different things have truly evolved over time.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And I say that because I used to be part
of the.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Little online media mob where I was like, oh no,
everyone stole the culture. But actually it was through my
oral history interviews that I received a more nuanced picture. So,
for example, but Paris is burning, I think the times
where I've talked to the community, I think for a
lot of older people, especially those who were in the film,
they kind of see it as a postcard of a
(16:07):
time in their lives of just like oh yeah, like
those were people I knew, especially since so many people
have unfortunately passed away of AIDS related causes. And for
some people there's a real sense of gratitude that somebody
captured this moment. But then you know, there's also some
folks who see that very differently. And Ballroom in the mainstream,
you see so much influence. I think at the time
(16:29):
we talked about the eighties and nineties, I think Ballroom
was obviously influencing with the song Vogue. I mean, nobody
ever thought a star of that size would take interest
or elevate the community in the way that she did.
And I will say, to Madonna's credit, one hundred percent,
she gave us an opportunity. We were credited as dancer choreographers.
We did our thing in so many ways. That song,
(16:51):
that movement, that everything elevated the scene in so many
ways and also really touched people because you have to
remember at that time, when AIDS was just taking so
many lives, and the way the media was portraying people
living with HIV and AIDS was so negative. People really
thought that gay people, trans people at that time were lepers,
(17:14):
that you can't touch them, that they are diseased and
disgusting and beneath the world. So to have a star
of that magnitude, for her to be loving up on
gay people like that so publicly, especially black and brown
people like that was a revolution. And you cannot undermine that,
(17:35):
and you cannot say that that was insignificant, because it
was extremely significant. And then Bartom kind of goes quote
unquote underground a little bit in the nineties, which is
really related to I would say, the AIDS crisis. Just
so many people passed away in a very short period
of time. There was the way that New York City
was changing at this time, just Giuliani shutting everything down
(17:56):
and nightlife really really going underground in New York and a.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Very particular way.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
But we see the culture kind of re emerge, I
would say in the two thousands, with especially with Vogue
Evolution in two thousand and nine, which was the dance
group that Deshaun and Laomi were part of who I
worked with on legendary years later they were on America's
Best Dance Crew, which really was like a very big
mainstream moment for ballroom in an unexpected way for some
(18:23):
folks because the scene had evolved by this point, the
style of dance voguing had evolved as well. And from there,
you know, we got a series of documentaries like Kiki
years later, and obviously everything that's come since, like Pose
and Legendary.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
A lot of that has to do with we are over.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
A generation later from the peak of the AIDS crisis.
I have said this, and I will say this again.
We only get one Billy Porter. We could have had
like fifty Billy Porters if our elders were allowed to live.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
This really weren't true for me. The HIV AIDS crisis
loomed over many a young queer millennial kid. It's difficult
to imagine how different, how much richer our community might
be if we hadn't lost so many potential mentors and
possibility models. But our people know resistance to our core
(19:23):
when we come back.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I think it all goes back in a lot of
ways to Christine Jorgensen right, who is credited with being
the first trans celebrity.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
If you will, writer travel Anderson and I talk about television,
film and the landscape of queer and trans representation and media.
Stay with us, Welcome back. Travell Anderson is someone whose
(20:06):
perspective I've always admired. They're an award winning journalist, podcast host,
and self proclaimed author rest focused on society and culture.
Years of work culminated so beautifully in their book We
See each Other, a Black trans Journey through TV and film.
(20:30):
I think the perfect place to start off is you
just telling us when did you first see yourself represented
on screen?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
You know, this is always an interesting question for me,
because as life has taken me on the various journeys
that it's taken me on, I've seen various slices of
myself right on screen, not necessarily the fullness of myself.
But I always give credit to three possibility models for myself,
(21:01):
the first being the character of Noah on Noah's Arc
and Patrick Ian Polke's TV show from Back in the
Day starring Darryl Stevens. And then I also give credit
to Miss Jay Alexander and Andre Leon Tally who came
into my life on the show America's Next Top Model.
But I always say that like those people and those
(21:21):
characters showed me possibilities right of how I could move
through the world, but not necessarily myself. I think now
when I think about non binary representation, specifically the character
of Uncle Clifford on Pea Valley comes closest to an
experience that I think represents mine and others like mine,
(21:44):
of being you know, black non binary people in southern
spaces beautiful.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
So I mean you talk about those initial figures and
of course some of the ones that have merged throughout
your lifetime in your book The Seminal Tome. Can you
talk a little bit more about this line that you
use in the intro to your book where you say,
(22:13):
I don't remember exactly when I was taught to hate myself.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I think that we all grow up in a world
now days where we are not encouraged to be ourselves.
There's so many restrictions that get placed on us, whether
by our family or by society at large. And so
when I say I don't remember when I was taught
(22:41):
to hate myself, it's ultimately a realization that so much
about my life has been trying to define myself for
myself in spite of everyone else telling me something different,
and how in learning what I was taught, how that
(23:03):
resulted in me not liking myself a lot and wanting
to kind of do the work to reconcile that, to
change that, to be more in love with who I
am and what I give to the world, and thinking
a lot about, particularly with the book, how not just
kind of my family background contributed to that, but also
(23:26):
how media largely contributed to that in ways small and
in ways super super large on a grand level.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So that makes a lot of sense, And I think
you're already NodD into how these portrayals that have missed
the mark kind of act as wedges between us and
the folks that we really want to understand us. So
then can we also shift, I guess, to the flip
side of that question of you talk about owning your
(23:59):
own black stripe power, which I'm obsessed with our people
and how we come into that. Can you talk about
why it's important for TV and film to represent us
accurately in this collective journey towards liberation.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
So it's important that film and TV represent us as
black trans people accurately because lives are on the line.
