Speaker 1: On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio and fair Weather
Speaker 1: Friends Media. Some stories are just good time stories. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we just want to key key and live in somebody
Speaker 1: else's fictional world for a little bit.
Speaker 2: And sometimes we want to be educated in those moments
Speaker 2: more feeling like we want to expand our knowledge base,
Speaker 2: our consciousness. You might want a historical breakdown or even
Speaker 2: a factual analysis.
Speaker 1: But sometimes we just want to learn about someone's life
Speaker 1: in their own words, and in memoirs we really get
Speaker 1: to step into someone else's shoes. We get to trace
Speaker 1: someone's path over a specific period in their lives. We
Speaker 1: get to see their ups and downs and their evolution
Speaker 1: in a way that feels vulnerable and insightful.
Speaker 2: Memoirs can be stories where our protagonist comes of age,
Speaker 2: where they hit rock bottom, or where they go on
Speaker 2: the adventure of a lifetime.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The cool thing about memoirs is that they don't have
Speaker 1: to be about famous people. They're often about everyday people
Speaker 1: who have life stories that people can connect with and
Speaker 1: learn from. That means that a lot of the time
Speaker 1: we get to read stories from people whose names we
Speaker 1: may never know otherwise, or people whose voices are systematically silenced.
Speaker 2: And today we'll be speaking with award winning author, activists
Speaker 2: and media strategist Roquel Willis, who has a new memoir
Speaker 2: called The Risk It Takes to Bloom.
Speaker 3: I'm Katie and I'm Eves.
Speaker 1: Today's episode on Risk and Liberation with Roquel Willis. In
Speaker 1: her memoir, Raquel talks about her upbringing in Georgia, the
Speaker 1: challenges she had to face as a transgender woman, finding
Speaker 1: her community and voice in the South, and her work
Speaker 1: as a journalist and organizer dedicated to uplifting trans stories.
Speaker 1: And you know, Roquel telling her story this way is
Speaker 1: pretty impactful media landscape that portrays trans people as villains.
Speaker 1: People do some serious reaching to figure out ways to
Speaker 1: debate trans people's identity and spew hatred and intolerance, all
Speaker 1: under the guise of moral superiority and like feigned concern
Speaker 1: for children. I don't want a platform too much of
Speaker 1: that narrative, but it's rampant. So you've probably seen some
Speaker 1: of the anti trans propaganda. People's sloppily constructed opinions on
Speaker 1: transfolks can lead to real damaging consequences like bathroom and
Speaker 1: locker room bills and children dying by suicide. The point
Speaker 1: is folks in all kinds of media are great at
Speaker 1: crafting stories that use misinformation and disinformation to sway your
Speaker 1: opinion about trans people. And when you're the target of
Speaker 1: this kind of damaging propaganda, it can be super important
Speaker 1: to create spaces where you can take control of your
Speaker 1: own narratives, and in the risk it takes to bloom,
Speaker 1: Raquel does just that. She shows us how she developed,
Speaker 1: as she puts it, a thirst for embracing authentic storytelling
Speaker 1: as a critical aspect of collective liberation. So as we
Speaker 1: approach the end of another Women's History Month, we speak
Speaker 1: with Raquel about the beauty of black trans people telling
Speaker 1: their stories with agency and how honest personal storytelling helped
Speaker 1: pave a path toward freedom. Hi Raquel, Hi, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad to have you on the show today.
Speaker 4: Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 1: Yes, I loved reading your book, and one thing that
Speaker 1: I was thinking the whole time is like, this is
Speaker 1: so vulnerable, and I want to know what that process
Speaker 1: was like for you. What were the emotions that you
Speaker 1: were going through while you were writing the book and
Speaker 1: telling your story in this very revealing way In terms.
Speaker 4: Of emotionality, I had to work through feelings of shame
Speaker 4: around my story as a black trans woman who started
Speaker 4: her career, you know, over a decade ago, and also
Speaker 4: my transition even years before that. For a long time,
Speaker 4: I felt like I had to run as far away
Speaker 4: from my childhood and origin story as possible because I
Speaker 4: feared my childhood, my boyhood, you know, all of those
Speaker 4: things being weaponized against me to kind of chip away
Speaker 4: at who I am now, to chip away at my womanhood.
Speaker 4: And so I think that that was a big part
Speaker 4: of some of the emotions there was figuring out how
Speaker 4: to really embrace and love my younger self, but also
Speaker 4: to give grace to family and other folks in my
Speaker 4: life and community and environment who didn't have the tools
Speaker 4: to understand who I was.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: So it seems like the things that maybe you're running
Speaker 1: from the most, or the things that you really had
Speaker 1: to confront as you were writing the book.
