Jamie Diaz is an artist who just wants to be seen for her work. The 66-year-old Mexican-American trans woman has been drawing and painting since she was 15. She uses vivid colors, surrealism, and self-portraits to tell complex stories about queerness, love, and human suffering throughout her work. And much of that work has been created behind prison walls, with paint brushes constructed from donated human hair.

Diaz spent the last 29 years incarcerated in men’s prisons. In the new short film “Love, Jamie” from director Karla Murthy, we get to know Diaz, her artwork, and her story through letters and phone calls shared with Gabriel Joffe, a trans person on the outside who has become her closest companion over the past 10 years. Joffe first started corresponding with Diaz in 2013 when they received a letter from her while working with Black & Pink, the prison abolitionist organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ people and folks living with HIV/AIDS who are impacted by the prison industrial complex. Murthy’s poignant film — which is now streaming on PBS — traces Joffe and Diaz’s decade-plus friendship through letters and shared art, aiming to tell a story not about an incarcerated trans woman, but one about a trans artist.

“You know what I want people to feel when they see my art?” Diaz says over the phone to Joffe in the film. “I want them to know that we’re good people.” That “we” can be read as many things — trans people, incarcerated individuals, and especially trans women of color affected by the U.S. prison system.

TransLash caught up with Joffe and “Love, Jamie” producer and director of photography Andrew Fredericks over a Zoom call to talk about the new short documentary film. The two reflected on the significance of chosen family and trans elders, what they learned about the experiences of trans women impacted by the carceral system, and shared an update on Diaz, who is now finally free after being granted parole at the end of May. 

Note: This video is only available to view within the United States.

TransLash: So good to meet you both. I just watched the film this week and admittedly cried the whole way through. It was just so powerful and so meaningful. To me as a trans person, to watch this felt really, really amazing and important. So thank you both for your work.

Andrew Fredericks: Thank you.

TransLash: Andrew, I’d love to start with you and ask, as the producer and the DP, what was it really that drew you to telling this story?

Andrew Fredericks: Well, the first thing that drew me to it was when I saw Jamie’s art. Dan Cooney pulled out a drawer. I was at his gallery filming for a different project, and then I said, well, what shows do you have coming up? Because Dan always has great shows, people, unknown artists, but really great ones. And he opened up this drawer and started pulling out these paintings and drawings. And I was like, wow! And then he started telling me Jamie’s story, that she was incarcerated in Texas and what Jamie, what Dan knew about her. So that was initially what drew me.

I said, this is a great story. This really needs to be told. And at the time, I was very busy with a couple other projects and I thought, I don’t really have time, but I really want to get this story told. And that’s when I reached out to my longtime friend and colleague, Karla Murthy, who’s the director and editor of the film. So I kind of passed just the basics onto Karla. And then she started digging into it, and she was drawn to it too.

And if I can speak for her, because I heard her talk about this is, then what really cemented it, the story was good. Her art was good. It had an interesting angle of an incarcerated trans woman. But Dan Cooney shared a letter that Jamie wrote to him. And that letter was just so honest and so revealing and so full of compassion and love and understanding and honesty. And then that’s when Karla called me and she said, this, I know what to do now. And so then, then I said, well, I’m all in. If you’re all in, I’m all in. And then we contacted Gabriel and were properly vetted by Gabriel. And then with the blessing of Gabriel and Jamie talked about it, and I guess trusted us, Karla and I, enough to tell their story. And it really is to me, it’s not just the story of a trans woman incarcerated, an artist. It is about art. But to me what’s under it —it’s a story of love and friendship and what can happen if you just give yourself to someone else, wholly. So I would say that’s what drew me to do it.

TransLash: And that relationship Gabriel, I mean, to have a decade of sharing letters with someone is so profound. Can you tell me a bit about what that was like, especially for you as a trans person on the outside to be communicating with a trans person on the inside?

Gabriel Joffe: I think it was really a beautiful experience for me to just have an older trans person in my life. You know, it’s not every day you meet trans elders. It was nice to have someone who had such wisdom about life and lessons to impart on me. You know, she’s really serves as that figure in my life of a trans person [who] has gone before. And obviously our life experiences are so different, but just being able to talk about things and just hear her perspective. I think that’s something that is rare. Just even the larger LGBT community,  to have elders. 

And it’s kind of wild because until last week I just had all of Jamie’s letters, this 10 years of letters and correspondence. But she walked out of prison with all my letters, and we kind of, that first night, sat down and she showed me scrapbooks she had made with pictures I had sent her. And she had in the first page, the very first letter she had received from me. It was also this wild chronicle of like the past 10 years of my life. I have shoe boxes of her letters, she had these, and she wanted me to bring them back to Denver with me for safekeeping. So now I have kind of the second half of the collection. It’s wild to see 10 years of letters I wrote. So it just feels nice to kind of now be in like a new chapter of our relationship.

TransLash: That’s wonderful to have it so completed, your letters and her letters together.

Andrew Fredericks: You have to collatehem now, so it’s back and forth.

Gabriel Joffe: Oh my gosh. That’s a project for another day.

TransLash: Gabriel, you received so much art from her over the years. Were there any particular pieces of Jamie’s work that really stood out to you and spoke to you the most over that decade?

Gabriel Joffe: I mean, really immediately, I think of Worlds Within Worlds. That was the first large scale piece. You know, I had received the illustrated letters, but that was in 2013. And I have a picture of myself holding it up. And that was one that I don’t think I’ll ever part with. It was the first piece she sent me. And just the colors, that’s when I really realized how Jamie’s use of color and how incredible it is and depth.

And it is her more abstract piece. But I felt like there was so much captured. It’s one of the deepest pieces I feel, to me, of her work. And so, yeah, Worlds Within Worlds. I think I’ll always remember receiving that and just being blown away and I think fully understanding her capabilities as an artist.

TransLash: Andrew, I’m curious, as the DP and producer, it must have been an incredible challenge to make this film where you can’t access one of your leads, right? You can’t actually get footage of her. Can you talk a bit about what that process was like and how it challenged you visually? Was that a hindrance or did that sort of give you more artistic license to get creative?

Andrew Fredericks: Well, I think at first, because you think about the obvious ways to make something first and you think, well, we have to try and interview Jamie. And we started going down that road a little bit. We started making contact with TDCJ [Texas Department of Criminal Justice]. But then at a certain point — and we were working on that, we’re gonna do it — but Karla started editing some, and we really realized that the film wasn’t about incarceration. Jamie was an incarcerated person. But we didn’t want the film to be about incarceration. And if you saw Jamie incarcerated in prison, that would be the image one would have of Jamie. And we didn’t want that. Because that’s what Jamie wanted, to be seen for who she was, not where she lived. And that meant getting to know Jamie through her words and through her art.

So then we consciously decided we’re not going to try and show Jamie incarcerated. And that would’ve been the only way to show her, would [be]  to get an interview in some kind of visitation room or through the glass. So it was kind of fortuitous that it was a little bit of trouble because it made us realize too.

So as far as the challenges, we still needed visuals and Jamie’s art provided a lot of the storytelling. But there was also, we wanted to show the isolation of being incarcerated. So we needed some visuals. And luckily, I spent a year in Texas working on a film, another film at the same time. And I came across this abandoned Texas prison facility. And so I just started, whenever I had a chance, I would go down there and just make images. I imagined myself being inside of there and looking out at the world outside. So I tried to create imagery from that prison facility that showed what Jamie might see, you know, I could only imagine it. And sometimes there’s flowers just beyond the fence. So I tried to show something that’s right there, but just out of reach, just on the other side of the fence. 

And then Karla and I talked a lot about the visuals. There’s a section [of the film] where Jamie talks about being young and feeling almost trapped by her queerness and being afraid to come out at first. And so when we’re in Houston, we tried to shoot things from behind fences and behind, so it wasn’t direct. So there was this idea. And then once it got to New York and there was the gallery show, everything was out in the open. There was no more behind anything. There was a shot even of Gabriel talking about some of their early trouble and [I] shot from behind this fence where we saw Gabriel. So we tried to make the visuals kind of [gestures with hands pushing inwardly] and then open up at the end. And then with the birds in the sky at the very end [of the film] representing total freedom. What’s freer than a bird. So just to wrap back around, yes. Not showing Jamie, at first we thought it was gonna be a problem, but it ended up really being liberating.

TransLash: Yeah, that shot at the end of the birds flying is so beautiful. And for you both, I’m curious — I know Gabriel you worked with Black and Pink and probably had some sort of insight into what the experiences are like for incarcerated trans folks. But I’m curious if through making this film, and Gabriel through your communications and relationship with Jamie, were there things that you learned about the particular experiences of particularly trans women in men’s prisons that you hadn’t known? What did this experience open your eyes to that you didn’t know of before?

Gabriel Joffe: Yeah. As someone who has never been impacted by that system personally, I think my motivation to join as an organizer with Black and Pink back in 2012 was conversations I would be having with other queer activists or books. It was mostly through books I was reading, primarily “Queer (In)Justice [The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States]” was a really important text for me. 

