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Speaker 1: Oh my, dear listener, it's me just letting you know

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Speaker 1: that this episode contains some mention of sexual violence, so

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Speaker 1: please take care.

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Speaker 2: I believe that storytelling is advocacy, and the advocacy is storytelling.

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Speaker 2: The best way to create the change that we want

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Speaker 2: in society in our lives is by sharing our stories

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Speaker 2: and asking for what we need. So this book is

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Speaker 2: not just about stories. This book is screaming revolutionary ask

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Speaker 2: to support trans young folks.

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Speaker 1: From Fudromedia and PRX. It's Latino Usa. I'm Mariao Osa Today. Transactivist,

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Speaker 1: actor and author Cecilia Gentili on the intersections of advocacy

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Speaker 1: and storytelling. Cecilia Gentili is a very busy person.

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Speaker 2: I work a lot, I have a company, and I

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Speaker 2: do a lot of extra activities or related with community.

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Speaker 1: When she's not advising organizations or government agencies on how

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Speaker 1: to better serve the trans community, Cecilia might be writing

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Speaker 1: an op ed for The New York Times or speaking

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Speaker 1: at a rally sharing her thoughts on the need to

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Speaker 1: decriminalize sex work.

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Speaker 3: Sex workers are again being forced to the impossible situation

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Speaker 3: of choosing between prioritizing their heads or having enough money

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Speaker 3: to survive.

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Speaker 1: Some of you might be familiar with Cecilia for her

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Speaker 1: role as MS. Orlando on the FX hit series Pose,

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Speaker 1: a show portraying underground black and LATINX queer culture in

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties and nineties.

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Speaker 4: Now are we going to do this or not?

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Speaker 2: Because it's going to take time and I'm I have

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Speaker 2: a hair forming at them.

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Speaker 1: Pose, of course, was the first TV series with a

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Speaker 1: mostly transcast, But when the pandemic struck, Cecilia decided to

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Speaker 1: try her hand at something new, writing a memoir. Because

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Speaker 1: of the pandemic, she no longer had to commute to work,

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Speaker 1: so instead she used that time at home to start writing.

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Speaker 2: I opened my eyes and walk to my computer and

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Speaker 2: start writing with a coffee.

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Speaker 1: And so last year, at fifty years old, Cecilia published fivetas,

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Speaker 1: her first memoir, in the form of seven letters written

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Speaker 1: to people in her hometown in Argentina. Writing to people

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Speaker 1: like her grandmother or her father's mistress, Cecilia uses humor

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Speaker 1: and vivid storytelling to talk not only about abuse and trauma,

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Speaker 1: but also about joy and survival. Here's Cecilia Gentilly in

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Speaker 1: her own words.

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Speaker 2: My name is Cecilia GENTILEI I live in Brooklyn, New

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Speaker 2: York City, and I am originally from Argentina. I didn't

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Speaker 2: know what storytelling was. One time, after I changed my

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Speaker 2: name legally, Transgender Legal Defense helped me navigate my name

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Speaker 2: change and doing those meetings of changing my name, I

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Speaker 2: met this amazing transition individual. His name is Noah Lewis,

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Speaker 2: and he invited me to be a part of a

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Speaker 2: storytelling event. And I was like, what is in a

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Speaker 2: storytelling event? And he explained to me that he thought

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Speaker 2: that I could be good at telling stories. So I

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Speaker 2: was like, what, Sorry, I'm gonna say. So he asked

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Speaker 2: me to practice with him. That we were driving to

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Speaker 2: my grandmother's house and my brother while we were crossing

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Speaker 2: a railroad. Elbowed me and said, do you.

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Speaker 4: See the railroad? And I said, why are we whispering?

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Speaker 2: And I found the process of talking about an event

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Speaker 2: and talking about my feelings and talking about my story

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Speaker 2: and talking about people around me through out those times

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Speaker 2: was really healing and very entertaining. We found you in

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Speaker 2: the railroad and I said, what's that in the basket?

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Speaker 2: He said, no, no basket, which is kind of depressing, right.

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Speaker 2: The basket would make it look cute. I love attention.

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Speaker 2: I'm an aquarius. I enjoy being the center of attention.

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Speaker 2: And that was all put together, was perfect. But I

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Speaker 2: loved telling stories life right. So you know, when you

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Speaker 2: tell a story is easy because you manipulate the story

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Speaker 2: as you want, rights on the goal, You change things around.

