Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: There was this one guy, so to call him the
Speaker 2: Magic Man. He almost got me. I did the deed
Speaker 2: and then I was like, give me the money, and
Speaker 2: it was like folded up papers and stuff. And I
Speaker 2: got back in the car before he could. I was like,
Speaker 2: give me my money, and I'm priving. He's trying to
Speaker 2: push me off of him, and I grabbed the money
Speaker 2: and I sit up and I fixed somebody and like,
Speaker 2: let me out of this fucking car, and he lets
Speaker 2: me out, and I run down the block and said,
Speaker 2: I got the magic Man. I got the Magic Man.
Speaker 2: I remember telling everybody that this was a dangerous place
Speaker 2: to you, but it was home for us. We knew
Speaker 2: that there were girls who would get beat up hurt
Speaker 2: in the cars. We knew that, but we found ourselves
Speaker 2: there every day just so we could be ourselves because
Speaker 2: the society and the world hated us.
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 and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll meet Tabitha Gonzalez, a transgender woman
Speaker 1: who in the nineties worked on the Stroll, a historic
Speaker 1: area in New York known for queer sex work. We'll
Speaker 1: learn how she, like many other transgender women, relied on
Speaker 1: sex work as a means of survival. From My Heart Podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Gonsolvus, and this is what we loved. Growing
Speaker 1: up deeply Catholic, I was taught to believe that sex
Speaker 1: work was immoral. I didn't realize that for so many
Speaker 1: queer people, it's a job to pay the bills. For
Speaker 1: many trans women who have difficulty getting conventional work, they
Speaker 1: don't have the luxury of thinking about morality like I did.
Speaker 1: Nearly twenty percent of all transgender Americans have done sex
Speaker 1: work at some point. In New York, queer sex work
Speaker 1: has been thriving since the eighteen hundreds in Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 1: My next guest, Tabitha Gonzalez, would find sex work there too,
Speaker 1: but in nineteen ninety three, at the age of nineteen.
Speaker 1: But before that, she grew up in New Jersey in
Speaker 1: the early eighties, and like so many other queer kids,
Speaker 1: she was bullied relentlessly, but she felt safe in the
Speaker 1: embrace of her grandmother's home. So when did you know
Speaker 1: that you were trans?
Speaker 2: I knew I was a girl ver early, Like I knew.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a clear moment. You just always kind of knew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just knew. It was like epiphany. Guess what,
Speaker 2: I'm a girl. It's just like I knew, like I
Speaker 2: knew that's what I needed to be, Like it just
Speaker 2: didn't feel right me being anything else.
Speaker 1: And so where did you grow up?
Speaker 2: Well, I grew up in Grafton Avenue projects in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: So growing up in house. My mom and pops were
Speaker 2: addicts at that time I was born and Dick did.
Speaker 2: So I grew up in the home with my grandmother.
Speaker 2: She literally took all my mom's kids, like I would say,
Speaker 2: seven of us, and she raised us. My home with
Speaker 2: my grandmother was one of the most affirming spaces, very spiritual. Family.
Speaker 2: We went to church. I was like an a choir.
Speaker 2: I love God, I loved the music, I love the ministry.
Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit about life at your
Speaker 1: grandma's house.
Speaker 2: You know it's Saturday and Sunday. You know, you were
Speaker 2: kind of barred from the kitchen. You were either like
Speaker 2: soaking the greens or you know, seasoning the meat. And
Speaker 2: Sunday dinner was always the best at Grandma's house. The
Speaker 2: whole family, the neighborhood would come and eat everything.
Speaker 1: What kind of food was it, Oh, you name it.