So it was books, but then what really I think the biggest learning was as I joined Black and Pink and volunteered during their weekly mail processing and read hundreds of letters from all sorts of LGBTQ folks that are incarcerated across the country — those individuals and their experiences, I just started to learn so much more. And then when I connected with Jamie — and I didn’t know it’d be a 10 plus year, I didn’t know what it’d become. Because I feel like you never know what a relationship will turn into. But through her specifically of just what she would share, from mundane things — like she would describe in extreme detail what her cell looked like, and she’d say, I have a toilet over here and then I have the floor here and I lay out my paintbrush. She would just in such detail, especially if she moved, got transferred, she would say exactly what her cell looked like, what she was eating to things like commissary. 

Even in staying in touch with her, that changed from letters to then the electronic messaging system and you have to kind of buy digital stamps. So I got to learn the kind of ins and outs of the apparatus surrounding the prison, different companies you have to interact with, whether you want to write or visit. And even now in the film you see just a decade of letters and, about six months before Jamie was released, Texas moved to a digital mail system.

So there’s no letters going in anymore. The technology has changed. So Jamie would no longer, if she was still inside and up until her release, she was no longer able to receive physical mail from me. So I learned a lot about that, just the whole apparatus as well as Jamie’s personal experiences.

TransLash: Andrew, how about you? Is there anything that opened your eyes that you hadn’t known before in the process of making this?

Andrew Fredericks: Oh, so much. I mean, I grew up around, I guess you could call it criminal justice. My mother used to run, when I was a kid, ran halfway houses for men at that time, only, getting out of prison and transitioning in. So I had a basis from my mom about the troubles of reentry and also about treating everyone, even if they’re incarcerated, they’re human beings and they have their own problems. So I had a little bit of background, but as far as, like Gabriel says, the actual apparatus of prison, of being incarcerated, is just byzantine. And then there’s people always, companies looking to profit off of it, whether they’re the people you have to buy the stamps from or if you want to make a phone call.

But through Jamie, because once we made Jamie’s acquaintance, I started exchanging mail also with Jamie and doing calls. And I just got an inside view of what it was like to be incarcerated. And it really opened my eyes to what that experience was like from someone who was telling me about it. And it made me appreciate, number one, my own privilege and my own freedom. And how much just the tiniest things one takes for granted if you’re not incarcerated.

I’ll never forget the day when — and this happened to both Karla and I, we had a similar experience. — I was on the phone with Jamie and I was on my front porch and I live in the country. And I was complaining about how much it was raining. “Oh, Jamie, it’s been raining.” But Jamie said, “when I get outta here, the first thing I want to do is go out and stand in the rain.” And it just made me realize just the simplest thing like that, that she couldn’t do. And so that, and as a filmmaker, I hope to always create empathy for other people. I’d rather create empathy, then knowledge. And so if that made me open my empathy up, I’m hoping that the film does the same for all incarcerated people. 

But then Jamie shared the added being trans, you know, and the troubles that that brought to her sometimes within the system. It’s a dehumanizing place and it’s a macho place. So Jamie had to overcome even that. And it also brought me into a world of people who I didn’t know, a world of trans people. And it’s such a beautiful community. It’s such a beautiful, welcoming community and it’s so under attack. And so that’s the other thing we wanted to do, is be an ally. You know, I’ll never fully understand the inner, what it means to be trans. But I understand human feelings, and so we hope that the film opens up people’s empathy for people who are incarcerated, but also Jamie’s hope, to understand “we’re good, loving people.” So that’s what I learned.

TransLash: Gabriel, what do you hope audiences take away from this  story and from your relationship with Jamie?

Gabriel Joffe: You know, I think that’s changed over the past year of the film being out. But I think presently just, first of all, the incredible art that Jamie creates. She’s an artist. She wants to be known for her art. So just more people seeing her art, and I think there’s so much creativity and talent of folks that are incarcerated that we just miss out on in society. And so I think Jamie’s art stands on its own. She’s an incredible artist. And I think there’s other people whose talent we’re not able to see. So I’m just glad that the film gives Jamie’s art a platform. I think also just especially, I hope this film is an uplifting to the queer community, that they see that there are elder trans folks in the community and there’s love and connection and that chosen family is beautiful.

TransLash: Mmm. Definitely. I think we have time for one more question. Gabriel, I know that you had met Jamie when she was released last week. I read about it in a story from them. Can you talk a bit about what that experience was like to be there to receive her?

Gabriel Joffe: You know, my dear friend Spinney was there, who’s been part of this

journey from the beginning, lived with me when I received those first letters from Jamie. And so it was great to have them there. Because we were there waiting for about an hour and a half and I was kind of going through many stages of emotion. You know, at one point I was trying not to cry. And then another point I was like, thinking of all the things I forgot to bring. And then was just kind of cycling through all the emotions. And it was down pouring, thunder. But I think even up until even we left the entire compound, the apparatus of the prison was very present. We had to stay in the parking lot. There was even at one point when I saw her, I just started walking forward and they yelled at me to step back. You know, the apparatus was very present. It was an incredible moment. And it was clear we needed to — we didn’t have time or space to kind of linger. It was kind of, first order business was just leaving the property.

But one of the first things — Jamie sat in the front seat and I was able to hand her the copy of her comic book that recently was published and she saw it for the first time and held it. And just seeing her flip through the pages and see her art in that form within the first hour of her, the first 20 minutes of her release. That was just super meaningful for me to witness her just hold her art and see it and see evidence that it’s out in the world.

TransLash: That’s so wonderful that she got to receive that from you. Thank you both so much. It was such a pleasure chatting with you.

Andrew Fredericks: I just wanna add that as part of my education and my understanding about trans issues and stories, early on somehow I came across TransLash and it’s been one of my regular reads now. I love when I get the newsletter. It’s really been something. I feel so glad that we’re gonna be a part of TransLash because it’s been like, my link besides, you know, Jamie and Gabriel to understanding the stories and of that community. So thank you.

TransLash: Oh, that’s so wonderful to hear. Thank you!

“Love, Jamie” is now streaming and available to watch on all PBS platforms including PBS.org, the PBS app, and the PBS American Masters YouTube.

To view Jamie Diaz’s published art and support her re-entry through her Solidarity Fund and through purchasing her artwork, check out her website JamieDiazArt.com.

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation. Did we miss anything? Let us know!

The post The Powerful Story of an Incarcerated Trans Artist: A Q&A With ‘Love, Jamie’ Film Star and Producer appeared first on TransLash Media.

Learn More About Cecilia Gentili From People And Organizations Close To The Irreplaceable Trailblazer, In Their Own Words:

Imara Jones’ Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

I can’t remember the first time I met Cecilia Gentili nor the first time I ever heard her name. Perhaps it’s because she’s been an ever-present, powerful force in our community for so long that it’s hard to imagine any time without her.

But even though I can’t remember the first time I met her, what I do know is that she was and always shall remain unforgettable. Her laugh, wit, intelligence, sexiness, bawdiness and sheer grit were all outsized. No matter what room she was in, nor who was it, Cecilia stood out for all of the right reasons. It is fitting that she had a one woman show because no matter who she met Cecilia was unparalleled.

I was fortunate to know her and to see her in more, different types of scenarios than I can remember. Vigils, boardrooms, conference halls, and brunch tables all spring to mind. While she will be feted for her public face, what I recall is her private one. She is one of the shrewdest people I know. Cecilia got so much done on behalf of trans people because she knew where power lay, how to sell to it, and get it do what she wanted. I observed her roll men in suits more times than I can remember. To be honest, in a less transphobic society, #CeciliaGentili would have been an EMMY Award winning actress AND governor of a state. Cecilia had the range.

For all of these reasons, it is hard both for me and our community to fathom life without her. But she would expect nothing else. She knew that the creation of a better world was larger than one person.

I will especially miss her ability to know what I was going to do next even though I had never said it. I still don’t know how she did this exactly.

Lastly, as a journalist I had the opportunity to sit down with her for many hours of interviews. At the end of one for the #antitranshatemachine I said, “The United States is lucky that you chose her to make your life.”

The response to her passing over the last three days underscores how fortunate we all were.

Río Sofia’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

I’ve never felt pain like this. I lost my mom yesterday, and I don’t know what to do now. We had been living for six months together on a 10 acre property she bought upstate, with a creek and reservoir and two houses—one for me and Cyd and one for Cecilia and Peter. Cyd and I had just finished clearing a trail through the woods for a more direct path between our doors.

We laughed at the same bullshit, she was so so so fucking funny.

She was my mentor and taught me so much in the art of showing up.

Cecilia helped me and Cyd plan our entire wedding, and insisted on even paying for a huge chunk of it herself. Her defense was that this would be her wedding too—she wanted it to be to the standard she (as my mother) and we (as her children) dreamed of. She showered us with love, attention, and all of her organizing powers, and she made me feel in my bones—despite self doubt—that we deserved this wedding. And that our community deserved it too, an exquisitely over the top and magical T4T love ceremony for all of us.