Speaker 4: Absolutely yeah. I mean it's laying it all on front street,
Speaker 4: as Foth say. So you have to be ready in
Speaker 4: a sense, and I don't know that there's a one
Speaker 4: hundred percent way to know that you're ready to share
Speaker 4: your story on that level, but I think being able
Speaker 4: to share your story and have those hard conversations in
Speaker 4: your most intimate relationships first is key, and I think
Speaker 4: some of that has been lost in a time where
Speaker 4: everyone is a brand, you know, social media demands us
Speaker 4: to relinquish some of our most intimate and vulnerable moments
Speaker 4: and sometimes to hype up and you know, perform, you know,
Speaker 4: more vulnerability than maybe we are ready for.
Speaker 2: One of the things I noticed in your book that
Speaker 2: I would say was surprising speaking of you saying learning
Speaker 2: to Love your younger self and Embrace the boyhood, was
Speaker 2: that you shared a picture of your younger self and
Speaker 2: you also named your younger self.
Speaker 3: So what was that thought process?
Speaker 2: And because it often is weaponized, what made you feel
Speaker 2: like I am going to put this out on for
Speaker 2: a street and what?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I mean, those were some big decisions, and I
Speaker 4: wanted to make sure that the pieces of my childhood
Speaker 4: and my life before really having the language to understand
Speaker 4: my transness, were presented in the way that I wanted
Speaker 4: them presented. I think in previous moments of literature and
Speaker 4: storytelling for trans folks, there was a necessity to kind
Speaker 4: of paint as stark of difference between who we are,
Speaker 4: maybe pre transitioned, so to speak, and beyond kind of
Speaker 4: naming our transness, because I don't really think transitioning ever
Speaker 4: in but I think being able to show my younger
Speaker 4: self was important to love that younger self because I
Speaker 4: am every version of me that has existed, right, So
Speaker 4: I am the little kid called a boy right and
Speaker 4: being raised as a boy, right like I have that
Speaker 4: kid in me. And I also understand that these categories
Speaker 4: of boy and girl and man and woman, you know,
Speaker 4: it's not that rigid, and I have come to a
Speaker 4: point in my life where it doesn't hurt me so
Speaker 4: much to name that history in that way. But I
Speaker 4: also didn't just want to share my younger self. I
Speaker 4: wanted to share this context that I was birth and race,
Speaker 4: and which is my family. So it's not just a
Speaker 4: picture of me, it's a picture of Actually every picture
Speaker 4: is a picture of me with family or community, mostly
Speaker 4: my mom, because she's been kind of a central figure
Speaker 4: in my life, so she is featured in three of
Speaker 4: the images.
Speaker 3: Does she love that, you know?
Speaker 4: I think she did. She hasn't spoken to that dynamic specifically,
Speaker 4: but it has been important for me at various points
Speaker 4: in my career to name that I have a loving
Speaker 4: and affirming mother and a family that has evolved alongside me.
Speaker 1: So I would imagine there are many trans people who
Speaker 1: may not be ready to tell their stories, maybe thinking
Speaker 1: about telling their stories in various ways, and they might
Speaker 1: not have gotten to this point where you are, like
Speaker 1: you say, where those things don't hurt you to name anymore,
Speaker 1: or that shame that you said you were able to
Speaker 1: work through through this process, which I guess this process
Speaker 1: of writing the book could have been therapeutic in ways
Speaker 1: to help you.
Speaker 3: Work through it.
Speaker 1: But what kind of advice would you give to other
Speaker 1: trans people who want to share their stories, who don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the capacity or tools to move through shame
Speaker 1: to name things that may be difficult for them to name.
Speaker 4: Well, I think it's important to figure out what your
Speaker 4: outlet is for release of all of the inevitable pin
Speaker 4: up energy and ankst and grieving and fears. For some
Speaker 4: people that's sports and being active in that way. It's
Speaker 4: for some people it's the arts and all the ways
Speaker 4: that that exists. But I think that having the outlets
Speaker 4: are so key to let that energy out in some way,
Speaker 4: even if it's not energy that you can really name
Speaker 4: specifically what it is, and that feels important for me
Speaker 4: as a trans person to state because I think that
Speaker 4: the naming of the experience is just one thing, but
Speaker 4: I think the how you express it is another thing, right,
Speaker 4: and that that helps us get to the deeper layers
Speaker 4: of what are the parts of your story that give
Speaker 4: you strength? What are the parts of your story that
Speaker 4: you feel most traumatized by or hurt by? And where
Speaker 4: we let that energy out matters? And for me, you know,
Speaker 4: that has been writing. It has been being able to
Speaker 4: express myself in the written word and speeches and all
Speaker 4: of those different things. Also, my advice for folks trying
Speaker 4: to work through through guilt and shame has been to
Speaker 4: find other stories and kind of sustain yourself one those
Speaker 4: until you can get to a point where you can
Speaker 4: share your story in the way that you need to.
