Black Trans Realness

Transcripts from an On Resistance Radio interview with Cece McDonald and Chela Coleman by way of X from Los Angeles Queer Resistance.

X: Hello. I am X. Today we have two loverly guests, two of my favorite movement people ever really. First we have Cece McDonald. CeCe McDonald gained national and international attention as she is an organizer against the prison industrial complex since her incarceration while she was defending herself and her friends against fascists against a transphobic and racist attack and put in prison in 2012. She started doing work around the prison industrial complex and being on shows with Laverne Cox, Democracy Now, and Katie Crick. Please welcome Cece McDonald. And joining us in the conversation we also have a wonderful close comrade of mine, Chella. Chella Coleman is organizer working in downtown los angeles skid row looking at the intersection of race transphobia and class. She’s also an artist using art to help people find her/ their resilience. As well as she has an article on Black Girl Dangerous entitled “Battleground.” Please welcome Chellaaa. Alright. y’all. I just wanted to get right into it regarding the work that people are doing and how people are doing. Cece, I guess I want to ask you personally: How have you been coping since your incarceration? What’s your self-care been looking like lately? I know that us, as queer trans people we gotta keep up with the self care.

CeCe: Definitely. I can say that my life has pretty much been a whirlwind which has been both good, positive and of course the negative of, you know, posttraumatic stress disorder. Just dealing with my environment of being in a prison, seeing how that changes you mentally and spiritually. I’m dealing with having to have this label of felon on my record and that’s been kind of harmful when it comes to looking for apartments or jobs so I’m currently somewhat homeless. Fortunately I have people that are willing to take me in and let me stay with them until I figure out the housing situation but it’s still a struggle for me on a day-to-day basis. I try really hard to maintain focus and stability and I mean that in all aspects of life not just me navigating through society. Which is already a task as is. So I’m just constantly finding ways to keep myself uplifted and in positive energy. But I can also say that it has been a struggle dealing with a lot of things pertaining to the incident and being in prison and having to deal with the mental aspect of that. I try to talk a lot about mental health and the demonization and criminalization of mental health and why it’s important that people understand that that is a major factor in the way that people more specifically trans, gnc, and queer people have to deal with because the everyday wear and tear that we go through and it effects us mentally. From being homeless to being raped to being jobless to being trans or queer or gnc are things that are already tied in with some form of mental health or mental instability that isn’t really talked about in the community so it’s really important that I talk about that a lot of times because people can see me and they think I have or they might assume I should say that I have it all together and it cannot be the case 100% of the time. Who I am when on the stage or when I’m talking with a group of people is the fierce woman that I am but of course like any humyn I still deal with the things of my personal life, things that trigger me or haunt me or keep me not wanting to go to sleep. Like I said I’m dealing with the pros and cons of being trans, of being an ex-prisoner, of being a black womyn and that’s just life. And I’m just handling it the best way that I know how. Every day I’m learning, every day I’m trying to figure out who I am as a person. Just being myself, just growing but I am very humbled, blessed and thankful that I was able to make it to another day in life because social media has given me this new spotlight to the struggles that trans womyn face and one of them is violence and the high death rates that trans womyn are facing in this country and it’s important that people know these things. But I’m just being me.

X: I feel that I have a lot in common with you. I know that there’s a lot of commonalities when it comes to trans black folks. In terms of when I first got involved with activism and when I started getting a record because of activism. There’s now this issue of me not being able to get work because I have a record and I just want people to know that it’s systemic, it isn’t just an individual case-by-case basis. This is a systemic issue that Trans, predominantly black Trans womyn are going through. This next question is for both of y’all. I know that the recent deaths of black trans womyn this year alone have been extremely overwhelming for a lot of us. What are some of the healing process y’all practice to cope?

Chella: One of the things I’ve been doing to self-care is number one keeping myself grounded, remembering that I could be next. I started the #I mightbenext or #Icouldbenext. Just connecting my community together to trans folks that I work with and recently I got a job working with a another group that are not trans people at all but also including the voices of trans people in that. I’ve also just reached out to other trans womyn of color that are dealing with the same things, like dealing with not just losing someone in our community but also losing a friend. I find writing really good and helpful. Listening to music as I go to sleep, put some Beyoncé on, some Rihanna on. Heck today I was listening to Deborah Cox. Ok?! so doing a bunch of things, watching TV and disengaging myself from the world, turning off my phone. Not to say that I don’t care at those moments but as Audre Lorde says self-care is an act of revolution. I can’t be doing something for the world if I’m not taken care of. As well as picking one or two people I can bare all to, having really good friends.

Cece: Like Chella said, I would say I am really good at reaching out to a lot of my trans sisters, especially of color. I know that there has been an overwhelming number of Trans deaths when we have to remind ourselves that this year is only two months in, we are just gonna be done with February, there have already been about eight murders of trans womyn. It is really frustrating and upsetting because you want to be that persyn that saves these womyn. And it can be a challenge spiritually and mentally to constantly see that trans womyn are being murdered no matter how much face time or spotlight any of us are getting it seems like with the “positivity of trans visibility” that it has created this new type of hatred towards trans womyn because now people see us in a different perspective. And they’re still not wanting to attach the humynity to us or to see that we are people. So it’s hard for them to assimilate or find the same type of feelings. I read the comments that a lot of people leave on the posts that people make about their loved ones when it comes to trans womyn and it’s really saddening and gross to see that people still have these views or ideas of trans womyn and what we do in our lives privately or day-to-day or if we’re in the media and it’s really frustrating because it seems like no matter how loud we yell or how hard we fight, there’s still gonna be this problem of violence on trans womyn and the rate of death that we see in our community. I’m constantly having to tell myself that that could be me on any occasion or that things will get better, that there are people out here that are fighting hard and that there are trans womyn who are day by day accepting that and coming out and saying, “hey I am Trans.” I’ve seen so many people who are in the media or in the “celebrity” but it’s also really important that we talk about the non-work that a lot of trans womyn do when it comes to the violence that trans womyn face. We have trans womyn assimilating with the ideas of the mediocracy of the gay and lesbian idea and they don’t understand that their struggle isn’t the same as ours. Fighting for marriage equality wasn’t something that I was necessarily concerned about. I mean it’s great that people want to have marriage equality, I feel like for trans womyn that is the last thing that I need to be worried about when I’m constantly seeing trans womyn being murdered. I was just on the phone earlier today with Renata and Patrice of the New Jersey Four and we were talking about “yeah we are gay” or “we are lesbian” or “we are Trans”, but what about the part of us being black? Or what about the part about us being everyday people? Or us having to navigate through life and through society and have these labels attached to us? Basically what I’m saying is I have to also put into consideration other things that are not attached to me being Trans. I can be killed for being black. A lot of people don’t want to make those connections with my case specifically. They always just throw in the fact that it was about me being Trans. And its like, No! this is about me being black too. A lot of people want to ignore that part, but it’s really important that I tell myself everyday: “yes I’m trans, yes I’m black it’s not just about me being Trans.” I have to fight the systematic issues on different planes because if you don’t, you’re going to get attacked. I’m constantly telling myself “you have to be strong, you have to be focused, you have to empower your brothers and sisters whether they be your Trans sisters or brothers of color.” It’s really important that I not just focus on one thing because people will constantly try to knock your focus on the things that are just as important as being trans, like being a person of color. I’m constantly listening to music and I’m constantly giving myself space to think, to write, to draw or to do what I need to do that opens my mind up to being a strong transwomyn and strong activist and a strong leader. Not just for my trans community, but for my community of color, for my family, for the people who don’t have a voice for the people who consider suicide. Maybe I should talk about that because that’s not something that’s being talked about. I’m bringing up the things that people are afraid to talk about or don’t want to talk about because it’s not important to them. I’m constantly educating myself, constantly seeing how I can get involved with projects or helping people with projects and making sure that I’m uplifting my community whichever community I choose to lift up.