This was when I learned what it meant to be lucky enough to have a trans mother. My favorite part of the whole thing was seeing the collaboration and co-mothering between my biological mother, Isabel, and Cecilia. They didn’t know each other very well, but they indulged in the rituals together: picking out matching dresses over FaceTime, and both walking me to the altar side by side to give me away. Cecilia knew how central she was to my life and this wedding, and still she was always so careful not to upstage Isabel—even making the utmost sacrifice of going for a (slightly) simpler dress.

Here’s Cecilia’s speech to Cyd. She loved Cyd like a brother, like a son, sometimes like a therapist, and always like a best friend. They spoke the same love languages: cooking for each other, constantly buying gifts, having the deepest talks, and being the first call when shit hit the fan.

The look Cecilia gave me in this video before heading back to her seat is seared into my heart forever. I’ll spend the rest of my life decoding all of the layers of things she was telling me with that look.

My heart is shattered, as I know is true for so many of you. Hold each other tight. I love y’all 

Kay Ulanday Barrett’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

Dearest Cecilia,

Thank you for raising so many of us transgender & nonbinary people with your beloved care. NYC, queer, migrant, transgender, SWer, justice seeking hearts are grieving. Cecilia is just so very rare.

Transjustice movements have an immeasurable gap; loss that won’t ever be filled in the same way. It’s like when we talk about we’ll never hear another Whitney Houston or Luther Vandross sing again, their timbre, their musicality.

There isn’t another Cecilia in Trans and Justice building, writing, performance community. A grounded organizer’s organizer. A vivacious artist, a marvelous writer. Liberation trying/making personified.

Personal note:
I wouldn’t have had top surgery if it weren’t for @ceciliagentili72 advocacy. She was my Trans intake person when I was very poor & on workers comp /disability. she ceaselessly advocated for me when I was fatshamed by doctors, rejected for clearance. She pushed back on ableism when I felt alone. She said, Don’t worry, you’re getting your surgery. And I did.

When covid began, she continued to try to be virtual, invited me to perform, speak panel after panel. She checked in on me. We talked about nonfiction & books. She helped me survive so we could talk about accessibility & covid.

In pandemic, many sick & disabled people are left behind. Trans movements, arts hubs, deny ableism & accessibility letting us disappear.

Cecilia always asked you what you thought. She never left me behind. We challenged eachother towards a fuller more comprehensive justice. I felt seen with her even if our understandings were on different wavelengths. She truly wanted everybody to win & everybody to be fed. Her work wasn’t driven by clout, followers, fads,likes. She was earnestly old skool, brilliantly trying for all Trans and BIPOC people. We are blessed to work with her. This loss. This loss. To feel her radiance imprint on everything we are & will become.

Thank you for everything. 

Qween Jean’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

Cecilia Gentili we honor you.

You are an eternal saint who guides us toward freedom!

You loved, protected & led our community through the darkest times and carried us to victory with fearless joy.

Your spirit will always beat in our hearts.

Nos Veremos En El Paraiso

Thank You @ceciliagentili72 For Your Testimony, Your Sacrifices and Unwavering Commitment To Making This World A Much Better Place For US ALL To Breathe and Exist!

Cecilia’s Declaration For Collective Liberation
@ceciliagentili72 We Lead With Love For The Wellness of All Humanity

Raquel Willis’ Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

Today is a tough day for all of us. Cecilia Gentili was a living legend. A titan, an unapologetic example of joy and power. Her spirit lives on in all whom she touched and all she built for us. We get to relish in her words eternally through her memoir, Faltas, her appearance in docs like The Stroll, all the videos and photos of her performances, and through the encouraging words she showered on us day in and day out.

I was always in awe of how vulnerable she was and grateful to hear her life’s testimony on more than one occasion. Most recently, I interviewed her for the final episode of this season of @afterlives.pod. It made sense for her to be the conclusion and she shared even more than this clip. She loved our people OUT LOUD. She made us burst out in laughter. She made us take ourselves seriously and not all at once. She MOTHERED in every sense of the word. She loved her some @gogograham, @therealgialove, and @rioxofia. And she had far too many children, nibblings, and fam to name in one sitting.

We last texted last week and she said, “Sister! I just wanted to tell you I love you so much. I will do anything for you anywhere. I truly love you sister.” And you know, if Ceci said it she meant it.

Rest powerfully and peacefully, Mami. And go kiki with the ancestors. You deserve eternal pleasure.

Gia Love’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

“Let me photograph you in this light
In case it is the last time
That we might be exactly like we were
Before we realized
We were scared of getting old
It made us restless
It was just like a movie
It was just like a song“

My mother is gone @ceciliagentili72. I am devastated. I am confused. I met @ceciliagentili72 at APHICA at my first appointment to start my transition. She was so kind, giving, and honest. She believed in community. She believed in me! My heart is broken again. I will forever feel the weight of her absence. Please pray for me, pray for Peter, Oscar, Chiqui, Mya, Amari, Gogo and sooooo many more family members that are in mourning. We lost an icon today. I just can’t believe I performed this song for her on her Birthday, and it was the last time……

Chase Strangio’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

love you forever. thanks for watching over me in so many ways for so long. i will carry you with me always. i know lorena is holding you.

Dominique Jackson’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

AN ACTIVIST, AN ICON, A TRAILBLAZER, A MOTHER, A WIFE, AN ACTRESS AND COMEDIAN, AN AMAZING SISTER AND A PHENOMENAL HUMAN BEING!

@fxnetworks @poseonfx

“I am deeply saddened by your departure dear sister! Even in death you are force to be reckoned with, your legacy one of movement, love and compassion unapologetic and true. I thank you dearly for ALL the work you have done,” Jackson wrote. “You sacrificed you boldly telling your truth and living it and for that you have changed and influenced many lives and the world. I LOVE YOU FOREVER BEAUTIFUL STRONG SISTER! REST WELL!”

Cecilia Gentili stared opposite Dominique Jackson in FX’s beloved TV series “Pose.”

Indya Moore’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

My friend Cecilia included so many people in her love & strength. She made life worth living & and she made life liveable for so many people. Cecilia made everything she was a part of more brilliant than it was before. To be embraced by her was a blessing & to embrace her was an honor.

Oh Cecilia, I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to see you & love you on this timeline, to be inspired by you, to stand in solidarity with true love & faith with you. Transition in blissful mystic wonder my friend.

ALOK’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

rest in power @ceciliagentili72 ! thank you for being a leader, a mentor, a mother, a sister for me for over a decade. i will never forget the sound of your laughter. i heard it pierce through the crowd just last week at my show in new york. thank you for being there. thanks for always being there.

i laughed so hard at your show last may. when we took this photo outside i told you that you were one of the funniest people i knew & that it was a testament to the work you had done to heal and alchemize so much of the pain you had experienced. it was the first time i had ever seen you bashful. it was so cute and human and real and i loved you so much for it.

just like i loved you for our side chats at every gala, the real talk, the side eyes, the knowing glances. the quips and eye lash flutters. you always made me feel like something greater than myself. even in my hesitations & doubts — something greater than myself.

this is so fresh, and so awful. and the world feels so much less glamorous, less possible without you in it. you did so much for us & fought so long and hard. thank you. thank you. thank you. for teaching me how to love trans people more than they could ever hate us.

my heart goes out to your family. and i know that because of how you lived your life: that includes the entire city of new york. maybe even — the entire world.

dear world: we lost our sun. we lost our sun.

Devin-Norelle’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

I have so many feelings about this photo, taken a couple days before Cecilia’s bday, because it might just be the last one I took with Cecilia. Tabytha simply wanted to take a selfie, but I’ve become a person that has moved towards taking less photos- I rather live in the moment, these days, and enjoy the eneegy of the people in my company. I’m glad @tabythagonzalez insisted, because I am reminded today that sometimes I SHOULD take that selfie and keep those memories with me forever.

Before this photo was taken, we had just left an all day retreat for our (Tabytha and me) first board meeting. Cecilia had long been a member, but recruited us to join her. We’d embark on a mighty important task.  I can not reveal exactly what that is as it is confidential, but what I will say is that Cecilia envisioned a trans revolution, and she recruited us as her mentees to work towards a trans takeover, not just for the Foundation, but for all and any work we would be doing going forward.

If no tranny left behind was a thing, that program would be ushered in and efficiently run by Cecilia. 

I’ve known Cecilia for so many years; we only became closer this year as I helped her and her kids with one or two of her events. She always thought of me over the years for various projects . But this year was different. She invited me to have a monthly dinner with her, and it at our first dinner that she let me know she wanted to mentor me. When Cecilia says she wants to take you under her wings, you don’t walk, you run. 

She is the most generous with her wisdom, and will pour into you heavily.  And even now, Cecilia is the gift that keeps on giving to so many.

A visionary, a mom, a wife, a sister, a force, a comedian if I may, an artist, an auntie, a mentor, an activist and a lover of all humans, Cecilia was a true beacon when there is darkness.

After this photo was taken, we took Cecilia’s little blue car, she joked about how she got her license to lighten the mood as we drove to our sibling Sasha’s funeral.

To know Cecilia is to know the scope of the work she has done. We are living in a world that she made possible.