I think oftentimes people think of film and television and arts,
you know, more broadly, as like superfluous and not meaning much.
(24:36):
But when we live in a world in which the
majority of people still feel like they've never met a
trans person, and so Therefore all of the information they're getting,
they believe about trans experiences, is from what they see
on TV or in movies. I think that requires us
to think differently, right about the images that we see
(24:58):
on screen, especially of trans folks. And I often say
it's not right that that folks don't know trans people.
They actually do know trans people, but it's that those
trans people don't feel necessarily comfortable enough or safe enough
in your immediate community right to tell you their truth.
And so as it means of survival, right, we sometimes
(25:18):
don't disclose that information. And when we're talking about media representations,
if all you've ever seen of trans people on screen
is rooted in our tragedy and our trauma and our death,
it becomes a normalized thing. Then for you, when you
(25:39):
hear about another trans person right being killed, you don't
even register it because you've spent your entire life seeing
trans people be killed on TV and in movies, right.
And so the kind of imperative around trying to diverse
(26:01):
and builds out what we see on screen as it
relates to the images of trans folks is about just
showing people other ways that we as trans people exist.
I think in hopes right of them then taking whatever
that is that they learn from that TV show or
(26:21):
from that movie, and then taking it into their real
lived communities and beginning to change the material realities for
trans folks in everyday life.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So now we're gonna get, I guess, maybe into more
of the kind of stickier parts of it, because we
have this whole kind of smorgasboard of tropes, and you
speak so deftely about them, and we see each other.
You talk a lot about these kind of different forks
(26:54):
in the road that we see in terms of the
tropes that formed around, for instance, how white trans people
and particularly white trans women were depicted in medium maybe
still are, and how, for instance, black and trans folks
of color are depicted. Can you talk a little bit
(27:15):
about that kind of fork in the road when it
comes to these tropes.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
I think it all goes back in a lot of
ways to Christine Jorgensen, right, who is credited with being
the first trans celebrity, if you will. I found it
interesting that when I was going back into the archive
trying to find various proof right of black trans people
(27:40):
in culture before this moment, so many of those articles
refer to those black trans people as black Christine Jorgensen's,
which makes me think about the ways in which those
black trans people, even as they were navigating the various
things that they were navigating, weren't afforded an identity like
(28:03):
all their own. They were often just boiled down and
essentialized into being black versions of this white trans woman.
And I think that that's an interesting you know fork
in the road, as you mentioned, because I think from
there we can then begin to see a lot of
(28:24):
the differences in representation for the community as stratified on
racial lines, because Christine Jorgensen was able to affect some
sort of you know, white cis womanhood right that allowed
her to be the first trans celebrity in ways that
black trans women can never because of all the isms
(28:47):
and phobias that we are navigating and working through as
a society. So I often think about Christine Jorgensen in
that particular moment. But then I think when we start
to get to on screen image is you know, I
talk a lot, specifically in a black context in this
conversation about the black funny men who have become famous
(29:11):
off of these drag characters that they have done, whether
that's Tyler Perry as Medea, whether that's Martin Lawrence as Shanna,
whether that's Jamie Fox's Wanza. You know, I can keep
going down a very long line of lists there, and
how in my experience, the exact same jokes that we
see lodged at those types of characters played by these
(29:33):
straight men are the exact same quote unquote jokes that
get lodged at us as black trans women in films
on the streets in our communities. Right, it's always focused
on our bodies, it's always focused on our hands. All
of these things that they believe prove that we are
not who we are. And I think from there that
requires us as a community, as black folks to think
(29:56):
differently about that which we find funny and that how
you know those things that may not specifically be images
of trans folks on screen, how they also contribute to
the very real world experiences that trans women and films
are experiencing in our everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, we could keep going and list on wherever. And
now it's like whole social media influencers who that's their.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Absolutely they count exactly in that criticism as well.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
We'll continue the conversation with Treval in just a minute.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Visibility is great, but what do you do next? What
happens after the show is made.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
We're back with Afterlives, so we're gonna swim into talking
about now some of these kind of tent pole shows
that you speak about and we see each other. And
of course Pose is like this landmark television show within
(31:15):
our community's history. But the other thing too is that
for Leyleen there are so many connections to her actual
life because she was in ballroom community, had chosen family,
was connected to India, and India has stated that they
looked up to.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Leyleen as this kind of phenomenal figure.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
And then of course the show was really hitting its
stride around the time that Leyleen died.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So can you talk.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
About just if our audience is unfamiliar, can you just
talk about.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
What Pose is?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And maybe the first time you even heard about the show.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
The first I heard of Pose, I want to say,
was this article in Variety just announcing the idea that
Ryan Murphy was going to be doing this show about
the ballroom scene in like the late eighties and nineties.
I think a lot of people compared it to like
a scripted version of Paris Is Burning. If you saw
(32:21):
Paris's burning, and we celebrated it and talked about it
because you know, Janet was hired and became like the
first black trans woman writer on a show. Our Lady
Jay was in the writer's room. They had made history
for the most black and brown trans identified series regulars
in a show. All of these things that were supposed
(32:44):
to like just automatically lift up on it. I think
Poe's was and is historic, and it's important to note that.