Speaker 4: I mean, whenever I feel like times are difficult, and
Speaker 4: that's pretty often these days. I think about our ancestors
Speaker 4: and trancestors and like what they endured and built with
Speaker 4: even less tools and access and language to understand who
Speaker 4: they were. Right, if they could do it, why can't
Speaker 4: I figure out my path?
Speaker 3: Yeah? That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: Are there any memoirs that you look to in writing
Speaker 1: your book.
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, I mean the perfect kind of quintessential memoirs.
Speaker 4: Of course, you know Janet Mok's redefining realness, surpassing certainty.
Speaker 4: Her two memoirs are foundational. And also I had this book,
Speaker 4: but I had to really fall in love with it
Speaker 4: all over again. Hiding My Candy by the Lady Shabbie,
Speaker 4: who was a black trans performer they would say female
Speaker 4: impersonator back in the nineties, but that was when she
Speaker 4: wrote her autobiography because she was a character in this
Speaker 4: best selling book called Midnight in the Garden of Good
Speaker 4: and Evil. And then she also was able to reprise
Speaker 4: her role in the film. So we have this kind
Speaker 4: of hidden black trans history and Southern Black trans history
Speaker 4: that I think we haven't talked about enough.
Speaker 2: What do you see the connection between personal narrative and
Speaker 2: social change in the context of your memoir.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that it was important to recognize both
Speaker 4: the revolution that happened within me and the one that
Speaker 4: happened beyond me and continues to happen, right, And I
Speaker 4: think revolution is an ongoing phenomenon which I speak to
Speaker 4: in the epilogue of the book. But I think when
Speaker 4: you believe in collective liberation, there is an inherent need
Speaker 4: to also believe in the power of transformation. And that
Speaker 4: isn't just something that happens collectively like that has to
Speaker 4: happen on an individual level too. And I think we
Speaker 4: discount how important the moments of shift and change and
Speaker 4: taking risk to bloom matter in our lives. Right that
Speaker 4: death that you experience in your family or with a
Speaker 4: loved ones and friends or in community, that is fertilizer
Speaker 4: for you to grow and change, Right, not just kind
Speaker 4: of wallow and will to away. The loss of a
Speaker 4: dream or the shattering of an expectation. You know, those
Speaker 4: are opportunities for us to think new ways of living
Speaker 4: and existing. And that's the connection for me.
Speaker 1: More with Raquel willis after the break you mentioned the
Speaker 1: power of personal transformation and being able to tell your story.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on memoir being a space for
Speaker 1: trans people to be able to tell their stories. Do
Speaker 1: you think that it is a safe and authentic medium
Speaker 1: for trans people to be able to tell their stories.
Speaker 4: What I appreciate about memoir and book link works and
Speaker 4: long form is that it just gives the creator vast
Speaker 4: space to dig into the nuances, and I think in
Speaker 4: a world where most people, I think it's safe to
Speaker 4: say most people don't understand the complexity of gender or
Speaker 4: sex or identity in all of these different ways, we
Speaker 4: need that space to tease out these different things. Trans
Speaker 4: folks are not thought of in these kind of deeper
Speaker 4: complex ways, and that's what I wanted to add to
Speaker 4: the cannon.
Speaker 1: I'm also thinking about how at this point you've gone
Speaker 1: to different places for your book tour and had different
Speaker 1: conversations in those spaces, So that kind of means you've
Speaker 1: had to continue talking about your story over and over.
Speaker 1: Have you learned anything new about yourself? Have you had
Speaker 1: any revelations in this continuation or guess dialogue that you're
Speaker 1: having with your own store in this process.
Speaker 4: There's this quote that's like, and I don't know who
Speaker 4: to attribute to, but it's like, once you create the thing,
Speaker 4: oftentimes it's no longer yours, and there's a piece of that,
Speaker 4: you know, Like, my experience with this book has been
Speaker 4: so different at different points. Obviously, you know, I think
Speaker 4: the drafting of it was its own particular experience and
Speaker 4: had its own struggles and triumphs of do I want
Speaker 4: to include that can I say that? And then of
Speaker 4: course the editing process is like, well, can I say
Speaker 4: that better? Or do I need to take that out?
Speaker 4: Is that a disservice to my goals or doesn't make
Speaker 4: you know, my arguments for my existence stronger? You know?