Black Trans Femmes In The Arts’ Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

We are heartbroken to hear of the loss of our sister, Cecilia Gentili. Cecilia was a light in our community. She never failed to make us laugh even in the darkest of moments and she was never afraid to push boundaries and break doors down.

She is a trailblazer and was one of my inspirations and guiding lights when I started BTFA. I am so grateful to have worked alongside her and been a part of the same movement. She was an absolute force. I will always treasure our moments together. It brings me some peace to know that her last words to me were “I’m proud of you.” I hope I continue to make her proud, and I hope that we as a community will forever honor her legacy and carry her vision forward.

Rest in Power, Cecilia.

– Jordyn Jay and the BTFA family

GLAAD’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

We are devastated to hear about the death of Cecilia Gentili. Cecilia was a pillar in the trans community, a dedicated advocate, a striking actress on the hit TV program Pose, an incredible journalist, and a sex worker. She did direct service through The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, Callen Lorde, and the APICHA (originally the Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS) Community Health Center in New York, and later was managing director of policy for GMHC.

Several years ago she founded Trans Equity Consulting and has collaborated with many major organizations on transgender and gender nonbinary rights. Cecilia was also a founding member of Decrim NY, a coalition working toward decriminalization, decarceration, and destigmatization of sex workers. She also led the charge alongside other trans journalists to speak out against the New York Times’ biased and inaccurate trans coverage. Cecilia just celebrated her 52nd birthday, surrounded by friends, loved ones, and community.

In the anthology, Surviving Transphobia, Cecilia wrote about growing up under dictatorship in Argentina, about being inspired by American movies to be her authentic self. She poured that passion for visibility and acceptance into her life and many others:

“I say this to trans people, trans women of color, and to trans women of color who are undocumented or sex workers or both, people like me: Do what you can to achieve whatever level of empowerment you can get, but also be safe… I’ll probably never call myself radical, especially in two countries with such high rates of trans femicide and histories of coups. I’m okay with it. I never want to judge my work by how ‘radical’ I am. But I do judge it on what I’m doing for my people and for myself.”

Her book Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist won the American Library Association’s 2023 Stonewall Book Award. Her one-woman show Red Ink was slated to make a comeback at the Public Theater this April.

NY Transgender Advocacy Group’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

Today, our hearts are heavy as we mourn the loss of Cecilia Gentili @ceciliagentili72 , a cherished community leader, pioneer, and fierce advocate for equal rights. Her passion, wisdom, and dedication will continue to inspire us all. Rest in power, Cecilia.  

The Okra Project’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

Through our deep heartbreak, we affirm Cecilia Gentilli was undoubtedly an angel on earth and will live on and through us all the same. Her contributions, art, and insatiable love of community are forever. Her spirit stands as a powerful roadmap to our collective freedom and liberation.

So, as we navigate the turbulent waters of grief, let us take comfort in the belief that our dearest angel, Cecilia, remains by our side and guides us with her love and light. Until we are reunited once more in the embrace of eternity. Her work and love live forever.

-Gabrielle Inés Souza & The Okra Project Family

interACT’s Tribute To Cecilia Gentili

We at interACT deeply mourn the loss of our friend and co-conspirator Cecilia Gentili. Cecilia was and is so many things – advocate, leader, teacher, caregiver, mother, warrior, truth-teller, mirror – and not least of all, she was a caring ally to intersex people, as she was to all she encountered in the fight for liberation and justice. She will always be with us, siempre juntos. —Erika

TransLash Family On Instagram Honors Cecilia Gentili

On February 6, 2024, @translashmedia published this call for memorials:

What did #CeciliaGentili mean to you? Share in the comments and we will add your memorials to our memorial this week. We love you and are holding space for your grief as we process our own. – Team TransLash

We will compile your responses and add them here through February 2024.

About Cecilia Gentili’s Legacy

As reported by Entertainment Weekly, outside of her work on “Pose” and as a published author, Gentili’s activism led to a partnership with the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in 2021, which resulted in the creation of her namesake Cecilia’s Occupational Inclusion Network health program that provided free care for sex workers.

Callen-Lorde Released The Following Statement From CEO Patrick McGovern:

“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Cecilia Gentili. Cecilia was a fierce, fearless advocate and a leader, who spoke candidly about her own experiences as a trans woman of color. In doing so, she inspired countless others and truly paved the way for our communities — especially, sex workers and trans women of color — to access high quality and judgment free healthcare. Her legacy will live on through our work at Callen-Lorde and beyond.”

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman Issued A Statement Describing The Work And Impact Cecilia Gentili Delivered:

“I’m devastated to learn of the passing of Cecilia Gentili, a pathbreaking civil rights activist, healthcare advocate, author and actress. I was honored to work with Cecilia on many issues in Albany as we passed legislation enshrining the civil rights protections for transgender New Yorkers into law, including the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (GENDA), ending the so-called ban on “walking while trans,” eliminating the gay and trans panic defense in our criminal statutes, making New York a safe haven for transgender youth and their parents seeking gender-affirming care, and the creation of the New York State Lorena Borjas TGNB Wellness & Equity Fund. We could not have passed the multitude of bills improving the lives of transgender New Yorkers without her help and guidance. Cecilia was a force of nature who leaves a long trailblazing legacy behind. l will miss her deeply.” 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Shared This Statement:

Democracy Now! Shared This Obituary:

In New York, beloved transgender advocate, author, and actor Cecilia Gentili has died. Gentili migrated from Argentina years ago and dedicated her life fighting for the rights of sex workers, LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities.

Gentili starred as Miss Orlando in the acclaimed television series “Pose.” Her debut memoir, “Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist,” was released in 2022, detailing her life before leaving Argentina. Last year she began performing in her autobiographical off-Broadway show called “Red Ink.”

Gentili was also the founder of Trans Equity Consulting, an organization that supports trans women of color, sex workers, immigrants and incarcerated people. A post on her Instagram said Tuesday, “Our beloved Cecilia Gentili passed away this morning to continue watching over us in spirit. … Please be gentle with each other and love one another with ferocity.”

Gentili was 52 years old.

REPLAY: Funeral Of Cecilia Gentili At Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, NYC, On February 15, 2024

Video Description:

𝑪𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒂 𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒊 leaves a burning legacy of love, brotherhood and an infinite fire in our hearts to fight for the liberation of trans people, sex workers, migrants and people who have been pushed to the margins.

We honor her life, love and power with the 𝑪𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒂’𝒔 𝑳𝒆𝒈𝒂𝒄𝒚 𝑭𝒖𝒏𝒅 and the following arrangements: gofundme.com/f/cecilias-legacy-fund

Please note, services are open to the public, but all media inquiries or politician requests must email media AT transequityconsulting DOT com to arrange details.

In following Cecilia’s wishes, any plaques, recognitions & awards must accompany material support for NYC’s trans & SW community, preferably through Cecilia’s Legacy Fund.

Wake: No press permitted Wed. 2/14, 2-8pm, Bushwick United Methodist Church

Funeral: Thurs 2/15 9:30-11:30am (sharp), St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Repass: Thurs 2/15 1-5pm, Nowadays NYC

Attire: Mother requests you all look fabulous & ¢vN+!

Bring RED flowers: 10% discount at Brooklyn’s Mwah Flowers (mwahflowers.com) by mentioning Interboro Funeral Home.

Explore All Of TransLash Media’s Content Featuring Cecilia Gentili

•  TransLash Podcast Episode 27, ‘Latinx Heritage Month’
•  TransLash Guide to Hispanic Heritage Month
•  The Anti-Trans Hate Machine Episode 3, ‘Transphobia In A Suit’
• WATCH #LivesAtStake: does the COVID-19 crisis reveal it’s time to declare sex work lawful? Imara Jones spoke with with trans activists Aria Sa’id, Toni-Michelle Williams, and Cecilia Gentili on April 23, 2020 (captions provided).

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation. Were you in community with Cecilia and would like to add your tribute? Let us know and we’ll update this memorial.

The post What Cecilia Gentili Means To Trans People appeared first on TransLash Media.

At the heart of the capital city of India, sits a larger-than-life mural made by Bengaluru-based trans-women and cis-women-led art collective, the Aravani Art Project. The mural, gracing the N. P. co-educational senior secondary government school in Lodhi Colony, New Delhi, consists of eleven figures. Some smile coyly, others frown their disapproval, while a few wear a resigned look that comes with experience and wisdom. Bold patterns in vivid hues on their clothing tie them together, intermingling until it’s impossible to know where one’s saree ends and the other’s Madras-checked shirt begins. This striking work of art represents the vastly differing cultures that India consists of and is inspired by the many people the art collective has worked with in the past.

Since its inception in 2016, the Aravani Art Project has channeled the talent and passion of its members to create art as a social practice. Through large-scale projects that span the length and breadth of India, they have raised awareness of how art can spark conversations between cis and trans people and create space for acceptance. Along with empowering women to recognize the power of art as a respected medium of self-expression, the art collective creates opportunities for alternative sources of income. 

