Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: The Outspoken podcast Network. Last week on but We Loved.
Speaker 2: You getting good jobs being a transgender person, they wouldn't
Speaker 2: hire you. You had no choice. It was survival. That's
Speaker 2: why it's called survival's head. When you're coming off the
Speaker 2: high and you realize what you did, that's when the
Speaker 2: shame and the guilt started to set in for me.
Speaker 2: And I used to say things like I feel spiritually bankrult,
Speaker 2: like I have nothing else.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
Speaker 1: that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
Speaker 1: are people in stories full of courage, perseverance and love.
Speaker 1: And this week's episode, part two of my interview with
Speaker 1: Tabitha Gonzalez, a trans woman who used sex work to survive,
Speaker 1: we'll learn how working on the stroll led her into
Speaker 1: violence and incarceration, and how years later her life would
Speaker 1: come full circle in a way she never expected. From
Speaker 1: My Heart Podcast, I'm Jordan Gonsolves and this is what
Speaker 1: We Loved. In last week's episode, we met Tabitha and
Speaker 1: Zalas she explained how she got pushed into sex work
Speaker 1: as a trans woman. The Stroll was the area of
Speaker 1: New York where she and many other trans women did
Speaker 1: sex work. Almost twenty percent of all transgender adults in
Speaker 1: America have engaged in sex work. For black transgender women
Speaker 1: like Tabitha, that number jumps to forty percent. And sex
Speaker 1: work is a really dangerous job. By twenty one, Tabitha
Speaker 1: had already lived through life threatening encounters with clients. She
Speaker 1: had already lost friends to violence and to aids. Her
Speaker 1: mental health was in peril, and she was battling an
Speaker 1: addiction to crack cocaine. She was starting to feel lost
Speaker 1: in what she calls a vicious cycle of addiction.
Speaker 2: I started to feel like I had nothing else to get,
Speaker 2: Like I was just tired. I was tired of laying
Speaker 2: down with people and having sex with people. And I
Speaker 2: felt like so bankrupt, like I had nothing, Like I
Speaker 2: felt like I lost my spirituality, I lost my faith,
Speaker 2: like I had just given up. I started to look
Speaker 2: back over my life and I'm like, I'm sitting on
Speaker 2: a fucking street corner when I could be home with
Speaker 2: my family. You know what, I'm saying, like I started
Speaker 2: to feel that shit when my feet is hurting, you know,
Speaker 2: or I just got a scuffle and I, you know,
Speaker 2: to fight my way out of something. I would feel
Speaker 2: fucked up, like what am I doing? Like what am
Speaker 2: I doing? And that would only make me use more drugs,
Speaker 2: right because I don't like what I'm feeling, So I
Speaker 2: would make more drugs, and I gotta get more drugs,
Speaker 2: so I gotta get more money. So it was just
Speaker 2: like sex, drugs and rock and roll. It was just
Speaker 2: like this never ending album playing in this vicious cycle
Speaker 2: that people call addiction. Until I met Flocco, and then
Speaker 2: Flocco changed my life.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety five, Tabitha was at the height of
Speaker 1: her addiction. As she put it, her days had become
Speaker 1: an album on repeat, getting high, doing sex, work all night,
Speaker 1: just to afford a hotel room for a single day,
Speaker 1: waking up and starting the album all over again. But
Speaker 1: Tabitha couldn't keep up with the music anymore. This life
Speaker 1: was exhausting. One day, she met someone who would change
Speaker 1: the course of her life. His name was Flocco. He
Speaker 1: was originally a client of hers, but there was something
Speaker 1: about him that made her want more than just a
Speaker 1: client relationship.
Speaker 2: Flaco was this guy that I met I'll never forget.
Speaker 2: It was raining and I was smoking and he came by.
