July 21, 2022 • 50 mins
Pose actor Indya Moore is achieving their goals in spite of living through a traumatizing childhood. Brought up as a Jehovah's Witness, their realization that they had been assigned the wrong gender at birth caused them to leave home and enter the foster care system. Their struggle not only to transition, but to find the basic comfort, love, and security human beings need to survive, left them beaten and broken. But triumph they did, ultimately being cast in Pose, the breakout TV drama about trans women that uncannily mirrors their life. Now a successful model and actor, they share the intimacies of their experiences with host Amanda de Cadenet, along with their vision of changing everything they can for those who follow in their path.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My guest today is a true pioneer. She's an actress,
a model, and perhaps most importantly, an advocate for many
marginalized communities. The person I'm talking about is India More.
India was one of the stars of the f X
TV series Pose, a groundbreaking show about New York City's
legendary drag ball scene in the nineties. India's exceptional career
(00:24):
was not always a given. Her community growing up in
the Bronx was very hostile to her trans identity, and
as such, India has had to overcome countless hardships to
get where she is today. A warning to you, dear
listeners that India and I are discussing many topics in
this interview that can be distressing to hear, including physical violence,
(00:45):
sex trafficking, and sexual assault. I want to just go
over you're kind of some of your amazing accomplishments because
you are You've got quite a lot of first here.
You're the first trans person to be on the cover
of L magazine. You're the first person first trance person
(01:05):
to be signed by William Morris ENDEAVA, which, for those
of you don't know, is like one of the biggest
acting agencies in the world. In two thousand and nineteen,
you will listed as one of Time magazines a hundred
most Influential people in the world. You're a brand ambassador
for some major fashion labels, and soon you're going to
be in a in a huge, giant budget comic book movie.
(01:28):
That's just some of the things you're smiling at me.
How does that feel to hear some of your accomplishments. Um,
it's a little nerve wracking, you know, to be centered
in this way, And um, I think, uh, you know,
it's it's it's always an honor to break through, but
being being the first, you know, I for for things,
(01:53):
it's it's amazing and it's exciting. It also, you know,
like nerve wracking, be as I think about, like I
just I just you know, I don't know, like I
impositive syndrome a little. Yeah. Yeah, there is a pressure
(02:14):
when it is a phenomenally heavy lift to create a
path where there isn't one before you. So first of
all you have to do this is that labor on
top of just the labor of doing the actual job
or doing the thing right. And then when you are
the first or one of the first, then that is
that's a huge responsibility, and then people are looking to
(02:37):
you always for like, well, what's the next first thing
you're gonna do, And You're like, you know, I don't,
I don't know. I'm just kind of trying to process
this this because I've already just done here, you know
what I mean. Also like trying to enjoy life and
find um, you know, my own meaning in life and
and and not just be somebody who um you know,
(02:59):
contributes to the meaning of life for every other for
other people, but like also acknowledging myself as like a
young person in the world trying to figure it out too.
So you grew up in the Bronx and you raised
in a family that was active Jehovah's witness. Yeah, yeah,
so you knew that your identity was going to be
(03:21):
different from what your family expected from a very young age.
And I'm curious how you navigated your life back then.
Did you have one life that was for you and
one that you presented to your family or how did
you navigate that time? It's really young. I was a
young person, um, still coming into understanding what life is.
(03:45):
And the more that I started to understand um myself,
I started to feel anxiety. The more that I came
into understanding that my feelings were possibly going to lead
(04:05):
to my spiritual demise. That was like, I think the
earliest kind of fear and terror that I felt growing up.
It was like this anticipation that I was cut off
from accessing God, going to be destroyed and armageddon, you know,
because of my feelings, because I had because I was
(04:28):
a signed mail at birth, and I had feelings for
for for what, Like I thought boys were cute. I mean,
I thought humans were hute. You know. I just like
was coming into like seeing like like understanding what attraction
is as a human being, but also becoming fearful that,
you know, the way that I was growing up and
(04:51):
the way that my sexuality had started to develop, that
I was gravitating more in my interests towards boys and
and going to the kingdom hall or church. You know,
you're taught that that you know, queer people won't inherit
the earth, you know, won't inherit the paradise. Growing up
(05:13):
being being told that or having that fee and understanding
was really nerve wracking and scary and traumatic. It wasn't
something that I understood, I really it was it was.
It was something that I grew up, like, I started
to experience anxiety very very young, and just really intense anxiety,
(05:39):
like really like just really intense anxiety. And then that
anxiety led me to you know, to feel like really
deep shame um and that shame, you know, like the
only like the like the shame brought me to want
to hide, you know, myself. But oh makes sense not
(06:02):
to live, not to live authentically right, Like I couldn't
be visibly attracted to boys, you know, I couldn't actually
talk about my feelings because I learned very early that
my feelings were wrong. It was just difficult, Like I
learned very very young. I learned at a very young
age to lie to survive, and that you were not okay.
(06:25):
Fundamentally who you were was not okay, right, and that
who I was right, it's not it's not okay, it's
it's you know, like that there's something wrong with me,
and that I that I wasn't normal. It was very
fearsome growing up. For sure. You eventually left home when
(06:46):
you were fourteen years old. Is I'm assuming that a
large part of why you left home at that age
was just so that you could come out from under
that type of living, with that type of perspective with
that would that be fair to say, yeah, I mean,
there wasn't really a safe space for me. Besides, my
(07:08):
my sister was the only person in my life at
the time who challenge the way that we were raised
to think and believe, not just by the kingdom all
but at home. I think anyone growing up in the
timeline of patriarchy, you know, for sure, is growing is
(07:34):
growing up in a home where like people like boys
are taught to be men, you know, and like aggressive
ways like you know, but yeah, you know, like I
think I was also of a victim of the ways
in which boys are traumatized into performing masculinity. Um, yes,
(07:59):
very tryunderstand that, I think. But I think that this
is like, this is like patriarchy is like really harmful
to everyone, you know, like and like, including the men,
including the men, including yeah, including including like including people
who are assigned male at birth, whether or not you
(08:19):
whether or not you are a man or a boy,
you know, like it's it's really really toxic, but especially
if you aren't a man or a boy. Absolutely, masculinity
is so often traumatized. People are are traumatized into performing
masculinity often um and you know, like you're added to
(08:44):
that is, you know, deemed to be feminine or less
or less than masculine. You know, you're sort of like
um shamed into into changing your behavior or or you're
shamed into adopting the behavior the behaviors of what what
it means to be a man, like you know, you
like getting getting beaten and for some people, like you know,
(09:05):
some some some people make some young young boys, some
young trans or queer people who are assigned my life
with may get beaten because they are because they're they're
showing emotion, because they're they're crying because their their bodies
you know, respond to pain or um hurt um visibly.
And then you're like beaten to be traumatized into not
(09:27):
expressing your feelings, and like you know, then it creates
this toxic sort of cycle where you grow up ashamed
of your feelings and then you sort of project that
shame outward. If you aren't someone who's just for for
people in general that this happens to, you know, but
especially if you're not queer trans you know, like I
(09:50):
experienced that, but I also experienced like the shame that
my brother felt for an emotional being, and like, you know,
him seeing me and my emotions and seeing me and
my expressions, he projected the shame that he felt about
his own limitations and how much of his humanity he
(10:12):
can access or or be visible and on me. It's
it's a really toxic cycle. It causes people to be
very sad, and yeah, very much. So I want to
go back to when you were fourteen and you left
home and you were homeless for a while, and then
you were also in the foster system. Because that experience,
(10:37):
I was in juvenile detention. I was in Juvie when
I was fifteen, So I was maybe a year older
than you, but still I was fifteen and going from
like not having anywhere to live and also living on
the street, and then I spent a year in juviy.
That period of time shaped me in a way that
(10:59):
was very sid efficult obviously, you know. And so I
wonder for you what it was like being in the
foster system at such a young age and how that
shape that sort of shaped you. I just want to say,
I'm really sorry that you have to experience that at
such young age. Um, I feel you now, like I've
(11:21):
grown up and in the position that you're in. A
lot of us growing under those circumstances are are challenged
in in in developing the discipline required to survive in
this world. I feel it's important to talk about and
I talk about it because I am grown up in
this world now and I do have a life that
(11:42):
I've managed to build through a lot of struggle and
recovery and a lot of help and a lot of
failing and a lot of pain. And I do talk
about it because I want other people who may be
in similar circumstances to know that it is possible to
not only vive, but to have periods of time where
you can thrive even though your early childhood looked like
(12:07):
maybe min did, or yours did, or so many of
us do. So I took about it for that reason.
