Movement I

Damn we’ve done so much, we’ve been through so much, [laughter] ahh, yea

That was when I knew that like, I was a part of something bigger and there was some things that I could do to be a part of that. Cause in the beginning of my organizing I was just like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t really, uh, I mean I know I’m angry. That’s all I know though. Okay. So it was just like, what do I do? How do I get involved? How do I, how do I build my voice? How do I like, amplify? Like, and I have to sit back and watch and listen and not speak and not take up space until I was ready to okay. Articulate exactly what I was feeling. // 

And so I grew up with a responsibility to my people. It was just like something that was kind of ingrained, I suppose. I understood ourselves to be that talented tenths like my brother and cousins, all of us around our age that the community was expecting great things from us. You just had a responsibility to make it better for those people coming after you. So I can’t remember a time of not feeling involved. // 

When I met Mario. I was a freshman at OSU and I lived in Morrill tower and I remember I was bored and alone every night in my dorm and I saw this flyer in front of the elevator for femme-unity, which is the feminist organization for students on campus. And I went to one of their meetings cause I was like, you know, I’ve seen stuff about feminism on Tumblr It sounds like something that interests me. Like I’d love to meet people who know stuff and can teach me. And I met Mario at the meeting, she was president at the time and she introduced me to Leila and Leila invited me to shades, which is the queer people of color student org at OSU and I, they just became my queer family after that. They like adopted me. They just took me everywhere with them and like showed me what was possible. Like I had only lived as like a closeted queer person. I had only interacted mostly with straight people and had mostly straight friends in my community. And now I can’t think who I know I could probably win name two people that I’m friends with who are not gay like or trans and yeah, they just, they would cook for me. They would invite me to parties, they would bring me to protests. They would like, they would teach me things and be patient with me. Yeah. I miss them so much. And when I went to my first shades meeting, that’s where I made all my friends, every friend I have today, I met at shades, like almost every friend, but let you know, not the white ones, but, but most of the people that I’ve known today were because I went to shades my freshman year. Yeah, I love those folks. Those are my, those are my elders. // 

I think also there was another time where I had a very secure job and it was like living with my close friends. Um, and that was really exciting when I lived on main street in Columbus and we shared that like warehouse together because I was so close, physically with the people that I live with that it was easier to share my spare time. Okay. Because it was like, okay, I got off work, I can like have a sense of community cause we can share a meal together and this really weird and intimate way because we are all like in this big house together. So I didn’t, I didn’t feel like I was making so many sacrifices or something. // 

But it has to do with safety. It has to do with emotional stability for me. There’s so much emotional stability that happens when I’m female presenting because I get asked my pronouns. I get the same respect as a woman most of the time. It has to do with emotional stability for me. When I’m high femme presenting I’m at my most confident, I’m at my most empowered because I no longer have to worry about the misgendered or being talked about it. //

I’m thinking of one specific situation I guess because I’m envisioning and having the memory of being inside of these clubs and these restaurants and just playing really good music. like 90% of the time no one bothered me. They didn’t ask me if I had a boyfriend, a girlfriend or whatever. I was kind of, I was seen as one of them because I was able to have conversations with them through my music. But one specific time this very macho dude was holding onto his like bourbon on the rocks and he says, kind of sideways over his shoulder, “Hey, let me see your tits!” And I was like, I’m sorry. Excuse me. What? Because no one, people don’t say that. At least at the time I had never experienced things like that. Yeah. Because yes, I’m female-presenting, but I also carry myself in a, you know, I don’t know, like treat me as not feminine. I don’t really know how to describe, yeah, the exuding something but not, Oh and super feminine so that I’ve never attracted that kind of verbal attention. Yeah. So there’s, in this moment, this person, it’s bringing attention to something that I’m – number one not comfortable with in so many ways, but second of all, it dawns on me, Oh my God, this dude, thinks that he can control my identity and my body by saying something like this. So I asked him to repeat it. He says it again. I tell him to fuck off, which is the first time I’ve ever stood up for my body, for myself in a public way. I said, fuck off. And I just snapped my headphones back on my head and I just pretended to do something to try to calm down. Seeing out of the corner of my eye, he’s yelling at me with his friend, has his arm, like across his chest trying to keep him back and he’s like yelling, yelling, yelling. Like I’m the one that insulted him by saying fuck off. //

The women at summit station, they did not play. Most of these women were blue collar workers. They worked in the factory. Um, this is, you know, in the day and age, uh, title 20 and all the trace trades, um, businesses are having to hire women. And so, you know, we have women construction workers and electricians and plumbers, like some tough ass women and they would not put up with it. They step out of line. I have seen grown ass men picked up and carried out the door and thrown on the sidewalk. I’ve seen grown ass men really get their butts beat and handed to them and sent packing out the door like these women did not play at all //