And it was a beautiful rendering I think of the community,
but also not without its faults, perhaps the bits of
story that were left out or not the most accurately
(33:05):
rendered there. But it is one of those shows that
you know, we can point to today and say, if
you want to know what well written characters that are
trans might look like, you can go to Pose before Posed,
before Orange is the New Black, Before Transparent. It was
(33:26):
kind of hard to say that, right and then specifically
with Pose, you had more than one trans person as
part of the narrative. Oftentimes we only get one, as
if we don't have family inference, but Pose kind of
challenged that in some important ways.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes, I mean this exchange right now is completely hypothetical
a trans and non binary exchange between a trans a
di binary person, and you talk about the experience of
kind of absorbing you know, Paris is Burning for the
(34:04):
first time, and one thing that kind of stuck with
me was, you know, the abrupt kind of way that
we hear about Venus Extravaganza's murder in Paris Is Burning,
and then it seems like, of course they are parallels
to how murder in the community is approached in Pose.
(34:31):
Of course, with Angelic Caross's character Candy, can you talk
about if there are some threads or there seems to
be an evolution and how we talk about the murders
of trans women in particular between that discussion in Paris
Is Burning and Pose.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
You know, it's interesting because I think that when when
it came to that character in Pose, and I should
say more broadly, when it came to the idea of
depicting black trans death on Pose, in so much of
the press at the time, they spoke about how because
(35:16):
of our lived realities, that it was like inevitable that
somebody had to die, and it's and I get it
because the reality is that black trans people, trans people
are and have been going through, you know, an assault,
and life is not always safe for us. But the
(35:39):
fact that it was expected, like they just knew that
they had to work that into the storyline, to me,
says a lot about the possibilities that we think about
when it comes to narratives of trans people on screen.
Because there's a world where nobody had to die, I
just want to acknowledge that, and that also the dark
skinned girl did have to die. I want to also
(36:02):
note that. But you're right, in Paris is burning, it
does feel a little abrupt, It does feel like a
lack of care, It does feel like a lack of
consideration for segments of the audience who would be impacted
by that. I will say that I think POS attempted
(36:23):
to be more caring and more compassionate and how they
worked through that story, but the similarities are still there,
and I think that is something that we as a
culture and a community and a creative body right have
to challenge ourselves, which is to not accept black trans
(36:45):
death as inevitable and as expected, so that when we
are creating newer narratives right that are said to explore
our experiences as trans and non binary people, we can
give ourselves permission to just see something different and expect
something different.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Absolutely, Okay, why has got to be inevitable that part?
So I want to square I guess kind of directly,
how do you make sense of our community having these
heightened visibility moments with like Orange just the New Black
(37:28):
and Poles and so much more, and.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The experiences of.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Someone like a Laylen's not having protection within prison or
not even really being protected from the prison industrial complex.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
You know, it is it is wild to live the
lives that we live, and to think about how many
images of trans people that we have seen on screen,
in particular since Laverne Cox on Orange is the New
Black and all the progress right that we have seen,
(38:11):
and then to also square that with you know, the
reality of folks who are not on screen, the reality
of folks who are in our real communities with us,
and noting the disparity between the two. I think that's
why we often hear people talk about, you know, visibility
(38:33):
is great, but what do you do next? What happens
after the show is made? How are you as an
entity giving back to the people in our everyday communities,
the folks who are in the streets, who are navigating
and dealing with the things that you have dramatized on screen.
And it is wild also to know that in some ways,
(39:00):
being black in trans on screen is somewhat safer right
than being black in trans in our everyday life. And
so I think when we see the similarities and the
differences between what we see on screen and a journey
like Layleen's, it requires us to recommit ourselves not just
(39:26):
to the work of visibility per se, but also to
the work of transforming communities right and realizing that, like
the visibility conversation is great, you know, we want more visibility,
more opportunities for everyone to show up on screen in
the vastness of the identities that we have as a community,
(39:49):
and also making sure that we're not forgetting that visibility
alone does not save us. It does not protect us.
We still have so much other work to do to
ensure that the girls that we hope are looking to
these images and finding some sort of possibility that they're
(40:10):
able to pay their bills, to live, you know, to
have housing, to have the necessary health care that they require,
to have some sort of employment that they love and
want to do.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I think that's the perfect conclusion I appreciate just your
sobering candor. That's just like, look, honey, I've been doing
the work, and I've been telling y'all you know, and
yet even with all that, and even with your exhaustion
in sharing these prescriptations that people aren't actually, you know,
(40:46):
moving fast enough on, you seem hopeful, right, And I
think that that's what your work speaks to us, like
I'm gonna keep doing doing me.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I'm gonna keep doing this work and.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Y'all will catch up one day, have no choice but
to catch up, okay, right, Thank you for just giving
us more time and brilliant.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Not a problem, not to a problem anything for you.
The one and only Raquel willis. Anytime you call, I
will answer, Okay. So much love for you, Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
I have so much gratitude for tray Veal and Sydney
for their time and brilliance. These interviews gave me so
much to think about, and I hope hearing them in
greater detail offered you a new point of view or two.
Be sure to check out their books and follow them
on social media. Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives.
(41:50):
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 of a production of
iHeart Podcasts and The Outspoken Podcast Network in partnership with
(42:11):
the School of Humans. I'm your host and creator Raquel 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 Crinchich, Story editing by Aaron
(42:32):
Edwards and Julia Farlan, fact checking by Savannah Hugleo. Our
show art is by Makai Baldwin. Score composed by Wisely Murray.
Our production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers include me,
Raquel Willis, and Jay Brunson from The Outspoken Podcast Network,
(42:54):
Michael Alder, June and Noel Brown from iHeart Podcasts, Virginia Prescott,
Brandon Barr and Else Crowley from School of Humans and
The Cats Company.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
School of Humans.
Afterlives 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, and violence.
(00:27):
Take care while listening. Throughout this season of Afterlives, we've
covered a lot of ground, from pop culture to policy.