Speaker 2: We made it like collared greens, mac and cheese, corn bread,
Speaker 2: barbecue ribs. And I had an allergy to fish, so
Speaker 2: she would have to make chicken for me. And there
Speaker 2: were specific gender roles in the family, especially on Sundays,
Speaker 2: but I never knew I was different because she never
Speaker 2: let me feel I was different. So when the girls
Speaker 2: were in the kitchen, I'm in the kitchen. But being
Speaker 2: in that kitchen it felt like the right place to
Speaker 2: be for me because I would be around the energy
Speaker 2: that I needed to be around. And I found solad
Speaker 2: being around the woman. That's why I heard all the gossip.
Speaker 2: That's why I met Sugar Mama, who I idolized. She
Speaker 2: was dating one of my uncles. She was so pretty
Speaker 2: and all the guys used to talk to her, and
Speaker 2: I was like, God, I want to be her. And
Speaker 2: I remember to this day she had like these jeans
Speaker 2: on with white go Go bus ash brown hair. She
Speaker 2: always kept it done nice, nice shape, hazel eyes. She
Speaker 2: was so pretty and like little freckles, and everyone loved
Speaker 2: her love to of course, you know, jealousy whatever from
Speaker 2: other girls, and you would see them outside arguing. But
Speaker 2: Sugar Mamas was one of the ladies who used to
Speaker 2: come in and get like the plate, you know, for
Speaker 2: her mother and stuff, and we would wrap it up
Speaker 2: in loomin the foid and I was always happy Sugar Mama,
Speaker 2: I got you and I would help her. And these
Speaker 2: were the people that kind of was like the images
Speaker 2: of me. Like I grew up around a bunch of women.
Speaker 1: Your role models were women women at all times. So
Speaker 1: when did you first feel like something was a little
Speaker 1: bit different about you than maybe the other kids?
Speaker 2: So I guess I never really knew until I left
Speaker 2: the home, and that probably didn't start until high school
Speaker 2: when the bullying started, you know, because I was always me.
Speaker 2: I wasn't effeminate, but I knew that I didn't like
Speaker 2: girls like I just knew that I didn't like girls,
Speaker 2: and I didn't think anything was different, didn't think there
Speaker 2: was anything wrong with me until I started to leave
Speaker 2: the house and go to school. And I have bullied.
Speaker 2: I used to bully me a lot just for being queer.
Speaker 2: And I was dating this girl named Katrina who was
Speaker 2: a lesbian to keep up appearing right right, So I
Speaker 2: was yeah in high school, I was sharp earlier on.
Speaker 2: And then when she got busted with her lover, I
Speaker 2: had to pretend like I was like this traumatized boys.
Speaker 2: I knew, yeah, I knew, she we knew she knew.
Speaker 2: It was like we told each other I like boys,
Speaker 2: she said she liked girls, and we knew that we were. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were in it together. So when she got caught
Speaker 2: with her partner, I had to pretend like I was
Speaker 2: so devastated in school, and you know that didn't fly over. Well.
Speaker 2: They was like gotty, like we know already looking at
Speaker 2: it now. Like I was like so naive, I didn't
Speaker 2: know who I thought I was fooling by doing that.
Speaker 2: But they used to take my money until I just
Speaker 2: really started to get tired of it. And it was
Speaker 2: specifically one day when we were coming from grocery shopping
Speaker 2: and they had put batteries inside the snow and they
Speaker 2: used to throw it. Oh yeah, and it waits past
Speaker 2: my grandmother's face and I was so angry and I
Speaker 2: was like, how you know going off?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just missed her by a niche and you
Speaker 2: know you could have heard her. She's an elderly woman.
Speaker 2: So I was very upset.
Speaker 1: By the time Tabitha was in high school, she was
Speaker 1: still presenting as cisgendered and still being bullied, but she
Speaker 1: felt safe while she was doing one thing, dancing, so
Speaker 1: she decided to join a dance crew in her community.
Speaker 1: Tell me about dancing now, Because you were into dancing,
Speaker 1: you liked dancing. I did.
Speaker 2: I was a hip hop urban dancer and I loved it.