I'm starting to learn to talk about it for that
reason as well. I think when I first started talking
about it, I feel like I was asking for help
more than anything. Um, I feel like I was asking
for help, and I feel like I was talking about
(12:28):
it because it was something that happened to me that
I knew was it supposed to happen to me, and
I felt like nobody really knew, nobody understood, and a
lot of people won't understand. And I think, I think
because you're in a public in a public situation now
where what you say will go on record forever, everything
(12:49):
that is said has to be really considered because forever
people will bring this up in your questions now, like
people bring up in my questions when I get interviewed,
And you have to kind of have enough eased with
it yourself to be ready to talk about it from
a place of not being in the panic and the
chaos of it, and that takes time. So you know
(13:10):
what you said when you firstarted talking about it, maybe
it wasn't fully processed for you. You were still like
this thing happened to me. I mean it wasn't at all,
you know. I mean, like people were asking me about
my life and who I was, and I'm like, this
is my life. It's happening today, you know, like this
is all I really have to talk about um, And
(13:32):
you know, like it was. It's just really difficult to
like be somebody who comes up from these experiences and
to have only that to talk about when when people
ask you about who you are and what your identity is.
Like you go straight to all of the worst things
that ever happened to you, but like without really processing
that that that there were really terrible things. It's just
(13:53):
like this is my life, this is UM. You know
what I made of you know, these experiences when I
went into when I went into UM, when I went
into foster care s fourteen, UM, I UM was really
hopeful that I would have the freedom to be able
to express myself and um the safety to do it
(14:19):
as well. I was categorically defiant at home because me
being myself and expressing myself and the and the only
ways that were true to me, We're constantly being identified
as bad behavior and disobedience. Like I couldn't like bring
(14:42):
a rainbow belt that was given to me as a
gift to my house, and like these things were frequently
used against me by my brother or like you know, UM,
my father, you know, really wanted to raise a strong
like wanted to raise strong boys and when it to
raise a strong family and UM a normal family and
(15:02):
one of us. My mom also like wanted us to
be UM healthy and strong and normal and have great
opportunities and and to be focused in school. And and
I was so I was so explosively curious like about life,
and especially because I was so locked up than the
(15:22):
house so much like it seems like a beautiful quality
to have though, to be so curious about life, like think,
you know, like you like hope that we're what what
a blessing to be curious? So much of the time
people aren't curious, and it doesn't feel like parents like
forget that, you know, like parents when you know, when
(15:45):
when people become adults and they have their own lives
and you know, they were raised to to think and
do um a particular way, they kind of forget that.
They they forget the parts of their childhood where their
curiosity wasn't honored. They forget the parts of their childhood
where they were you know, misled to believe that their
(16:09):
interests didn't matter, you know, or like you know that
they maybe those parents weren't protected, maybe those parents were
abused themselves and forgot what it was to be a
child at all. And then very true, you have children,
it's like, you know, they're curious and they're trying to
learn and trying to figure out their existence, like oh
my god, like I'm on this planet, like, oh my god,
(16:31):
it's a planet. Oh my god, what's the planet? Like,
oh my god, I'm in a city. Oh my god,
I'm in the Bronx. Oh my god. There's more than this.
Oh my god, there's more than me. Oh my gosh.
You know, Um, there's fashion, there's clothes, there's rainbows, there's
there's colors, and and it's like you just want to
have it all. You just want to get And then
like it's like, but this is for boys and this
(16:53):
is for girls, and they're like wait huh. You're like
hold on and wait, hold on, And then it's confusing.
It goes act to like the ways that um when
your kid is like asking you questions and you're like,
why are you asking so many questions? Like, you know,
like I love my dad so much, and I also
struggled with that with him, you know, like he couldn't
(17:17):
he didn't have time to answer a lot of my
questions or to create space for um, for me, to
for me to to learn about the things that I
wanted to learn about and like express myself with you know,
like there was just so there were so many rules
about the kind of human that you had to be
and I couldn't even question those rules, you know, So
(17:38):
going into foster care for me was an opportunity to
UM to not have to follow those rules for me
to be was it under was it for me to understand?
You know what what? You know? What was what for me?
I think there there is a part a way that
(17:59):
it was for being. But I think like I didn't
have a filter. I didn't have the protection of my
parents anymore and the wisdom that they have, you know,
and surviving and and staying safe and staying alive, you know, UM,
and I met different people, you know, who had different
(18:23):
agendas and and I ended up actually being sex traffics
when I was younger, when I was a teenager, And
it was really easy for me to be sex trafficked
and to be a sex worker as a teenager because
people didn't consider me a child, because I was queer,
because I was trans, And like, I'm sorry that that
(18:43):
happened to you, thank you. I'm really sorry that that
happened to you. Thank you. And you know, I wasn't
I didn't really understand how I was being harmed, you know,
like in that experience until much later, you know, like
I just thought, oh, this is what okay, Like I
was just learning and really vulnerable and not knowing you know,
(19:06):
other like anything else. It was just like oh yeah,
this is the way that I'm going to survive. And
they told me that if I want to be a woman,
this is what I have to do to make money,
you know, so that I can have so I can
like raise money to get rests. And like in this
convoluted way that you know, the two men who were
sex trafficking me thought that my you know, thought what
(19:29):
it means to be a woman or what my identity
was about, and so like you know, it was it
was also like I started to conce I started to
end up in conflict with them about what it means
to be a woman, and and like you know, I
didn't actually want certain things that they thought that I
needed to have. And um, you know, like they assigned
you know, themselves in my life as like my gay parents,
(19:53):
like my gay father. It was like ball like ballroom
like sort of queer family. And they were putting me
as a child through sex work. And guess what you
were trying to survive, you know, that's the thing is
like you were trying to survive literally that was what
was going on. But I think like by this at
(20:15):
this point, I couldn't actually appreciate the home environment that
I had access to. Did you appreciate it more after
your period period of time of not being in the home,
of being in foster CAA, Well, I think yes, when
when I was transitioned out of foster homes and into
(20:36):
the group homes, I started to have a greater appreciation
to being in a home, and you know, more than ever,
I started to grieve my family because I was like,
you know, I felt like I was going to have
a better experience and it was actually terrible. And I tried,
like I imagined all the time, like what it would
be like to have affirming parents, and my sister was
(20:58):
like my angel, my guardian angel, and my my my parents,
you know, like there were other things happening in my
family where they were afraid of they were afraid, Like
there was so much fear around me. Um having access
to two people, other people who affirmed my identity because
they thought that I was going through a phase and
(21:18):
if people affirmed my gender identity then it would make
who I am a reality. Yes it was threatening to them,
Yes it was threatening. Um, I was just grieving, you know,
being home because I imagined often what it would be
like to just have my family and to be accepted
and loved and to be able to be myself in
(21:40):
an environment that was affirming, you know, in an environment
that was protective. And you know, I I there were
there were other queer there were other trans people that
I got to grow up with that I got to
explore arts with. Yeah, who was the people who supported
you at that time? There was this one girl named
Ashley that I grew up. She was just so like funny,
(22:05):
she was just like somebody that I had, Like, I
had the most explosive experiences in humor with like. And
she was also a brilliant photographer and so like she
shot me a lot like in photos. That how you
got into modeling. So like that was my it's been
it's been mistranslated. When I was talking about this experience
(22:27):
and interviews, they they miss yeah, they miss um. They
misinterpreted this experience because I've spoken about it before as
my my beginning of modeling. But I was never a
model when I was a teenager. I didn't start modeling
until I was like nineteen or maybe twenty. Uh like
like twenty years old, really, how did you start modeling?
(22:50):
I was taking photos with Ashley, but I was taking
photos of Ashley we we um to really really fun photos.
Was really inspiring and it made you believe in myself
to be able to be a But um, I was
still in the stick of sex work and I was
starting to have really deep, serious disagreements with the people
(23:10):
who were I guess pimping me or like, um were
my gay fathers at the time, and they they they
m like one day, like I remember, they were like,
you know, you need to go to the doctor and
start getting your hormones in there because if something happens
to you, because the street, we don't want to be responsible.
(23:33):
And then I said, well, I'm not old enough, and
then they're like, well you need to go try. And
so I was seventeen at the time. I went and
I tried to get hormones through medical supervision instead of
just off the street. I was denied because I wasn't
an adult yet. I went back to the home with
those those two men and then I explained to them
(23:54):
what happened, and they were like that I was being
lazy and I was making excuses and I said no,
I wasn't and and he told me to shut the
f up. And I was like, don't talk to me
like that, you know, And like I was always really
firm about the level of respect that I felt like
I deserved with people, ever since I was a child.