Speaker 2: He had these pit bulls and I was so afraid.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god. He was doing a
Speaker 2: drop off because he drugs. And we were talking and
Speaker 2: he was like, you're pretty. And we were talking and
Speaker 2: I was like, have you ever tried it? And if
Speaker 2: you don't like it, I'll stop, and blah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. And I was like, just try it, and
Speaker 2: he did and he paid me and he gave me
Speaker 2: drugs and we did that a few times and then
Speaker 2: I think like he kind of knew that I liked
Speaker 2: him and stuff. And eventually one day we were talking
Speaker 2: and he was like, I want you to stop. I'll
Speaker 2: take care of you if you stop, and I did
Speaker 2: for a while. I ended up not using, but selling,
Speaker 2: which ultimately sent me to prison.
Speaker 1: Oh so that's what you mean about Flocko changing your life,
Speaker 1: Like you stop being a sex worker, you stop doing
Speaker 1: the drugs, but now you're selling the drugs and that
Speaker 1: has its own consequences. Yeah, what drugs would you sell?
Speaker 2: Crack?
Speaker 1: Although Tabitha had stopped using drugs and stopped doing sex work,
Speaker 1: she still needed money to survive. This was the mid
Speaker 1: nineties in New York City and it was rare that
Speaker 1: employers hired trans women in conventional office jobs, so this
Speaker 1: time she turned to drug dealing. The money was better,
Speaker 1: but the consequences of getting arrested as a drug dealer
Speaker 1: were way worse than getting arrested as a sex worker,
Speaker 1: and Tabitha got caught selling again and again. At first,
Speaker 1: she'd go to New York City's infamous jail Rikers Island,
Speaker 1: but she'd always come out and go back to the
Speaker 1: dealing work that she knew would pay the bills. But
Speaker 1: after several run ins with the law, she was eventually
Speaker 1: sent to prison at bare Hill Correctional Facility. Her original
Speaker 1: sentence was four and a half to nine years, but
Speaker 1: she would end up serving sixteen because of in jail offenses.
Speaker 1: Getting incarcerated as a trans woman was terrifying for Tabitha.
Speaker 1: She was sent to a men's prison, and she knew
Speaker 1: she would be treated horribly. According to Tabitha, there was
Speaker 1: a hierarchy in prison, and queer people were to the
Speaker 1: bottom of that. Totem Pole.
Speaker 2: Ninety seven A seven six two four. That was my
Speaker 2: state number. I remember it like my name, because that's
Speaker 2: all we were was a number. It was ninety seven
Speaker 2: A seven six two four. And I remember like the
Speaker 2: whole freaking journey of going up there and everyone's telling
Speaker 2: me they're gonna take your hair off, You're gonna cut
Speaker 2: your hair, you gotta do, And it dawned on me,
Speaker 2: you're going to prison, Like it's no more skid bit
Speaker 2: on the Rikers Island than coming home. You're going upstate.
Speaker 1: The judge was not looking at your case like this
Speaker 1: is someone who's clearly trying to survive. They were seeing
Speaker 1: you as a criminal.
Speaker 2: Of course. Yeah, and they sentenced me. I remember my
Speaker 2: lawyer telling me, you're gonna go away for a long
Speaker 2: long time. And I took the four and a half
Speaker 2: to night years, and that's how I started to become
Speaker 2: the monster that I did and ended up getting more
Speaker 2: time in prison.
Speaker 1: You were becoming more violent in prison, Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: already violent, So it didn't take a lot.
Speaker 2: It took fear, the same fear that I thought that
Speaker 2: I needed to instill in others like I had that fear,
Speaker 2: and I think a lot of us share the same experiments,
Speaker 2: our first violence and the first time we get assaulted
Speaker 2: or have to defend ourselves as writing our own neighborhoods
Speaker 2: by people who look and sound just like us, who
Speaker 2: told us that we were different. You see, So you
Speaker 2: have to defend yourself. Everyone says bullied, but we were
Speaker 2: being bullied because of who we are, just because of
Speaker 2: our existence. You wanted to beat me up, and you
Speaker 2: wasn't going to do that. I learned to fight. I
Speaker 2: learned to defend myself. I felt like, if you were
Speaker 2: afraid of me, you would not harm me. So I
Speaker 2: had to give you the fear first so I could
Speaker 2: feel safe. And for so long I lived like that.