Speaker 4: But that's a different struggle than the drafting process. And
Speaker 4: then of course in the publishing it's like, well, what
Speaker 4: are the ways that I'm willing to allow my story
Speaker 4: to be packaged in the ways that I'm not Now
Speaker 4: that I have created this thing and that is its
Speaker 4: own thing too. And then the other piece is now
Speaker 4: that this is out in the world and I'm having
Speaker 4: conversations with folks and they're making their connections around the
Speaker 4: parts that really resonate with them, it becomes its own
Speaker 4: thing when other people read it than it is for me,
Speaker 4: because I'm the only person in the world who has
Speaker 4: had the experience of processing, analyzing, and creating this. So
Speaker 4: no one is going to, even in reading my book,
Speaker 4: know my full story or my whole truth. I mean,
Speaker 4: there are folks who have read the difficult moments I
Speaker 4: had with family and own see the difficult part because they,
Speaker 4: in their life have only experienced the difficult part, and
Speaker 4: so maybe the argument of evolution of family isn't as
Speaker 4: resonant for them because they haven't been able to experience
Speaker 4: that right, Or maybe they don't believe that that's possible,
Speaker 4: and maybe it's not possible for them and their family right.
Speaker 4: And then of course there are other folks who are like,
Speaker 4: latch on to the evolution of my family and the
Speaker 4: possibility and see that maybe it's possible for them, or
Speaker 4: maybe they are experiencing that joy. It bores and it
Speaker 4: shifts depending on who is having the conversation.
Speaker 2: That's one of the things about memoirs is it's a
Speaker 2: book about you in a certain part of your life.
Speaker 2: But as you said, you're in community with people, so
Speaker 2: other people are going to show up, and you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes people don't like how they show up in your memoir.
Speaker 4: They're like, I do that you remember that wrong.
Speaker 2: But one thing I liked about your memoir is that
Speaker 2: you also included letters to other people, your dad being one,
Speaker 2: but other trans people like China Gibson. Why was that
Speaker 2: important for you to center them in that way?
Speaker 4: I would say the first chapter that I had a
Speaker 4: full draft of was the chapter about my dad and
Speaker 4: someone told me. Actually, Janet Mock when she read an
Speaker 4: early version, said, you know, this is the emotional core
Speaker 4: of the book. You know, like this is you essentially
Speaker 4: me at you know, my most vulnerable. How are you
Speaker 4: going to glean your power sitting in that? In these
Speaker 4: other spaces in the book. And so that was that
Speaker 4: was some very beautiful, necessary feedback because it was a risk, right,
Speaker 4: it was a risk to name, especially as someone often
Speaker 4: put on a pedestal and probably put on a pedestal
Speaker 4: more now. Right, it's just like it keeps growing, you know,
Speaker 4: as a public figure, as an activist, I'm often a
Speaker 4: person who becomes a vessel for other people to understand
Speaker 4: themselves or the world or politics or liberation even which
Speaker 4: is like is wild to me, and you know it's
Speaker 4: impossible to be that really, But I wanted to be
Speaker 4: able to show these moments, and particularly with my dad,
Speaker 4: where I felt the most shame and the most guilt
Speaker 4: around not living up to his expectations, societies expectations, the
Speaker 4: Catholic churches expectations, you know, all of these different things.
Speaker 4: That was important and to talk about what it means
Speaker 4: and what it meant to embrace being a failure to
Speaker 4: those expectations, right, and a failure to these ideas that
Speaker 4: I would be a person who would see myself in
Speaker 4: black masculinity, and that if I didn't and couldn't, that
Speaker 4: I shouldn't exist, right. That was important, And I think
Speaker 4: with the epistolary approach with the letters, it was necessary
Speaker 4: to be able to continue the narrative of the story progressing,
Speaker 4: but also be able to speak more directly to who
Speaker 4: I was at the time of writing. And so I
Speaker 4: become a slightly different narrator, pulling on more dimensions of
Speaker 4: what I've learned along the way and bring the reader
Speaker 4: through that moment. And that was kind of the approach,
Speaker 4: and that was what I felt like, change the tone
Speaker 4: a little bit. And I think for some people the
Speaker 4: letters are the most important, or not important, but their
Speaker 4: most resonant parts of the book for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, letters are like really intimate. I think about, you know,
Speaker 2: James Baldwin writing to his nephew, or Ton of Hose
Speaker 2: Coast writing to his son, and it's like we get
Speaker 2: to get a peek into you writing to these different
Speaker 2: trans women you know who didn't make it and coming
Speaker 2: like I guess from like a big sister energy to
Speaker 2: little Sister, even though their ancestors now So yeah, it
Speaker 2: is really resonant.