X: Do you think all womyn are under attack or is it femininity in general that is under attack?

CECE: Oh no, it’s definitely womyn. Right before you all called I was watching this video on Facebook about a father and he was whipping his daughter with a belt because she is talking to somebody on Facebook. She was a thirteen year old teenager and I’m having a conversation with my little sibling, (they are gender nonconforming so I call them my little sibling) and I’m like there is ways you handle situations like this. Instead of persecuting this young girl for exploring her sexual prowess which is what you do as a teenager, you are trying to figure out who you are as a persyn, you are experimenting with doing things, instead of persecuting her, he should have educated her. Told her the pros and cons of being a womyn in this world, the possibility of catching HIV, for black womyn that’s something important that needs to be talked about. Instead of whopping her. I am reading this book by bell hooks where she was talking about this plantation mentality that is still stuck with black people.

X: White supremacist thinking!

CHELLA: I also think of capitalism and patriarchy,. Anyone that is not a cis-gendered straight white persyn is a threat to misogyny, a threat to patriarchy, a threat to capitalism. Anyone that dares to be GNC which is completely welcomed in other cultures pre-colonization. One week after there was a transwomyn of color killed, there was a black ciswomyn killed just for not responding to a black man. Thinking of the interconnectedness of those two struggles. As well as, even in South Africa, they have corrective rape, y’all they have corrective rape for lesbians. If you are a self-identified lesbian, and you get raped, and you go to a cop and say I was raped because I was a lesbian. Guess what they are going to tell you? You deserve it. You deserve it. You need to bend to what we want in this post colonial which is still colonization now world.

X: What are some of the projects and work you’ve all been doing around your specific struggles: being black, being a womyn, being in poverty? What are some of the projects and certain things you’ve been doing recently around that?

CECE: As a transwomyn of color I just get so offended, and so frustrated with the sensationalizing of trans womyn, the idea that things will get better, and all these organizations that are run by cis gay people. They don’t want to fund us, they don’t want to hire us, they don’t want us in the same organizations. They don’t trust us, they still look at us as ‘black people’. These things are the things that have been blocking me from pursuing projects that would’ve made some big changes in the world, but because my proposals weren’t good enough, or they don’t fit the framework for what they wanted, then it wasn’t deemed to be a good project. “We won’t fund it this time but if you apply next year, then maybe we’ll consider it.” How clear do y’all want me to be? I am a transwomyn, I want to help transwomyn, I want to help all people to be specific. I want to end the prison industrial complex, what is so unclear about that? But at the same token, I’m not letting that discourage me from doing the work that I’m doing. If I gotta go into certain colleges, and let people fake listen to me and snap their fingers in fake agreement, to coax their ego, but I guarantee you by the end of that night somebody’s gonna leave the space rubbed the wrong way. Cos I say things like this, and they don’t want to hear and it’s like well, put it in your back pocket, and sit on it. I don’t care, your feelings are less to me, if you’re just sitting there snapping your fingers, but then you leave the space, then you go sit in your condo, and you’re looking at your big screen, and you’re watching Desperate Houswives of… Mars!! Let’s stop sitting on our asses, and let’s really get involved. After the statement I made at the Creating Change conference, people was like, “that was some really deep stuff you were saying”, is that it? How about actually doing something? Not just saying how deep my shit is, and being more like “hey cece what can I do? how can I help?” Not just come up to me to say that was something powerful you said and then you go home and not give two fucks about it fifteen minutes later. What I do, I’m going to do regardless. Regardless if I’m one tooth short and ten fingernails gone. I’ma do my job. I’m gonna do my job till I die and I’m gonna keep saying. When people are constantly patronizing me, patronizing the work of people of color patronizing the work of transwomyn, specifically the work of transwomyn of color and then you congratulating us for the work that we do. But not helping us do this work, not helping us reach out to the people that need help. Then there really is no need for you to come up and tell me how good my work is because I sometimes feel like I’m doing it myself. I know that it’s not the case, but when I’m constantly having to combat the forces of cis white people, cis gay people, and these organizations that just wanna tell me what a good job I’m doing. Then you can say that cos I know I’m doing a good job, I’m not the only person doing a good job. And everybody doesn’t have the same platform that Laverne and Janet have. Like Chella, like so many transwomyn of color who are doing this work, who don’t have that spotlight who are out there, who are actually on the ground working it and doing what they have to do and just constantly doing a good job. No “see you next year at the next conference”. No, how about you actually get off your asses and fund these womyn so they can make moves to do what they need to do. My projects still include prison abolition work, the liberation of trans people, the liberation of transwomyn of color, the liberation of oppressed groups , the liberation of immigrants. All people that have been oppressed that be in this country, be in this world I am still advocating for them.

