![]() ![]() And I doubled down on working with regulars only. I always made sure that I had references from other girls, who had. I no longer went in cars with new clients. What I did do is that I no longer took risks. At that point I had just been a few thousand dollars away from saving for my sex reassignment. Survival was all too loud of a siren for me. I wish that I could say it scared me straight. On continuing to do sex work after being robbed and beaten by a john I look at it with a deep sadness, a deep sadness that that was her only option to take care of herself. I felt empowered.Īs the 36-year-old woman, 20 years removed from that, I look at it with great complication. I no longer felt as if I had no resources, and so for me, at that time period as that 16-year-old, it felt incredibly powerful. I have my identity and I have my body, and I can use my body as an asset to take care of myself in this world." I no longer felt as poor. I thought, "Oh, I have an asset in this world. For a poor kid, a poor trans kid, a poor trans kid of color, that $60 was a great way of taking care of myself, and so I thought about it in survival. I could buy spam musubis in the morning from 7-Eleven. I could buy myself clothes that my mom can't afford. I could pay for two months of my Premarin pills. and one of my friends said, "He wants to take you on a date," and I was like, "What does he want me to do?" and she was like, "He will pay you $60 if did a sexual act with him." And all I thought was $60, wow. I could never have sex with men in the backseats that their cars."Īnd I remember, maybe a year later, a car pulled over for me. I went very much with my student government and National Honor Society hat on, thinking, "I could never do what these women are doing. It was deeply a space of sisterhood and socializing for me. I went dressed up with my friends we hung out with older girls, and when I say older girls I was 15 and some of them were 18 to 25, but they were light-years ahead of us in terms of their identities and their own transitions, of their confidence in their bodies, of proclaiming themselves to themselves and to one another. when I was 15 years old, I went for the first time. ![]() Merchant Street is a street in Honolulu, Hawaii in downtown Honolulu. I was introduced to it first just as a hangout spot. My experiences in the sex trades and in sex work so deeply complicated. The fact that they're the most sensational things for you, as a non-trans person, as a cis person, I think says a lot about how we've framed trans people as these objects of dissection, of modern-day freak shows in a way. They're the least interesting things about me. The things that I've had to do medically to my body don't define me. And so one of the great gifts of writing for television and writing for these characters is all the things that I may not have been bold enough to say - say in an interview or at a dinner party when someone finds out that I'm trans, or I bring it up in my work, and they're astounded and they start asking all of these strange, invasive questions. I've spent my entire youth and life fighting against that. I've been very transparent about my struggles with my body, and with a society that is constantly trying to contain me and label me and define me. Part of my public work is talking about my life experiences and what I've gone through. On using Pose characters to say things she hasn't been bold enough to say herself They create new networks of survival, of creativity, of love and sustenance, that enables young folk to blossom in the absence of not having their birth families oftentimes supporting and truly affirming and loving them. It's all about the mothers who take in these children after themselves being pushed out of their own homes. Chosen family is one that our show definitely centers and celebrates. It's the idea of chosen family, which LGBTQ folk know all too well, for their own survival. them food, shelter, clothing, life experiences, advice. There's often a mother and a father who is the head of the household, who takes in kids, takes in young people, takes in queer folk who've been rejected by their own families and takes care of them. On "houses," or chosen families within the ball community ![]()
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