Yeah, that’s a really cool feeling. It’s like the opposite feeling of when you trust somebody and they like fall short.it’s like, Oh no. I’ve put a lot of faith and trust that like we’re all fighting for the same thing. We all want the same thing. And when you like see it come together, it’s like really affirming even when you’re losing. it’s still like, there’s still something very like, okay, like we’re losing but at least we’re losing together. //

I think there is a moment where a person has to understand that they’re going to be read. So they have to be genuine and pure with their intent. I think there are people who walk among us who are able to literally see through like people and their intentions //

I look up to our radical trans-cestors, like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson and other people who haven’t become so well known. People like Tony Johnson and Tony Mecca Lorraine Sade Baskerville and Tiffany Cartier who is from Columbus.All of these people who, wow, really, we’re a part of radical movements that we’re trying to change the entire world. by not just fighting for legal recognition and civil rights, but really taking on the broader sources of oppression for queer and trans people and doing it by building community and sharing resources and taking care of one another. //

This was before I started my medical transition. I always knew I was a woman always in. I was definitely this fluid body this person. Queer gender fluid intersex person i always knew that I was in the range of other [inaudible]. Mmm. So it angered me, it angered us in the house. And I remember going to one of the church meetings that one of the that Trans-Ohio put on, it was a meeting at a church and everybody was angry and they were talking about how they were angry. And I was like, we can’t just sit around and talk about, we’re angry. We’ve got to do something. What are we going to do? And no one had any answers. but I felt like we all left that meeting thinking about it, about what we needed to do. And my response was to burn it all down. But everyone else was like, let’s try something. Let’s try something else. Okay. Try something else. It is, but afterwards we burn it all down. //

So she took eight butches, I mean diesel dykes and turned them into a ballet troupe. It was amazing. It was hilarious. It was fun. It was awesome. And that was one of the highlights of that show. And they would raise money and all that money would go to buy blankets or buy what bases unit might need. It got so popular that folks would camp out. Two days prior to limiting just go on sale so that they can get a ticket. All kinds of rules had to be instituted. I think you could only buy six. I think you could only buy six tickets. And I feel like you had to, only certain people could do that and usually you could just get two. I mean, women fought like literally and the hand combat over places in line over whether somebody cheated and got somebody else tickets when they weren’t supposed to. It was, it was amazing. //

I don’t know. It means so much. It’s like, it’s my power. It’s my roots. It’s my, it’s my home. Like for me as an entertainer, as an artist it means making it more accessible, making it more realistic, making it more [inaudible]. Making it more like I want to see more representation of non passing trans people. I wanted to see more representation of non passing queer people. I want to see, I want to see out of body experiences I want, I want my girls, my non binaries, my theys, my thems to just feel like when you see me it’s there, it’s there. I want to be like a beacon of hope that you can be like okay if I want to be coming to entertainer it’s there. There are no, there are no hold backs. There are no qualms There is nothing that I can’t do as long as I do it 100% //

And I had to like be by myself to actually become myself. And I think that, um, like being by myself definitely made me more there for other people. So like in that sense, like all the time alone, like really like helped me take that pressure that was put on me and like really turned myself into a continent.//

and I think of that because with that question like 15 year old me, there are all these things I wanted to do and all these fucked up things that would happen or I don’t know. I mean I feel like there are a lot of things I feel like I failed at like I didn’t date until after college. I didn’t have sex until after college. Like I would just look around and I look everything that was happening around me and it always felt like everyone had more figured out or I know they had experiences that I wanted and I don’t know. It’s like, and I think I 15 year old me would still look at me now and be like, I don’t know. Like, like the fact that I survived and I made sense of all those failures and it’s like weird in a way. Cause like I guess you don’t need, I don’t even want to call it failure, but I think it’s such an important framing because that’s how we frame it for ourselves. And yeah, if we don’t reframe it cause it’s like, I don’t know. I’ve met people in other countries that I don’t know. I thought like if I were staying here longer, like I could fall in love with you, but it didn’t happen. And that’s just like a story that I can tell. But it’s like what could have been, but it’s like whatever I had those moments with those people or whatever, I didn’t have like, it taught me something. //

People always used to comment on how quiet I was. I learned very early on that I was meant to shut my mouth, that children were meant to be seen, not heard that women were meant to be seen, not heard that black women are meant to be seen, not her. That my queer was not meant to be seen or heard. That I was not meant to be seen or heard or alive. That I, it was meant to be small, invisible, voiceless. That people like me were meant to be malleable, to morph and conform into shapes, more suitable for people like you, like them, meant to be meant to accommodate for the comfort of everyone but ourselves. I was born silly putty, play dough, passed from hand to hand and made into things I was never meant to be. I learned how to be silent from my mother. How does shrink? I was always too big for her. Yeah. Never know. The irony did not escape me. Even at an age, so young society didn’t teach me any different aspect of my life. Trying to become their contradictions. My mother’s silent girl, smart enough to take her shit without backtalk. My mother’s strong girl. Brave enough not to take nobody’s shit. Brave enough to speak up for herself, small enough to shut up when she tells me to. //