We talked to so many incredible guests as we pieced
(00:48):
together Leyleen Polanco's story. These conversations were so enriching and
expansive that we just couldn't leave.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Them on the cutting room floor.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
So we're bringing them to you. I'm Roquel Willis, and
this is Afterlives. The after Show a collection of bonus
episodes featuring unaired excerpts of interviews with some of the
brilliant folks we've heard from this season. On this episode,
(01:20):
writer Sydney Belou opens up about his journey in ballroom culture.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
I won that ball I made history as the first
trans guy to win a voking category at that huge,
huge function.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
And we dive into a deeper history of the House
of Extravaganza, the house Leyleen was a part of. We'll
discuss how queer and trans representation evolved as the Ballroom
gained traction in the mainstream.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
The way the media was portraying people living with HIV
and AIDS was so negative. People really thought that gay people,
trans people at that time were levers, that you can't
touch them, that they are diseased and disgusting and beneath
the world.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
We'll also revisit more of my conversation with cultural critic
of our times, Trey vel Anderson, and learn more about
their perspective on representation.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
If all you've ever seen of trans people on screen
is rooted in our tragedy and our trauma and our death,
it becomes a normalized thing then for you when you
hear about another trans person right being killed.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Plus, we'll talk about an early trans celebrity tent pole
TV series centering the trans community and whether they believe
visibility truly leads to progress.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Whether that's Tyler Perry as Media, whether that's Martin Lawrence
as Shane Nay, whether that's Jamie Fox's Wanda. The exact
same jokes that we see lodged at those time types
of characters played by these straight men are the exact
same quote unquote jokes that get lodged at us as
black trans women in films, on the streets in our communities,
and it is wild to know that in some ways,
(03:17):
being black in trans on screen is somewhat safer than
being black in trans in our everyday life.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
First up, Sidney Blow. We heard from Sydney in episode
one of our series. He's a TV writer, producer, and
journalist who's been in the ballroom scene for over a decade.
For the last four years, he's been in the House
of Extravaganza, the same house Leyleen belonged to. I knew
(03:52):
Sidney would be an excellent person to interview, especially because
of his encyclopedic knowledge of ballroom hiss. He's currently writing
a book titled Undeniable, A History of Voguing Ballroom and
How It Changed My life and the world. Our interview,
we've together his personal experience with stories about black queer
(04:16):
culture at large, and I knew you'd want to hear more.
So tell us a little bit more about your book,
your tome that is coming out, really like, what inspired
and informed it and what are you most excited to
share from it.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Well, this book came about almost haphazardly because my ballroom
journey actually began to Europe I was living in Berlin,
Paris and London, and I got into the ballroom scene
there and it was when I was in London doing
my masters at the London School's Economics. Back then I
was studying to be an urban planner and I was
(04:57):
also doing ballroom on the side. It was just a
big part of my life as far as my social life,
and for me, it was really the genesis of my
transition to be in a community of beautiful black and
brown people who were queer in trans But I remember
back when I was in London, I was asked to
sit on a panel to talk about Paris Is burning
(05:18):
and I was really nervous.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
At the time, I was in the house of Omni.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I wanted to make sure I answered the questions correctly,
and so I reached out to the father of my
house at the time, Kevin Omney, who was based in
New Jersey, and I just thought we'd have a thirty
minute little prep conversation, and it turned into three hours,
and he was saying a lot of history, just things
that I had never seen written down anywhere. So I thought,
(05:43):
my God, who's documenting this? And I talked to my
thesis advisor at the time, and he said, you know,
said you should go for this. So I ended up
doing an oral history project at the time where I
went to New York City for a couple of weeks
and I interviewed icons, led, pioneers, anyone who would talk
to me. And I said, take me to a part
(06:04):
of New York City you think is the most relevant
to the history of the ballroom scene, and tell me
about your history within the space and the history of
the space. So I interviewed about nine people and some
interviews with thirty minutes some or four hours, I wrote
the thesis and I thought, my gosh, there's so much
more to explore here. So really that's what started the work,
(06:24):
and it evolved over time. When I ended up actually
like pitching the book with my agent, we decided there
was a lot of power in telling my story of
transition since ballroom was very integral to that, as well
as getting into a deeper dive into this unique and
fascinating culture and history that is very much underreported in
(06:45):
a sense or sort of underwritten about, considering how much influence,
especially right now, it's having on our culture at large.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Beautiful, you were in the house of Omni and then
you shifted into the house of extravagans. Can you talk
a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I was in the house of omni when I was
in Europe, particularly because at the time, and we're talking
like I mean, I was in Europe twenty eleven to
about like twenty seventeen, this scene had grown outside of
New York City. We all known, you know, ballroom comes
from New York and it's expanded to other cities.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
The expansion around the world.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Is because of a lot of dancer choreographers who oftentimes
pass through New York and they oftentimes fall into the
culture whether they go to a ball or do a
workshop with somebody, and a lot of folks.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Want to bring it back to their home country. For me,
I was always interested in voguing.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I really really loved Paris's Burning and I love the
way those voguers just moved in the film, and I
always wanted to do that with my body and at
the time, the people who were doing that style of voguing,
which is called Old Way performance because it's the original
style of voguing.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Obviously, voguing has changed a lot over time.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
People see different styles, whether it's on TikTok or on
YouTube or what have you. And the Omnis were the
folks who were doing that, and so I used to
walk balls and throw balls. I used to DJ balls
in London and in New York, but unfortunately they were
very unsupportive of my transition, which I know may shock
some people because they're like, well, ballroom is a place
(08:17):
for trans people, how can there be transphobia? But it's
also like ballroom is also a reflection of the world,
and there's also so much as far as even within
our LGBTQ plus community, where you have performative allyship or
fake allyship, or people who are just not upfront with
(08:37):
who they are and how they're moving. And when it
was very clear that these folks who I really saw
as family did not see me as a full human being.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I had to leave.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
And so actually what happened was when I left the house,
and this is in twenty eighteen, I ended up walking
the Latex Ball that's like the biggest ball in New
York City, over five thousand people who attend, and I
walk the ball is what they call a double O seven,
which is where you're a quote unquote free agent, so
you're not in a house and it's a way of
(09:11):
kind of signaling to the community that you're on the market.