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Speaker 2: Because it's your story. Who's going to tell you anything

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Speaker 2: about it? You can do whatever you want. But when

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Speaker 2: I started writing, it's different because you write something and

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Speaker 2: it's structure and its rigid. It's there, it's in a

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Speaker 2: piece of paper, and every time somebody reads it, it's

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Speaker 2: going to be the same. There's no way to tweak

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Speaker 2: it or to play around. When I started writing these stories,

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Speaker 2: I thought it would be important to have a public

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Speaker 2: that for these stories to be told to somebody. So

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Speaker 2: that's how I came with letters. I thought, I'm gonna

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Speaker 2: say these things that I have to say to the

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Speaker 2: people that I want to say them right. Many of

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Speaker 2: them are alive and many of them are not. And

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Speaker 2: that's how I started writing these letters to There are

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Speaker 2: seven letters to seven individuals that had some kind of

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Speaker 2: impact in my life.

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Speaker 4: Good or bad. That you love to talk about. My hometown.

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Speaker 2: I was born and see that the Gallabas, most of

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Speaker 2: people live from agriculture. The town is very little, and

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Speaker 2: everybody knows you, and everybody knows everything about you, and

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Speaker 2: everybody talks about everybody, and everything that is a little

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Speaker 2: bit outside the normal becomes some kind of sensation. When

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Speaker 2: I was leader in Argentina was going through a dictatorship,

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Speaker 2: my mother was very clear about the political climate. She

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Speaker 2: told me that she wanted me to know what the

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Speaker 2: reality was because she clearly saw me as a queer kid.

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Speaker 2: And you know, oppressive regimes go first for people who think,

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Speaker 2: write for poets, for thinkers, and for artists, and many

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Speaker 2: of those folks are queer.

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Speaker 4: So the queer.

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Speaker 2: Community is one of the communities that suffered the most

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Speaker 2: when it comes to repression from oppressive regimes or government.

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Speaker 2: So my mom told me that most of the things

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Speaker 2: that she was oppressive around was just because she wanted

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Speaker 2: me to leave. I grew up with an extreme sense

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Speaker 2: of a binaryiness. So a person who was a sign

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Speaker 2: Melobert should be masculine and do all masculine things, and

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Speaker 2: be rough and be all macho, and a woman had

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Speaker 2: the expectation of being submissive and beautiful and wear dresses,

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Speaker 2: and at the time, as it was the seventies, it

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Speaker 2: was no concept of like trans people or non binary people.

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Speaker 2: I didn't meet another transperson until I was seventeen, so

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Speaker 2: for many years I thought like I was an extra

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Speaker 2: terrestrial or I thought that I was crazy. I never

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Speaker 2: never felt like anybody was like me. So that's how

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Speaker 2: I grew up. I grew up having to perform a

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Speaker 2: sense of masculinity that it was not really innate or

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Speaker 2: really came naturally to me, but I navigated in a

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Speaker 2: way in which I was able to indulge in my

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Speaker 2: femininity and in the beauty of being a queer kid.

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Speaker 2: My mom used to give me flowers to bring to

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Speaker 2: the teachers very often. It's a form of appreciation that

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Speaker 2: we do in Latin America. My mom sent me to

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Speaker 2: school with my carnation in my hand, and when I

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Speaker 2: got to school, I was confronted and told that I

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Speaker 2: shouldn't go to class, that I had to go to

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Speaker 2: see the superintendent.

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Speaker 4: La dilectora, the huela.

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Speaker 2: And you know that something is wrong, and they don't

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Speaker 2: send you to see the superintendent if you are doing good,

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Speaker 2: they send you to see them if it is something wrong,

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Speaker 2: and there was my mom and Tho. These two women,

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Speaker 2: one was a psychologist and another one psychiatrist, and.

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Speaker 4: They with very not very pedagogic ways.

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Speaker 2: They explained to me that I shouldn't use the girls bathroom.

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Speaker 2: Because I was using the girls bathroom. I thought that

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Speaker 2: that was normal. I felt and always see myself the girls.

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Speaker 2: So are you going to the girls bathroom? So they

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Speaker 2: explained to me that because of my genitalia, which is

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Speaker 2: such a difficult conversation to have with the kids six

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Speaker 2: years old, you know, it's just hard. I think that

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Speaker 2: was the first time that I learned to negotiate, you know,

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Speaker 2: with people. And I was like, you know what, I'm

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Speaker 2: not gonna find this. I'm just gonna do what they

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Speaker 2: tell me and I stop using the girls bathroom. But

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Speaker 2: I actually thought at the moment.

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Speaker 4: That they were all crazy.