Speaker 2: Like I joined this crew called the Bugle Boy Posse,
Speaker 2: but I was a buggulad. I always say that they
Speaker 2: just didn't know. And that's when house parties was the thing,
Speaker 2: all right, and you can go to house parties and
Speaker 2: you can dance. And we had our teams and we
Speaker 2: would travel and battle other teams. It was so fucking cool,
Speaker 2: you know. We used to practice and put the music on.
Speaker 2: We were freestyle dancers, and that was the way I
Speaker 2: can express myself. Because dance had no type of energy.
Speaker 2: You can switch it at any given point. You could
Speaker 2: be feminine or masculine, but you can express yourself and
Speaker 2: I felt the safest when I was dancing.
Speaker 1: Tabitha's dance crew was becoming more serious. They wanted to
Speaker 1: take their competition skills to the big leagues. The Christopher
Speaker 1: Street peers a place in New York City where young
Speaker 1: artistic kids could have dance battles and for young quer
Speaker 1: kids of color have a safe space to hang out.
Speaker 1: It was also where Tabitha discovered voguing, club culture and drugs.
Speaker 1: She began experimenting with mescaline, a psychedelic drug that's similar
Speaker 1: to LSD. At this point, she was still presenting as
Speaker 1: a boy, but she was about to meet someone who
Speaker 1: would change everything for her. Tell me now about the
Speaker 1: first time you saw a trans woman and what that
Speaker 1: was like, or the one that impacted you the most.
Speaker 2: Well, her name was Letitia.
Speaker 1: Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, so Letitia. I remember I was already in
Speaker 2: the ballroom scene and we had went to the cloud
Speaker 2: and everyone had these glow sticks on, and she had
Speaker 2: them wrapped around her arms, so she was voting, and
Speaker 2: I was so measurized. I don't know whether I was
Speaker 2: measurized or whether I was on the trip because that
Speaker 2: back then you can take mescaline. So I popped the
Speaker 2: mesculine and I was like, this shit is not good.
Speaker 2: I don't feel it. And it hit me and I
Speaker 2: immediately zeroed in on her. She was voguing her asshole.
Speaker 1: What song was it? Oh?
Speaker 2: God, Titia was voguing to work this pussy bye pussy Pauline.
Speaker 1: You do have to whisper it?
Speaker 2: Oh and yeah, And it was like work thisssy and
Speaker 2: she was like work, work, work, work, and she was
Speaker 2: hitting all these beats and I was just like what
Speaker 2: the fuck? But I needed to be near her, like
Speaker 2: I needed to watch her perform, and I was still
Speaker 2: kind of masculine presenting, you know, and like the crowd
Speaker 2: opened and she had like had everybody watching her until
Speaker 2: she was always over the top, like breaks down to
Speaker 2: her ankles with glitter, like she was just like the
Speaker 2: girl with Bengals and biker shows with Doc Martin, Boote
Speaker 2: Thor Knockers, and she was just like this whole fucking goddess,
Speaker 2: like an African goddess on top of the mountain. Everyone
Speaker 2: was watching her and she was seducing them with her dance,
Speaker 2: and you felt that I was pulled in right away
Speaker 2: when I saw her, so I can make the connection
Speaker 2: to what she must have felt in her head, you know,
Speaker 2: because maybe that was her escape.
Speaker 1: You know, how did that make you feel when you
Speaker 1: saw her?
Speaker 2: I just thought she was this beautiful woman that was
Speaker 2: dancing right because I didn't know trance. I wasn't dressed
Speaker 2: up then, I wasn't transitioning then, I was still presenting male.
Speaker 2: So I found out when we caught the train home
Speaker 2: and we all left the club, and she was looking
Speaker 2: at her back and she had these pills. They were yellow,
Speaker 2: and then, you know me back then, I was like
Speaker 2: doing mesculines. I was like, oh, you got a mess glass.
Speaker 2: I was like, how much of those? She was like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: this is candy. You can't have any of this candy.