CHELLA: Last year I went to this conference called the gift conference, fundraising for non profits. We were the first transwomyn convening there, there was a murder two days before we got there. And Ashley Laurence Hunter who is another one of my sheroes, omigosh she is amazing, she was like just don’t come to our memorial and give us a pat on the back. Support our work, support the mission, support these girls that have to think about how they’re going to pay their cell phone bill, how they are going to do stuff to continue to do the work. Unfortunately we live in a capitalist society where we are dependent upon money. We have to reach out to those people. I am also doing a lot of work with BlackLivesMatter LA, Los Angeles Community Action Network which they do a lot of housing and homeless rights for people of skid row dtla. I am bringing that voice of a transwomyn in that space and also working within the TransLivesMatter movement, and bringing that experience of a black persyn in that space. Actually me and some folx got together last weekend and challenged the cis homosexual patriarchy that’s going on at West Hollywood which is considered to be the lgbt mecca. We took over the streets and we stood outside chanting about these womyn whose lives were lost, we didn’t just chant “translives matter” we actually read the names and the lives, how they died, who they were, where were they from, and what race they were. Then the manager of the Abbey, which is this prestigious LGBT club, came out and was like “what are you doing this for? I support the transgender movement.” And I was like “look are you aware that we’ve lost 8 transwomyn, and six of those were transwomyn of color?” He was like “no I didn’t, but I do so much for the lgbt, I do so much for the trans movement.” And I was like “how many people do you have on staff? How many trans people do you have on staff?”

CECE: exactly and how many of them are people of color, specifically transwomyn of color?

CHELLA: and he said one. One out of fifty. So I was like what. Give me your card, if you’re so transfriendly, give me your card, and I’ll give your number to a transfriendly support organization and he gave me his card. I do a lot of that kind of work, I do a lot of writing, I do a lot of advocating, on the ground, talking to folks that it’s really hard to talk to about the transmovement. Just Friday I had a conversation with folks that could practically be our uncles and aunts as black people who are still in their faith. Not dissing anyone’s faith, but I do want to acknowledge it was a very hard conversation but guess what? I thought of Cece, I told your story, sister. I was also telling other people other stories I know. So thinking of educating folks, of being on the ground, doing the work of having conversations, even with my neighbors who don’t have access to all the gender and racial justice work I do. Having conversations with them, cos they are the most impacted y’all.

X: There is so much cultural work that y’all are doing. There is so much cultural work that we’re doing because we have to do it. We have to do it to decolonize, to decolonize people out of the frameworks of this imperialist white supremacist capitalist abelist cis heteropatriarchy and if we don’t do that, then who are we doing this for? We’re not doing this only for ourselves, but for each other, for the liberation of all people like you were saying that are oppressed. And another thing about that action is, it was really frustrating, they were a lot of cishet -- cisgay men in the bar, we were chanting, do you care? And they were like no..

CECE: There is been this controversy of people not liking the word cis het. I’ve been called everything. I’ve been called everything while I’ve been living. If anything cishet is not in any way offensive, it’s reality.. get over yourself, how dare you even have the audacity to feel like you wanna get mad at somebody calling you a cishet person? When I had to sit down and let muhfuckas call me a faggot to my face and you’re mad that somebody is calling you a cishet persyn. But no, you are cishet, that’s what we are going to call you , that’s what they are, and that’s what it is.

X: There were cishet people and cisgay people in the bars, when we were chanting “out of your privilege and into the streets.” And they were just like “no we don’t care”, “you’re right, we don’t, we just don’t.” so it was really hard, because we weren’t ready emotionally for that kind of hatred to actually be so much at the forefront, so open, but it’s hard when going to actions like that, because sometimes, the respectability politics do play into how you are reacting. I don’t know about y’all, but I wanna wile out in the streets, when I hear about transwomyn dying in the streets, I want everyone to know about it everyone should know about it. And what do we gotta do, what do we gotta do to get people to know about it? My other question for y’all is, do you think the media and entertainment industries have accurate depictions of transness and/or queerness and/or blackness?

CHELLA: hell to the no.