Speaker 1: You say in the introduction to your book that you
Speaker 1: have formative organizing experiences that fuel your thirst for embracing
Speaker 1: authentic storytelling as a critical aspect of collective liberation. I
Speaker 1: like you to talk more about that and why and
Speaker 1: how it's a critical aspect of collective liberation.
Speaker 3: What is the link between those two things.
Speaker 4: So I studied journalism at the University of Georgia. Go Dogs.
Speaker 4: I think I'm obligated to say that where I get
Speaker 4: fined or maybe they throw another student loan at me,
Speaker 4: I don't know. But when I was in journalism school,
Speaker 4: and I think that this is true for a lot
Speaker 4: of folks in the margins, the idea of objectivity was
Speaker 4: kind of a way to keep us from bringing our
Speaker 4: lived experience into conversation with our expertise. So this idea
Speaker 4: that to be unbiased is to be a blank slate,
Speaker 4: to strip yourself of these things that make you unique,
Speaker 4: your blackness, your transness, your queerness, your womanhood, even and
Speaker 4: on and on. But as I started to get into
Speaker 4: the field and have opportunities, at least at my first job.
Speaker 4: I wasn't out as queer and trance because I didn't
Speaker 4: feel safe enough, and I felt the impact of being
Speaker 4: closeted on my work. I wasn't a to be the
Speaker 4: best storyteller that I could be because I had to
Speaker 4: hide my queerness and transness, or at least felt I
Speaker 4: had to to survive, and that was a problem. So
Speaker 4: then it must be true that to be open about
Speaker 4: those things would make me a deeper, richer storyteller. And
Speaker 4: so then when we think about the James Baldwins and
Speaker 4: the Angela Davises and the Ida b Wells Barnett's, you
Speaker 4: know who brought their full self to their work in
Speaker 4: varying ways. Those are the people I aspire to be,
Speaker 4: not the folks that inevitably have told me that my blackness,
Speaker 4: transnis queerness in womanhood didn't matter.
Speaker 1: More conversation with Raquel after the Break.
Speaker 4: So by now.
Speaker 1: You've worked in a bunch of different mediums, so magazines,
Speaker 1: you've done it in speeches in public capacities, and podcasts,
Speaker 1: and I know new podcasts just launched, and just writing
Speaker 1: your own book writing essays. I was wondering if you've
Speaker 1: seen any sort of differences in how you're able to
Speaker 1: move towards this aim of liberation and whatever other goals
Speaker 1: you have.
Speaker 3: In your storytelling through these different mediums.
Speaker 1: How does the goalpost or how does how you achieve
Speaker 1: those objectives? How does that change as the medium changes?
Speaker 4: Well, I think that with media changes, the technique, the skills,
Speaker 4: you know, those kind of things shift, But I don't
Speaker 4: think purpose shifts all that much. So if I'm invested
Speaker 4: in elevating the honor and dignity of black trans power
Speaker 4: and liberation, which I am, then it carries me through
Speaker 4: whatever era I'm in, whatever role that I'm in, and
Speaker 4: on and on. So in writing, the stories that I
Speaker 4: want to share inevitably are connected to observing black transpower
Speaker 4: and dreaming of what black transpower can be. Or if
Speaker 4: I'm working in podcasting, it's about for instance, Afterlives one
Speaker 4: podcast that's focused on the lives we've lost too soon
Speaker 4: to violence in the trans community. And so with Leileen
Speaker 4: Polanco's story, who was the center of the first season,
Speaker 4: we're talking about an Afro Latina trans woman who died
Speaker 4: in Riker's custody. This is a black trans story, but
Speaker 4: it's also a universal story. It's a story of someone incarcerated,
Speaker 4: someone who had epilepsy and schizophrenia, someone who was a
Speaker 4: sex worker. She was in ballroom culture, walk in face, honey,
Speaker 4: she was all of these different things, but also a
Speaker 4: black trans person or with Queer Chronicles. The podcast you
Speaker 4: were talking about that just released. This is a podcast
Speaker 4: focused on how we can get queer and trans folks
Speaker 4: to tell their stories on their own terms. So while
Speaker 4: I'm a host of the show, I really feel like
Speaker 4: I'm just the facilitator for folks to tell their story
Speaker 4: right And this first season focuses on trans Tenes, queer
Speaker 4: and trans Tenes, and political battleground states right now in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four, telling their own stories, unfiltered with as
Speaker 4: minimal intervention from my MOODI old ass as possible.
Speaker 3: Not molding.