Speaker 2: I remember that. I was like, what kind of candy
Speaker 2: is it? And she was like, this is not the
Speaker 2: candy you want unless you want titties, baby.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what she was talking about? Hormones? Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we come back, Tabitha decides to transition and then
Speaker 1: finds the stroll. It's nineteen eighty nine. Tabitha had just
Speaker 1: met Letitia and learned that she was a trans woman.
Speaker 1: She didn't know what trans meant, but she did know
Speaker 1: that she wanted to be just like Letitia, beautiful and confident,
Speaker 1: seductive and powerful. At this point, Tabitha had also discovered
Speaker 1: the ballroom scene, an underground queer culture where black and
Speaker 1: LATINX queens from around the city would compete in categories
Speaker 1: like dance, drag, beauty, and fashion against each other for
Speaker 1: trophies and cash. One day, Tabitha decided she wanted to
Speaker 1: compete in the balls, so she chose the drag category,
Speaker 1: and she knew exactly who she was going to impersonate.
Speaker 2: I remember sitting there and we had to pick the
Speaker 2: category he was going to walk. Immediately, I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to walk as Letitia, and everybody's looking at
Speaker 2: me because I was probably weighing ninety eight pounds, soaking wet,
Speaker 2: with two bricks in my pocket. And the Tisha had
Speaker 2: like body like she had big hibs, big but big
Speaker 2: breast like she was like the hour glass shape. So
Speaker 2: they laughing and she was like, don't worry, I got you.
Speaker 2: She was like, I got you. And I remember her
Speaker 2: taking me to her house in Jersey City, like right
Speaker 2: before the ball and she had like put all these
Speaker 2: pillow cakes and she was stuffing me and you know,
Speaker 2: and we put the water in the conners because the
Speaker 2: condos are more durable than the balloons. So he was
Speaker 2: like boobs yeah, ass boobs wow, And like I bore
Speaker 2: her braceless and I said, okay, I'm gonna do this.
Speaker 2: This is good. I'm gonna show the world.
Speaker 1: How did you feel in all of that?
Speaker 2: Got a beautiful I felt like me I won grand
Speaker 2: prize that day.
Speaker 1: Like wow. After experiencing the liberation of dressing and drag,
Speaker 1: Tabitha started presenting as a woman more and more. But
Speaker 1: she knew if she went back home to her grandmother's
Speaker 1: she'd have to go as her grandson, so she stayed
Speaker 1: in New York. But New York was expensive. She needed
Speaker 1: money to survive, and there were very few conventional work
Speaker 1: opportunities for trans women at the time, so she confided
Speaker 1: in a fellow transistor, who introduced her to the Stroll.
Speaker 1: The Stroll was a part of New York City's largely
Speaker 1: abandoned neighborhood called the Meatpacking District. The neighborhood got its
Speaker 1: name because it was literally where slaughterhouses would package meat
Speaker 1: for the city until the nineteen seventies, but as New
Speaker 1: York life modernized, the industry declined and left behind a
Speaker 1: whole neighborhood, a big industrial warehouses that were cheap to
Speaker 1: rent and perfect for gay partying. Queer people in New
Speaker 1: York had claimed this as their new home. The stroll
Speaker 1: was the part of the meatpacking district where trans women
Speaker 1: who were sex workers would go to find their clients.
Speaker 2: All you heard was the clickity clack of the hills,
Speaker 2: Like you knew the girls was out. And I used
Speaker 2: to like just sit back and watch, like the girls
Speaker 2: be caddy, like want to be fixing her titties, and
Speaker 2: you know the cars are coming by. And back then
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: A lot of cars. There's a lot of business. Oh well,
Speaker 1: so why do you think you were interested in sex
Speaker 1: work as opposed to like maybe getting a job as
Speaker 1: because I couldn't get a job.