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Speaker 2: As a child, I was obsessed with UFOs. I'm from

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Speaker 2: an area of Argentina that was very famous for people

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Speaker 2: seeing UFOs. One day, we were driving with my father

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Speaker 2: and my mother to my grandmother's house. We were driving

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Speaker 2: and we passed through a railroad and my brother was like,

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Speaker 2: that's where we found you, and I was like, what.

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Speaker 4: He says like, yeah, we found you there.

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Speaker 2: You're not my brother, you know, we found you there,

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Speaker 2: and you in race, you know, with us, but you're

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Speaker 2: not part of this family, which is like really really nasty,

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Speaker 2: but you know, I guess that's both brothers and sisters

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Speaker 2: and siblings.

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Speaker 4: Do, right.

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Speaker 2: And I totally believed him, and it kind of made sense, right.

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Speaker 2: I put two and two together, and I was like,

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Speaker 2: this is a known UFO area. I was found in

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Speaker 2: a railroad. I am a girl, but I have a

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Speaker 2: peepee and I can't use the girl's bathroom. Everything led

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Speaker 2: me to believe that I was left in this earth

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Speaker 2: by mistake, by a group of extraterrestrials. And I went

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Speaker 2: to my grandma and I explained that to her, and

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Speaker 2: my grandma, being the amazing woman that she was, entertained

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Speaker 2: it and she said that, yeah, maybe you are. I

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Speaker 2: told her, like, maybe they'll come back for me. And

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Speaker 2: that night we waited for the UFOs to come back

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Speaker 2: to get me. So we waited, and of course nobody came.

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Speaker 2: But she told me that we have to thrive with

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Speaker 2: what we have at hand. And she told me that

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Speaker 2: what I had was her and my family, and even

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Speaker 2: if it wasn't my family, even if I was from

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Speaker 2: another planet. They had to make the best out of it.

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Speaker 2: It was a very important lesson of a very, very

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Speaker 2: wise woman. I think it's important that we talk about

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Speaker 2: the importance of giving good, healthy attention to our children,

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Speaker 2: because if we don't give them good, healthy attention, somebody

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Speaker 2: may try to give them a negative attention, like it

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Speaker 2: was my case. I've been in therapy for more than

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Speaker 2: ten years, and I believe that was the time that

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Speaker 2: took me to come to terms with my history of

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Speaker 2: abuse and also with my history of survival. Right, because

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Speaker 2: this book is not just about sexual abuse. It's about

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Speaker 2: surviving sexual abuse. It's about finding ways to thrive as

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Speaker 2: a young person. It is one phrase in the book

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Speaker 2: that for me summarize a lot of the whole book

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Speaker 2: that when we talk about sexual abuse and the person

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Speaker 2: who sexually abused me, I say that he saved my

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Speaker 2: life and ruined it forever. Right because this person was

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Speaker 2: the only person that was understanding me as a girl,

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Speaker 2: that was entertaining my femininity in the terrible way that happened.

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Speaker 2: It was also life saving for me because I felt

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Speaker 2: validated and recognized through the terrible actions that he committed.

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Speaker 2: I think it's important that we talk about sexual violence,

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Speaker 2: and that we talk about sexual violence and children and

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Speaker 2: young adults. So this book is a lot about that,

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Speaker 2: but it's a lot about surviving and the beauty of

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Speaker 2: surviving and the strength of surviving and thriving. So after

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Speaker 2: ten years of therapy, I found the courage to to

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Speaker 2: talk openly about my history because that history and the

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Speaker 2: terribleness of some of the things that happened to me

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Speaker 2: were a big part of my bad mental health, my

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Speaker 2: need to use substances. So as part of my process

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Speaker 2: of therapy, I came to understand that I could talk

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Speaker 2: about these things, that it was okay to talk about

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Speaker 2: these things. Finally, after so many years of therapy, I

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Speaker 2: understood that it was not blame of my part and

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Speaker 2: all of these terrible things that happened to me that

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Speaker 2: I was not to blame, which I did blame myself

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Speaker 2: for many years. I decided not to soften any of

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Speaker 2: the narrative, but also I decided that I didn't want

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Speaker 2: to create a piece that was just about trauma, because

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Speaker 2: I believe that people in general, specifically cis gender people,

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Speaker 2: have a tendency to fixate with the trauma and with

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Speaker 2: the pain and with the terribleness of the lives of

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Speaker 2: a transperson. Right, so I wanted to intertwine the trauma

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Speaker 2: with the joy that I experienced. So at the same

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Speaker 2: time that these bad things were happening to me, I

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Speaker 2: was also experiencing joy. And those two things can leave

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Speaker 2: but at the same time. So that's why the book,

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Speaker 2: I hope it translates as those two feelings living together

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Speaker 2: and intertwine. All the letters that I wrote were really

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Speaker 2: important for me. It was a very important letter that

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Speaker 2: is addressed to my grandmother. Is meant to describe the

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Speaker 2: joy and the beauty that we can create when we

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Speaker 2: support people, specifically in this case children who are different,

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Speaker 2: and it's the story of a woman who decided to

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Speaker 2: stand up for her grandchild. My grandmother loved tangos and Argentina.