And I won that ball.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I made history.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I was the first trans guy to win a voging
category at that huge, huge function, and all of a sudden,
it was like college where I got like ten different
offers from houses and everybody wanted me, and you know,
it's that moment where you're hot. And Gazelle, my mother,
who's the mother of the House of Extravaganza, she was
on that panel that night, and for me, it was
(09:38):
a very, very big moment because I remember in the
final battle, I just had this feeling. I was like,
you know what, I don't think these people know that
I'm trans, because there's very few trans men or trans
masculine people who vogue. I was like, you know, I
think they need to know. And so I made sure
to take off my shirt because I wanted the panel
(09:59):
to see my skar and I wanted them to see that, look,
I'm not like everybody else who's here. It's taken me
even more to get to the stage. And that definitely
made a moment. And I remember Gazelle said she and
so many of the other panel like judges, they had
no idea, and she was so impressed with my performance
and how I carried myself and so on.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Not only that, but one of the great things.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
About the House of Extravaganza is that it is a
very trans friendly house. There's so many trans women in
our house and trans women of all shape, sizes, backgrounds,
which is very nice. So it's just like coming from
a place that was really transphobic to then be in
a place that's so trans friendly. It was the healing
that I needed to have, especially within the ballroom. And
(10:45):
I think having a trans mother, especially when like Gizelle,
who's very caring and very wise, was like the bomb
that I needed for my life at that point.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The bomb.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
I love that. Oh my gosh, it's such a rich story,
and I mean, it's the wild that you made history,
not exactly fresh out of the gate in your ballroom life,
but very early on. Let's zero in on the House
of Extravagants. Can you talk a little bit more about
that origin story of that particular house.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
So the House of Extravaganza was founded in nineteen eighty two,
and the lore goes that there were a group of
people who used to hang out at the Path Subway
station on Christopher Street, And specifically I mentioned that location
because back then the pier was very different from what
it is today. But back then it was kind of
(11:41):
like the LGBTQ plus hangout spot, or probably what they
would have called it back then, you know, just a
gay hangout. The Path Subway station is significant because that's
where a lot of Puerto Rican young LGBTQ plus people
would like come into the city because there were a
lot of folks who were living in New Jersey and
so that's how they would come to hang out at
(12:03):
the pier. By the time the eighties roll around, the
scene is kind of already established with houses. So you
would have the House of Dupre, the House of Pandarvis,
or the House of Labasia as Crystal Lebasia was the
first mother of the scene, the first house to come
into formation in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Those were the hot houses.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
So if you're hanging out on the pier, everybody would
be like, oh, what house, So you went it'd be like, oh,
I'm in the House of Pandarvis.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Oh that's a fab house, right.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
So this group of LATINX people were kind of keeking
about that with each other and be like, oh, what
house you went, and be like, oh, I'm in the
House of Magnafique.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Ooh, Magnafique, I'm Extravaganza.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And so it's really started as a key key and
then it actually turned into a real house. And the
thing was, in those early days, ballroom was heavily concentrated Harlem.
It was very much an African American event, and it
was held late at night. But in those early days
it was actually very hard for the House of Extravaganza
because there was a kind of, let's say, a sort
(13:04):
of protective sense, you know, that people had over the scene.
They felt very threatened by this new group of Latinos
who want to join the scene. Some of it was
because for Latinos there's a wide range of backgrounds. You know,
some people are lighter than others, some people are darker
(13:25):
than others. Some people really saw that as a threat
In a competition that's based off of beauty and fashion, right,
it's like, well, how are we going to judge if
somebody's more beautiful? If you know, the outside world has
a very white Western standard of beauty. So actually, in
those early days it was very hard for the House
of Extravaganza to prove themselves in the scene, and there
(13:46):
are these stories about how they would just chop the
girls and it wasn't even about whether or not you
have the merit or the talent.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
It was like, oh, you're too light, not for you.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
And this became a real issue and the early days
this kind of like over corrective way of judging beauty standards.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But one of the stories that kind of.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Emerged was how Angie Extravaganza, the mother at that time,
She's like, you're not gonna play my children. You're not
gonna play my face like this, and I'm gonna let
you know it. And that, to me is one of
the beautiful powers of ballroom because it's not really always
about the trophies or winning. It's also about how you
play the game, which is you show up and you
(14:28):
show out. So really the house had to really show up,
show out and earn the respect of the ball community.