In India, trans women, known as hijras or aravanis, have always been called upon to bestow their blessings at auspicious occasions like marriages and births, inspired by Shikhandi, an important transgender character in the Hindu mythological epic Mahabharata. As this character played a positive and important role in that epic, all trans people are held in high esteem in this context even today. They are usually gifted a large sum of money in return for their blessings. 

Members of the Aravani Art Project come from poor backgrounds and have access to little or no education. So for transwomen in India, the easiest ways of earning a living include performing blessing duties, performing sex work, or in the worst cases begging for alms. 

Poornima Sukumar, artist, and founder of Aravani Art Project, recalls how it began, 

“I was part of an international documentary that was filming a group of transgender people in India and I made many friends in the community during that process. Since the rest of the film crew was international, they also found it easier to be friendly with me. After 3.5 years, when the documentary was completed, they wanted to continue working together and I felt I couldn’t leave them in the lurch.”

As her training lay in arts education, she realized that sharing arts practices was the best way to empower her new friends. They started by painting on walls in available public spaces, as her students weren’t interested in the theory of art or learning in a traditional classroom setup. The sizes of their canvas’ in the open-air environment empowered them further.

“Public art can be very intimidating to create. However,  I figured that if painting on public walls could be so liberating for me as a person from a privileged background, then these trans women would feel that liberation so much more, and it would allow people to see them in a different light. The streets are also important because it is in these public spaces that the bodies of transgender identifying people encounter violence, harassment, social negligence, and pressure,” Sukumar adds. 

In 2016, they started by painting a few walls without any agenda or deadline, but slowly their efforts blossomed into something much larger.

In India, members of the transgender community have always been polarized — revered as holy beings or reviled for being different. The Aravani Art Project sought to change this by creating safe spaces for them to express themselves. Seven years, and nearly 300 projects later, Aravani artists have created art for schools, arts institutions, and private projects. They have also received a number of prestigious grants and residencies and displayed their work at renowned gatherings like the India Art Fair. As a registered organization with the government, they have been able to gain more recognition for their work. This has led to more commissioned work to paint for government infrastructure projects as well as large corporate institutions, which Sukumar believes will help sustain their work in the long run and enable them to train more people in the arts.

The results are expansive. Shanthi Muniswamy, a trans artist, poet, and blogger shared more about the fulfillment she feels every time she works on a project.

“Travelling to other states for projects allowed me to meet and interact with my community personally and deeply. I also witnessed people across communities living together seamlessly. There was no room for biases, as love ruled there. I overcame my fear of heights and climbed a wall that was more than 40ft …The process of watching the wall art come together after five days of being with the community, was emotional and satisfying.”

As fulfilling as the work is, however, there are challenges too. The biggest of which was the initial resistance within the community. Sukumar shared that though the transgender community had the zest to do something, they found it difficult to understand the merits of working with art. “They would question whether this knowledge we were teaching them would prove useful in any way. They wondered if it would benefit them. Fortunately, they have seen the impact for themselves over the years, and now they have become advocates of the program themselves,” she says.

Sukumar summarizes, “We have changed perspective and made it easier for people to have conversations around this subject. Now my team members are seen as artists first and transgender people later, which makes it so much easier for people to approach them and interact with them. Art mitigates the social gap and I feel this is our greatest impact.”

Noor Anand Chawla is an independent journalist based in New Delhi, India who contributes to various Indian and international publications such as the Christian Science Monitor, ARTNews, Reader’s Digest, and others. She writes on travel, fashion, art, food, health, tech, and other lifestyle subjects.

A lawyer by training, she pursued her passion for writing through her blog www.nooranandchawla.com and this paved the way for journalism. She was recently awarded the title of being India’s Top 40 English language journalists under 40 by the exchange4media group.

She creates visual lifestyle content on Instagram as @nooranandchawla. Noor lives with her family and enjoys traveling and reading books in her free time.

The post Indian Trans Women Bridge Social Gaps with Public Art Projects appeared first on TransLash Media.

Maggie Trisler is the creative force behind Mystic Light Casino, a powerful band from Memphis, Tennessee with a lo-fi aesthetic that takes its cues from punk heroes like The Stooges and Sleater-Kinney. Maggie, who calls herself “Iggy Pop in a sports bra,” recently fronted the band at the inaugural Women in Memphis Music Festival alongside some of the city’s most dazzling talent.  

In Tennessee, simply performing at this event is perilous for a trans musician like Maggie. The Republican-led legislature has led a crusade against trans individuals in this state, passing the first-ever law that placed legal limits on drag shows on public property or—as in the case of the all-ages Women in Memphis Music Festival—any event without age restrictions.

This law—which was struck down as unconstitutionally vague by a federal judge—could have classified an artist such as Maggie as a “male or female impersonator,” and therefore legally a cabaret performer engaged in a criminal act. Even with the law gone, a host of predatory state laws against trans people in Tennessee went into effect in July, and the threat against trans performers of all kinds is palpable. 

Trisler, 40, has been part of the Memphis underground music scene for 12 years but has discovered new possibilities for self-expression since transitioning in March of 2018. TransLash interviewed Trisler on her evolution not just as a trans woman, but also as an artist and an introvert.

When I first started playing as a teenager, I created a caricature of myself to perform because I’m a shy person. Creating a version of myself with a lot more confidence helped me do this thing I wanted to do—write and perform songs.  

I started this band in 2015, before I was even out as trans to myself. Most of the bandmates have treated me the same. They’ve all been very supportive, and even when they’ve made mistakes, it’s all been very well intended. 

I started transitioning around 2017, and for the next couple years I played a few shows fairly normally. I was out, but not terribly out. Then I played a few shows wearing dresses—people thought it was kind of like a gimmick at first until we had conversations after the set. Then when I got laid off from my day job at the start of the pandemic,  I went full-time as Maggie. 

As restrictions lifted, I got the band back together and we started playing shows again in late 2021, I just decided that I was going to be aggressively assertive about my femininity. 

I’m not the most passing trans woman, and I don’t really care to be. It’s not my goal. My goal is to get people to read me correctly duringin interpersonal interactions. I am best understood as a woman—always have been, and always will be. Transitioning was more about that.

My mission today is just to be who I am. Asserting myself—my real self this time—not a caricatur

Maggie’s band, Mystic Light Casino, has a new sound now, developed through the voice feminization lessons she took to change her speaking and singing style. She hopes to record a new EP with the band later this summer. 

Hormone replacement therapy can’t undo the damage that testosterone does to your vocal cords, so if I hadn’t gone through [those lessons] then I wouldn’t have been able to talk to you the way that I’m talking right now.

The switch does flip when I get on stage. I still get really horrible stage fright even if there’s two people in the audience. Honestly, that’s worse. If there’s two people in the audience I get more nervous, and my anxiety gets ramped up, but the second I get on stage, all that energy that builds up gets put into the performance. 

And part of that is playing with that notion and how to perform and just to be who I am and do what I do. 

While Trisler has found a supportive community in her home of Memphis, the state legislature of Tennessee and its mayor, Bill Lee, have passed increasingly hostile legislation against the trans population.

Whereas drag is an exaggerated performance of gender, part of my transition was an exaggerated performance of myself, but in a way, it’s more vulnerable than I know how to do in real life—which is why I’m single.

I am aware of the fact that Tennessee state law defines me as a drag queen or a drag performer when what I’m doing is very much not that. So now I’m interested in walking right up to that line and playing up where that line is for me as a protest, but also as a way of expanding my ability to express myself. 

I’m looking at booking a tour for later this year, and that’s becoming scarier. I do have lots of queer friends in lots of towns across the country (thank God for the internet!). I can connect with them and see where they would play, but there’s still a few gaps in the map I have in my head. I’m like “I don’t think I want to drive quite that far. I don’t know if I want to stop in any of the cities between here and there.” So how do I figure that one out? 

Trisler recently had an opportunity to be an example that she needed for herself when she was a young punk rocker trying to understand her own identity. 

I got to play a Pridefest in Jonesboro a couple of weeks ago and did have younger kids come up to me afterward and say they had never seen a queer person perform anything but drag and didn’t know that that was something that they could do. Just perform their regular creative work in a different context.

When I was a kid I didn’t have the chance of seeing queer people just being queer people and performing. I didn’t have the experience of seeing a trans person do anything but drag, and it’s kind of on me to be the example that I wanted to see. 

Featured photo courtesy of Aaron Brame. It took me until I was 36 and met [late Memphis trans icon and entertainer] Lisa Michaels, dearly missed Lisa Michaels, doing a stand-up bit about being a trans lesbian for me to realize that “Oh, wait, I can be a girl and like girls? I did not know that.” My mind was blown.

And now I’m a cranky 40-year-old trans lesbian wearing flashy clothes. But rock and roll flashy! I mean, I have gold lamé pants now.

I look trans. I don’t care. I like the way I look. I like the way I feel. I like the way I am.

Featured photo courtesy of Aaron Brame.

Aaron Brame is a journalist, educator, and poet living in Memphis, Tennessee.

The post Maggie Of Mystic Light Casino Is Trans, Proud, And Rocking Memphis appeared first on TransLash Media.