That was very very firm about that. And um, so
(24:14):
when he told me to shut the f up, um,
I pushed him out of my face because he was spitting,
and he and his boyfriend jumped me and then that's
how I got this scar up the side of my
my lip. They had a ring on and they hit
me on my face and it was like really really traumatic,
(24:35):
like after like being beaten, and like, I had a
really incredible friend named Natalie who was also trans woman,
who took care of me and um with her mom,
and I'm so grateful to them to this day. And um,
I ended up staying with um My, my former like
one of like my first boyfriend. He rescued me out
(24:58):
of that situation, essentially, he and his mom and so
you know, they took me under their wing and I
got to stay with them and they tried to get
me to let me stay with them instead of having
to be in foster care. That didn't work, um much
much later we ended up having like a conflict of
Um it wasn't even a conflict, like he wouldn't let
(25:19):
me leave the home his apartment, and um, he basically
like helped me hostage in the house and I was
like banging my head on the wall so that a
neighbor could let me out or call the police or something,
and so the police came, and UM, I remember, Um,
(25:45):
before the police came, I told him, I was like,
you need to let me out of the house so
you can help me out the house. You can't keep
me here. And I threatened to hit him with the
hammer if you didn't let me out, and so like
I bluffed, I hit him like like try to. I
came out with him as I had laughing because it's
kind of funny to me, and it bruised his shoulder
(26:05):
a little bit, and um, it didn't like actually hurt him,
but it bruises sold a little bit. And then the
police came and I had bruises all over my body
because he just finished beating me. We were fighting for
me to get out of the apartment and he wouldn't
let me out, and so um, when the police got there,
I told him what happened. They immediately arrested him and
(26:25):
they asked me, like, you know, Um, they were oh
he said that, Oh, but she hit me on my
shoulder and then they were like, oh, you know, And
they searched up my name and I had a a
missing person's report made on me from the foster care
agency because I was out for over twenty four hours.
(26:47):
So when you grow a wall, they have to create
like the support How old were you then at this point,
I was like eighteen, um, almost nineteen at this point
the police saw my name on the system and so
they they decided to arrest me and my former partner
(27:08):
at the time, and so we were both in jail.
The judge let him go and kept me for a
week because they were that I wouldn't show up to court. Um,
you were a flight risk. I was a flight risk
to them because I was a wall. So they sent
me to Rikers Island and UM, yeah, I went to
Rikers Island and um, I how much time did you
(27:32):
spend that I spent the week there. I begged them
to um put me in solitary confinement for my safety,
and they they did, but before they Okay, so before
I went to Rikers Island, Okay, before I went to
the mail um part of the prison, they actually put
(27:53):
me in the female part, Rosie's and so if they
didn't know that I was trans, because I was able
to get my my my documents changed and updated at
this time. At this point, they put me down for
a third degree felony because I hit him with the hammer.
So even though he didn't like press formal charges on me,
(28:13):
they still took the case. The state chose to press
charges against me, and so, um they had it as
a third degree felony and um, they had to do
a felony check. Um, a felony check is when they
basically have to strip search you and and and basically
check you out naked. And so they put me in
(28:33):
this area, like this space for me to put my
legs apart, and um, they checked me and the lady
was like, um, we need We're gonna send you to
the doctor. And so she because she saw that I
didn't have a vagina, and so they sent me to
the nurses area and I was crying and I was
(28:57):
just like, please don't let them send me to a
boys area like you know I'm gonna be harmed really bad. Um,
I'm a woman, like I'm a girl, Like I'm just
I'm just x you know, like my chromosomes are just
x Y. But I'm a girl. I'm a woman. And
they were like crying with me. The nurses were actually
(29:18):
crying with me, and they were like, oh my gosh,
you know, so you'r x x Y And then I
said no, no, I'm just x Y and they were
like wait, so they wiped literally, I swear to god,
they wiped their tears and sent me to Um, the
Boy's part, the Um part of the Rikers Island. So
(29:40):
that's when I begged them to put me in sil
in solitary confinement so that I I would be safe. Put
me a solitary confinement. There were there were these closed
cells that you know, just like individual um. And I
was next door to a boy that thought that I
was key, and like you know, our little notes back
(30:02):
and forth kept me afloat. There was also a really
beautiful trans person that ended up coming later on, and
I remember being so fascinated by how like fem presenting
and like SIS assumed they were um to me because
they didn't like they weren't taking hormones. It was just
(30:24):
incredible to me that there was another transperson into space
and then that they weren't taking hormones either. Like I
was like, oh my gosh. And by the time of
year nineteen, Yeah, oh my gosh. There's so much that
you've experienced. I feel like I want like to say,
talking to you, it's probably not even the tip of
(30:47):
the ice book. No, because because this is a little
part of what shapes you and it and it's really important,
it's part of of who you are. I'm just curious
how you went from having that experience being in jail,
being in the fosterest system, Like how did you end
(31:07):
up being somebody who auditions for pose and getting that
job in your life doing a one eight? Like how
does that happen? I always existed in the intersection of
queer community and like the ball like being like having
the intersection to like queer to other queer and trance people,
(31:28):
especially in ballroom. You know, no matter whatever happened to
us and ever stopped us from being artists, right like,
no matter how traumatic, no matter how Actually that's the lifesaver.
The lifesaver is being an artist. Yeah, I mean, like,
we always knew that, Like, and I think I'd say
this for the rest of my community who can relate
to some of these experiences. We always knew that no
(31:53):
matter what we went through in the world, we didn't
deserve to experience what we were going through. We didn't
deserve the experiences that we're happiness. We always knew that
what was happening was wrong, and like, I think that
in a way that preserves it just like preserves a
part of you that keeps your faith together. You know,
(32:16):
I didn't like leave out of these experiences unscabbed, like
you know, I it was just like misfortunate after misfortune.
But I knew that these things that were happening to
me were wrong and that I didn't deserve to experience
these things. And um, I was struggling with with with
(32:38):
like trying to find joy and happiness. And I met
some folks who like introduced me into cocaine and drugs,
and like, uh, cocaine just really cocaine or cocaine was
the only drug. It seems like it seems like a
good idea when you're when you're looking for joy, but
(32:58):
you know, when you don't have a sus to safety
when you don't have access to other examples of joy
when you don't have money, you know, when you're a
sex worker, like when your trends, when you are existentially
ostracized from um, all of the other functional parts of society.
Like yeah, you know, you sort of end up being
(33:19):
like you sort of end up thriving in the most
dysfunctional parts of society, so to speak. And a lot
of that this function like exists in the underground. But
like also there's some structure, there's there's a presence, there's
a family, there's a community, there's care even within these
pockets of of struggle. You know, my community of people
(33:40):
were all other people who were navigating drug abuse, who
were navigating not having actual family, uh, not having access
to their immediate families that you know, we're all sort
of in the same It was a tribe of people
that you were able to, you were able to relate to, right.
I I came to to meet like other people in
(34:01):
the ballroom community who you know, who were extremely talented
and um had dreams no matter you know, regardless of
what they were going through. I saw a lot of
the things that were happening around me. I didn't want
to be my life. I didn't want that to be
my life. And I started to see just things that
(34:24):
I didn't like. I actually didn't enjoy the way that
I looked in the mirror, struggling with cocaine. I didn't
enjoy UM being a sex worker. I was ashamed. I
felt like I felt like I was being sexually assaulted
all the time, you know, consistently. You know, even though
I consented to um doing it for money, I was
(34:45):
crying so often while it was happening to me. I
never really had time to I never really like I
got to talk about it in a space where like
people who cared about me had the capacity to hear it.
It was really, really tough, you know, And I'm really
(35:07):
proud of having memories of myself at some point in
my life not being in these situations, because I got
to return back to that consciousness, the consciousness of who
I was before I went into foster care, and the
dreams that I had before they were um stolen by
(35:28):
these struggles and experiences. And so those those dreams and
that faith in myself was re ignited by the artists,
the other community members that I got to meet like
Jose Extravaganza and um, just other trans and queer people
who were actually trying to make it or who who um,
(35:49):
who saw more for themselves? You know? And did you
see a path out for you? Did you see people
who were examples to you? You looked at and you thought,
I'm I love you know, I'm in just it in
fashion or I am interested in things I could do well.
I mean, like that wasn't the focal point of my dreams?
What was the focal point of your dreams? I wanted
(36:10):
to study biotech. I wanted to study biology. I wanted
to go to school to learn how to how to
heal people holistically. When I was sexually assaulted on my
eighteenth birthday, um, and I healed myself from the s C.