Speaker 2: And when I was in prison, you definitely he wasn't
Speaker 2: gonna do nothing to me in there. You know, you
Speaker 2: was not gonna touch me in any inappropriate way. You know.
Speaker 2: I knew where I was at on the Richter scale
Speaker 2: in prison, like being queer, gay or trans or anything
Speaker 2: like that is a step above someone who's a pedophile
Speaker 2: or a rapo, you know. And I became more fearful,
Speaker 2: and that's when I started to like we were chopping
Speaker 2: wood up there, So I got a saw blade and
Speaker 2: I broke it and I was sharpened one side and
Speaker 2: that's what I used to carry around to protect myself.
Speaker 1: So you had basically become violent, and that was what
Speaker 1: added up the charges.
Speaker 2: I went to the box for, like I would say,
Speaker 2: two marks twenty four hour lockdown, not two years consecutively,
Speaker 2: but throughout the whole time, throughout my whole bed. There
Speaker 2: were periods when I was in the fight and I
Speaker 2: stabbed someone to cut someone and I had beat this
Speaker 2: person up really bad. I didn't think, like I didn't
Speaker 2: think they were going to say anything because they didn't
Speaker 2: want to call me out to fight, and they eventually did.
Speaker 2: And I remember getting woke up in the middle of
Speaker 2: the night and them shipping me off to a box.
Speaker 2: And that was my first experience with the box, and
Speaker 2: I was like, what the fuck, Like what's going on?
Speaker 2: Like why am I here? When you experience these things,
Speaker 2: they stay with you, Like now I could scan the
Speaker 2: whole bomb and I know you see, and there was
Speaker 2: a safety thing trying to make sure I'm safe in
Speaker 2: my surroundings.
Speaker 1: When we come back. Tabitha leaves prison after sixteen years
Speaker 1: and returns to a stroll that she doesn't recognize it's
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Tabitha has spent an agonizing sixteen years in prison,
Speaker 1: and the world had completely changed. She left in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven and got out in twenty thirteen. She got
Speaker 1: off the bus from prison. The New York City she
Speaker 1: came back to had been transformed by nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: by technology and by gentrification. She was free, but she
Speaker 1: still needed money, so she went to the place she
Speaker 1: knew she could always turn to, the stroll. So now
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about when you got out
Speaker 1: of jail. What was that like leaving prison and then
Speaker 1: coming back.
Speaker 2: To It was nervous. I was excited and nervous, right,
Speaker 2: I was finally fucking coming home. I lost my mom
Speaker 2: in jail everything, so, you know, and I just wanted
Speaker 2: to be home. And I got out. I started to
Speaker 2: see people talking in their phones, because when I got
Speaker 2: locked up, we had beepers.
Speaker 1: Wow, this is a different world, a.
Speaker 2: Whole different world. I'm like, Wow, people are just like
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, oh oh,
Speaker 2: and I'm like so fascinating. And I'm seeing all these
Speaker 2: like motor rollers and all these new phones and I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: so people could do that now, you know. And nia
Speaker 2: once I got off in forty second feet, I went
Speaker 2: and got me. It's a weak story. It's still there today.
Speaker 2: And I remember going to there and I got my
Speaker 2: Juliet wing and I was so happy because they still
Speaker 2: had it. I remember walking in. I had like this
Speaker 2: beige uniform, one that they give you when you're coming home,
Speaker 2: and I took it off and I tied it around
Speaker 2: my waist and I went the store and I got
Speaker 2: my hair, and I went and got these cheap sneakers
Speaker 2: because I thought they was cute. And I put the
Speaker 2: sneakers on and I was walking around Midtown and everything
Speaker 2: was different.