And although Extravaganza, I mean, yes, it was a heavily
Latin house, but it was also very much like kids
living on the pier, people who were homeless, because there
(14:49):
was a very big class divide at that point. Of
those three big houses which were seen as the uptown
houses versus the downtown children. Again, they had to really
really keep coming and keep turning it in order for
people to finally accept them. And then once they did,
it was, you know, the rest was history.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Let's jump in here then, because you know, we have
to ask you about the relationship between ballroom and of
course pop culture. So can you give us a little
bit of tea, a little bit of your thoughts on
how ballroom culture has been represented in pop culture. Can
(15:32):
you talk about that relationship and the tensions the benefits
of it.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I feel like a lot of my thoughts about a
lot of these different things have truly evolved over time.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
And I say that because I used to be part
of the.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
Little online media mob where I was like, oh no,
everyone stole the culture. But actually it was through my
oral history interviews that I received a more nuanced picture. So,
for example, but Paris is burning, I think the times
where I've talked to the community, I think for a
lot of older people, especially those who were in the film,
they kind of see it as a postcard of a
(16:07):
time in their lives of just like oh yeah, like
those were people I knew, especially since so many people
have unfortunately passed away of AIDS related causes. And for
some people there's a real sense of gratitude that somebody
captured this moment. But then you know, there's also some
folks who see that very differently. And Ballroom in the mainstream,
you see so much influence. I think at the time
(16:29):
we talked about the eighties and nineties, I think Ballroom
was obviously influencing with the song Vogue. I mean, nobody
ever thought a star of that size would take interest
or elevate the community in the way that she did.
And I will say, to Madonna's credit, one hundred percent,
she gave us an opportunity. We were credited as dancer choreographers.
We did our thing in so many ways. That song,
(16:51):
that movement, that everything elevated the scene in so many
ways and also really touched people because you have to
remember at that time, when AIDS was just taking so
many lives, and the way the media was portraying people
living with HIV and AIDS was so negative. People really
thought that gay people, trans people at that time were lepers,
(17:14):
that you can't touch them, that they are diseased and
disgusting and beneath the world. So to have a star
of that magnitude, for her to be loving up on
gay people like that so publicly, especially black and brown
people like that was a revolution. And you cannot undermine that,
(17:35):
and you cannot say that that was insignificant, because it
was extremely significant. And then Bartom kind of goes quote
unquote underground a little bit in the nineties, which is
really related to I would say, the AIDS crisis. Just
so many people passed away in a very short period
of time. There was the way that New York City
was changing at this time, just Giuliani shutting everything down
(17:56):
and nightlife really really going underground in New York and a.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Very particular way.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
But we see the culture kind of re emerge, I
would say in the two thousands, with especially with Vogue
Evolution in two thousand and nine, which was the dance
group that Deshaun and Laomi were part of who I
worked with on legendary years later they were on America's
Best Dance Crew, which really was like a very big
mainstream moment for ballroom in an unexpected way for some
(18:23):
folks because the scene had evolved by this point, the
style of dance voguing had evolved as well. And from there,
you know, we got a series of documentaries like Kiki
years later, and obviously everything that's come since, like Pose
and Legendary.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
A lot of that has to do with we are over.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
A generation later from the peak of the AIDS crisis.
I have said this, and I will say this again.
We only get one Billy Porter. We could have had
like fifty Billy Porters if our elders were allowed to live.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
This really weren't true for me. The HIV AIDS crisis
loomed over many a young queer millennial kid. It's difficult
to imagine how different, how much richer our community might
be if we hadn't lost so many potential mentors and
possibility models. But our people know resistance to our core
(19:23):
when we come back.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I think it all goes back in a lot of
ways to Christine Jorgensen right, who is credited with being
the first trans celebrity.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
If you will, writer travel Anderson and I talk about television,
film and the landscape of queer and trans representation and media.
Stay with us, Welcome back. Travell Anderson is someone whose
(20:06):
perspective I've always admired. They're an award winning journalist, podcast host,
and self proclaimed author rest focused on society and culture.
Years of work culminated so beautifully in their book We
See each Other, a Black trans Journey through TV and film.
(20:30):
I think the perfect place to start off is you
just telling us when did you first see yourself represented
on screen?
Speaker 4 (20:41):
You know, this is always an interesting question for me,
because as life has taken me on the various journeys
that it's taken me on, I've seen various slices of
myself right on screen, not necessarily the fullness of myself.
But I always give credit to three possibility models for myself,
(21:01):
the first being the character of Noah on Noah's Arc
and Patrick Ian Polke's TV show from Back in the
Day starring Darryl Stevens. And then I also give credit
to Miss Jay Alexander and Andre Leon Tally who came
into my life on the show America's Next Top Model.
But I always say that like those people and those
(21:21):
characters showed me possibilities right of how I could move
through the world, but not necessarily myself. I think now
when I think about non binary representation, specifically the character
of Uncle Clifford on Pea Valley comes closest to an
experience that I think represents mine and others like mine,
(21:44):
of being you know, black non binary people in southern
spaces beautiful.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
So I mean you talk about those initial figures and
of course some of the ones that have merged throughout
your lifetime in your book The Seminal Tome. Can you
talk a little bit more about this line that you
use in the intro to your book where you say,
(22:13):
I don't remember exactly when I was taught to hate myself.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I think that we all grow up in a world
now days where we are not encouraged to be ourselves.
There's so many restrictions that get placed on us, whether
by our family or by society at large. And so
when I say I don't remember when I was taught
(22:41):
to hate myself, it's ultimately a realization that so much
about my life has been trying to define myself for
myself in spite of everyone else telling me something different,
and how in learning what I was taught, how that
(23:03):
resulted in me not liking myself a lot and wanting
to kind of do the work to reconcile that, to
change that, to be more in love with who I
am and what I give to the world, and thinking
a lot about, particularly with the book, how not just
kind of my family background contributed to that, but also
(23:26):
how media largely contributed to that in ways small and
in ways super super large on a grand level.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
So that makes a lot of sense, And I think
you're already NodD into how these portrayals that have missed
the mark kind of act as wedges between us and
the folks that we really want to understand us. So
then can we also shift, I guess, to the flip
side of that question of you talk about owning your
(23:59):
own black stripe power, which I'm obsessed with our people
and how we come into that. Can you talk about
why it's important for TV and film to represent us
accurately in this collective journey towards liberation.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
So it's important that film and TV represent us as
black trans people accurately because lives are on the line.