CECE: People of color are more multifaceted than given, we are more than hip-hop, baggy jeans, dreadlocks and natural hair. The media has definitely given depictions of what people of color are. But it’s definitely not the case, when we think about difference cultural aspects of black people. From black people who have been adopted into white families because we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the idea that black children from different countries and children of color from different countries are brought up in these households, that want to give them this “opportunity”, they have this idea that they’re doing the right thing. I feel like it’s somewhat a pity thing sometimes. I was just talking about this with someone, you never really see black parents adopting white children, and why is that? This idea that being white is correct. knowing that these children of color are growing up in the right environment, that they will get what they need in life, but at the end of the day they’re still a person of color, no matter how you look at them, no matter how much whiteness you try to instill in them, they’re still gonna have to go off in the world. They’re gonna cross situations that are pertaining to race, they’re going to be lost on that. White parents don’t teach their adopted children of color, their true history. They teach them what they want to teach them, and it’s bad to them. And not saying I’m against white people adopting children of color , no not at all. What I’m saying if you’re gonna take on that road, you have to prepare these children for what is reality. Don’t feed them this idea that everything is going to be ok because you have white parents. No that’s not how white works. I come from a very multicultural family. People do not have that idea because I claim black, no matter how much white blood I have in me, or native American blood in me which is still a persyn of color, no matter how much of that matters, people in society see me as a black persyn. And once they know that I’m trans and black that’s when shit gets real. I feel like media isn’t talking about the realities of black people and the black people that come from multicultural bringing ups, the lives that we have, the lives that we experience like I was saying it is magnificent that there are so manty transwomyn that are coming out. And the media aspects of like La Verne, Janet (I love her to pieces), and Carmen Carrera, I love her pieces for being trans and being open about that. So many other trans womyn that are around us and that have come before us and that are black born. What about all the trans womyn in the background? Who grow up in the ghettoes? What about the transwomyn who have privilege who come from families worth millions? What about the trans womyn that have been murdered? What were their lives like? What people don’t understand, we have every day lives like they do, and that goes with the dehumanization of us, they don’t want to see us as people who like to get up and cook bacon or eggs or tofu sausage whatever you prefer. Being this person that has to get off the bus to go downtown to go to social security or go to the dmv, or meet up with friends for lunch. We have normal lives. And people don’t want to understand that. I was talking to one of my friends, she’s a security officer at an airport, and I met her one day going to speak at a college and she just yelled my name out, and I didn’t know who she was, and we literally sat and talked because I had a couple hours for a layover. We were talking about how people dehumanize us, she had been called something too. We are people. We don’t swing upside down in cages. We are people. I feel like people don’t think we even sleep, like we wake up, we stick ports in us, like we download information from our ipods, like no. We are humyns. And we do humyn things. It’s nothing that no one can take away, but they do on an everyday basis and so I’m constantly having to deal with other people’s unacknowledgment of me. Or their unawareness. Because it’s not my fault, I have to constantly tell this to myself, it’s not my fault media depicts me as a crack smoking prostitute in the alley. That’s what people would think of me when they see me. Even with the role of La Verne doing, it’s still the role of a transwomyn in prison. It’s not the realities of transwomyn outside of those being locked up. There’s nothing talking about why transwomyn are in prison. “Orange is the New Black” doesn’t talk about why people are in prison, we just know that they are in prison. Why are people being targeted? Outside of the fetishization of being in prison and doing hair, having rendezvous, like no, people still doesn’t understand how much that has been fantasized. It’s not the reality. It’s set in a minimum security prison. Nine times out of ten if you’re in a minimal security prison, you’re a person who’s committed something really petty. Something somebody shouldn’t be persecuted for anyways, or be in prison for that long. Let’s talk about the people who are in maximum security prison who sit in their room literally for 23 hours a day. They have to choose if they want to shower or read a book or do whatever they want to do with the one hour they have out of their room. You can’t have no story plot around that could you? You would literally have a camera on a person in their room for 23 hours in a day. The things that people don’t understand about prison or about being black or about capitalism is because people have been colonized for so long. I hate to keep going off to the left brain, but to decolonize our minds is willingness to let go of all the shit that we’ve learned n our lives, the shit that’s been taught to us, really understand what it’s like to let go off that shit and be like you know that’s falsehood. I’m not gonna live in that, I’m not gonna believe that, I’m gonna go with what my heart says, I’m gonna go with what I feel is right, instead of saying the bible told me this or my mom said it’s wrong to do this, because of all that has been taught to us. We are constantly teaching our youth to do what they see on TV. We need more people in media. Why aren’t there any reality tv shows about decolonization, the prison industrial complex, or about capitalism or sexism? Or talk to the people who have day to day lives, who have to face these adversities, not who got a new Chanel bag, or how many houses did I get into foreclosure. Because none of that is important to a 14 or 15 year old who is questioning their gender, dealing with race, fucked up in school, or is trying really hard because we don’t talk about how this academia is also brainwashing people because we are still colonizing brains, getting people to believe that this history is the right history. No, honey, they’re giving you a chip or something, about 85% of that is incorrect. How much responsibility does the media have? I would say almost all of it because people are constantly dealing with the media, whether you’re on your phone, whether you’re in your car, whether you’re walking down the street, everywhere you turn there’s gonna be a billboard, an ad, there’s gonna be a pop up video, there’s gonna be someone liking your page, or sending you a video, or tagging you in a post, but how much of that is helping us? Or giving other people real education or networking with someone that’s trying to get a new organization off the ground that’s gonna actually do something, not just have a bunch of pretty people sitting in their office click-clacking or thinking they’re doing the most and you’re doing little. If that was the case a lot of this shit that we’re going through could have been ceased. We are constantly being separated, we are constantly being segregated, we are constantly being put apart and marginalized. Having to deal with how can I step outside this box, how can I go beyond myself, how can I connect with that person over there who probably doesn’t have anything in common with me, but we can both have something to do with the end of oppression and oppressive regimes. How do we change the ideas of race or sexuality or sexual orientation or gender? How much have religious extremism affected our lives that were never for good? That was only for evil. The idea of islamphobia in this world is so sickening because we never talk about religious extremism in Christianity or these other religions that have also played a part in these countless wars, countless deaths of people that have ruined lives, ruined families, ruined relationships. We don’t talk about those things. I guess it’s all okay because a commercial came on from taco bell that says I can get 10 tacos for 69 cents, so hey that’s what’s really going on in the world. We really need to think about what and how the media affects us. I’m glad in these places that don’t have TV, I can’t really tell you the last time I watched TV. Because it’s like not really giving me what I need anymore. I need something that’s gonna have some substance. There’s nothing that is connected to what I want to do in mine. All these things are still a part of the capitalist oppressive regime that is making money off people’s follows, pains, depression, happiness. It overwhelms you, takes control of you, people don’t know that a lot of times.

X: I feel like this goes into the next question regarding representations and how we can actually create our own representations. What do you think transwomyn of color particularly black womyn would need to craft their own representations? And how do we not feed into our own exploitation and commodificiation of our trans identities?

CHELLA: I do a lot of selfies, videos, and write whenever I go to a protest or a rally or a march. I do a ustream updates. I’m like “hey y’all this is chella, I’m keeping it real”, I use hashtags, cos everything is a hashtag right now. I get my word out, I get my story out there because who is going to tell my story better than me? I have all these intersectionalities I live with. I’m a fat womyn, I’m a fat black transywomyn that lives in skid row. So someone like Laverne cox is not gonna play me. That’s not gonna happen. Though I do love her, I love her pieces, damn she’s amazing. She’s not gonna do my story the way I would do it. I do a lot of other types of media, like liking other peoples’ videos or pictures, hashtagging them, getting their stories out as well. Cos it’s not just about me, when I’m free we’re all free. Thinking of the interconnectedness of how our stories should be, as well as thinking of really holding in the really deep issues I struggle with. Like depression, or like going home tonight from this amazing interview and seeing my trans-sisters get high on speed, which is real, the reality she’s in. I love her no more or less because of who she is. Thinking of those things, we will be honest about where I’m at, as well as telling my own stories and giving myself my voice, nobody’s gonna take that away from me. Now go ahead take it away, CeCe.