I had contracted a virus um that I will not
(36:30):
I can't disclose. But I healed myself from it um
using just my prior knowledge of food medicine. And just
like on like googling up like just like maybe you
end up doing something like this, maybe with your life experience,
this is going to be in a weird way. Okay,
let me just run this by you as a concept.
(36:52):
Right when you've lived through the experiences that you've lived through,
and you have a healing ability, right, which we're going
to say that you do because of what your experience
has been in a in a really interesting way, just
you existing in the world with your story and with
(37:14):
what you've overcome and how you're healing and healing has
never done for us, right, It's like we're going to
be doing it, hopefully for for a long long time.
In a weird way. You're acting as a healer by
your existence. I thought about that, you know, to I
had this before. I'm not. It's really funny. It's really
(37:36):
funny you say that. Because I did think about I
was like, well, you know, I still in some way
I am able to um to you know, create create
some kind of healing for other people. But I really
was actually into like fit like the like physical health
like and actually always wanted to be a naturopathic um
(37:57):
nutritionists or like a practitioner holistic edison. And that's what
I wanted to do, That's what But I never thought
that I would be able to have the discipline to
be in college. I I didn't like, I never actually
worked a real job, and every real job that I
tried to get after being a sex worker, I always
was fired and I blamed myself like so much. I
(38:21):
was so hard to myself because I could never keep
a job. But you know, I think I've glazed over
that experience in my in my own life, and um,
like it didn't actually have a real impact of my
ability to to hold discipline in a schedule. And I,
(38:43):
like I I left Fossecure the same year that I
started pose. You know, that's a lot of change. That's
a lot a lot of change. I struggled a lot
with showing up to work on time, you know, with
like remembering my lines. I struggled with um, my reactions
to any little injustice that I saw and set around me.
(39:05):
Like I it was just like a lot, you know,
and I didn't have support. And even though we were
literally telling a story about the experiences that I literally had,
um and that I was that I existed so closely too,
it wasn't like I was forty years out, you know,
or ten years from that experience. Like it was literally
(39:27):
just it just happened to me, and so like it
was very very close to home, and like, um, I
was so hard on myself, and you know. I I'm
just grateful for the people in my community who made
that possible, you know, because if I didn't struggle in
that experience, I wouldn't have a place. I wouldn't have
had a place to grow from. And so you know,
(39:47):
like even though it was really difficult, like, um that
that story that we were telling, that was me. You know,
I'm like, I'm that story that we were telling it.
If you had not lived through it, you could not
have told it right, you know, in your story to
use some being of service to people. Jose Jose Extravaganza
(40:08):
sent me to an audition for a film, Fault Saturday Church.
It's an independent film, and then um I did with
them just where I met M. J. Rodriguez and um
I Luca, the main character as Mom was a manager
and she sent me to the audition for pose and
so you know, that's how it happened. And UM, I'm
really grateful for even though like I know that I frustrated. UM,
(40:32):
I know that I frustrated Ryan Murphy. I know that
I frustrated the network and in my struggles and my
challenges and in all the ways that nobody around me
knew how to support me. Or create space for what
my challenges were at the time. I feel so grateful
for them for any and all of the amount of
grace that they gave me, UM because if they if
(40:55):
if if it was like it couldn't have been a
space for only trans people who had supportive parents and
um the discipline and the polish, you know, the the
the experience to be in, because there had to be
there has to be a place where we can start,
(41:16):
you know, where where where those of us who UM
are are coming up out of abusive, traumatic backgrounds, where
we don't know what discipline actually is because we were
sex workers since we were kids. Like, there has to
be something that we can start from that we can
grow from, you know. And I'm and I'm so grateful
(41:37):
for everybody who you know fault for me, even behind
my back that I may not know about Janet, you know,
Stephen UM and and even Ryan in the ways that
he even though he was so far from these experiences
and ways in some ways I don't know his life
there they created so much space for for for me,
(41:58):
you know, to to to to to grow and make
mistakes and to improve and and you were learning on
the job. You will learning meaning the job. Wow, what
a what a massive undertaking though, and the fact that
you said yes without the experience and having, you know,
coming from a someone who was too afraid to say
(42:21):
yes to me, right, but you also said yes. There
was something like there's something in you that said, Okay,
I'm doing this. I'm going for this, no matter, no
matter what it's gonna look like. Yeah, I had no
idea what I was. It was really scary because I
had no idea what I was doing. And I was like,
I honestly like imposter syndrome. I was like I felt
(42:45):
like I was a fraud. Like I felt like I
was a proud because I didn't have the experience of
my peers. And um, I struggled like a lot. I
didn't really understand what it took, you know. And UM,
I felt like, oh, somebody, you know, they're gonna wrap
(43:05):
me out, like you know, someone's gonna find out, someone's
gone that I'm not really an actor, you know, Um
that I'm not you know, really an artist, And um,
I this is what I told myself, you know, and
like I am just Um, I'm really grateful that I
(43:27):
was able to that I was able to to grow
and UM that I was you know, it was always
a dream. It was something that I've always wanted, you know,
like I talked to my mom about, you know, and
that I talked to my friends and my peers about.
And what do you dream about? What do you dream
about now? UM? I I dream about being able to
(43:55):
tell stories. I'm gonna write about my life and I'm
gonna I'm gonna put it on I'm gonna I'm gonna
get it on TV so that people understand what's at
stake for trans youth. I kind of want to I
want to get rid of doctorates in biology still and
(44:16):
I want to study environmental sciences. I still wanna want
to use my experiences to help people heal themselves. I
want to continue healing and want I want to learn
to cultivate everlasting happiness and enjoy in um, in a
in a in a in a in the world that
(44:38):
is uncertain. I want to have love. I want to
have love that is safe. UM. I want to have
love that is that is that um, that is uh integral. UM.
I want to have safety. I dream of of of
being protected. A dream of having safety, I having grace
(44:59):
from people, of being understood. I dream of people being
able to really see who I am and this industry
and fame doesn't ruin my life, I hope. I dream
of doing it right. And um, I dreamed that you know,
the that the truth gets to be clear, you know,
(45:22):
my the truth of my life and who I am
gets to be clarified. I dreamed that trans people are
aren't going to have to be up for debate, and that, um,
you know, somehow, some way that I can use my
(45:43):
experiences and the parts of my the deep, deep, deep
parts of myself that I've taken a time to actually heal, um,
and continue to heal. I'm gonna be healing for the
rest of my life. That I dream that I'm able
to use that in service, in service to humanity and
the planet. That I'm able to somehow share the parts
(46:05):
of me that will inspire us all to share the
beautiful parts of us all, and to keep that going,
and that hopefully that somehow will create a train reaction
that will save the planet, that will keep us farther
from from world war and from from racism and from
(46:26):
the religious extremism that is making us all struggle in
accessing God. I feel like I see connections in and
all of these issues that human kind is struggling with
right now. And um, I only have I only have
whatt like sixty and change more years to go in
(46:47):
my life, Not that I'm really counting, but I just
want to use the time that I'm on Earth two.
I just dream of of of just you seeing my
life and my experience too, to encourage us all to
to be better people, to ourselves, to each other, and
(47:10):
to the planet. I look forward to seeing how you
live many of those dreams. I really do. Thank you
for taking the time to talk to me today. Thank you.
I'm like in tears, I'm sorry everything. So don't ever
be sorry for for speaking from your heart, because that's
(47:35):
what people feel and that's what the truth is. Thank you. UM.
I want to ask you one more question, actually that
I have to ask everybody, which is who are some
of the voices that are important to you today? Oh.
The first person that came up was Adrian Murray Brown. UM.
(47:58):
I really resonate with the way that she. Um, she creates,
so she creates these really beautiful connections between the biology
of our planet and like liberation for everyone. I see
so much of myself and her. I think like Laverne Cox,
(48:19):
Janet mock Um Sonia Renee Taylor. Those are those yeah,
those are I mean, those are solid. Those are all incredible.
Raquel Um, Willis, Tony, Michelle Williams, Um you know um
a lok Vi, menon Chela Many They're all really important
(48:42):
pivotal voices and people right now. And patris Um Colors
Um you know um. Shout out to Patrese Colars. May
angels always protect her and be around surround her all
the time. Thank you have been listening to VS Voices,
My thanks to today's guests in Damre. If you love
(49:05):
our show, please comment, like, and subscribe to wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts, and as always, please follow
me amandit Academy on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Thanks for
listening in. As part of Victoria's Secrets ongoing commitment to
become one of the world's leading advocates for women, VS
is making a commitment to represent the rich diversity of
(49:27):
all women, from bringing sixty six different bra sizes to
market to publicly taking a stand against harmful policies and
laws that disadvantaged persons from the l g B T
q I a plus community. These commitments go to the
heart of their mission. They have expanded their partnership with
the Point Foundation, making a two hundred thousand dollar donation
(49:49):
to fund scholarships to l g B t q I
a plus law students helping combat the oppression of l
g B t q I a plus people and culture.