I think oftentimes people think of film and television and arts,
you know, more broadly, as like superfluous and not meaning much.
(24:36):
But when we live in a world in which the
majority of people still feel like they've never met a
trans person, and so Therefore all of the information they're getting,
they believe about trans experiences, is from what they see
on TV or in movies. I think that requires us
to think differently, right about the images that we see
(24:58):
on screen, especially of trans folks. And I often say
it's not right that that folks don't know trans people.
They actually do know trans people, but it's that those
trans people don't feel necessarily comfortable enough or safe enough
in your immediate community right to tell you their truth.
And so as it means of survival, right, we sometimes
(25:18):
don't disclose that information. And when we're talking about media representations,
if all you've ever seen of trans people on screen
is rooted in our tragedy and our trauma and our death,
it becomes a normalized thing. Then for you, when you
(25:39):
hear about another trans person right being killed, you don't
even register it because you've spent your entire life seeing
trans people be killed on TV and in movies, right.
And so the kind of imperative around trying to diverse
(26:01):
and builds out what we see on screen as it
relates to the images of trans folks is about just
showing people other ways that we as trans people exist.
I think in hopes right of them then taking whatever
that is that they learn from that TV show or
(26:21):
from that movie, and then taking it into their real
lived communities and beginning to change the material realities for
trans folks in everyday life.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So now we're gonna get, I guess, maybe into more
of the kind of stickier parts of it, because we
have this whole kind of smorgasboard of tropes, and you
speak so deftely about them, and we see each other.
You talk a lot about these kind of different forks
(26:54):
in the road that we see in terms of the
tropes that formed around, for instance, how white trans people
and particularly white trans women were depicted in medium maybe
still are, and how, for instance, black and trans folks
of color are depicted. Can you talk a little bit
(27:15):
about that kind of fork in the road when it
comes to these tropes.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
I think it all goes back in a lot of
ways to Christine Jorgensen, right, who is credited with being
the first trans celebrity, if you will. I found it
interesting that when I was going back into the archive
trying to find various proof right of black trans people
(27:40):
in culture before this moment, so many of those articles
refer to those black trans people as black Christine Jorgensen's,
which makes me think about the ways in which those
black trans people, even as they were navigating the various
things that they were navigating, weren't afforded an identity like
(28:03):
all their own. They were often just boiled down and
essentialized into being black versions of this white trans woman.
And I think that that's an interesting you know fork
in the road, as you mentioned, because I think from
there we can then begin to see a lot of
(28:24):
the differences in representation for the community as stratified on
racial lines, because Christine Jorgensen was able to affect some
sort of you know, white cis womanhood right that allowed
her to be the first trans celebrity in ways that
black trans women can never because of all the isms
(28:47):
and phobias that we are navigating and working through as
a society. So I often think about Christine Jorgensen in
that particular moment. But then I think when we start
to get to on screen image is you know, I
talk a lot, specifically in a black context in this
conversation about the black funny men who have become famous
(29:11):
off of these drag characters that they have done, whether
that's Tyler Perry as Medea, whether that's Martin Lawrence as Shanna,
whether that's Jamie Fox's Wanza. You know, I can keep
going down a very long line of lists there, and
how in my experience, the exact same jokes that we
see lodged at those types of characters played by these
(29:33):
straight men are the exact same quote unquote jokes that
get lodged at us as black trans women in films
on the streets in our communities. Right, it's always focused
on our bodies, it's always focused on our hands. All
of these things that they believe prove that we are
not who we are. And I think from there that
requires us as a community, as black folks to think
(29:56):
differently about that which we find funny and that how
you know those things that may not specifically be images
of trans folks on screen, how they also contribute to
the very real world experiences that trans women and films
are experiencing in our everyday lives.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Yeah, we could keep going and list on wherever. And
now it's like whole social media influencers who that's their.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
Absolutely they count exactly in that criticism as well.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
We'll continue the conversation with Treval in just a minute.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Visibility is great, but what do you do next? What
happens after the show is made.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
We're back with Afterlives, so we're gonna swim into talking
about now some of these kind of tent pole shows
that you speak about and we see each other. And
of course Pose is like this landmark television show within
(31:15):
our community's history. But the other thing too is that
for Leyleen there are so many connections to her actual
life because she was in ballroom community, had chosen family,
was connected to India, and India has stated that they
looked up to.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Leyleen as this kind of phenomenal figure.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
And then of course the show was really hitting its
stride around the time that Leyleen died.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
So can you talk.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
About just if our audience is unfamiliar, can you just
talk about.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
What Pose is?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And maybe the first time you even heard about the show.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
The first I heard of Pose, I want to say,
was this article in Variety just announcing the idea that
Ryan Murphy was going to be doing this show about
the ballroom scene in like the late eighties and nineties.
I think a lot of people compared it to like
a scripted version of Paris Is Burning. If you saw
(32:21):
Paris's burning, and we celebrated it and talked about it
because you know, Janet was hired and became like the
first black trans woman writer on a show. Our Lady
Jay was in the writer's room. They had made history
for the most black and brown trans identified series regulars
in a show. All of these things that were supposed
(32:44):
to like just automatically lift up on it. I think
Poe's was and is historic, and it's important to note that.