CECE: I feel like what you said is definitely true. I know that I’ve garnered a lot of media attention. Not as much as Janet or Laverne, but I have definitely been given this platform. I feel the same way that there is definitely no one who can tell my story better than me. I try to share that with people in my own words no matter how many interviews I do, no matter how much I share my experience with reporters who write it down, transcribe it. I feel like there will be no one that actually give you CECE that says CECE.. I stay true to who I am, I try to bring a lot of encouragement to other transwomyn and let them know that it’s not all about our bodies, or have we transitioned. People wanna talk about transitioning in the trans community. The idea of transmisogyny, misogyny and transitioning, feeling like you have to have the size 0 waist, 40 hips and the big tits, and the long flowy hair. You gonna transition how you need to transition for yourself. A lot of times, a lot of people transition for other people, or they got lost in this idea that’s why I try to stay away from the ball scene because the influence that is there is still a form of sexism and playing into the ideas of what’s passable in society and that type of idea permeates through outside the ball scene. People actually live with that, a lot of people live their lives according to their pins on the board. You can’t go through life, thinking or giving this idea to other trans people that you will never amount to any great score in life because you’re not passable enough, or you don’t have the right body parts that you need to have. I stayed away from the ball scene because I had to do my own transition and figure out who I was as a humyn outside of being black, outside of being trans, outside of being CeCe. I had to think about me as a humyn. How is my spiritual wellness, how is my mental wellness, how is my love meter, how much of a bitch do I want to be today. These things are really important outside of the vein stereotypical way for a lot of people, so I try to stay true so I can give that to people. I don’t want to come off as inauthentic. I ground myself and I keep who I am, the things I’ve learned, those feelings that I have then. I make mental notes of that, I try to give that to other transwomyn so that I can see that there’s nothing wrong with being a multifaceted creature, there’s nothing wrong with trying to figure out what your trans-ness is, and not feeling like your trans-ness has to be just as the next persyn because that’s what they’ve told you. I had a lot of people tell me things like that: you should do that, girl do this, girls don’t do that. I kinda internalized that, I’m constantly trying to grow out of those old ideas about who I am, who I am as a womyn, who I am as a black womyn, who I am as a black transwomyn and giving that type of idea to other transwomyn. And empower them, not so much have them believe in this idea, these ideas of patriarchy, and misogyny, and transmisogny and sexism, to break free from those, so they can explore who they are and encourage them to do what it is they desire. A lot of transwomyn won’t take up sports because of the idea that womyn don’t play sports. We look at the Olympics and all of the womyn, a lot of them are womyn of color who have won gold medals. Yet this idea that womyn can’t play sports, womyn can’t be construction workers, womyn can’t be whatever they chose to be: bodybuilders, or whatever. Do not lose yourself, or settle because of the things that people have taught you, you have a right to explore and figure out who you are as a person. There’s nothing wrong with being a womyn and wanting to be a body builder, there’s nothing wrong with being a womyn and being a basketball player. Or the ideas or the fears of who you were, who you are transitioning into, and trying to compare that in your life as as a womyn, and having the fears that which you are interested in, still connected to your pre-transitioning. A lot of people feel like that.. y’know being a DJ, or whatever you were doing before you started transitioning, was keeping you from being the total and complete womyn that you are, and I feel like it’s the opposite, it will make you the complete persyn that you need to be, by continuing the things that you love, and not falling into the ideas that are oppressive to you spiritually and mentally is really important.

X: I was having a conversation with Teka, who does the Black Girl Show, the other day, she was like you know what the best thing that us, as black womyn that can do is to say no sometimes. Just fuck it, no, I don’t wanna go to this event that you’re inviting me to, I don’t want to do this last minute thing you want me to do, some of the things that we need to start doing is just understanding we have autonomy, that we have the right to say no, and we have the right to self-determination, the right to gender self determination. We can explore, explore the no, doing what we want to do, cos everything that is around us, whether it be work, whether it be an identity that has been constructed for us, that is oppressed, it’s always coercing us, compelling us to do things we don’t wanna do. I thought that was really good advice. I should say no more often. Even though I do say no, a lot. We are all going to the INCITE color of violence conference in Chicago next month. What are y’all looking forward to? What are y’all hoping to gain from attending this conference?

CHELLA: I wanna CeCe again. Hashtag!

CECE: I’m really looking forward to connecting to so many powerful people of color, so many strong people that I have been corresponding with, just being there bringing a lot of love and positive energy, bringing insight. In my experience trying to be in relationships with people and give love, and connection and understanding, we need to learn how to be better people for each other in this movement, how do we love each other, how do we help each other, how do we get what we need to push forward. It’s really gonna be something monumental for me to be around a lot of friends, colleagues, everybody that I know that has done this type of activism, some type work with organizations Really connecting with people I’m gonna be so humbled by that. Have fun. Be out there, just be the best people that we can be, and just learn from each other, grow from each other, give each other good love and energy. It’ll be like a big family reunion.

X: There’s a lot of people from LA who are going out there that we know. And yeah, I’m just really excited to go there, where knowledge is being produced, to love that knowledge, to take that knowledge back with us, back to LA, back where everybody’s going, just hanging out with people, getting to know people. The fascinating thing about INCITE is it’s always been really really on point with its analysis. It’s always been really on point with attacking and attempting to dismantle cissystems and structures of oppressions, not giving into the way of the nonprofit industrial complex and how that ropes in activists but doesn’t do anything, just kinda puts band-aids on particular interlocking systems of dominations that continue to oppress people so I am really excited to have those conversations with people who are very like-minded. I’m going with Los Angeles Queer Resistance, we are doing a Consenting Culture Workshop, to expand that conversation of consent out of the bedroom. A lot of the conversations on college campuses are always like yes as in yes, and no as in no. What we are trying to do low-key is to question and analyze how you didn’t really consent to the police having so much authority over your body, did you. You didn’t consent to this bottle of shampoo to be seven dollars or this milk being five dollars. You didn’t consent to any of that, you didn’t consent to any of these constructs that actually exist, so you have every right to question those things.

CECE: exactly

X: I’m really excited to plug-in, to do the knowledge building, the healing with each other. I find that conversations with other transwomyn of color, GNC people, it’s really actually healing. This work that we’re doing, it takes a lot of out of us, it’s extremely healing work, I just wanna thank y’all for that because as alienated and isolated as we are for being GNC or trans, and black, it’s also there’s so many people that low-key they wanna have the title. I just think transwomyn particularly are some of the hardest working of peoples because I always bring this: W.E.B. Dubois says black men in this country have a double consciousness. What about black womyn? What about black queer womyn? And what about black queer transwomyn? I feel like that consciousness rises and doubles and quadruples when you have people who are often within margins of marginalization. You have you, you have us, you have some of us doing the work, always doing the work, and not stopping because our lives depend on it. My life as a black GNC person depends on my liberation right now. I guess I wanted to further along the conversation of your experiences of anti-black racism, or anti-blackness because this is a kind of new conversation that’s happening regarding black lives matter, regarding people globally discussing global anti-blackness. My mom is from the fillipines, I hear her talk about what do people think about black people in the filipines. My mom would shake her head and say they didn’t really like them and I was like damn. It really is global, and that wasn’t too long ago and it is a global issue, so I just wanted to get what are some of your experience with anti-blackness both within day to day microaggressions and then institutionally when it comes to the schools you go to, the work that you’re doing? And then do you think being as feminine as you are, how does your femininity inform your experience of anti-black racism?