The diversity among those fighting within the legal system for
these very basic human rights is essential in creating a
positive impact
My guest today is a true pioneer. She's an actress,
a model, and perhaps most importantly, an advocate for many
marginalized communities. The person I'm talking about is India More.
India was one of the stars of the f X
TV series Pose, a groundbreaking show about New York City's
legendary drag ball scene in the nineties. India's exceptional career
(00:24):
was not always a given. Her community growing up in
the Bronx was very hostile to her trans identity, and
as such, India has had to overcome countless hardships to
get where she is today. A warning to you, dear
listeners that India and I are discussing many topics in
this interview that can be distressing to hear, including physical violence,
(00:45):
sex trafficking, and sexual assault. I want to just go
over you're kind of some of your amazing accomplishments because
you are You've got quite a lot of first here.
You're the first trans person to be on the cover
of L magazine. You're the first person first trance person
(01:05):
to be signed by William Morris ENDEAVA, which, for those
of you don't know, is like one of the biggest
acting agencies in the world. In two thousand and nineteen,
you will listed as one of Time magazines a hundred
most Influential people in the world. You're a brand ambassador
for some major fashion labels, and soon you're going to
be in a in a huge, giant budget comic book movie.
(01:28):
That's just some of the things you're smiling at me.
How does that feel to hear some of your accomplishments. Um,
it's a little nerve wracking, you know, to be centered
in this way, And um, I think, uh, you know,
it's it's it's always an honor to break through, but
being being the first, you know, I for for things,
(01:53):
it's it's amazing and it's exciting. It also, you know,
like nerve wracking, be as I think about, like I
just I just you know, I don't know, like I
impositive syndrome a little. Yeah. Yeah, there is a pressure
(02:14):
when it is a phenomenally heavy lift to create a
path where there isn't one before you. So first of
all you have to do this is that labor on
top of just the labor of doing the actual job
or doing the thing right. And then when you are
the first or one of the first, then that is
that's a huge responsibility, and then people are looking to
(02:37):
you always for like, well, what's the next first thing
you're gonna do, And You're like, you know, I don't,
I don't know. I'm just kind of trying to process
this this because I've already just done here, you know
what I mean. Also like trying to enjoy life and
find um, you know, my own meaning in life and
and and not just be somebody who um you know,
(02:59):
contributes to the meaning of life for every other for
other people, but like also acknowledging myself as like a
young person in the world trying to figure it out too.
So you grew up in the Bronx and you raised
in a family that was active Jehovah's witness. Yeah, yeah,
so you knew that your identity was going to be
(03:21):
different from what your family expected from a very young age.
And I'm curious how you navigated your life back then.
Did you have one life that was for you and
one that you presented to your family or how did
you navigate that time? It's really young. I was a
young person, um, still coming into understanding what life is.
(03:45):
And the more that I started to understand um myself,
I started to feel anxiety. The more that I came
into understanding that my feelings were possibly going to lead
(04:05):
to my spiritual demise. That was like, I think the
earliest kind of fear and terror that I felt growing up.
It was like this anticipation that I was cut off
from accessing God, going to be destroyed and armageddon, you know,
because of my feelings, because I had because I was
(04:28):
a signed mail at birth, and I had feelings for
for for what, Like I thought boys were cute. I mean,
I thought humans were hute. You know. I just like
was coming into like seeing like like understanding what attraction
is as a human being, but also becoming fearful that,
you know, the way that I was growing up and
(04:51):
the way that my sexuality had started to develop, that
I was gravitating more in my interests towards boys and
and going to the kingdom hall or church. You know,
you're taught that that you know, queer people won't inherit
the earth, you know, won't inherit the paradise. Growing up
(05:13):
being being told that or having that fee and understanding
was really nerve wracking and scary and traumatic. It wasn't
something that I understood, I really it was it was.
It was something that I grew up, like, I started
to experience anxiety very very young, and just really intense anxiety,
(05:39):
like really like just really intense anxiety. And then that
anxiety led me to you know, to feel like really
deep shame um and that shame, you know, like the
only like the like the shame brought me to want
to hide, you know, myself. But oh makes sense not
(06:02):
to live, not to live authentically right, Like I couldn't
be visibly attracted to boys, you know, I couldn't actually
talk about my feelings because I learned very early that
my feelings were wrong. It was just difficult, Like I
learned very very young. I learned at a very young
age to lie to survive, and that you were not okay.
(06:25):
Fundamentally who you were was not okay, right, and that
who I was right, it's not it's not okay, it's
it's you know, like that there's something wrong with me,
and that I that I wasn't normal. It was very
fearsome growing up. For sure. You eventually left home when
(06:46):
you were fourteen years old. Is I'm assuming that a
large part of why you left home at that age
was just so that you could come out from under
that type of living, with that type of perspective with
that would that be fair to say, yeah, I mean,
there wasn't really a safe space for me. Besides, my
(07:08):
my sister was the only person in my life at
the time who challenge the way that we were raised
to think and believe, not just by the kingdom all
but at home. I think anyone growing up in the
timeline of patriarchy, you know, for sure, is growing is
(07:34):
growing up in a home where like people like boys
are taught to be men, you know, and like aggressive
ways like you know, but yeah, you know, like I
think I was also of a victim of the ways
in which boys are traumatized into performing masculinity. Um, yes,
(07:59):
very tryunderstand that, I think. But I think that this
is like, this is like patriarchy is like really harmful
to everyone, you know, like and like, including the men,
including the men, including yeah, including including like including people
who are assigned male at birth, whether or not you
(08:19):
whether or not you are a man or a boy,
you know, like it's it's really really toxic, but especially
if you aren't a man or a boy. Absolutely, masculinity
is so often traumatized. People are are traumatized into performing
masculinity often um and you know, like you're added to
(08:44):
that is, you know, deemed to be feminine or less
or less than masculine. You know, you're sort of like
um shamed into into changing your behavior or or you're
shamed into adopting the behavior the behaviors of what what
it means to be a man, like you know, you
like getting getting beaten and for some people, like you know,
(09:05):
some some some people make some young young boys, some
young trans or queer people who are assigned my life
with may get beaten because they are because they're they're
showing emotion, because they're they're crying because their their bodies
you know, respond to pain or um hurt um visibly.
And then you're like beaten to be traumatized into not
(09:27):
expressing your feelings, and like you know, then it creates
this toxic sort of cycle where you grow up ashamed
of your feelings and then you sort of project that
shame outward. If you aren't someone who's just for for
people in general that this happens to, you know, but
especially if you're not queer trans you know, like I
(09:50):
experienced that, but I also experienced like the shame that
my brother felt for an emotional being, and like, you know,
him seeing me and my emotions and seeing me and
my expressions, he projected the shame that he felt about
his own limitations and how much of his humanity he
(10:12):
can access or or be visible and on me. It's
it's a really toxic cycle. It causes people to be
very sad, and yeah, very much. So I want to
go back to when you were fourteen and you left
home and you were homeless for a while, and then
you were also in the foster system. Because that experience,
(10:37):
I was in juvenile detention. I was in Juvie when
I was fifteen, So I was maybe a year older
than you, but still I was fifteen and going from
like not having anywhere to live and also living on
the street, and then I spent a year in juviy.
That period of time shaped me in a way that
(10:59):
was very sid efficult obviously, you know. And so I
wonder for you what it was like being in the
foster system at such a young age and how that
shape that sort of shaped you. I just want to say,
I'm really sorry that you have to experience that at
such young age. Um, I feel you now, like I've
(11:21):
grown up and in the position that you're in. A
lot of us growing under those circumstances are are challenged
in in in developing the discipline required to survive in
this world. I feel it's important to talk about and
I talk about it because I am grown up in
this world now and I do have a life that
(11:42):
I've managed to build through a lot of struggle and
recovery and a lot of help and a lot of
failing and a lot of pain. And I do talk
about it because I want other people who may be
in similar circumstances to know that it is possible to
not only vive, but to have periods of time where
you can thrive even though your early childhood looked like
(12:07):
maybe min did, or yours did, or so many of
us do. So I took about it for that reason.
