I am an activist, a writer, and a former model,
and I also happen to be a woman
of the intersectional black transgender experience.
So, what does it mean to be deemed a woman
who is privileged enough to tick every single box on a minority quota,
to be deemed, first, a woman,
a transgender woman,
an ethnic minority,
a black woman,
and to be “other”,
to be human?
What is her reality in 2016?
It means you probably won’t live beyond the age of 33
through either homicide or suicide.
It means being unemployed.
It means that you will be indefinitely a victim of circumstance.
It means you be reliant on a flawed benefit system,
and that’s only if you’re eligible and available to access that.
It means being unintentionally available at any given time
to fall prey to hate crimes,
including being assaulted
through planned and targeted rape,
or being attacked by a group of 30 men in a public space.
It means having no one come up to you
and ask you if you’re okay or offer you help –
because you deserve it, right? –
And I quote: “You chose this lifestyle.”
It means being forced into a life of survival sex work
and all the dangers that that entails.
It means having to interact with the police,
who believe that your life does not matter,
so, in turn, will actively drop your case and make it a point to sabotage evidence,
which if you weren’t deemed “other”, would be in your favour.
It means being rejected by your initial and primary caretakers:
the family unit.
It means facing homelessness on a continuum.
It means being readily forced out of the educational system
by both those who teach and those who are being taught,
rendering your academic future void and null.
So let’s talk about “passing privilege”
and how significant it can be in altering one’s experience here on earth.
“Passing” can mean the difference
between being afforded an education or not,
slipping under the radar or not,
being employed and living a somewhat successful life
and being able to thrive as a human being
or not.
“Passing” is essentially paradoxical.
But this experience is greatly reduced
if you’re lucky enough to be one of those most fortunate few transpeople
who are readily able to fit the physical descriptive parameters
of the gender they prescribe to you,
unless you have a raised and class privilege
that can supersede that.
At the beginning of my journey, during my childhood,
“passing” was something I wasn’t afforded
as I categorically simply could not “pass” as someone assigned male at birth.
This is an image of me at the age of five after my mum cut all my hair off.
I think it was the start
of what I would call my mother’s first attempt
at trying to reaffirm the gender expression or ideology
that she thought was preferable towards me.
She put me in front of the mirror, I recall,
and told me I looked so handsome.
I didn’t even know I was a boy
until it was continually reiterated
through constant humiliating gender policing.
This got progressively worse and confusing as I got older,
particularly in my teenage years and developmental stages
where I was delayed in terms of my voice just not breaking,
my body just not growing in any way, shape, or form, male,
and that being in muscular, bone and body density.
I grew enlarged areolas in fluctuating cup sizes,
which I went to my doctor about
because I was kind of confused as to what was going on.
It should be apparent now
that being a gender variant person,
being transgender or being gay,
is simply not a matter of choice;
it’s called human biodiversity and it’s based on biology,
which is based on hormones, chromosomes, white-tissue brain matter,
and the development stages it has
when you’re exposed to different chemicals in the early stages of the womb.
Imagine being five years old
and being in a classroom with an adult in the position of power
who instils and constantly reinforces nothing but shame and guilt in you
by making you a categorical example of what not to be.
Here I am, standing at my very first shoot,
in the summer of 2010 with David Bailey.
The reason why this image means so much to me
is because, at the time, David Bailey was the first person in my entire life
to call me beautiful,
at the age of 18.
He saw me for me, and, honestly, I actually, surprisingly, believed him.
“Passing” today as a gender that I’ve always subscribed to
has greatly afforded me many privileges
and has allowed me to freely enter a number of spaces
where a person on paper of my description should not be allowed to exist.
“Passing” has permitted me to model,
and model before being in the business with
and exploiting transpeople
was a trend.
Do you like my pictures?
I recently quit modelling
as I was tired of reducing myself to a residual-based image;
I was so tired of having to be silent.
I was tired of having to interact with those who simply just do not get it.
I was tired of having to interact with those who are borderline basic.
I was tired of having to deal with and reduce myself to such a low level
when I’m above and beyond what your expectation was of me.
I refuse to be silent.
I refuse to reduce myself to a residual-based image,
and especially when the agency itself does not believe in that model.
Massively limiting my window of opportunity
by not sending me to New York
was a massive mistake
and quite a blind decision on Models 1’s part.
And I’m not willing to work for those who reject transpeople
then are willing to exploit the narrative when and if it suits them,
but then steal 100% of the money made
by that same black transwoman that you rejected
for jobs they booked exclusively themselves.
I kept my side of the deal in terms of losing weight.
I went from a 37″ hip UK size 8
to a 33.5″ UK size 4.
I did everything I could and was told,
but I ultimately chose to quit
due to political censoring, blatant discrimination,
and it actually being completely and utterly a waste of my time.
Modelling has, however, unintentionally allowed me to be more than self;
it’s allowed me to be seen as a beacon of hope, to inspire others.
However, due to my race,
even though I’m allowed to walk into these places,
I’m not not allowed to thrive,
and I’m actively shut down from doing so.