CHELLA: I was watching TV a few weeks ago this commercial came on that was for dating an asian womyn. And the persyn they had next to her was a white man. There’s a proximity to whiteness. As people of color we all have our different struggles, but they’re still not black. I have a friend who said this, that API community folks are not black, the struggle they deal with is the illusion that they are not oppressed, that they are oppressed because they are not black. When black people are liberated, we are all liberated. As a mixed persyn of color, I am cuban, black, afro latina indigenous. Indigenous queer folks are being pushed out of central america because of being black right? On a different scale thinking of the bleaching or the whitening of Beyonce’s skintone. I love her to pieces. Do not say that I said that I don’t like Beyonce beause I do. However to appeal to a whiter audience they have whitened her skin in photoshop. Thinking of the organizing realm, thinking of the social justice realm.. a few weeks ago, a coworker came in and they told me me, you know what chella, you’re gonna be my slave.. and I was like you need to get your white privilege checked.

X: they were white? Okay… what happened after you harmed them? Haha just kidding

CHELLA: It’s my place work.. so I was like you know you gotta get your privilege checked. Wow, right? Thinking of other spaces, there’s a group that meets at the lgbt center when the Trayvon Martin situation was going on, we were talking about blackness. There was this one white transmasculine guy that was like why is it that when I say the N-word people give me a horrible look but when black people say Asians are driving bad people give them a look like it’s ok. I’m like no. I don’t know what area you’re from, but skid row specifically is 80 percent black, booboo. You and a black persyn could walk into a store. And guess who would get looked at more? The black persyn. No matter what suit or tie. One more point, I heard this story of a college professor who locked himself out of his apartment and he had climbed into the window to try to get into his own apartment, he was an awesome professor, he was high class, he was bougie, and they still called the cops on him and arrested him because he was … can we guess… because he was black. As well as when we’re thinking of the interconnectedness of 28 hours a black male is harmed by a police vigilante or a security guard, every 32 hours a transwomyn, predominately, a transwomyn of color is murdered. Not just in the US, in Brazil, they are murdering predominately indigenous African transwomyn at a high rate. Think of the anti-blackness, not just in the US context, not just in the media context, it feeds into each other, it feeds into like I said earlier, if you’re not white, cisgendered and straight, you are a threat to capitalism, you are threat to patriarchy, you are a threat to nuclear family. Thank you, this has been Chella keeping it real.

CECE: Basically anti-blackness is definitely not just a thing related to people who are white. There is this idea of the other, we think about anti-blackness within the people of color like you were saying…

X: anti-darkness

CECE: They are in every culture, there are people who are brown skinned, and dark skinned but there’s always a separation of them from those cultural differences. There are black people in Asia. There are black people in Australia. There are black people in Africa outside of the colonization of Caucasians. There’s been a lot of cultures, in most of these cultures, there’s some form or some way, some type of anti-blackness, this idea that not all people can be racist. Black people are racist to white people, how does that logic even exist? Even for us to have that idea is kind audacious, it’s even kinda mind boggling to me, because there’s just no way that you can say what the history of black people and white people, or not just white people but black people in all cultures. When we think about the rise up in Compton, I believe it was, where the black girl after the Rodney King beating, and there was one black girl that was shot by an Asian store owner, that rarely gets talked about, but it was really pivotal at the time. An Asian man killing a young black girl because he was or felt threatened by her, mind you, the girl was like 12, I believe. I’m gonna refresh myself on that story. I know that it happened during the big riots that had happened in Compton, knowing that being black is firstly being threatening, doesn’t matter if you’re cis, or trans, or queer, or GNC, if you have a skin tone that’s about peanut butter or darker you’re gonna constantly be looked at as a threat, you’re gonna be looked at as the enemy, you gonna be looked at as harmful, or disposable. And that’s all cultures. Easy for people to adapt black cultures from hiphop, wearing the saggy pants, you look at all these people in Hollywood who have adapted to black culture, because that black culture.. I remember when sagging your pants, and you know how can black “I wish I could have seen that” was being uncouth, something that was not looked up to. People have adapted the black culture all over, then they want to take credit for that. I remember when people were talking about the white hipster movement. No honey you just adopted from black culture, there was once upon time where people looked at the way we looked or the way we dressed as ignorant, or seen as not likeable. We look at the way black culture has been adapted into our music, into our world into our everyday lives, from our ancestors who created everything from street lamps to peanut butter, up until now there’s been miley cirus, justin beaver, who feel like it’ll make me extra cool if I dressed like this or if I talk like that then I’m being real. No, honey, you’re trying to be black, and that’s very obvious, that you’re being black. When you were Hannah Montana, you were trying to attract a certain audience. Now that being black equates to being cool, everybody tries to put that on. Being black is the new orange. Being black is the new trans. I feel like the same way about being trans. What Laverne had her big spot “In Orange is the New Black”, and Janet Mock came out. Being trans is the new trans. I’m really glad that people.. I’m not turning down no corn, I feel like it’s really interesting, that y’all now care about my issues. Why is it now that you care that transwomyn have been and still are being murdered? Why do you care now? This shit didn’t start happening now that you wanted to be aware. Or now that it’s not your face. This shit has been going on. To act like that now that you find that you care, if you get someone who’s trans to talk at the school you’re being all inclusive. Like no, I’m not your pity party, I’m not a trend because I didn’t just decide that I’m gonna be trans because I’m gonna take my chances at being murdered just because somebody thinks it’s cool. No I’m trans because this is who I am. And now that you’ve finally realized that it’s your fault, and that it’s not my fault. Or the fact that I’m black, I can still face the same issues as a cis black man walking outside and being harassed by the police. This has happened numerous times, me standing at the bus stop, waiting for the bus to go to school and being accused of being a prostitute. So it’s like we have to understand inside blackness is an intersection of everything that’s oppressed and down in this country, and in this world. Also anti blackness is somewhat internalized from the things that I hear people talk about in the community of color, one thing for instance that really annoys me is the down talk of black people by other black people or the down talk of the destruction of these capitalist buildings such as a Walmart or something like that, like you can’t compare a Walmart being vandalized and a young boy being killed by the police. If that what you’re really concerned about you need to go back and re-evaluate. Shit like walmart being vandalized, a billion dollar industry a year that gives two shits whether you’re gonna live or die, and you’re worried about a black persyn vandalizing a billion dollar industry building than a black man being killed.