Speaker 4: But there are black trans youth right There's one young
Speaker 4: person named Safara, another one named Indigo who is a
Speaker 4: part of this larger collective of queer and trans kids
Speaker 4: of varying backgrounds and experiences telling their stories in Alabama
Speaker 4: and Texas and on and on. So that purpose is
Speaker 4: there whatever I do. And so I think that that
Speaker 4: figuring out what your purpose is key.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's so much misinformation and disinformation that
Speaker 1: media spews that is just you know, necessitates real narratives,
Speaker 1: and podcasts are really good at doing that, and it
Speaker 1: seems like Queer Chronicles is a perfect example of a
Speaker 1: space where people can just tell their own stories. But
Speaker 1: I think the thing that's cool about podcasting, and this
Speaker 1: kind of podcast specifically, is that it's like in this
Speaker 1: tradition of the oral narratives, the Works Progress Administration or
Speaker 1: you know, WPA, or it's like a lot of the
Speaker 1: times we wouldn't we wouldn't hear those people, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: know their stories, and so that's so powerful. But I
Speaker 1: also wonder if you think that there are any limitations
Speaker 1: of storytelling and how it can lead to collective liberation.
Speaker 1: Do you think there are any ways in which storytelling
Speaker 1: falls short and can be supplemented with other actions.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think storytelling falls short when it's rooted
Speaker 4: and truth. I think storytelling can be damaging just like
Speaker 4: anything else. Right, it's not inherently benevolent. Donald Trump is storyteller.
Speaker 4: He's telling a story of power by any means necessary,
Speaker 4: on the backs of folks on the margins and that's
Speaker 4: not just folks of color and religious minorities and queer
Speaker 4: and trans folks and women. That's also a huge part
Speaker 4: of his base, poor people, working class people, middle class people.
Speaker 4: So storytelling can be used negatively, right. We also see
Speaker 4: storytelling being negative when folks aren't curious enough or are
Speaker 4: invested in their existing ignorances and fears. We see it
Speaker 4: on the Shade Room, right. We see it on other
Speaker 4: blog and niche media platforms that will throw up an
Speaker 4: image of a queer, trans or in a non conforming person,
Speaker 4: or put a baby mama on blast or whatever and
Speaker 4: let the audience chip away at that person's humanity. Yeah,
Speaker 4: without any kind of intervention, because it's all about engagements
Speaker 4: and clicks, and that pulls us away from seeing the
Speaker 4: humanity and other black people.
Speaker 1: It's very disturbing, and I think we've been very desensitized
Speaker 1: to it at this point.
Speaker 4: We have, so storytelling can be used negatively. I do
Speaker 4: think it is a skill that everyone needs to be
Speaker 4: able to tap into. It will enrich everyone's lives, no
Speaker 4: matter what industry or sector that you're in, to be
Speaker 4: able to articulate who you are, your story, your history,
Speaker 4: where you hope to go your dreams. That's liberating, and
Speaker 4: you're right, it's just one thing we have to be doing.
Speaker 4: Other actions have to be invested in material change. We
Speaker 4: have to be clear about where resources are going. You know,
Speaker 4: there's a reason people are talking about boycotting genocidal regimes
Speaker 4: and societies right now, particularly thinking about what's happening to
Speaker 4: our Palestinian famine folks in Gaza. I think figuring out
Speaker 4: your part in civic duty is key. It's not just
Speaker 4: about the presidential election. It is about oftentimes these local
Speaker 4: and state elections right where we are seeing a lot
Speaker 4: of this damaging legislation being moved, not just around LGBTQ
Speaker 4: plus people and keeping transit from being protected in schools,
Speaker 4: but we also see the fight against what people are
Speaker 4: saying is critical race theory right, which is really a
Speaker 4: dog whistle, particularly for black folks other folks of color
Speaker 4: from knowing their history in school. So the civic part
Speaker 4: is also important as well.
Speaker 1: Are there any parts of your story where you feel
Speaker 1: like you didn't say enough or you said too much
Speaker 1: in your book?
Speaker 4: No, moments of tension and conflict that were major in
Speaker 4: the book. I had conversations with those folks, and so
Speaker 4: those relationships are intact. I will say I had I
Speaker 4: was very anxious to share about moments where I felt violated,
Speaker 4: whether it was my body. I also felt anxiety over
Speaker 4: talking about difficulties and struggles and shortcomings in the workplace.
Speaker 4: You know, this is a capitalist society, right, You're not
Speaker 4: supposed to talk about your struggles in the workplace. Really,
Speaker 4: You're just supposed to pack your bags and go on
Speaker 4: if you can. But I think it's necessary as a
Speaker 4: black trans woman to be able to name the ways
Speaker 4: that I have felt exploited, either in corporate media or
Speaker 4: in nonprofits, and the moments where I felt most complicit
Speaker 4: in systems of oppression too, because capitalism requires some kind
Speaker 4: of exploitation of something or someone even when we don't
Speaker 4: see it.