Speaker 1: Were you wanting to do sex work when you got
Speaker 1: out of prison? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Like, That's why I went back to the strow for right,
Speaker 2: because I'm like, well, fuck it, I'm gonna make money, right.
Speaker 1: But the stroll had changed. There were no more sex
Speaker 1: workers there anymore. The grungey queer clubs were out, and
Speaker 1: the high end designer stores like Mosquino and lou Baton
Speaker 1: were in. Tabitha was bewildered at how different New York
Speaker 1: City had become and what was it like seeing the stroll?
Speaker 2: After it was fucking crazy, like everybody was gone, there
Speaker 2: was no money, There was not really a stroll. I
Speaker 2: was out there for like walking, trying, and I kept
Speaker 2: noticing that it wasn't the girls out there. They were
Speaker 2: like these little fancy stores and the high line was
Speaker 2: being built like all this new shit. I remember Diane,
Speaker 2: if you know, I don't know if she's allowed for
Speaker 2: Diane used to drive around in the car and she
Speaker 2: used to sell crack. I remember I saw Diane. I
Speaker 2: was like, hey, girl, what's out there? Dah da dah
Speaker 2: what the girl said? She was like, girl, ain't nobody
Speaker 2: out here no more? She was like, they got a
Speaker 2: support group of the block. I was like, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go there.
Speaker 1: You were going to the support group not to get support,
Speaker 1: but to meet your old friends.
Speaker 2: Just to see where they was at. And they had
Speaker 2: this group and I was meeting all these girls and
Speaker 2: I was talking about like, you know, how there's no
Speaker 2: more money, and it was really a great support. We
Speaker 2: would talk about really good shit, you know.
Speaker 1: The support group Tabitha went to was called Destination Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It was a group specifically designed to empower transgender women
Speaker 1: by providing them housing help and job readiness training. She
Speaker 1: was shocked to see so many of the women that
Speaker 1: she had worked with on the stroll getting help from
Speaker 1: the program. In her experience, trans women had to take
Speaker 1: care of themselves. But she realized that not only had
Speaker 1: the world around her changed since she got out of prison,
Speaker 1: but her own world had changed too. In fact, one
Speaker 1: of the women she used to work with on the stroll,
Speaker 1: a woman named Egypt, was leading the support group.
Speaker 2: I think I kind of knew what support was, but
Speaker 2: I've always felt it. But I was still like I
Speaker 2: call it frozen time, Like I was still coming back
Speaker 2: home back in nineteen ninety seven, but so many things
Speaker 2: had changed. And I remember like going in and meeting Egypt.
Speaker 2: She was running group at that time. So this is
Speaker 2: not the same girl I saw on the strow. You
Speaker 2: see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: She was working at the support group.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she wasn't on the strow. She was running the group.
Speaker 1: Wow. So in your mind you're like.
Speaker 2: I'm like, wow, the girls are working, you know. So
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, okay, oh, things have really changed,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Once Tabitha settled into the support group, a new chapter
Speaker 1: of her life began. She was placed in a shelter
Speaker 1: and she began making money as a street sweeper. It
Speaker 1: wasn't as much money as she made doing sex work
Speaker 1: or selling drugs, but she felt dignified. She didn't have
Speaker 1: to force her body into having unwanted sex anymore in
Speaker 1: order to survive.
Speaker 2: So once I started to join a support group and
Speaker 2: I was working for the Dough Fund at that time.
Speaker 2: What is the dough Fund is like for like those
Speaker 2: who are homeless, and you clean the streets and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, and.
Speaker 1: You were getting paid for them.
Speaker 2: The street sweepers, you see them, they get paid for that.
Speaker 1: Was it nice for you to be making money?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I felt like I was making the difference in
Speaker 2: my life. Like although I was cleaning the streets, I
Speaker 2: had a job, Like I had a paycheck with my
Speaker 2: name on it, you know, Like I was making money
Speaker 2: and things were different, and I was trans like I
Speaker 2: was showing up.