X: yep, ANTI-BLACKNESS

CeCe: These things need to be talked about, anti-blackness isn’t just a white thing, anti-blackness is an everybody thing. It needs to be addressed, essentially in our communities, the community of color, the communities of color because it’s really hard to deal with a lot of people who say I’m afro-carribean, but you are pale-skinned and you have blue eyes, so you need to make these things clear to other people because if you don’t tell them, you’re constantly getting by with your white privilege, regardless of whether you want to admit that. You can’t walk around and be like oh, I’m afro caribbean, I’m a person of color and you’re not saying that you’re like this light-skinned Afro Caribbean persyn. What about people with the brown skin and the dark skin who are afro caribbean? You are treated like a black persyn, like a N***a. We need to talk about these things. We can’t say that’s just a white persyn thing or a white cop killed a black humyn. Black bodies are in danger, it’s not just from white people, we need to understand that this an across the globe thing. This is not just reliant on white people because it comes from everybody including our own community.

X: I wanted to touch upon what Chella had said earlier regarding, and kinda what you’re talking about CeCe, in terms of a lot of people, a lot of white people that is, talking about anti-white racism, the persyn that Chella was talking about is someone who believes that anti-white racism exists. When it’s like no, anti-white racism, like there are prejudices, but the difference between your whiteness and my blackness is your whiteness has achieved some sort of historically sustained institutionalization. It’s been institutionalized, that is the difference between my struggle and your… whatever it is. It’s not a struggle, all it is really, is appropriation. There isn’t any struggle that they have to deal with. It’s extremely upsetting when you were saying everybody wants to assume black culture, assume that role and take it on, and wear it as a coat. And we can’t take off our skin, we can’t be different people. At the end of the day, you wanna be black, but you don’t actually really wanna be treated black is the thing. You’re not gonna be treated or followed around in a store when you’re shopping for clothes or be harassed by the police. We’ve gotta a lot of work to do because within this country, within other countries there are different united nations summits happening, different meetings that are happening and they’re talking about how effective queer and trans liberation and black liberation politics are being in terms of social media and the autonomous media we are putting out here. It’s getting scary because I feel like fascism is on the rise, and people are getting arrested for absolutely nothing, there’s more and more people being put into the prison industrial complex, people who have fought for our rights in the civil rights era(Black Insurrection) are still imprisoned because of the work that they were doing. And they’re(master narrative) doing they all can, within all these movies coming out, all of them funded by Oprah, talking about Selma, with the Butler and with Dear White people, it’s like these movies do the same thing over and over again. Where they criminalize or demonize black militancy. And that is for reasons so that people don’t adopt it. So that people don’t actually resist the growing fascism that is happening in this country, the prison industrial complex, military industrial complex all working in sync with each other to oppress us. I feel like it’s a well oiled machine and it takes people like us, people who are going to this INCITE conference to actually really talk about and strategize and get the ball rolling. Because time is running out.

I just wanted to ask one last question to you all. I’ll partially answer it. Are y’all with ok with the term Ally? What does allyship really look like to y’all? I guess I would like to say that I hear the word ally a lot and I’m just like mmm, I’m tired of it by now. People always self proclaim themselves an ally. I’m tired of you proclaiminng you are my ally. No you aint. I haven’t seen you do anything. You haven’t done things that are going to label you as an ally. People think, people actually believe the A in LGBTQIA stood for Ally, when it actually stands for asexual/aromantic. They’re literally giving themselves an identitiy, as if they deserve an identitiy for themselves. Like no.. there’s an entire ally industrial compelx now where people are going to seminars, being taught by Tim Wise about their white privilege. And it’s like no, he didn’t create this actual analysis. He stole that analysis from black queer and trans womyn. Who actually live that struggle, who actually live that real time, real life. So it’s like I don’t even think of somebody like Tim Wise as an ally because it’s like.. you’re just making money, profiting off of our struggle, you are gonna make a movie about a transwomyn and name it.. it’s a ciswomyn and it’s a hetcis man, like that is not giving credit to our struggle. You are actually using our struggle to profit from. So it’s like.. I don’t.. I’m at a point where I don’t do the ally thing. What are you all thinking?

CHELLA: Someone told me I don’t prefer the term ally, I prefer the term co-conspirator. I’m like allyship in the olden days, Germany had an allyship with I don’t know.. Austria, right. Now they don’t even like each other. When they’re done with each other, okay fuck you. Allyship is not an identity but when somebody comes up and starts to either take on the same dangers as we would for us, if we are in a trans rally and then someone who’s doing allyship, think as a coconspirator, they would take on the bluntless of what’s going happen to a transperson. Because they know that transpeople are on the bottom of the bottom. So thinking of ways to educate folks who do want to use that term as a way to identify themselves. I hate it cos it’s not on us, it should be on other people who are coconspirators but it’s also part of the movement work that we gotta do sometimes. LA CAN where I work is predominately folks of color, there’s only three white people in an agency of thirty, right. So thinking of the fact that they’re down, well half of them are down, are down to get arrested when black lives, trans lives are under attack.

CECE: allyship is pretty much what I was saying earlier. They were pretty much are a good source of protein. I really don’t care. There is nothing at this point that has shown me what true allyship is. Since what I was saying earlier transwomyn of color are still not being funded for the work they do, transwomyn of color are not being hired, transwomyn and gender non conforming and queer womyn or people are constantly being confessionaled. Our stories, our struggle, our love.