Speaker 2: That's I like the memoirs where the person ready it
Speaker 2: can kind of point to finger at themselves too and
Speaker 2: be like, I ain't do everything perfect, you know, because
Speaker 2: we've all been complicit in something.
Speaker 3: I ain't all right about what I had, but you know,
Speaker 3: I'm telling myself.
Speaker 2: But I really do appreciate the honesty there, because it's
Speaker 2: like you can feel so guilty, like damn, like I'm
Speaker 2: the worst person in the world. Like no one else
Speaker 2: has said that they did this and I did that,
Speaker 2: or you know, I was part of this workplace. I
Speaker 2: knew I shouldn't been there. I knew I shouldn't have
Speaker 2: been the manager there, or you know, telling people this
Speaker 2: and that, but you know, I was just doing what
Speaker 2: I was told. So I really appreciate it when people can,
Speaker 2: you know, do that introspection and say, you know, I've
Speaker 2: changed now, I'm different now, but this is what I
Speaker 2: was doing back then.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now you can have a different understanding and shifting perspective
Speaker 1: when you're reading somebody else going through their own internal
Speaker 1: processes and be like, maybe I need to rethink that
Speaker 1: or change.
Speaker 3: The way I'm doing things and moving.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious too about you use the word truth.
Speaker 1: And we talked a little bit about social media earlier
Speaker 1: and authenticity and how we can construct these different personas
Speaker 1: depending upon the medium that we're expressing ourselves through. What
Speaker 1: does what is truth and authenticity to you? You know,
Speaker 1: I think this is a kind of an age old
Speaker 1: thing that we think about in storytelling. You know, even
Speaker 1: like Ida B. Wells had the quote, I can't remember
Speaker 1: that exact quote, but around shining the light of truth
Speaker 1: on things. What does truth and authenticity mean to you
Speaker 1: in general? In storytelling capacity and in telling black stories,
Speaker 1: in trans stories and Southern stories.
Speaker 4: I think the most useful or impactful type of truth
Speaker 4: to me is the one that is steeped in vulnerability.
Speaker 4: I don't know how you really get to authenticity without
Speaker 4: valuing vulnerability too, because with vulnerability comes low risk, right
Speaker 4: that you know, it is all up in the title
Speaker 4: of this book, the risk it takes the bloom, right.
Speaker 4: But I think there's risk in showing your fears. There's
Speaker 4: risk in showing your anxieties and insecurities. But I think
Speaker 4: once those are laid out on the table, then we
Speaker 4: really know what we're working with, right, and then may
Speaker 4: maybe we have more of an opportunity to utilize those
Speaker 4: things as fertilizer, as I say in the epilogue of
Speaker 4: the book, to imagine and dream and build something new
Speaker 4: and leave something better behind for the next folks. So
Speaker 4: for me, that is necessary. What I think about, for instance,
Speaker 4: all of these moments of transphobia that we witness of
Speaker 4: course in society, but also just in culture in general.
Speaker 4: You know, whether it's just hilarious talking about her thoughts
Speaker 4: around trans women, but it's really coming from a deep
Speaker 4: wounded place of feeling like she's not woman enough or
Speaker 4: that her identity has been shredded up because trans people
Speaker 4: are demanding that we're respected and treated with honor and dignity.
Speaker 4: And she's not the only one that feels that way.
Speaker 4: We all know a handful, if not more, of since
Speaker 4: women in particular, who feel like trans women threaten their existence.
Speaker 4: And then we can also talk about what it's like
Speaker 4: for black women who have never been fully respected in
Speaker 4: their womanhood in comparison to a white ideal, and what
Speaker 4: it means to have someone else right beside them demanding
Speaker 4: to be seen and respected to That's a wound, honey,
Speaker 4: But that is also a truth that we can't get
Speaker 4: to if we hide it behind Oh well, this is
Speaker 4: just what I've always known, or I don't want to
Speaker 4: know these new things, or no, honey, like, let's figure
Speaker 4: out what's at the root of this problem. Or Dave
Speaker 4: Chappelle right, it's not really that he thinks trans folks
Speaker 4: aren't real or valid. In fact, it's his anxieties about
Speaker 4: the truth that we are real and what that may
Speaker 4: mean about his masculinity, that he, now in a time
Speaker 4: when we're more visible than ever before and discussed more
Speaker 4: than ever before, can't ignore us and can't look away.
Speaker 4: And so if he, as a cis hat black man,
Speaker 4: is perceiving the fact that particularly trans women exists, what
Speaker 4: does that mean for him in relation to us? That's
Speaker 4: an anxiety, that's a fear. But I think that's the
Speaker 4: deeper truth than all the lines of a horrible joke
Speaker 4: that he or Just Hilarious could write.