Speaker 2: Because I wanted to be me. You didn't get jobs
Speaker 2: being a transgender person. They wouldn't hire you. And by
Speaker 2: that point I already had a taste. I already knew
Speaker 2: I could wear women's clothes. I already knew that I
Speaker 2: can present myself that way. I no longer had to
Speaker 2: live alive. Like I worked jobs as a boy that
Speaker 2: I worked at McDonald's. I did all that stuff, but
Speaker 2: I just it wasn't like it didn't stick. Like I
Speaker 2: didn't feel full, you know, I didn't feel like I
Speaker 2: was like out in the world.
Speaker 1: So what was a typical night.
Speaker 2: Like a typical night would be getting off the path train.
Speaker 2: There's this little steps that's like near Ganzabo. I used
Speaker 2: to go down the steps and get dressed. You open
Speaker 2: the gate and you go down and it was like
Speaker 2: a vestibule that you go into. So I used to
Speaker 2: go in the vestibule through my makeup and I had
Speaker 2: like this Juliet wig. I remember because I used to
Speaker 2: always get that specific wig. And there was a phone
Speaker 2: booth on the corner, so I used to go there
Speaker 2: with my little compac and make sure everything was good.
Speaker 1: And what was the process of getting a client?
Speaker 2: Like, you know, we all had clever ways of you know,
Speaker 2: everyone had their own way. Most of the time. I
Speaker 2: was do you have the time? And that's how I
Speaker 2: met my first client. I remember I was so afraid
Speaker 2: with my first date. He asked me did I have
Speaker 2: the time? And I was like no, When I ain't
Speaker 2: got the time, and the girls are all looking at
Speaker 2: me like bitch, and I'm like what it was like, bitch,
Speaker 2: that's the date. I was like, so what the fuck
Speaker 2: that mean? They was a girl. He was asking you
Speaker 2: if you had the time. So when he came back around,
Speaker 2: he asked me again and I said, well, I do
Speaker 2: if you do. And he literally lived on Christmas Street
Speaker 2: and I remember looking over the water and so much
Speaker 2: money on the table, so much money. It was so
Speaker 2: much money.
Speaker 1: Sex work gave Tabitha the financial freedom to live as
Speaker 1: the woman she was. She felt autonomous over her life
Speaker 1: for the first time. But sex work is dangerous work.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three alone, almost half of all the
Speaker 1: known trans murders globally were sex workers. In the early nineties,
Speaker 1: as it is now, sex work was illegal in New York,
Speaker 1: so there were no protections for Tabitha and other sex
Speaker 1: workers on the stroll. Men could be kind and pay
Speaker 1: them according to what they had negotiated, or they could
Speaker 1: dupe them and become violent. Because of the dangers of
Speaker 1: the job, the other girls on the stroll looked out
Speaker 1: for each other, so how would you know which clients
Speaker 1: to avoid you? It was the luck of the draw.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us knew because things had
Speaker 1: different fetishes, right. Some one guy used to give me
Speaker 1: a bunch of money to just small my feet while
Speaker 1: he jerk off. One guy wanted you to tie him
Speaker 1: up and slap him and take the money out his safe.
Speaker 1: And there was this one guy. He used to call
Speaker 1: him the magic Man. He used to show you the
Speaker 1: money and it would be like folded and he would
Speaker 1: count it out, like I got two hundred, and you
Speaker 1: would see the two hundred. I did the deed, and
Speaker 1: then I was like, give me the money. And I
Speaker 1: remember they kept saying that guy would switch the money.
Speaker 1: So I opened it and it was like one dollar
Speaker 1: bill but like folded up papers and stuff. And I
Speaker 1: got back in the car before he could draw. I
Speaker 1: was like, give me my money, and.