In the third of three Artistic Legacies films, Ballroom legend Kimiyah Prescott opens up about how she grew from the rigid and repressive rules of an extremely religious household to find freedom through expression in the ballroom community. As Kimiyah prepares for an upcoming performance, she tells us what liberation feels like. And how once she experienced it, she never looked back.

Credits: Creator And Executive Producer: Imara Jones | Producer: Tiler Wilson | Producer: Ruby Rose Collins | Producer: Sophia Kiapos | Editor: Gracie Simonett | Director Of Photography: Nicholas Lattimore | Assistant Camera: Etienne Pelissier | Sound Mixer: Zach Salem-Mackall | Colorist: Michael Schatz  | Digital Strategist: Daniela “Dani” Capistrano | Special Thanks To: Jordyn Jay, Btfa, And Kimiyah

About Artistic Legacies

Artistic Legacies explores the power of the Black Trans Femmes in the Arts (BTFA) collective through the stories of Founder Jordyn Jay, artist and musician/songwriter Iman Hill, and ballroom legend Kimiyah Prescott. This three-part docuseries shows how these members use artistic expression to change themselves and the world around them, bringing hope to the most of the marginalized at a time of unprecedented violence and political attack. Artistic Legacies points to how we can create brighter futures by using what’s already inside each of us. The 200-strong BTFA demonstrates how to manifest these possibilities.

Kimiyah’s Story: Transcript

I got into the hint of ballroom when I got into high school. People tell me like you’re a star, but I don’t think you know it yet, and I used to be like I know I’m a star but what could I do to take it to the next level?

*Washing hair* Washing… Yes, It’s jet black.

My parents is Caribbean. And, you know, my father is a pastor. So, you know, I was very sheltered. I wasn’t able to like be outside and socialize with a lot of people.

I was battling living a double life and hiding myself from the world.

My parents would usually drop me off halfway to school, so they dropped by the train station. But my best friend at the time lived like down the block.

So I would go to her house and I would change my clothes into whatever I wanted to wear, whether it was a skirt or some cute sandals or just like even just do little things like do my makeup a little bit.

And when I got home, I used to stop around the corner from my house and I would like take it off and then go in the house like nothing happened.

*Kimiyah on the phone* I’m running on 20 minutes of sleep, but yeah, I have to get ready for this ball girl. And my dress isn’t even here yet. I got my ticket.

I wasn’t going to back down. I wasn’t going to change who I was for anybody. When I got to ballroom, just seeing people that are unapologetic and just living in their truth and being happy, I wanted that. 

When I got into high school and I saw my friend, her name is Tati, voguing. She just went spin in the air into a dip, and I was like, what is that? Whatever that is, I need to learn it.

We ended up going to HMI and I saw all these gay people and I’m like, wait, there’s more of me.

From there, I just kept practicing and perfecting my craft. Brought me to my first ball, and even then I was like, Wow, it’s underground. It’s lights the big speaker. It was just crazy. It was like, I need to I want to be a part of this. I want to be a part of this, so badly. 

*Kimiyah walking up to venue* Hi, i’m so sorry. Thank you. Thank you for coming. You okay. Oh, shit. Damn. She got somebody in the chair. Come on. I’m about to tell her right now. 

My ballroom career took off. Then I joined the Iconic House of Juicy Couture, which is like my second family. I love them so dearly.

I’m confident in who I am. I’m confident in what I do. I’m confident in anything that I put my mind to do.

Being able to vogue and showcase like my talent and me being the only one on stage, I feel like I’m on another level.

I just always try to think like what is the next best thing I could do?

People say “wow, watching you just inspired me to go out there and do my thing.” That’s what makes you legendary. 

Why Translash Honors Black Trans Women

Black trans femmes have historically been the first to stand up for LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, while also disproportionately facing the most anti-LGBT+ and anti-Black violence. We at TransLash want to give our Black trans femme siblings their flowers 24-7. Our #BlackTransArtisticLegacies campaign is part of our mission of telling trans stories to save trans lives.

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation.

The post Kimiyah’s Story: ‘Artistic Legacies’ Feat. Black Trans Femmes In The Arts appeared first on TransLash Media.

2022 was…an eventful year to say the least. It was my first full year outside of academia and I was able to focus a bit more on what I wanted in life. It was also a year when multiple friends and family members either passed away or were in life-threatening situations. I learned more about myself and dealt with emotions I hadn’t felt in years. I finally broke out of my shell, made some local friends, and we may-or-may-not have done some dumb fun things.

Like a character in a story, I’m not the same person I was at the beginning of 2022. But unlike a character in a story, fortunately, I wasn’t struck down by a bolt of lightning from the heavens for changing; or sent on a quest for redemption, banished to the depths of limbo, or forced to fight in a gladiator death match. Anyways, you get the picture. It’s never too late or too scary to change. Try something new. It may change your life for the better.

I was always the weird kid growing up. I was either too loud, talked too much, or was too excited about the nerdiest things. I had some school peers that somewhat understood my behavior, but those friendships didn’t last long due to them moving away or switching schools. Even when I had the chance to make stronger friendships, I never felt comfortable being truly vulnerable with another person. One of the ways I coped with this was by being highly engaged in various forms of media including TV, movies, video games, and comics. I felt like I could escape into these beautiful worlds through the lives of fascinating characters. Now, as a black queer non-binary woman, I am going back through the media I enjoyed as a child and finding new meaning by understanding why I was attracted to them. As I searched the Internet to find like-minded people, I noticed that most of the queer & transgender people talking about their relations to fictional characters were white & cis, which sometimes discouraged me from telling my own story. However, now I’m sharing my story in the hopes of helping others who are like me feel seen. Here are a few of the most impactful characters that have inspired me as I’ve found myself in new worlds.

Harpo Johnson from The Color Purple is the fictional character that affected me the most. Before I read the book for a high school English class on African-American literature towards the end of my senior year, I thought it was just an overrated page-turner that black people praised for no reason; but once I got into it, I couldn’t believe how wrong I was. I would describe The Color Purple as a look into race and gender in early 20th-century America from a black feminist perspective through an engaging narrative. I have read and learned valuable lessons from various books in my life, but this book was one of the few that personally impacted me in a way that made me reflect on myself, and my life, and improved it for the better. 

What intrigued me the most about Harpo’s character is his non-traditional relationship with his wife, Sofia. Sofia is a black woman who is aware of her position in society but refuses to submit to the powers that be, while Harpo is an emotional black man who enjoys doing domestic work. Despite their non-stereotypical relationship, their early years were joyful, but when Harpo’s father scolds him for not being a proper man their relationship starts to become strained. Harpo goes to Celie for help (the narrator) with this conflict between who he is and what his father wants him to be. Celie advises him to beat Sofia because she only understands marriage as a master-servant relationship. Reading this, I felt deeply connected to Harpo’s conflict. As mentioned before, I was a weird kid, and as I started coming of age I was having problems with my gender and gender roles. The angrier I got about patriarchy, the angrier I got with myself and what was expected of me. I wanted to be independent, but I did not want to be this tough heteronormative man my family wanted me to express. Harp was the first character I met that made me feel seen. At the time, I didn’t realize how much his character would make me think about my own identity, but it was a start.

Even though Harpo Johnson is the most impactful character in my life, he wasn’t the first character to influence me. That honor belongs to Edd, or Double D, from Ed, Edd, n Eddy. In my early childhood, Ed, Edd, n Eddy was the only show I would make a fuss about when my parents tried to get me to stop watching it. This Looney Tunes-Esque cartoon about child scammers entangled me with its violent slap-stick comedy, but Double D always confused yet intrigued me. For the longest time, I didn’t know if he was supposed to be a boy or a girl because of his high-pitched voice and his polite-geeky behavior. Unlike the bonehead Ed and the scheming Eddy, Double D acted as the trio’s conscience but was always flawed by his own scientific interests. He was a different kind of boy—just like me. To put it in a modern context, Double D was the first non-binary presence I experienced and it made me feel okay about who I was in reality. The feeling became even more intense when it was revealed that Double D hangs out with Ed and Eddy because they were the only ones to accept him when he moved into the Cul-de-Sac. It was similar to my experience entering a new school the second time I took Kindergarten. I will admit that those experiences would have been better if there were more characters of color like Double D when I was growing up.