I'm starting to learn to talk about it for that
reason as well. I think when I first started talking
about it, I feel like I was asking for help
more than anything. Um, I feel like I was asking
for help, and I feel like I was talking about
(12:28):
it because it was something that happened to me that
I knew was it supposed to happen to me, and
I felt like nobody really knew, nobody understood, and a
lot of people won't understand. And I think, I think
because you're in a public in a public situation now
where what you say will go on record forever, everything
(12:49):
that is said has to be really considered because forever
people will bring this up in your questions now, like
people bring up in my questions when I get interviewed,
And you have to kind of have enough eased with
it yourself to be ready to talk about it from
a place of not being in the panic and the
chaos of it, and that takes time. So you know
(13:10):
what you said when you firstarted talking about it, maybe
it wasn't fully processed for you. You were still like
this thing happened to me. I mean it wasn't at all,
you know. I mean, like people were asking me about
my life and who I was, and I'm like, this
is my life. It's happening today, you know, like this
is all I really have to talk about um, And
(13:32):
you know, like it was. It's just really difficult to
like be somebody who comes up from these experiences and
to have only that to talk about when when people
ask you about who you are and what your identity is.
Like you go straight to all of the worst things
that ever happened to you, but like without really processing
that that that there were really terrible things. It's just
(13:53):
like this is my life, this is UM. You know
what I made of you know, these experiences when I
went into when I went into UM, when I went
into foster care s fourteen, UM, I UM was really
hopeful that I would have the freedom to be able
to express myself and um the safety to do it
(14:19):
as well. I was categorically defiant at home because me
being myself and expressing myself and the and the only
ways that were true to me, We're constantly being identified
as bad behavior and disobedience. Like I couldn't like bring
(14:42):
a rainbow belt that was given to me as a
gift to my house, and like these things were frequently
used against me by my brother or like you know, UM,
my father, you know, really wanted to raise a strong
like wanted to raise strong boys and when it to
raise a strong family and UM a normal family and
(15:02):
one of us. My mom also like wanted us to
be UM healthy and strong and normal and have great
opportunities and and to be focused in school. And and
I was so I was so explosively curious like about life,
and especially because I was so locked up than the
(15:22):
house so much like it seems like a beautiful quality
to have though, to be so curious about life, like think,
you know, like you like hope that we're what what
a blessing to be curious? So much of the time
people aren't curious, and it doesn't feel like parents like
forget that, you know, like parents when you know, when
(15:45):
when people become adults and they have their own lives
and you know, they were raised to to think and
do um a particular way, they kind of forget that.
They they forget the parts of their childhood where their
curiosity wasn't honored. They forget the parts of their childhood
where they were you know, misled to believe that their
(16:09):
interests didn't matter, you know, or like you know that
they maybe those parents weren't protected, maybe those parents were
abused themselves and forgot what it was to be a
child at all. And then very true, you have children,
it's like, you know, they're curious and they're trying to
learn and trying to figure out their existence, like oh
my god, like I'm on this planet, like, oh my god,
(16:31):
it's a planet. Oh my god, what's the planet? Like,
oh my god, I'm in a city. Oh my god,
I'm in the Bronx. Oh my god. There's more than this.
Oh my god, there's more than me. Oh my gosh.
You know, Um, there's fashion, there's clothes, there's rainbows, there's
there's colors, and and it's like you just want to
have it all. You just want to get And then
like it's like, but this is for boys and this
(16:53):
is for girls, and they're like wait huh. You're like
hold on and wait, hold on, And then it's confusing.
It goes act to like the ways that um when
your kid is like asking you questions and you're like,
why are you asking so many questions? Like, you know,
like I love my dad so much, and I also
struggled with that with him, you know, like he couldn't
(17:17):
he didn't have time to answer a lot of my
questions or to create space for um, for me, to
for me to to learn about the things that I
wanted to learn about and like express myself with you know,
like there was just so there were so many rules
about the kind of human that you had to be
and I couldn't even question those rules, you know, So
(17:38):
going into foster care for me was an opportunity to
UM to not have to follow those rules for me
to be was it under was it for me to understand?
You know what what? You know? What was what for me?
I think there there is a part a way that
(17:59):
it was for being. But I think like I didn't
have a filter. I didn't have the protection of my
parents anymore and the wisdom that they have, you know,
and surviving and and staying safe and staying alive, you know, UM,
and I met different people, you know, who had different
(18:23):
agendas and and I ended up actually being sex traffics
when I was younger, when I was a teenager, And
it was really easy for me to be sex trafficked
and to be a sex worker as a teenager because
people didn't consider me a child, because I was queer,
because I was trans, And like, I'm sorry that that
(18:43):
happened to you, thank you. I'm really sorry that that
happened to you. Thank you. And you know, I wasn't
I didn't really understand how I was being harmed, you know,
like in that experience until much later, you know, like
I just thought, oh, this is what okay, Like I
was just learning and really vulnerable and not knowing you know,
(19:06):
other like anything else. It was just like oh yeah,
this is the way that I'm going to survive. And
they told me that if I want to be a woman,
this is what I have to do to make money,
you know, so that I can have so I can
like raise money to get rests. And like in this
convoluted way that you know, the two men who were
sex trafficking me thought that my you know, thought what
(19:29):
it means to be a woman or what my identity
was about, and so like you know, it was it
was also like I started to conce I started to
end up in conflict with them about what it means
to be a woman, and and like you know, I
didn't actually want certain things that they thought that I
needed to have. And um, you know, like they assigned
you know, themselves in my life as like my gay parents,
(19:53):
like my gay father. It was like ball like ballroom
like sort of queer family. And they were putting me
as a child through sex work. And guess what you
were trying to survive, you know, that's the thing is
like you were trying to survive literally that was what
was going on. But I think like by this at
(20:15):
this point, I couldn't actually appreciate the home environment that
I had access to. Did you appreciate it more after
your period period of time of not being in the home,
of being in foster CAA, Well, I think yes, when
when I was transitioned out of foster homes and into
(20:36):
the group homes, I started to have a greater appreciation
to being in a home, and you know, more than ever,
I started to grieve my family because I was like,
you know, I felt like I was going to have
a better experience and it was actually terrible. And I tried,
like I imagined all the time, like what it would
be like to have affirming parents, and my sister was
(20:58):
like my angel, my guardian angel, and my my my parents,
you know, like there were other things happening in my
family where they were afraid of they were afraid, Like
there was so much fear around me. Um having access
to two people, other people who affirmed my identity because
they thought that I was going through a phase and
(21:18):
if people affirmed my gender identity then it would make
who I am a reality. Yes it was threatening to them,
Yes it was threatening. Um, I was just grieving, you know,
being home because I imagined often what it would be
like to just have my family and to be accepted
and loved and to be able to be myself in
(21:40):
an environment that was affirming, you know, in an environment
that was protective. And you know, I I there were
there were other queer there were other trans people that
I got to grow up with that I got to
explore arts with. Yeah, who was the people who supported
you at that time? There was this one girl named
Ashley that I grew up. She was just so like funny,
(22:05):
she was just like somebody that I had, Like, I
had the most explosive experiences in humor with like. And
she was also a brilliant photographer and so like she
shot me a lot like in photos. That how you
got into modeling. So like that was my it's been
it's been mistranslated. When I was talking about this experience
(22:27):
and interviews, they they miss yeah, they miss um. They
misinterpreted this experience because I've spoken about it before as
my my beginning of modeling. But I was never a
model when I was a teenager. I didn't start modeling
until I was like nineteen or maybe twenty. Uh like
like twenty years old, really, how did you start modeling?
(22:50):
I was taking photos with Ashley, but I was taking
photos of Ashley we we um to really really fun photos.
Was really inspiring and it made you believe in myself
to be able to be a But um, I was
still in the stick of sex work and I was
starting to have really deep, serious disagreements with the people
(23:10):
who were I guess pimping me or like, um were
my gay fathers at the time, and they they they
m like one day, like I remember, they were like,
you know, you need to go to the doctor and
start getting your hormones in there because if something happens
to you, because the street, we don't want to be responsible.
(23:33):
And then I said, well, I'm not old enough, and
then they're like, well you need to go try. And
so I was seventeen at the time. I went and
I tried to get hormones through medical supervision instead of
just off the street. I was denied because I wasn't
an adult yet. I went back to the home with
those those two men and then I explained to them
(23:54):
what happened, and they were like that I was being
lazy and I was making excuses and I said no,
I wasn't and and he told me to shut the
f up. And I was like, don't talk to me
like that, you know, And like I was always really
firm about the level of respect that I felt like
I deserved with people, ever since I was a child.