This image is from a 30-page spread for Dior, for Raf Simmons,
shot in Versailles by Juergen Teller.
Oh, it’s the one with the woman in the background.
It’s Juergen’s mum.
I was supposed to be in multiple shots with all the other girls
but instead I was locked away and made to hide in a van all day
because the racist, transphobic, white, gay stylist
decided that I should not be the ideal representation of a Dior beauty
even though I was asked by Juergen himself to be there.
Bye.
So, despite Juergen asking for my whereabouts all day,
I was told, “No, you’re not needed, Mr Tschan.”
There was another time when I was booked for a three-day shoot for Fantastic Man.
When I arrived, I was made to underplay my transness,
having to pick and remove parts of my identity,
like a Mr Potato Head character,
and told to act like a thug and make gun signs.
Why can’t I just be a model?
Why do I have to fight for basic respect?
Why can’t I have my gender be recognized,
and why do I have to constantly fight
and stop myself from reproducing negative racial stereotypes
that simply don’t exist to begin with?
This is the Instagram post that I posted 14 weeks ago.
I’m going to read the caption.
So it says:
“Severely and repeatedly drugged and raped by a sociopath
over the course of 15 hours.
Today will mark almost five weeks to the day
that my life was so closely taken away from me.
Under the influence
and struggling to maintain any scraps of logical and cognitive function
due to drifting intermittent consciousness,
I was force-fed multiple pills of Valium, crystal meth, and God knows what else,
while spiked with flunitrazepam,
also known as rohypnol, the date-rape drug.
Kicked out and abandoned from the location of the attack,
I was left wandering the streets for hours,
dishevelled and barely clothed,
without any ounce of dignity
or recollection of what had happened prior or for how long.
I had no shoes on, no wig, my trousers were halfway off,
I didn’t even know how to speak English, I didn’t even know my own name,
but I knew something was severely wrong.
I didn’t even know how to order myself an Uber home on my own phone.
I was on the app, but I was like, “Ooh.”
Each and every day, I see videos, pictures,
and read about people like me,
transgender people, black people,
black men, women and children,
beautiful women, beautiful transwomen,
being attacked, raped, killed and slaughtered,
and I’m sick of it.
Yes, I’m absolutely fucking sick of it.
Yes, you can all say that all lives matter
because you choose to be less than well informed of the facts
when it comes to hate crimes,
hate crimes specifically due to your race, your gender expression,
or just who you are.
The fact is that to most our lives are meaningless,
and simply this is just due to how commonplace it has become
to take our lives,
and as a result they’re thought of as disposable,
and that is not okay.
I’m not reading off statistics,
I’m not reading something I read on Tumblr three minutes ago,
I’m speaking solely from experience.
I’m not a victim and refuse to be.
Justice has to be made, and justice has to be made for us all.
When severe life changes occur and you realize that nothing matters,
existence is solely about education, raising consciousness,
and improving the human condition for all.
Today, I stand here infected with human immunodeficiency virus.
I took this picture the day I found out after being in hospital for two days.
I was supposed to go to castings all that week
as it was Fashion Week a few days after;
I didn’t go to any.
Even though I was given a PrEP the day of the incident
and maintained my course,
I still, after three months of not knowing,
was sick as hell, became infected.
My doctor told me that the drug usually works on 99.9[9]% of the population,
and I just so happen to be part of the 0.01 that it did not.
Just my luck.
I have to live with this trauma,
I have to take a physical reminder each and every day without failure
to keep myself alive –
just to keep myself alive.
For the last six weeks,
I’ve experienced nothing but side-effects with it.
It’s made me nothing but sick as hell:
fainting, having no energy to even eat.
Knocked out for 18 hours at a time, I’ve barely left the house.
And what have the police done?
Absolutely nothing.
Reality is based on a public consensus,
and if that reality is not inclusive of those deemed “other”,
then they are immediately and indefinitely,
until further notice,
deemed disposable.
If the justice system itself works against,
does not recognize or enforce repercussions of those hate crimes,
then again it reiterates that my life, our lives,
do not matter and are disposable,
and creates an environment conducive of that.
History is used as a precursor to understand today.
I am, standing here,
the beneficiary of all the girls who have come before me,
and I hope to add to this today
and be a beneficiary for those who come after me.
I’m not here to use this platform
to regurgitate already known facts and statistics.
I’m not here in a position of privilege.
I’m not here using a narrative that isn’t organically of my own
for sympathy, likes or prestige.
I’m not here to gatekeep others from thriving or exploit my girls:
I don’t suffer from the “only one” syndrome.
I’m not here speaking solely to campaign for myself:
how can you call yourself an activist
when all you’re doing is campaigning for yourself?
That’s archaic and reductive,
and does not contribute whatsoever to collective consciousness.
I’m here speaking directly from truth, from lived experience,
and I’m lucky enough to be standing here today
to spark empathy and demand change.
I’m speaking on behalf of those who are silent,
those who are forced to be silent and are never given a platform to speak.
Thank you so much for listening guys.
(Applause)
”
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