Speaker 2: I'm arguing with him, and I'm reaching in the thing
Speaker 2: where I saw him put the money at, and he's
Speaker 2: trying to drive and wearing drives so he can't really
Speaker 2: stop the car, you know what I'm saying. So he's
Speaker 2: like driving and I'm driving. He's trying to push me
Speaker 2: off of him, and I grabbed the money and I
Speaker 2: sit up and I fix somebody and like let me
Speaker 2: out of his fucking car and he lets me out
Speaker 2: and I run down the block and said, I got
Speaker 2: the magic man. I got the magic Man. I remember
Speaker 2: telling everybody that.
Speaker 1: And how old were you when I would.
Speaker 2: Say, I was like probably like nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: Wow, so you were silic kid. Yeah, So how did
Speaker 1: you protect yourself with all these anything?
Speaker 2: I had mace, knife, a hammer, like the girls were
Speaker 2: famous for having hammers. Yeah, how else are you going
Speaker 2: to defend yourself? Every date is not a safety And
Speaker 2: while there are a horrible stories, and I've had some
Speaker 2: of them, I've been sexually assaulted, I've been raped, I've
Speaker 2: had those stories, right, but I always felt safe amount
Speaker 2: the girls when we knew, like if there was a
Speaker 2: bad day, we would tell each other.
Speaker 1: So these girls were not just other girls that you
Speaker 1: were working with. They were communities. They were sisters protecting
Speaker 1: you as well.
Speaker 2: Listen, whatever you needed to do to make your money,
Speaker 2: they will help you. We all out here together, we
Speaker 2: have to protect each other, and you know, and it
Speaker 2: was like everyone knew you and you were safe. You know,
Speaker 2: at least they gave the illusion of safety. We were
Speaker 2: so defenseless, you know, but we protected each other.
Speaker 1: This sounds like really risky, dangerous work. What about it
Speaker 1: was worth it to you?
Speaker 2: You had no choice. It was survival. That's why it's
Speaker 2: called survival sect. And I felt like I could manage myself.
Speaker 2: I can do what I wanted. I felt like I
Speaker 2: could navigate myself the way I wanted to. Back then,
Speaker 2: you can make good money, Like you can get a
Speaker 2: client for like three four hundred dollars and it's like
Speaker 2: you're in there like five ten minutes with him, And
Speaker 2: like I used to have a lot of money, And
Speaker 2: that was the lure of being on the stroll because
Speaker 2: I know I can make a lot of money, Like
Speaker 2: I had all the newest sneakers, bo Jackson's jewelry, everything,
Speaker 2: and God, we used to have so much fun. It
Speaker 2: was just like you knew. It was the excitement of
Speaker 2: it all for me, Like I would come from this
Speaker 2: kept close Christian life, abused at school, started to come
Speaker 2: and learned about the village and the culture of the village.
Speaker 2: And now I'm making money on the stroll.
Speaker 1: Being yourself, being myself because I couldn't get a job.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be myself. I wanted to be me
Speaker 2: and there's no way I would have been comfortable any
Speaker 2: other way. This was a dangerous place to you, but
Speaker 2: it was home for us. It's where we knew where
Speaker 2: we could thrive. We lived in that danger. We took risks.
Speaker 2: We knew that there were girls who would get beat
Speaker 2: up hurt in the cars. We knew that, but we
Speaker 2: found ourselves there every day just so we could be
Speaker 2: ourselves because the society and the world hated us.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I had read about you
Speaker 1: was that sex work was affording you the opportunity to
Speaker 1: buy hormones. How did you buy them and how did
Speaker 1: you take them?
Speaker 2: There was like a specific guy who used to sell
Speaker 2: hormones to the girls. And you can go and get
Speaker 2: the hormones there, or you can go down in Brooklyn
Speaker 2: and get like a fake prescription or something. There was
Speaker 2: so many different ways we used to get it, and
Speaker 2: the hormones were very potent back then.
Speaker 1: You're getting them off the street, yeah, so you're not
Speaker 1: sure if they're.