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Speaker 2: The tangos is, you know, part of the culture is

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Speaker 2: so important, right. But my grandmother, who watched a show

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Speaker 2: called grandest Baalores del Tango. In the middle of the show,

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Speaker 2: at a moment where I thought it was the most

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Speaker 2: important for me, with the song that I like the most,

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Speaker 2: I come out of her room dressing with all her

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Speaker 2: clothes and jewelry, and I do a performance of a

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Speaker 2: tango for them, so they stopped looking at the TV

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Speaker 2: and they moved their heads to look at me, And

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Speaker 2: the TV was just the music, but I was the show.

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Speaker 4: I was doing the show.

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Speaker 2: And I remember myself doing this at four or five,

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Speaker 2: six seven years old. That's one of the most beautiful

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Speaker 2: memories of my grandmother, her just allowing me to.

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Speaker 4: Be me right.

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Speaker 2: And if more people will have allowed me to be

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Speaker 2: me like she did with good intentions, maybe my life

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Speaker 2: would have been a little bit better. But even though

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Speaker 2: it wasn't better, it was alive and it is to

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Speaker 2: be celebrated. And that's what we do. That's what we

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Speaker 2: do as trans people. We have to celebrate ourselves when

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Speaker 2: others don't. Trans kids are extremely underattacked with business of

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Speaker 2: legislation throughout the whole country, where like trans kits are

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Speaker 2: not supported in healthare or like demands on sports for

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Speaker 2: trans people right, and all of these is the result

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Speaker 2: of this ideology that trans people are this new phenomenon.

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Speaker 2: Trans people have been here forever. I've been here for

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Speaker 2: fifty years. This is not new. The thing is that

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Speaker 2: now trans kids are able to better understand themselves because

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Speaker 2: like the Internet, because information, but in my time, I

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Speaker 2: didn't have any of that. So I had to improvise,

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Speaker 2: and I had to be myself and my feminine self

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Speaker 2: and the little girl that I was as I could.

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Speaker 2: And that's what I did, and I think it informed

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Speaker 2: a lot of my life. Still nowadays, I find ways

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Speaker 2: to do what I need to do to survive and thrive.

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Speaker 2: I believe that storytelling is advocacy, and the advocacy is storytelling.

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Speaker 2: The best way to create the change that we want

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Speaker 2: in society and our lives is by sharing our stories

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Speaker 2: and asking for.

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Speaker 4: What we need.

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Speaker 2: So this book is not just about stories. This book

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Speaker 2: is scream in revolutionary ask to support trans young faults.

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Speaker 2: So this book is an act of advocacy on its own.

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Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Julia Roja and edited by

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Speaker 1: Daisy Contreras. It was mixed by Julia Caruso. The Latino

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Speaker 1: USA team includes Andrea Lopez Cruzado, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent,

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Speaker 1: Julia Ta Martinelli, Victoria Estrada, Rinaldo Lean jr Alejandra Salassar,

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Speaker 1: and Patricia Sulbaran. Without from Raoul Perees. Our editorial director

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Speaker 1: is Fernanda Santo. Our director of Engineering is Stephanie Lebau.

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Speaker 1: Our associate engineers are Gabrielle Lebyaz and JJ Krubin. Our

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Speaker 1: marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our New York Women's Foundation

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Speaker 1: Fellow is Elizabeth Lowenthal Torres. Our theme music was composed

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Speaker 1: by Zane RINOs. I'm your host and executive producer Marie

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Speaker 1: Na Posa. Join us again on our next episode and

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Speaker 1: remember look for us on all of your social media

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Speaker 1: jeques astat approxima CZAO.

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Speaker 5: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heisin

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Speaker 5: Simons Foundation, unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities. More at hsfoundation

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Speaker 5: dot org, New York Women's Foundation, the New York Women's

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Speaker 5: Foundation funding women leaders that build solutions in their communities

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Speaker 5: and celebrating thirty years of radical generosity, and the John D.

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Speaker 5: And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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Speaker 1: From Futuro Media and PRX, It's Latino USA. If I

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Speaker 1: remember my name, that would be good