That was very very firm about that. And um, so
(24:14):
when he told me to shut the f up, um,
I pushed him out of my face because he was spitting,
and he and his boyfriend jumped me and then that's
how I got this scar up the side of my
my lip. They had a ring on and they hit
me on my face and it was like really really traumatic,
(24:35):
like after like being beaten, and like, I had a
really incredible friend named Natalie who was also trans woman,
who took care of me and um with her mom,
and I'm so grateful to them to this day. And um,
I ended up staying with um My, my former like
one of like my first boyfriend. He rescued me out
(24:58):
of that situation, essentially, he and his mom and so
you know, they took me under their wing and I
got to stay with them and they tried to get
me to let me stay with them instead of having
to be in foster care. That didn't work, um much
much later we ended up having like a conflict of
Um it wasn't even a conflict, like he wouldn't let
(25:19):
me leave the home his apartment, and um, he basically
like helped me hostage in the house and I was
like banging my head on the wall so that a
neighbor could let me out or call the police or something,
and so the police came, and UM, I remember, Um,
(25:45):
before the police came, I told him, I was like,
you need to let me out of the house so
you can help me out the house. You can't keep
me here. And I threatened to hit him with the
hammer if you didn't let me out, and so like
I bluffed, I hit him like like try to. I
came out with him as I had laughing because it's
kind of funny to me, and it bruised his shoulder
(26:05):
a little bit, and um, it didn't like actually hurt him,
but it bruises sold a little bit. And then the
police came and I had bruises all over my body
because he just finished beating me. We were fighting for
me to get out of the apartment and he wouldn't
let me out, and so um, when the police got there,
I told him what happened. They immediately arrested him and
(26:25):
they asked me, like, you know, Um, they were oh
he said that, Oh, but she hit me on my
shoulder and then they were like, oh, you know, And
they searched up my name and I had a a
missing person's report made on me from the foster care
agency because I was out for over twenty four hours.
(26:47):
So when you grow a wall, they have to create
like the support How old were you then at this point,
I was like eighteen, um, almost nineteen at this point
the police saw my name on the system and so
they they decided to arrest me and my former partner
(27:08):
at the time, and so we were both in jail.
The judge let him go and kept me for a
week because they were that I wouldn't show up to court. Um,
you were a flight risk. I was a flight risk
to them because I was a wall. So they sent
me to Rikers Island and UM, yeah, I went to
Rikers Island and um, I how much time did you
(27:32):
spend that I spent the week there. I begged them
to um put me in solitary confinement for my safety,
and they they did, but before they Okay, so before
I went to Rikers Island, Okay, before I went to
the mail um part of the prison, they actually put
(27:53):
me in the female part, Rosie's and so if they
didn't know that I was trans, because I was able
to get my my my documents changed and updated at
this time. At this point, they put me down for
a third degree felony because I hit him with the hammer.
So even though he didn't like press formal charges on me,
(28:13):
they still took the case. The state chose to press
charges against me, and so, um they had it as
a third degree felony and um, they had to do
a felony check. Um, a felony check is when they
basically have to strip search you and and and basically
check you out naked. And so they put me in
(28:33):
this area, like this space for me to put my
legs apart, and um, they checked me and the lady
was like, um, we need We're gonna send you to
the doctor. And so she because she saw that I
didn't have a vagina, and so they sent me to
the nurses area and I was crying and I was
(28:57):
just like, please don't let them send me to a
boys area like you know I'm gonna be harmed really bad. Um,
I'm a woman, like I'm a girl, Like I'm just
I'm just x you know, like my chromosomes are just
x Y. But I'm a girl. I'm a woman. And
they were like crying with me. The nurses were actually
(29:18):
crying with me, and they were like, oh my gosh,
you know, so you'r x x Y And then I
said no, no, I'm just x Y and they were
like wait, so they wiped literally, I swear to god,
they wiped their tears and sent me to Um, the
Boy's part, the Um part of the Rikers Island. So
(29:40):
that's when I begged them to put me in sil
in solitary confinement so that I I would be safe. Put
me a solitary confinement. There were there were these closed
cells that you know, just like individual um. And I
was next door to a boy that thought that I
was key, and like you know, our little notes back
(30:02):
and forth kept me afloat. There was also a really
beautiful trans person that ended up coming later on, and
I remember being so fascinated by how like fem presenting
and like SIS assumed they were um to me because
they didn't like they weren't taking hormones. It was just
(30:24):
incredible to me that there was another transperson into space
and then that they weren't taking hormones either. Like I
was like, oh my gosh. And by the time of
year nineteen, Yeah, oh my gosh. There's so much that
you've experienced. I feel like I want like to say,
talking to you, it's probably not even the tip of
(30:47):
the ice book. No, because because this is a little
part of what shapes you and it and it's really important,
it's part of of who you are. I'm just curious
how you went from having that experience being in jail,
being in the fosterest system, Like how did you end
(31:07):
up being somebody who auditions for pose and getting that
job in your life doing a one eight? Like how
does that happen? I always existed in the intersection of
queer community and like the ball like being like having
the intersection to like queer to other queer and trance people,
(31:28):
especially in ballroom. You know, no matter whatever happened to
us and ever stopped us from being artists, right like,
no matter how traumatic, no matter how Actually that's the lifesaver.
The lifesaver is being an artist. Yeah, I mean, like,
we always knew that, Like, and I think I'd say
this for the rest of my community who can relate
to some of these experiences. We always knew that no
(31:53):
matter what we went through in the world, we didn't
deserve to experience what we were going through. We didn't
deserve the experiences that we're happiness. We always knew that
what was happening was wrong, and like, I think that
in a way that preserves it just like preserves a
part of you that keeps your faith together. You know,
(32:16):
I didn't like leave out of these experiences unscabbed, like
you know, I it was just like misfortunate after misfortune.
But I knew that these things that were happening to
me were wrong and that I didn't deserve to experience
these things. And um, I was struggling with with with
(32:38):
like trying to find joy and happiness. And I met
some folks who like introduced me into cocaine and drugs,
and like, uh, cocaine just really cocaine or cocaine was
the only drug. It seems like it seems like a
good idea when you're when you're looking for joy, but
(32:58):
you know, when you don't have a sus to safety
when you don't have access to other examples of joy
when you don't have money, you know, when you're a
sex worker, like when your trends, when you are existentially
ostracized from um, all of the other functional parts of society.
Like yeah, you know, you sort of end up being
(33:19):
like you sort of end up thriving in the most
dysfunctional parts of society, so to speak. And a lot
of that this function like exists in the underground. But
like also there's some structure, there's there's a presence, there's
a family, there's a community, there's care even within these
pockets of of struggle. You know, my community of people
(33:40):
were all other people who were navigating drug abuse, who
were navigating not having actual family, uh, not having access
to their immediate families that you know, we're all sort
of in the same It was a tribe of people
that you were able to, you were able to relate to, right.
I I came to to meet like other people in
(34:01):
the ballroom community who you know, who were extremely talented
and um had dreams no matter you know, regardless of
what they were going through. I saw a lot of
the things that were happening around me. I didn't want
to be my life. I didn't want that to be
my life. And I started to see just things that
(34:24):
I didn't like. I actually didn't enjoy the way that
I looked in the mirror, struggling with cocaine. I didn't
enjoy UM being a sex worker. I was ashamed. I
felt like I felt like I was being sexually assaulted
all the time, you know, consistently. You know, even though
I consented to um doing it for money, I was
(34:45):
crying so often while it was happening to me. I
never really had time to I never really like I
got to talk about it in a space where like
people who cared about me had the capacity to hear it.
It was really, really tough, you know, And I'm really
(35:07):
proud of having memories of myself at some point in
my life not being in these situations, because I got
to return back to that consciousness, the consciousness of who
I was before I went into foster care, and the
dreams that I had before they were um stolen by
(35:28):
these struggles and experiences. And so those those dreams and
that faith in myself was re ignited by the artists,
the other community members that I got to meet like
Jose Extravaganza and um, just other trans and queer people
who were actually trying to make it or who who um,
(35:49):
who saw more for themselves? You know? And did you
see a path out for you? Did you see people
who were examples to you? You looked at and you thought,
I'm I love you know, I'm in just it in
fashion or I am interested in things I could do well.
I mean, like that wasn't the focal point of my dreams?
What was the focal point of your dreams? I wanted
(36:10):
to study biotech. I wanted to study biology. I wanted
to go to school to learn how to how to
heal people holistically. When I was sexually assaulted on my
eighteenth birthday, um, and I healed myself from the s C.
I had contracted a virus um that I will not
(36:30):
I can't disclose. But I healed myself from it um
using just my prior knowledge of food medicine. And just
like on like googling up like just like maybe you
end up doing something like this, maybe with your life experience,
this is going to be in a weird way. Okay,
let me just run this by you as a concept.