And it was a beautiful rendering I think of the community,
but also not without its faults, perhaps the bits of
story that were left out or not the most accurately
(33:05):
rendered there. But it is one of those shows that
you know, we can point to today and say, if
you want to know what well written characters that are
trans might look like, you can go to Pose before Posed,
before Orange is the New Black, Before Transparent. It was
(33:26):
kind of hard to say that, right and then specifically
with Pose, you had more than one trans person as
part of the narrative. Oftentimes we only get one, as
if we don't have family inference, but Pose kind of
challenged that in some important ways.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes, I mean this exchange right now is completely hypothetical
a trans and non binary exchange between a trans a
di binary person, and you talk about the experience of
kind of absorbing you know, Paris is Burning for the
(34:04):
first time, and one thing that kind of stuck with
me was, you know, the abrupt kind of way that
we hear about Venus Extravaganza's murder in Paris Is Burning,
and then it seems like, of course they are parallels
to how murder in the community is approached in Pose.
(34:31):
Of course, with Angelic Caross's character Candy, can you talk
about if there are some threads or there seems to
be an evolution and how we talk about the murders
of trans women in particular between that discussion in Paris
Is Burning and Pose.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
You know, it's interesting because I think that when when
it came to that character in Pose, and I should
say more broadly, when it came to the idea of
depicting black trans death on Pose, in so much of
the press at the time, they spoke about how because
(35:16):
of our lived realities, that it was like inevitable that
somebody had to die, and it's and I get it
because the reality is that black trans people, trans people
are and have been going through, you know, an assault,
and life is not always safe for us. But the
(35:39):
fact that it was expected, like they just knew that
they had to work that into the storyline, to me,
says a lot about the possibilities that we think about
when it comes to narratives of trans people on screen.
Because there's a world where nobody had to die, I
just want to acknowledge that, and that also the dark
skinned girl did have to die. I want to also
(36:02):
note that. But you're right, in Paris is burning, it
does feel a little abrupt, It does feel like a
lack of care, It does feel like a lack of
consideration for segments of the audience who would be impacted
by that. I will say that I think POS attempted
(36:23):
to be more caring and more compassionate and how they
worked through that story, but the similarities are still there,
and I think that is something that we as a
culture and a community and a creative body right have
to challenge ourselves, which is to not accept black trans
(36:45):
death as inevitable and as expected, so that when we
are creating newer narratives right that are said to explore
our experiences as trans and non binary people, we can
give ourselves permission to just see something different and expect
something different.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Absolutely, Okay, why has got to be inevitable that part?
So I want to square I guess kind of directly,
how do you make sense of our community having these
heightened visibility moments with like Orange just the New Black
(37:28):
and Poles and so much more, and.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
The experiences of.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Someone like a Laylen's not having protection within prison or
not even really being protected from the prison industrial complex.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
You know, it is it is wild to live the
lives that we live, and to think about how many
images of trans people that we have seen on screen,
in particular since Laverne Cox on Orange is the New
Black and all the progress right that we have seen,
(38:11):
and then to also square that with you know, the
reality of folks who are not on screen, the reality
of folks who are in our real communities with us,
and noting the disparity between the two. I think that's
why we often hear people talk about, you know, visibility
(38:33):
is great, but what do you do next? What happens
after the show is made? How are you as an
entity giving back to the people in our everyday communities,
the folks who are in the streets, who are navigating
and dealing with the things that you have dramatized on screen.
And it is wild also to know that in some ways,
(39:00):
being black in trans on screen is somewhat safer right
than being black in trans in our everyday life. And
so I think when we see the similarities and the
differences between what we see on screen and a journey
like Layleen's, it requires us to recommit ourselves not just
(39:26):
to the work of visibility per se, but also to
the work of transforming communities right and realizing that, like
the visibility conversation is great, you know, we want more visibility,
more opportunities for everyone to show up on screen in
the vastness of the identities that we have as a community,
(39:49):
and also making sure that we're not forgetting that visibility
alone does not save us. It does not protect us.
We still have so much other work to do to
ensure that the girls that we hope are looking to
these images and finding some sort of possibility that they're
(40:10):
able to pay their bills, to live, you know, to
have housing, to have the necessary health care that they require,
to have some sort of employment that they love and
want to do.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
I think that's the perfect conclusion I appreciate just your
sobering candor. That's just like, look, honey, I've been doing
the work, and I've been telling y'all you know, and
yet even with all that, and even with your exhaustion
in sharing these prescriptations that people aren't actually, you know,
(40:46):
moving fast enough on, you seem hopeful, right, And I
think that that's what your work speaks to us, like
I'm gonna keep doing doing me.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
I'm gonna keep doing this work and.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
Y'all will catch up one day, have no choice but
to catch up, okay, right, Thank you for just giving
us more time and brilliant.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Not a problem, not to a problem anything for you.
The one and only Raquel willis. Anytime you call, I
will answer, Okay. So much love for you, Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
I have so much gratitude for tray Veal and Sydney
for their time and brilliance. These interviews gave me so
much to think about, and I hope hearing them in
greater detail offered you a new point of view or two.
Be sure to check out their books and follow them
on social media. Thank you so much for listening to Afterlives.
(41:50):
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 of a production of
iHeart Podcasts and The Outspoken Podcast Network in partnership with
(42:11):
the School of Humans. I'm your host and creator Raquel 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 Crinchich, Story editing by Aaron
(42:32):
Edwards and Julia Farlan, fact checking by Savannah Hugleo. Our
show art is by Makai Baldwin. Score composed by Wisely Murray.
Our production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers include me,
Raquel Willis, and Jay Brunson from The Outspoken Podcast Network,
(42:54):
Michael Alder, June and Noel Brown from iHeart Podcasts, Virginia Prescott,
Brandon Barr and Else Crowley from School of Humans and
The Cats Company.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
School of Humans.
Host
Raquel Willis
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.