The next character was also one that I was also introduced to in my childhood, but I didn’t realize their impact until recently. Imagine this: It’s Spring 2011, you’re in 7th grade, and Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam premiered a few months ago on Disney Channel. It was okay, but after watching this franchise and similar ones like High School Musical, you start wanting something different. Then you see a commercial for a new Disney Channel movie called Lemonade Mouth, and one of the main characters is an Asian girl with a cool punk/goth aesthetic. The character’s name is Stella Yamada, played by Hayley Kiyoko, and you’re not sure why but you think she’s the coolest high schooler that ever existed. This is how I felt when Lemonade Mouth came out, but I didn’t want to share my feelings with others because I thought they would make fun of me for it. I repressed those feelings until a number of years ago when I discovered that Hayley Kiyoko has a very successful and outspoken queer music career (I swear didn’t mean for that to rhyme). Learning of her success reminded me of my old feelings and added some clarity to my aesthetic tastes. Since I was a kid, I’ve always been interested in alternative and punk culture, but my devout Pentecostal parents wouldn’t let me explore that side of myself because they thought it was satanic and “weird stuff that white people do.” Fortunately, I had an aunt and some friends that were into rock, so I was still able to listen from time to time. When I was exploring myself in college, far away from my family, I realized that I didn’t have to hide anymore. When I thought about who I wanted to be, Stella is one of the characters that came to my mind. Although her aesthetic caught my attention, it’s her character that stood out: a rebellious person who wasn’t afraid to do the right thing (even though her causes were super Disney-fied). She reminded me that I had to be a bit rebellious in order to finally express my true trans queer self. Even though Hayley Kiyoko is beyond her days as Stella Yamada, the character’s impact helped inspire a generation of queer people.

There are so many more characters that have helped me realize who I am, but to go through all of them would take way too much time. The point is that even though fictional stories may seem like nonsense, they give us space to express difficult emotions and thoughts. These experiences aren’t reserved for any race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or anyone that may be deemed “different.” We all have a right to explore ourselves the way we want to, and fiction is a valid way to do that.

Sammi Jacobs (they/them/she/hers) is a 25-year-old queer non-binary geek storyteller and a 2021 graduate of Morehouse College. They were born & raised in Buffalo, NY, and currently live with family in Baton Rouge, LA. Sammi currently works as a tech training consultant but aspires to be a storyteller in the film & animation industry in the near future. They enjoy creating stories and writing about experiences that make people like themselves feel seen in both joyful and critical fashions. Outside of work, you can usually find Sammi either playing a JRPG, reading some indie comics, or binge-watching anime. If you would like to see more of Sammi’s work, please visit their website or follow them on Instagram or Twitter.

The post Fictional Characters That Helped Me Express My Gender & Sexuality appeared first on TransLash Media.

My trans identity has always been about my body, but more so about my womb, my desire to bear a child and be a mother. As a trans femme person assigned male at birth (AMAB), I felt uncomfortable naming my experience with my womb. I could recount all the times I felt it throb and felt its thirst to hold something, but I struggled to articulate it. 

I wish I could find solace in a celebration of all that I have been able to give birth to. Poems. Artwork. Writings. Songs. A spirit school for developing spiritual practitioners. Yet my womb, my desire to bear children in my body is what brought me to my transness, to my spiritual practice, and to the community I needed to carry me through this transcendental journey. 

As the years passed, motherhood felt like it had become more intangible—further from me. I was vulnerable to my body’s changes at 28 years old. I was entering Dad-Bod mode, my facial hair was growing in thicker, I was squaring, and my weight was creating a lot of body dysmorphia for me with no child in my belly. I wanted to see what could help me feel more connected to my gender expression and my femininity.

Recently, I reached out to a health specialist at FOLX to inquire about Hormonal Replacement Therapy. We talked about a lot in the 30-minute consultation I paid $59.00 for, but there was one particular moment that felt full circle. While I knew the effect estrogen would have on my testosterone production and fertility, I wasn’t expecting for this to come up in the conversation. Thinking ahead and considering sperm banking took me for a spin. I hit the brakes and my whole life tumbled before me. The point of entry to my transness (birthing, bearing children, and fertility) seemed to find me even as I tried to ignore it to lessen the grief.

I was also having concerns about growing older. My body had changed dramatically over a short period of time. I had gained weight after surviving Covid-19 and a car accident that left me with traumatic brain injury (TBI). I was economically affected as I could not produce work. I was dealing with PTSD, my little brother’s death, a new disability, all while still not having a partner, a child, or building a family like many others around me. Cis heteronormative pressures of all colonized types began to creep into my trans body. I logged out of the zoom consultation, reviewed all the notes I took, and began processing. I immediately started calculating when all the birthing people in my family had children. I realized I was past the age my mom was when she gave birth to me. Anxiety fueled me to math in ways I never could before. I felt incompentent, as though I had failed at being and doing what I was supposed to do on this earth—birthing from my body, something pivotal and important within me. I was single and had no love interest in mind, so I questioned when I’d be able to experience motherhood. Clearly, I was also associating motherhood with being partnered and in love as if they’re mutually exclusive. 

I mourned. I cried. Maybe I could do it on my own. But did I want to walk the same traumatic, difficult, yet path experience my mom had as a single parent? Did I have money to go through lengthy procedures that involved a medical system I didn’t trust? What if the person holding my baby ran away with them? How do I deal with the legalities that come with having a surrogate? It is all so unbearably confusing! I would lay in bed in wrath thinking of all the men I could’ve convinced to impregnate me. I wrote into the first night angrily, and every night after, until it became clearer. 

I want to name the culture of immediate fixing: superficially healing wounds by intellectualizing the experience instead of feeling and studying the emotions that naturally arise. It’s clear we want to avoid the inevitable suffering that comes with holding said emotions, even the good ones. When sharing my painful truth regarding my womb, my desire to childbear as a trans person, I have been asked to pivot and instead look at all that I’ve been able to birth, symbolically—but finding satisfaction in symbolic birth wasn’t helping me move past this. People jump to finding solutions when they don’t want to see me suffer because they love me, but I believe that it is essential for us to hold this pain longer, to bear witness to this revealing longer, and let it change us. Our instinct is to run away from the discomfort of the questions my relationship to my womb, childbearing, and my trans experience may bring up in all of us. Whether my experience may be too spiritual, too unscientific or unquantifiable, or too sensitive—it’s real. This may feel new to folks who are unfamiliar with yearning for a physiological function, an organ, or a defining experience they can’t live through its completion because of their physical impediments. So I want to challenge us to consider that maybe what I’m revealing is actually an ancient, Indigenous reality for so many humans on this planet that don’t have the language or safety to be able to live in their truth. 

I was reminded of a funeral, a spiritual miscarriage I experienced many years ago in the dirt lot of my first home. My mother prepared a bath for me with romero, lavender, dry roses, and sea salt after my flooding came. The flooding felt like something visceral spilling out of me followed by a sinking feeling that I had, without consent and control, been separated from something within me. I had been in ceremony with myself the days leading up to that moment around childbearing, identifying my womb, naming it, and questioning why I had been thrust into a body without the function I knew was a part of me. Semi-answers started pouring through during the ceremony, and after the bath, I felt more healed. I was able to enter a womb of my own needing. The romero protected my spiritually open womb from any more transgressions. The lavender laid me to rest. The dry roses helped ease my pain, held me in a sweet aroma and tenderness. The sea salt absorbed the heaviness and helped create space to be vulnerable and affirmed. My mother bore witness to my suffering and wrapped me in a white towel. I knew it was a wound from time immemorial. A past life? Or maybe it was all the stress I was under at the time. One thing was certain, I was grieving the loss of a child I never had, a miscarriage in multiple ways. I had just begun my training to become a postpartum doula through Birthworkers of Color. The experience activated something in me that I was afraid to know existed. I have a womb. Even if it’s one that can’t exist how I need it to, or bear the children I wish to home. It’s invisible yet alive within me. There is no science or way for me to conjure my ancestors, spirit guides, or TransGod to prove otherwise. Yet my mother held me after she pulled me out of the bathtub, and together we held vigil to a spirit child within me that could not metastasize fully. I drowned in tears and my mother wept with me. We mourned the children we’ve lost, lit candles, and tied red string around my waist to keep whatever was left of me together.

It has been years since that incident, and I’ve never given myself space to allow my yearning to be a birthing person unfurl. The way my mother held space for me in our yard that night is not the way the world-at-large holds me. I fear reliving the pain of being told I’m unacceptable, alien, sick, or taking up space that isn’t mine. It has kept me from articulating my truth in the ways I’m doing now. 

My truth is that if I could, I’d have a womb surgically introduced to my body. I’d be whole if I did. Having a womb would let me breathe fuller. My calling is to be a mother, a birther of beautiful things, but being limited by a physiological counterpart is distressing. It’s a quiet doom to find hope in all the other births. To have the ability to birth life in this way would make me feel like I am not broken, unlovable, incapable. 

I want to believe that before I entered this life on earth I chose my experience: my body, it’s diaspora, my eye color, my family, my laugh, my community, my hair etc. At least in my choosing I could blame myself for not having what I needed. I could blame myself for my brokenness. With this perspective it’s easier to solve the mystery, find answers and consolation amidst the grief: I did this, I am to blame. It’s a “lesson” of my own making. Maybe I was brought to suffer in this way so that I could write about it and hopefully help someone else who’s going through something similar? Maybe I’m here to reveal to the world more about their humanity through my suffering? It’s hard to create this narrative to lessen the damage of my reality—although it could very well be true. On horrible days I condemn nature and TransGod for taking from me what I need to be complete: a functioning womb in the body I’m in. But alas, there is only this féi, capable of birthwork to help redefine and expand notions of mother/parent hood and non-nuclear families. 