Speaker 1: So you were on the streets now, but in a
Speaker 1: different way. Tabitha was thriving. She wasn't making a lot
Speaker 1: of money, but she was happy, and her caseworker from
Speaker 1: her support group began to take notice of her intellect
Speaker 1: and her leadership. After serving time in jail for being
Speaker 1: a sex worker and a drug dealer, she had a
Speaker 1: lot of knowledge about the law and how it affected
Speaker 1: transgender people who were simply just trying to survive. So
Speaker 1: her caseworker recommended that she apply for a role at
Speaker 1: the Transgender Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to advocating
Speaker 1: for trans people through the law.
Speaker 2: Jullian Weiss was still my sister to this day, and
Speaker 2: she was the executive director. She hired me the first day.
Speaker 2: I was brutally honest with her when I met her,
Speaker 2: and she started to cry doing an interview, said oh no,
Speaker 2: when can't you start? And I was like, I can
Speaker 2: start next week. And next week I was there in
Speaker 2: my own office, and I was like, this is what
Speaker 2: I always wanted, like to be seen in the world
Speaker 2: where I can work and I could live a life
Speaker 2: for me. And she was telling me go to the library,
Speaker 2: we get this free train and go here, and she
Speaker 2: was paying for me to go get trainings and develop me.
Speaker 2: And I started to develop and develop, and thus began
Speaker 2: my journey to activism. And I started to just tell
Speaker 2: my story because people will be like, God, you got
Speaker 2: a fucking story. You gotta tell your story is going
Speaker 2: to inspire so many I was like, girl, what.
Speaker 1: Tabitha now had a good paying job, doing work that
Speaker 1: felt meaningful to her. There was a moment when she
Speaker 1: realized that she had completely turned her life around. She
Speaker 1: was no longer doing sex work to pay the bills
Speaker 1: or getting high to numb her reality. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Tabitha was approached by one of the women she used
Speaker 1: to work with on the Stroll, Kristin Lovel, who is
Speaker 1: now a filmmaker. Kristin was making a documentary about the
Speaker 1: Stroll for HBO and wanted Tabitha to tell her story.
Speaker 1: Tabitha began realizing the power of her own voice.
Speaker 2: Now. I remember when I met Christian she asked me
Speaker 2: to do the Stroll, and they made me feel like
Speaker 2: my story was important because I was a part of
Speaker 2: that history. And as I told my story, it was
Speaker 2: like piece is falling off of the trauma that I
Speaker 2: held in, like all of that started to fall off.
Speaker 1: Tabitha's profile as a fierce advocate for trans rights was
Speaker 1: beginning to grow in New York City, and an opportunity
Speaker 1: arose to join the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
Speaker 1: The Commission investigates and prosecutes a legal discrimination throughout the city.
Speaker 1: But taking the job and working for the City of
Speaker 1: New York wasn't an easy decision for her. She had
Speaker 1: an ethical dilemma. After all, this was It's the same
Speaker 1: city that sent her to men's correctional facilities over and
Speaker 1: over again, and that put her in the position of
Speaker 1: having to do the illegal work in the first place.
Speaker 1: But she wanted to help end the cycle of violence
Speaker 1: and incarceration for other women like her, so she took
Speaker 1: the job once pushed into sex work because she wouldn't
Speaker 1: get hired anywhere else. Tabitha was now working toward ending
Speaker 1: transgender discrimination in the workplace. Now tell me how you
Speaker 1: then got involved with the Commission on Human Rights.
Speaker 2: I got the job at Commission, took me about two
Speaker 2: three months to get hired, and then like about eight
Speaker 2: months in they had to like fall all this paperwork,
Speaker 2: sign all these things because now I'm working for the city,
Speaker 2: but I also have a criminal history, and it was
Speaker 2: re traumatizing me having to explain to them that this
Speaker 2: is my past because of who I couldn't be who
Speaker 2: I was, Like, do y'all get this y'all asking me
Speaker 2: these invasive questions just so I can live a fucking life.