Speaker 2: They're right dosage or anything. You're just buying the moones
Speaker 2: like people were just injecting theirselves with shit so they
Speaker 2: can have the body that they wanted. And you know,
Speaker 2: this is what the girls did. Like I was learning
Speaker 2: these things from the girls out there.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that you were willing to take
Speaker 1: that risk to do what to take the hormones without
Speaker 1: knowing if they were bad or if they were good.
Speaker 2: Because I know what I wanted to be, and I
Speaker 2: saw the other girls developing, and that's what I wanted,
Speaker 2: illegally or not.
Speaker 1: When we come back, Tabitha begins dodging the cops who
Speaker 1: are now targeting sex workers, and she takes her first
Speaker 1: hit of crack cocaine. It's nineteen ninety four. New York
Speaker 1: City has just a Republican Rudy Giuliani as mayor. He
Speaker 1: campaigned on promises to clear away the city's crime and
Speaker 1: improve the quality of life. One of his aggressive targets
Speaker 1: was prostitution. This was stressful for Tabitha because sex work
Speaker 1: was her means of surviving. She was also scared because
Speaker 1: New York City police were actively arresting people like her
Speaker 1: and placing them in men's jails. I want to now
Speaker 1: talk about the cops and sex workers and that relationship.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you were being targeted by the cops.
Speaker 2: I'm in a doubt now, so of course I know why.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of stigma placed on sex workers.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of stigma placed on queer people
Speaker 2: at that time. People didn't know a much information. I
Speaker 2: don't know what was their hate other than hating us
Speaker 2: for who we were and we couldn't get jobs. What
Speaker 2: else are we going to do? There was no other option?
Speaker 1: So what would happen when the cops showed up?
Speaker 2: You would run in the opposite direction and hide behind
Speaker 2: the cars. You would duck, you would run to like
Speaker 2: either someone's doorsteps, and you would hide downstairs. You would
Speaker 2: run and when they left, they left, and you would
Speaker 2: come back out.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get arrested?
Speaker 2: Did I ever get arrested? Of course? It was horrible.
Speaker 2: All you see is these big lights flashing in the mirror.
Speaker 2: Get out the car, Get out the car, and they
Speaker 2: would lock up the sex work, but not the john.
Speaker 1: So for the girls, your enemy was the cops.
Speaker 2: Your enemy was the dates and the cops like that
Speaker 2: was like my first kind of offenses was like prostitution,
Speaker 2: sex work lord, even with the intent to prostitute. If
Speaker 2: we're on the block, just lock them up. Yeah, That's
Speaker 2: when I started to find out other spaces became like
Speaker 2: this little network of sex workers, and we knew like
Speaker 2: the underground way to get the money, and we knew
Speaker 2: where all the spots were at edel wise, so many
Speaker 2: different places that we can go and get money at.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a really stressful existence.
Speaker 2: There so many different emotions. I just know that you
Speaker 2: had this consistent need to move.
Speaker 1: While sex work was able to give Tabatha a sense
Speaker 1: of financial freedom, the mental anguish of having to force
Speaker 1: her body into sex when she didn't want to became unbearable.
Speaker 1: This coupled with constant arrests for the only work that
Speaker 1: was available to her, was agonizing. She was with her
Speaker 1: friend Melissa when she discovered something that could help her
Speaker 1: numb the pain. So let's talk a bit about your addiction.
Speaker 1: How did you first get introduced to crack cocaine?
Speaker 2: It was at Kevin Lennon's party. He lived in a
Speaker 2: law off. It was my first time like being in
Speaker 2: a big apartment like that, like a DUPLEXI was like
Speaker 2: a lord, yeah, and we were there. But how I
Speaker 2: got introduced to the cocaine was it was on coasters
Speaker 2: and you can just like at will, just sniff. So
Speaker 2: I'm sniffing and everything, and everybody's coming in and we're
Speaker 2: having a good time.
Speaker 1: This was your first time, it was my first time.