(36:52):
Right when you've lived through the experiences that you've lived through,
and you have a healing ability, right, which we're going
to say that you do because of what your experience
has been in a in a really interesting way, just
you existing in the world with your story and with
(37:14):
what you've overcome and how you're healing and healing has
never done for us, right, It's like we're going to
be doing it, hopefully for for a long long time.
In a weird way. You're acting as a healer by
your existence. I thought about that, you know, to I
had this before. I'm not. It's really funny. It's really
(37:36):
funny you say that. Because I did think about I
was like, well, you know, I still in some way
I am able to um to you know, create create
some kind of healing for other people. But I really
was actually into like fit like the like physical health
like and actually always wanted to be a naturopathic um
(37:57):
nutritionists or like a practitioner holistic edison. And that's what
I wanted to do, That's what But I never thought
that I would be able to have the discipline to
be in college. I I didn't like, I never actually
worked a real job, and every real job that I
tried to get after being a sex worker, I always
was fired and I blamed myself like so much. I
(38:21):
was so hard to myself because I could never keep
a job. But you know, I think I've glazed over
that experience in my in my own life, and um,
like it didn't actually have a real impact of my
ability to to hold discipline in a schedule. And I,
(38:43):
like I I left Fossecure the same year that I
started pose. You know, that's a lot of change. That's
a lot a lot of change. I struggled a lot
with showing up to work on time, you know, with
like remembering my lines. I struggled with um, my reactions
to any little injustice that I saw and set around me.
(39:05):
Like I it was just like a lot, you know,
and I didn't have support. And even though we were
literally telling a story about the experiences that I literally had,
um and that I was that I existed so closely too,
it wasn't like I was forty years out, you know,
or ten years from that experience. Like it was literally
(39:27):
just it just happened to me, and so like it
was very very close to home, and like, um, I
was so hard on myself, and you know. I I'm
just grateful for the people in my community who made
that possible, you know, because if I didn't struggle in
that experience, I wouldn't have a place. I wouldn't have
had a place to grow from. And so you know,
(39:47):
like even though it was really difficult, like, um that
that story that we were telling, that was me. You know,
I'm like, I'm that story that we were telling it.
If you had not lived through it, you could not
have told it right, you know, in your story to
use some being of service to people. Jose Jose Extravaganza
(40:08):
sent me to an audition for a film, Fault Saturday Church.
It's an independent film, and then um I did with
them just where I met M. J. Rodriguez and um
I Luca, the main character as Mom was a manager
and she sent me to the audition for pose and
so you know, that's how it happened. And UM, I'm
really grateful for even though like I know that I frustrated. UM,
(40:32):
I know that I frustrated Ryan Murphy. I know that
I frustrated the network and in my struggles and my
challenges and in all the ways that nobody around me
knew how to support me. Or create space for what
my challenges were at the time. I feel so grateful
for them for any and all of the amount of
grace that they gave me, UM because if they if
(40:55):
if if it was like it couldn't have been a
space for only trans people who had supportive parents and
um the discipline and the polish, you know, the the
the experience to be in, because there had to be
there has to be a place where we can start,
(41:16):
you know, where where where those of us who UM
are are coming up out of abusive, traumatic backgrounds, where
we don't know what discipline actually is because we were
sex workers since we were kids. Like, there has to
be something that we can start from that we can
grow from, you know. And I'm and I'm so grateful
(41:37):
for everybody who you know fault for me, even behind
my back that I may not know about Janet, you know,
Stephen UM and and even Ryan in the ways that
he even though he was so far from these experiences
and ways in some ways I don't know his life
there they created so much space for for for me,
(41:58):
you know, to to to to to grow and make
mistakes and to improve and and you were learning on
the job. You will learning meaning the job. Wow, what
a what a massive undertaking though, and the fact that
you said yes without the experience and having, you know,
coming from a someone who was too afraid to say
(42:21):
yes to me, right, but you also said yes. There
was something like there's something in you that said, Okay,
I'm doing this. I'm going for this, no matter, no
matter what it's gonna look like. Yeah, I had no
idea what I was. It was really scary because I
had no idea what I was doing. And I was like,
I honestly like imposter syndrome. I was like I felt
(42:45):
like I was a fraud. Like I felt like I
was a proud because I didn't have the experience of
my peers. And um, I struggled like a lot. I
didn't really understand what it took, you know. And UM,
I felt like, oh, somebody, you know, they're gonna wrap
(43:05):
me out, like you know, someone's gonna find out, someone's
gone that I'm not really an actor, you know, Um
that I'm not you know, really an artist, And um,
I this is what I told myself, you know, and
like I am just Um, I'm really grateful that I
(43:27):
was able to that I was able to to grow
and UM that I was you know, it was always
a dream. It was something that I've always wanted, you know,
like I talked to my mom about, you know, and
that I talked to my friends and my peers about.
And what do you dream about? What do you dream
about now? UM? I I dream about being able to
(43:55):
tell stories. I'm gonna write about my life and I'm
gonna I'm gonna put it on I'm gonna I'm gonna
get it on TV so that people understand what's at
stake for trans youth. I kind of want to I
want to get rid of doctorates in biology still and
(44:16):
I want to study environmental sciences. I still wanna want
to use my experiences to help people heal themselves. I
want to continue healing and want I want to learn
to cultivate everlasting happiness and enjoy in um, in a
in a in a in a in the world that
(44:38):
is uncertain. I want to have love. I want to
have love that is safe. UM. I want to have
love that is that is that um, that is uh integral. UM.
I want to have safety. I dream of of of
being protected. A dream of having safety, I having grace
(44:59):
from people, of being understood. I dream of people being
able to really see who I am and this industry
and fame doesn't ruin my life, I hope. I dream
of doing it right. And um, I dreamed that you know,
the that the truth gets to be clear, you know,
(45:22):
my the truth of my life and who I am
gets to be clarified. I dreamed that trans people are
aren't going to have to be up for debate, and that, um,
you know, somehow, some way that I can use my
(45:43):
experiences and the parts of my the deep, deep, deep
parts of myself that I've taken a time to actually heal, um,
and continue to heal. I'm gonna be healing for the
rest of my life. That I dream that I'm able
to use that in service, in service to humanity and
the planet. That I'm able to somehow share the parts
(46:05):
of me that will inspire us all to share the
beautiful parts of us all, and to keep that going,
and that hopefully that somehow will create a train reaction
that will save the planet, that will keep us farther
from from world war and from from racism and from
(46:26):
the religious extremism that is making us all struggle in
accessing God. I feel like I see connections in and
all of these issues that human kind is struggling with
right now. And um, I only have I only have
whatt like sixty and change more years to go in
(46:47):
my life, Not that I'm really counting, but I just
want to use the time that I'm on Earth two.
I just dream of of of just you seeing my
life and my experience too, to encourage us all to
to be better people, to ourselves, to each other, and
(47:10):
to the planet. I look forward to seeing how you
live many of those dreams. I really do. Thank you
for taking the time to talk to me today. Thank you.
I'm like in tears, I'm sorry everything. So don't ever
be sorry for for speaking from your heart, because that's
(47:35):
what people feel and that's what the truth is. Thank you. UM.
I want to ask you one more question, actually that
I have to ask everybody, which is who are some
of the voices that are important to you today? Oh.
The first person that came up was Adrian Murray Brown. UM.
(47:58):
I really resonate with the way that she. Um, she creates,
so she creates these really beautiful connections between the biology
of our planet and like liberation for everyone. I see
so much of myself and her. I think like Laverne Cox,
(48:19):
Janet mock Um Sonia Renee Taylor. Those are those yeah,
those are I mean, those are solid. Those are all incredible.
Raquel Um, Willis, Tony, Michelle Williams, Um you know um
a lok Vi, menon Chela Many They're all really important
(48:42):
pivotal voices and people right now. And patris Um Colors
Um you know um. Shout out to Patrese Colars. May
angels always protect her and be around surround her all
the time. Thank you have been listening to VS Voices,
My thanks to today's guests in Damre. If you love
(49:05):
our show, please comment, like, and subscribe to wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts, and as always, please follow
me amandit Academy on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Thanks for
listening in. As part of Victoria's Secrets ongoing commitment to
become one of the world's leading advocates for women, VS
is making a commitment to represent the rich diversity of
(49:27):
all women, from bringing sixty six different bra sizes to
market to publicly taking a stand against harmful policies and
laws that disadvantaged persons from the l g B T
q I a plus community. These commitments go to the
heart of their mission. They have expanded their partnership with
the Point Foundation, making a two hundred thousand dollar donation
(49:49):
to fund scholarships to l g B t q I
a plus law students helping combat the oppression of l
g B t q I a plus people and culture.
The diversity among those fighting within the legal system for
these very basic human rights is essential in creating a
positive impact
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