X: and killed every 32 hours

CECE: and it’s not really giving, and nothing happens. There hasn’t been any results. Look at these organizations, you have one person of color. There is no room for us to grow to actually lead an allyship, to get to the people, the doubters. I can’t believe in allyship. I can’t believe you won’t leave this space and actually do and mean what you say. I see the words that a lot of people of color do. A lot of the white people that have come up to me, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do this, I’m like.. they are flaky. I don’t understand, not even just on the terms of race, also with gender. A lot of cis people, especially cishet who have wanted to jump on the transallyship wagon and fallen so short on that. Still allowing the sexism, the misogyny to run rampamant in their settings. Around their straight friends, around the people who don’t understand, or the people who are unaware of trans and gender non conforming queer people. I just give them the shifty eye now. I’m glad you know what the word ally means, but it means shit if you’re not living up to what a definition of an ally is. Like you were saying, there have been plenty of countries that were allies in our wars, I would rather not use that word. I would rather believe that a persyn would do what the fuck they are gonna say. Like I do. I don’t want you to tell me that you believe in the cause, that you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do to help the cause, and then you don’t do shit. And the transwomyn are still left out by themselves. Allyship is significant to progressiveness and the liberation movement because allyship comes from other people who can make an impact on the what and how other people see us. If we look at Ellen degeners, she is one of the richest gay people in the media alone. She rarely talks about LGTBQIA situations, let alone giving two shits about trans people. She is appealing to the cishet marketing scheme and that’s fine, that’s ok, but don’t call yourself an ally and then say I’m here for the work, I’m here to help lgbtqia community, don’t talk about the issues around black people, or the issues around lgtbqia specifically trans queer gnc people. The line between allyship and being phony as fuck, you know what I’m saying. It’s really been frustrating to deal with people on a daily basis, talking to people, hearing them talk about how magnificient if we could walk down the street hand in hand, kumbaya. You’re not playing the part in that, you’re just giving ideas, you’re just speaking about it. Okay, you can talk about it, you put the energy in the universe. But my grandma already told me, it’s not gonna fall in your lap. If you want it, you gotta work for it. To be an ally is more than just what comes out of your moth, what you do on facebook, what you do to get somebody to snap their fingers at what you say. You gotta be putting in the work that the people you are claiming to be fighting for, that you’re there in the forefront with the people who are at the forefront fighting for the causes more than just it looks good if I say it on paper, I’m not about that life and action. I’m done with that idea, I give people the benefit of doubt. I believe that they will do what they say. I’m not gonna get my hopes up. I just know that I won’t stop doing it. I’m not gonna leave it up to you. I’m not gonna put my eggs in my basket. This persyn is gonna do this, I guess I can just wash my hands of it. No, I’m gonna continue to do it regardless. It’s just goes to show who is truly about that life, when they talk about it, and are actually doing the work.

X: yea let’s change the language up. We have a few new terms: benefit-of-the-doubters, coconspirators, I like accomplices too.

CECE: that’s along the lines of acquaintances. Allyship is something that you want from your closest friends. Allyship is more than .. for me it’s like a spiritual relationship, you’re gonna struggle when I struggle because you’re for the same causes I am, and you’re not just saying you’re for some causes I know for a fact that you’re a persyn that I can count on when it comes to progressive liberation movements and things like that. Because you’re showing me, you’re not just saying it on facebook or twitter, tagging me in a post because you think it’s a sad story. People who are being arrested, who are being killed, who have lost their homes, who have lost their finances, all for the sake of activism. And when are we gonna be on that raffle together, when are we all risking it all. There’s some of us who are willing to risk it all, because shit, there isn’t anything to lose. But for some people, allyship affects their money, allyship affects their housing, allyship affects their relationship with their families and their friends, they do it on the minimum. So it sounds good when you talk about it, but you don’t want it to affect your persynal life. Oh I get it. My persynal life has been affected 24/7 regardless whether I was an activist or not. But you’re worried about oh okay, yeah it’s like you have to really think about where you are, with people in general and in life and knowing what’s really stake, knowing when you have someone that has solid ideas, and the same motivation, the same type of urgency, resiliency, tenacity when it comes to progressive liberation movements. Allyship is more than just tokenzing black people, or having a couple friends of color, more than just that, it’s about really caring about the issues that people of color face, gnc people, queer trans people face. Or immigrants. Or people. You don’t do it because it looks good, don’t do it because you want people to think you are a good person. Don’t do it because you need some self gratification or you need something that’s gonna make you feel like you’ve earned your duty in life. It goes deeper than that. Allyship is more about the connections you have with people. How much do you care about my issues. If I sit down with you, I tell you my deepest darkest secrets, don’t just fantasize about that, and tell me how fucked up it is. I want you to help me fix things. I want you to help things, these things in life. There are people who are born with this. I’m pretty sure they’ll want somebody that’s gonna be really willing to fight just like they are fighting for it. That’s what allyship is about. It’s about connection, its about empathy, it’s about decolonizing, it’s all about these things, all these things you are willing to let go, to help these people, if you really care about them, if you really care about their issuses, if you really care about change. You have to go beyond just thinking oh if we fix this then I can wash my hands of it, because no, the struggle is gonna continue, and as long as we keep changing things, we keep building relationships with each other. We can decolonize the shit that oppresses us, that’s systemic, and society and our lives, persynal and societal. It’s greater than just saying that we’re with this person, I’m gonna stand them here with them. It’s something that I need to do for myself. You need to being this for them. You need to being this for the movement. You need to be doing this for community. You need to be doing this to make changes in your lives, to change the lives of the people who weren’t necessarily with these types of things. You can’t be an ally, and go home, or wherever space you’re going and listen to negative talk and just walk away from that situation, and come to my face to tell me how beautiful the movement is. That’s so backward, so ass-backward. It’s really wrong, it’s really felonious, there’s no way that you can be ally and allow things like that to happen. To be afraid of confrontation. We deal with confrontation involuntarily. There’s nothing that’s really gonna change that. You have to be willing to love each other on a level that’s beyond ourselves. That gives us understanding of each other. Why is this so important, that we want these movements? Why is it so important that it has to happen? Because look at how much pain it has caused, look at how oppressive it is, look at how it has separated families. So much. Ally is more than just a four letter word. Being an ally, the word ally is more than just those four letters. It is about the work. It is about the heart and soul and energy that you put behind it. As it is with any words or labels we attach to ourselves, what do we put behind it? What definitions are we gona give this? Being an ally to a lot of people just means I’m gonna make some cookies for some fundraising, and then they think they’ve done the hard work. It’s way way deeper than that. I just want people to understand that.

X: word, thank you so much cece, thank you chella. Much love to you all. Much love to the work you’re doing. I can’t want to see you in Chicago for the COV conference.

CHELLA: Thank you CeCe.

CECE: Thank you so much for having me.

CHELLA: I love you, CeCe

X: much love