Speaker 2: When you were writing the Risk It Takes a Bloom,
Speaker 2: did you have the Just Hilariouses and the Dave Chappelle's
Speaker 2: of the world in mind for them to read it
Speaker 2: and gain something for it? Or were you like, this
Speaker 2: is for the folks who are already in al shit
Speaker 2: with the trans community.
Speaker 4: I knew that all types of people would read it.
Speaker 4: I don't know that the Just Hilariouses or the Dave
Speaker 4: Chappelle's would read it. You know, I wasn't thinking of
Speaker 4: them as my audience, right, at least not my core audience.
Speaker 4: Maybe they are an audience two three times removed, right,
Speaker 4: like a cousin you've never met. But my core audience
Speaker 4: has been well. I think probably the most important audience
Speaker 4: member is me period. I know, you know, you know
Speaker 4: what is it Tony Morrison who says that, you know,
Speaker 4: we have to write the stories that we want to see.
Speaker 4: For me, as a black trans woman, to imagine myself
Speaker 4: as the audience, it's different, it's rare, It's something we
Speaker 4: need more of. If I thought about trying to speak
Speaker 4: to a particular audience, there's a certain amount of myself
Speaker 4: that I would have to dilute down in a race,
Speaker 4: because I know that to be black and to be
Speaker 4: trans is not the average experience. I am on the
Speaker 4: margins of margins, and so to take that power back,
Speaker 4: I had to be able to say and care the
Speaker 4: most about what I think, but also what black trans
Speaker 4: people think, right, because your people know when you own
Speaker 4: some bullshit and when you're not, and they're gonna tell
Speaker 4: you because they are your people. And so whatever I
Speaker 4: can do to honor and be real to my community
Speaker 4: about black trans folks, that's what I'm invested at.
Speaker 2: So now it is time for role credits, the segment
Speaker 2: where we give credit to a person, place, or thing
Speaker 2: that we encountered during the week, and we have our
Speaker 2: guests Raquel joining us, But first, Eves, who are.
Speaker 3: What would you like to give credit to?
Speaker 1: So? I think just in general on the show and today,
Speaker 1: we've been talking a lot about personal narratives, So I
Speaker 1: want to give credit to all of the black writers
Speaker 1: and authors in history, and people like Ida b Wells
Speaker 1: and the estates of those ancestors families who put their
Speaker 1: letters and archives so we're able to read those correspondences
Speaker 1: between people like you know, James Baldwin and Ida b
Speaker 1: Wells and everybody else who has letters that we can
Speaker 1: read today.
Speaker 2: Okay, I would like to give credit to all the
Speaker 2: girls celebrating rama. Don you know, I think Islam is
Speaker 2: a beautiful religion, and you know, folks be lying on
Speaker 2: the Muslims all the time, and I believe what they
Speaker 2: say about y'all. I know y'all peaceful, and I know
Speaker 2: you've been going through it.
Speaker 4: And I rock with y'all.
Speaker 2: For Raquel, who are what would you like to give
Speaker 2: credit to?
Speaker 4: I want to give credit to a friend, Tourmaline, a
Speaker 4: powerful black trans filmmaker and activists. She's in the Whitney Biennial.
Speaker 4: She has this film called Pollinator, and it draws on
Speaker 4: the enduring legacy of Marsha P. Johnson and the flower
Speaker 4: crowns that she used to wear. And I just think
Speaker 4: that her work is just beautiful and a lot of
Speaker 4: us would not be having the conversations we have about
Speaker 4: Marsha P. Johnson or Sylvia Rivera without some of the
Speaker 4: archival work that Tourmaline has been crucial in uncovering.
Speaker 2: So oh, I gotta check that come out. Thank you
Speaker 2: for letting us know about that, and thank you for
Speaker 2: joining us. It was so great talking to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank y'all for these insightful questions.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and is there anything you'll want to shout out?
Speaker 1: And can you also tell us where they can find
Speaker 1: you on social media?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can find me at rockel Willis on all
Speaker 4: platforms rockel Willis dot com. And the book is The
Speaker 4: Risk It Takes The Bloom on Life and Liberation. The
Speaker 4: audiobook is out now, so check it out. And then
Speaker 4: the two podcasts we mentioned, one is Queer Chronicles and
Speaker 4: the other is Afterlives. These are available wherever you get podcasts.
Speaker 2: Nice thank you, Raquel, thank you tuning in to those shows.
Speaker 2: And with that, we will see you next week.
Speaker 1: File On then is a production of Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves, Jeffco
Speaker 1: and Katie Mitchell. It was edited and produced by Tari Harrison.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at on Themeshow. You can also
Speaker 1: send us an email at hello at on Theme dot Show.
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