Speaker 2: And I was just seeing everybody do it. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, and you see it on TV, so I
Speaker 2: knew what coke was like, I knew, like, this is
Speaker 2: what they're doing, and everybody was doing it, so what
Speaker 2: the fuck. It wasn't peer pressure and no one said
Speaker 2: you gotta do this. I did it like I was
Speaker 2: just always that person like and I wanted to try life.
Speaker 2: I wanted to try everything. Even as I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: I'm just like I was so fearless and I did it.
Speaker 2: And I remember like the drip and it was like
Speaker 2: just go like this, and I was running to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: It was like take the tissue and put it in
Speaker 2: water and drip it down your nose and it hit
Speaker 2: you faster. And we were all skeetered out our and
Speaker 2: you know, towards the like later on in the evening
Speaker 2: after the music, they was like, oh my god, we
Speaker 2: ran out and they sent my stupid ass went Melissa
Speaker 2: to go and cop and when I came back, I
Speaker 2: put all the drugs on the table and I remember
Speaker 2: the crack being there. I remember Melissa took it and
Speaker 2: put it on the limit the fo you and went
Speaker 2: to the back. She was with some other friends and
Speaker 2: I went back there. I was like, girl, while y'all
Speaker 2: back here, the parties out there, and they would just
Speaker 2: like I saw the pipes and I'm like, oh, And
Speaker 2: I remember her telling me to this day. I remember
Speaker 2: Melissa telling me, she says, from trying out to go.
Speaker 2: I remember her telling me, if you picked this up
Speaker 2: at it ruined your life. I'm not going to give
Speaker 2: this to you. And she put the pipes there and
Speaker 2: she's like, if you want to pick it up, put
Speaker 2: you better have money. It would take you for everything.
Speaker 2: And I remember doing it and they created a monster
Speaker 2: and I ran through a little money I had saved up.
Speaker 2: And back then it's like you felt invincible. Like doing
Speaker 2: the drugs made me forget a lot of things, like
Speaker 2: being bullied in school, you know, not being accepted in
Speaker 2: my neighborhood, you know, being bullied in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: So did the drugs help you kind of numb the
Speaker 1: pain of doing the sex work?
Speaker 2: Of course, I think because it went hand in hand
Speaker 2: with the sex work. It was something that was my
Speaker 2: go to. I wasn't so connected to what I was
Speaker 2: doing because I was making more than Yeah, Like those
Speaker 2: were tough times, Like all those fears were real, those
Speaker 2: were real feelings, those were raw feelings. It was horrible,
Speaker 2: and I think that's why, like I kind of like
Speaker 2: really medicated myself because I was not happy with my life.
Speaker 2: It's like when you're coming off the high you realize
Speaker 2: what you did. That's when the shame and the guilt
Speaker 2: start to set in for me. And I used to
Speaker 2: say things like I feel spiritually bankrult, like I have
Speaker 2: nothing else.
Speaker 1: If the drugs didn't numb you, what do you think
Speaker 1: you would have felt by killing myself?
Speaker 2: I just felt like I couldn't be me. It was
Speaker 2: like I needed something more and I just didn't know
Speaker 2: what that more was.
Speaker 1: Next week on but We Loved, Part two of my
Speaker 1: interview with Tabitha Gonzalez, where she talks about becoming a
Speaker 1: drug dealer, becoming incarcerated, and coming back to the stroll
Speaker 1: in a way she never imagined. But We Loved is
Speaker 1: hosted by me Jordan Gonsolves. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
Speaker 1: If you want to write in to tell your story,
Speaker 1: email us at buttweloved at gmail dot com, or send
Speaker 1: us a message on Instagram or TikTok at butt we Loved.
Speaker 1: We are a production of The Outspoken Podcast Network and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: Our producers Areshino Zaki, Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey
Speaker 1: patt Our. Executive producers are Me, Maya Howard and Katrina Normal.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Marisa Brown. Original music by Steve Bone
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jay Bronson and Roquel Elis. If you
Speaker 1: loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.