Speaker 2: And I said it just like that, and you know,
Speaker 2: they was like, we're sorry, you know you have to
Speaker 2: do this. This is just protocol. And I'm going on,
Speaker 2: like I be almost two years now working there for commissions.
Speaker 2: So now I work for the same city that helped
Speaker 2: me captive for fourteen years to make sure that no
Speaker 2: other trans person have to stuffer that same fate, because
Speaker 2: I truly believe that education and outreach are instrumental tools
Speaker 2: and the determined to discrimination that we face.
Speaker 1: According to many queer organizations, the average lifespan of a
Speaker 1: black trans woman is thirty five years old. Tabitha is
Speaker 1: now fifty, and she's aware that not all of her
Speaker 1: sisters from the stroll got to make it to her age.
Speaker 1: Many died of AIDS related complications, others died of substance abuse,
Speaker 1: and some were even murdered. Every now and again, she
Speaker 1: goes back to the stroll to remember where she came from,
Speaker 1: and she thinks of them when she goes back. So
Speaker 1: when you go back to the stroll, now, what goes
Speaker 1: through your mind?
Speaker 2: Sometimes? The sadness when I think about when I think
Speaker 2: about the girls who were out there, Like I wonder
Speaker 2: what would Melissa be doing today? Like what would Joseph
Speaker 2: be doing today?
Speaker 1: These are women that were killed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I were killed or died from however, you know,
Speaker 2: substance use or HIV or whatever. Right, I wasn't here,
Speaker 2: but I know they're no longer with us, and I
Speaker 2: feel like I owe it to them, you know, I
Speaker 2: feel like I should tell this story and I dropped
Speaker 2: their names because they can't and the system cheated us
Speaker 2: out of a life that we deserve. I'll be fifty
Speaker 2: in a couple of weeks, right, And to think about that,
Speaker 2: like the life expectancy of black trans women is thirty five,
Speaker 2: so I would be half a century, you know, God
Speaker 2: willing in a couple of weeks, you know, And just
Speaker 2: that remind I'm like you and know, do you've seen
Speaker 2: things that other people relatively speaking? Right, it's just weird,
Speaker 2: like how my life changed.
Speaker 1: So sitting here hearing you talk about how you have
Speaker 1: become the woman that you dreamed of when you were
Speaker 1: a girl working the stroll, selling the drugs, doing the drugs.
Speaker 1: Now you're on the other side of that. What would
Speaker 1: you if you had the chance. What would you say
Speaker 1: to that young woman?
Speaker 2: Oh, you're going to be the shit when you get older.
Speaker 2: I would just sorry to not give up. And I
Speaker 2: would say to myself, like I would say to your listeners,
Speaker 2: remember that you are loved, you are valued, and your
Speaker 2: life matters. Whatever you're experiencing now, don't give up. Whatever
Speaker 2: you see for yourself, go after it. Your path and
Speaker 2: your trauma does not define who you are.
Speaker 1: The show is called but We Loved? What does that
Speaker 1: mean to you? Wow?
Speaker 2: But we loved that in spite of people who didn't
Speaker 2: love us, we've learned to love ourselves. So therefore we
Speaker 2: can give love to others and help heal people from
Speaker 2: the love that they don't receive. But we Loved speaks
Speaker 2: volumes to our resilience and in spite of life's challenges,
Speaker 2: we still give love a chance.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us at Buttweloved at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com, or send us a message on Instagram or
Speaker 1: TikTok at butt we Loved. We are a production of
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network and iHeart podcasts, but We Loved
Speaker 1: was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshino Zaki,
Speaker 1: Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are me My Howard and Katrina Norble. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Marisa Brown. Original music by Steve Bone. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jay Bronson and Roquel Willis. If you loved this episode,
Speaker 1: leave us a rating and follow us on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
Speaker 1: next week.