I'm not big on titles, but I am known throughout the community as an activist, a social justice fighter, an organizer, a black trans woman. My pronouns are she, her and hers. But in the terms of people not knowing my gender, I can go with they for them. I grew up in south Chicago. I was born and raised there. I moved to Minnesota when I was 18. My life in Chicago was pretty rough. I grew up in a very large family. My grandma and my granddad had 18 kids. So yeah, 9 boys, and 9 girls, and our family was really religious. And so it was kind of hard for me growing up because that means I endured from my family, both physical and mental. So I just kind of been on my own since I was 13. It started with me running away from home and then, or getting put out, because of wanting to pretty much just be the person that I am. And I had to make alternatives and choices that I felt were unfair. And I think it was like some form of manipulation thinking, like this idea that if I chose to stay a boy that I can live in the household. So I just refused to be a part of that, and I would just run away. And sometimes people would come and get me and force me to adhere to these policies. And I got invited to come to Minnesota from an ex-friend. At the time, I was homeless. I probably haven't talked to my family in, at the time, probably like two years. And the last time that I seen my family before I left, which was around the time my youngest brother was born. And I went ahead and so I left in 2006 and I didn't speak again to my mom until 2010. At that time, I had began transitioning medically, so a lot of people didn't know that I went through this whole physical transformation. And in that year of 2010, my grandma had got really sick, which is why I had to go back to Chicago and that's when I kind of saw my family again after four years. It wasn't the best experience. And even though I felt like I had a lot of support from a lot of people, I just felt like people felt awkward or didn't know how to deal with this part of me, who I am, compared to this person everybody was used to. The last time a lot of the people in my family saw me I basically feel like a young kid, like 12, 13. So I was grown and a grown woman, and it was just really different. And there were some altercations that happened at the time. And then I didn't talk to a lot of people there for a while, but my mom took it better than I would of expected. I think it kind of like in some ways reassured her that I was the hard child. I think that the fear of what happens to queer people in general in society kind of set in. Also, with people in my family, pretty much making my mom force these ideas on me because my mom was my best friend, and I'm her oldest. And I just felt like me and my mom always had a close relationship. My like fem, strong, black woman role model at the time. I also knew that where I was in life that I was kind of excelled in different ways, and my mom knew that, too. Even like being in school, I was like in honors classes and stuff like that, so I felt like I was older than what I really was. My mom trusted me with a lot of stuff. You know what I'm saying? Like for instance, I used to do our food shopping. So I would take my little brother with me and I would take him to the mall. And my mom taught me how to take the bus when I was young. And she's seen that I was a responsible person growing up. And so me and my mom had a really, really close relationship. And I just felt like a lot of the way that she treated me was based off of others' ideas about me that, were in my family. If my uncles or anybody would say anything to her, I think it weighed on her differently as it would if probably a stranger or something. And, I think once we reconnected, that she realized that I was a fighter, and that I was resilient, and I remember something that she had said to me. It was I had came back in 2010 and just the fact of, I'm actually proud of you because you were the only person in the family that moved away and stayed away. You work so hard and that she was proud to see me surviving and making it in life, and that meant a lot to me. Especially seeing that we butted heads so hard and I just thought that we would never have a close relationship again. And so I'm glad that we kind of fixed our relationship. And I think that our relationship now is closest that it's ever been. And just the conversations that we have and she reassures me that she sees me as her daughter. And that even now compared to when we first connected when it was had misgendering, and things like that. Now she's correcting people on misgendering me. And I just feel like we have grown a lot together, that she actually pays attention to the work that I do as an activist, and just seeing the issues that I'm affected by. And we have conversations about those things, and I think that's important because, Not just because she's my mom, but because it's so important for society as a whole, learn about the lives of trans people and the issues that we face, and what our struggles are. Just to be understanding and empathetic to the lives of like people who exist and have to navigate the society just like any other person. And so even her willingness to learn just lets me know that she's growing, that we're both growing together. I can even talk to my mom about boys and stuff which I [LAUGH] never would have gotten to that point in life. So in June of 2011, some friends and I were attacked by some neo-Nazis not too far from where I live. After I was attacked, well, one of the attackers hit me in the face with a glass mug, kind of over my face. I had to get some stitches in my face, and some glass removed out of my face, and I have a cut salivary gland. So when they fished out my face, they didn't check to see if the gland was torn or anything. And so instead of the saliva going into my mouth, it would build up in a pocket in my cheek, very painful. It was so painful, my gosh. And I would have to get it drained with a very long needle. But why I went to prison was because after the fight, and I was trying to leave the fight scene and wait for the police in a different area, one of the attackers had attacked me again. And I ended up stabbing them after I warned them that I had a weapon. And they died from the stab wound and I was immediately arrested. And, It was a long process. I was in jail for nine months, and during the trial, I took a plea deal for 41 months. And then I was transferred to St. Cloud, a men's prison, and I was there for 19 months. My experience there was probably how it is in the world, very shitty. It's just that it's more policed, more controlled and, Just more convinced. Dealing with the same stuff that I have to do every day, sexism, trans-phobia, queer-phobia, inside blackness, racism, rape culture. [LAUGH]