My hope is that through this essay we can move beyond a linear process of healing (eg: pain to happiness), expand the space for complex identities, and hold our emotions longer. Through this essay I offer my process as one of revelation with many waves of elation, discovery, grief, joy, and peace that move to their own rhythm. Even in my longing, I am birthing a new world. There’s no consolation for the kind of birthing I wish I was capable of, but I gift you, my reader, this: my truth.

In the present, so many of us TGNC (Trans Gender Non-Confirming) BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) are already under constant attack. We regularly face violence from the state, family, community, or ourselves (from all the internalized stigmatization). So nowadays we search for sweet resolves, answers for us by us, resolutions with happy endings, and decolonial hope. 

I hope that by exploring trans AMAB folk’s yearning for child bearing we can make room for a new world of possibilities for all types of bodies and experiences. Although this lived experience is painful, it has given me the opportunity to reshape my inner world and how I operate outside of it.

As a result of all this, I considered more deeply what limited beliefs I still carried that I needed to let go of. What is family? What is “community”? I realized how limited my imagination was in conjuring the life I wanted to live. I couldn’t see my experience as a love story because I was told I was not enough, ill, or missing something. My imagination existed within a colonial context and I needed to burn it all down. I couldn’t believe the discourse I had daily: did I want a tall handsome cis man of color to be the parent of my children? Was I constructing, in my soul, the prototype the American dream had sold so many immigrants? I can only be a mother if the child comes from my own body. I didn’t actually believe any of this. My soul began to break through the limited scope of my understanding. Soft tender light shone through and pulled me out. 

I began building the blueprint for a home for TGNC BIPOC parents and children. When I close my eyes I see a purple, pink, and blue five story house. Designed and built as a community. The house is in a meadow surrounded by pine trees and the scent of the ocean in the wind. It’s a safe haven to blossom and build a world where we can center love. The bounds of connection are endless. We are possible in ways unimaginable. Everyone’s fulfilled in the body they need and our understanding of being is expansive. We co-parent gently and fiercely as a community, or in units of one’s consensual choosing. This is the world I want my children to grow in, which means I must live in it now.

I still have moments like the zoom call with the consultant with FOLX that take me back to the start of my journey as a trans person. There’s something that says let your experience be a full one. Let every single part of your body speak, let every need be named, let everything that needs to bloom blossom, and all that needs to shift transform. Let your metamorphosis engulf you and have everyone see you, so they can see themselves too. There’s something that guides me to and from certain people. I want to believe it’s the child I lost and mourn that guides me towards their young being. The closer I feel with my child the more I realize the work is in decolonizing motherhood, transness, the body, birthing, and living in a fuller, safer world. The more I allow the possibility of my experience to reveal the possibilities of life on Earth, outside of the lens of Western colonialism, I can see that my child and I are possible right now. In this very moment we are together and in presence, even if a physical body is what keeps us apart. While this brings me consolation on a bad day, there’s the grief that exists regardless. Touching each other is beyond even the strongest spiritual connection. As I allow myself space to mourn and wallow, the more I am able to get back up and live, patiently awaiting the slow reveal of what this was all for. I, as well as my community, shouldn’t have to fight to be alive, feel full, or human. Being alive, surviving, or on a good day thriving in a capitalist and colonized world is something we celebrate because we are bound by it; but I want to know what my experience would be like in a world where fate is us becoming all that we need to without the fear of persecution and systemic violence. 

I will have children eventually, even if it won’t be directly from my body. I am open too, in acknowledging how much fulfillment and joy I have experienced mothering Kosmoh, my TransGod sent puppy. I am open to seeing my creations both private to me and public to others alike be held in the reverence they deserve as my children. Especially Hood Criatura, my first full length poetry collection published by Sundress Publications. Yet, while I maintain a healthy (sometimes obsessive) relationship with birthing new projects, more grand every time, it doesn’t always feel fulfilling in the ways I need it to. I have also become open to exploring a life where motherhood is only one facet of my purpose. I wonder how many experiences I’ve missed out on or have kept myself from because bearing children was always so central to my becoming. I want to give myself the opportunity to be sensual, find pleasure, turn my acts of service inward (no pun intended), and continue to surround myself with community that sees me in truth. 

I stand on my porch sometimes overlooking the dirt lot in my yard. We still haven’t found the time to prepare for a garden to blossom, but right where we buried my spiritual child, yellow flowers always bloom.

Featured image by Taryn Elliott.

féi hernandez is a trans, Inglewood-raised, formerly undocumented immigrant author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura, which was on NPR’s Best Books of 2020. They are a Define American Fellow for 2021 and are currently the Board President of Gender Justice Los Angeles. They have been published in POETRY, Autostraddle, Immigrant Report, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, forthcoming Somewhere We are Human, and more. féi is the founder of The House of Ethér a center that provides spiritual healing. féi launched Spirit School for the Divinely Gifted, which centers spiritual teachings for TGNC BIPOC practitioners.

Trans Bodies, Trans Choices: Resources

Recommended Reading

• Meet Me in the Yes: Transition After Sexual Assault
• Finally Feeling Comfortable: The Necessity of Trans-Affirming, Trauma-Informed Care

Trans Bodies, Trans Choices Films

• Watch Trans Bodies, Trans Choices here and access the transcript.
• Watch I Didn’t Think I’d Make It here and access the transcript.
• Watch My Abortion Saved My Life here and access the transcript.
• Watch the Trans Bodies, Trans Choices: Having a Baby IG Live replay here and access the transcript.
• Watch the #TransBodiesTransChoices Online Townhall replay here and access the transcript.

Getting an Abortion

• Under 18 and need an abortion + free legal representation for judicial bypass? Call or text Jane’s Due Process: 1-866-999-5263
• The National Network of Abortion Funds connects abortion seekers with grassroots organizations that can support financial and logistical needs here
• Tips on how to choose a good abortion provider and questions to ask a clinic
• The Brigid Alliance arranges and funds travel, along with related needs, to support individuals across the country who are forced to travel for later abortion care. 

For Clinicians and Providers 

• Trans-Inclusive Abortion Services: a manual for providers on operationalizing trans-incluslive policies and practices in an abortion setting 

Calls to Action

• Sign on and Demand #AbortionWithinReach: Abortion funds have come together to deliver an unprecedented bold statement, explicitly identifying what it means for abortion to be truly accessible for our callers. As we shine a light on these demands, we also want to spotlight independent clinics, who are our partners on the front lines giving support and care to abortion seekers. Independent clinics perform the majority of abortions in the U.S., and show up big as plaintiffs in the monumental cases of the past few years. 
• Expand the Supreme Court & Save Abortion Rights. Sign the petition here.
• Urge federal elected officials to end the Hyde Amendment, the Global Gag Rule, and the Helms Amendment. Learn more and take action to expressly urge support for the EACH Act, the Global Health, Empowerment, & Rights Act, and the Abortion is Healthcare Everywhere Act. 
• Invest in abortion clinics, especially community-led health care facilities. 
• Talk about abortion! Change culture and shift stigma through powerful, values-based conversations. We believe dialogue, storytelling, and intentional conversations are powerful tools to organize and strengthen our movement. This guide for heart-to-heart abortion conversations from NNAF   and this toolkit from Chicago Abortion Fund will support you to hold a small group gathering, house party, or action space where you can invite your friends, family, and acquaintances into meaningful conversations about abortion, issues that relate to abortion, and why you support abortion funds.
• Support the Black reproductive justice policy agenda, which outlines proactive policy solutions to address issues at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity within the situational impacts of economics, politics and culture that make up the lived experiences of Black women, femmes, girls and gender-expansive individuals in the United States.

• Invest in long-term sustainable models of care that supplement existing structures of support and center the expertise of those who have been laying this groundwork for years so that communities have reliable support systems that contribute to one’s current and future ability to thrive. 
• We urge all individuals knowledgeable about a person’s reproductive choices to make a commitment to not – under any circumstances – punish, criminalize or report any person for any pregnancy decision or seeking medical assistance for a decision. This includes abortion funders, public health authorities, clinicians, law enforcement, prosecutors, and community members.

Resources on Pregnancy as a Transgender Person

• Trans Bodies, Trans Choices: Having a Baby – IG Live Replay
• The Queer & Trans People of Color Birthwerq Project
• BOOK: How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood by Trystan Reese
• Meet the birth workers helping transgender parents bring babies into the world and break stigmas.
• Preparing for Pregnancy as a Non-Binary Person (Family Equality)
• Transgender Pregnancy: Moving Past Misconceptions (Healthline)
• From erasure to opportunity: a qualitative study of the experiences of transgender men around pregnancy and recommendations for providers.
• TransLash Podcast, Episode 13 ‘Trans Love’ feat. Precious Brady-Davis, who appeared with her husband Myles on the TLC special, My Pregnant Husband.
• If a transgender man stops taking his testosterone, his menstrual cycle often returns, reportedly within about 6 months.
• Explore TransLash’s guide for trans dads and TGNC parents.

‘Trans Bodies, Trans Choices’ Press

• Teen Vogue [EXCLUSIVE]

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The post Womb: About Trans Motherhood appeared first on TransLash Media.