We be going through it. And then to have that like actually, you know, I have these spaces where, you know, we need to, to have to like not worry and care about that is uh, yeah. It’s good to have a place where like, it’s like everybody’s experiences things the same way. Like it’s the same buzz. Yeah. We all know what those frequencies feel like regardless of lag with frequency, random Aleisha lap. //

It’s important just because you need to be able to go somewhere and and relax. You may have been made made to be able to go somewhere and just, I feel like you don’t have to explain yourself and that unit, they’re not looking over your shoulder thinking that somebody is like getting ready to do harm to you. //

Yeah. You use that in order to sustain yourself in order to like keep going every day. Right? Because if you’re constantly waiting through the muck of late Capitol, transphobia, racism, homophobia, all these things like you need to have a moment of non-resistance, you know, to like actually flex your muscles. //

But there was something about being asked to play Sweatin in 2007 and I’m in front of all of these people who were going to get it. And when I say get it, I mean, okay, I’m going to play all these indie, French electronic anthems and then I’m gonna play fucking Beastie boys and then I’m going to play. I don’t know, I’ll drop some like old school hip hop and I know it’s going to work. I just know in my heart and my gut it’s going to work. And when the whole place fucking popped off, when I played brass monkey, I was like, I know that this is my moment and I’m onto something very larger than myself. But more than that it was like, Oh, I can do this. It’s not just a mix tape that I’m making for some girl that I like in college, I’m in front of 150 200 people having this collective positive experience and they are with me. They’re with me from every moment I pushed play and do crazy shit with my fader, whatever. And it was, there was just something about the that moment and being able to carry a whole night and have people still be with me at the end. //

I love dating. It’s, it’s fun. It’s a distraction from the fuck shit that is life under capitalism. It’s um, it’s a source of like pleasure and comfort and just, uh, intimacy, physical and the emotional intimacy. It’s a, yeah. I use my dating life as an escape and sometimes it’s healthy, sometimes it’s not, but it’s, it keeps me going a lot. Like it’s a, it’s a good motivator to clean my room and like keep up my appearance and stuff when I’m depressed, like keeps me hygienic. Um, and I, it makes me happy to make people happy. And I’m a, my love language I think in relationships is acts of service and gift giving. And I like to receive physical touch and quality time. But for other folks, I like to spoil the people that I’m dating a little bit. Um, sorry, I get to make people smile a lot in that way. And that makes me feel warm. Um, you know, like pretty girl smiling. Happy about something that you did for her. Giving you a kiss on the cheek, like shitting is rewarding. //

Like you’re allowed to cross boundaries but you’re allowed to make up his mind. I think that’s really important and really important thing in Krispies is you cause a lot of times like we don’t have controls about the ways that like people perceive our boundaries and the way that we’re allowed to push them. So I think being able to like have the expectation across boundaries fall, so like be allowed the space to like stop it when you feel like it’s crossing the line or you don’t want to be around it. That’s like really important because I can just be like, no, get out my face. //

Um, I just feel like I need to be visible and be out because of that, there might the one person that I resonate with whose life will be made better, who will feel stronger because Mmm. Um, some choices that I made to be able to, you know, empower themselves. I just have this fire in me that just once, um, just stuff and one knows that. Mmm. I looked everywhere for people like me, you know, and I later found out, you know, there were people like me, um, but they just were in hiding or silent or quiet to have just known that when I was eight or nine years old, whatever, probably, um, taken years of stress and trauma off my life. //

Yeah. But, um, but I went to see him and, um, I asked the nurse if I could go in and he sent a message out to say, no, don’t come in. I, I just don’t come in. Um, and so I went home and, uh, he was in the hospital for a good long time and every time I would go to visit, he said, you know, don’t, don’t come in, but eventually, you know, the body heals cause it wants to, right. Yeah. Um, so he has scars, but he was able to move and come back to church and, um, he used to love to sit in the front Pew and bring a watercolor set and he would paint the flowers while he was listening. You know, he heard everything I said because he was painting. Right, right. Which is like way I am too. And um, and so I went to look at his painting one day and as soon as he saw me, he burst into tears and he said, you don’t know how much it meant that you came to see me all those times. Um, it gave me strength. Thank you so much. You know, like I’d ever saw. The fact that I was present to him was everything. //

And I think it also has to do with like truth as well because I think, uh, like when I worked at this job in Wyoming for the summer, there was a boy there that actually there were two boys that like really helped me realize I’m just like, what? But one, they were both roommates and one of them, like I wasn’t into and he was like kind of really coercive to me two different times. And, but at the end of the summer, he wrote me this letter and basically said like, I’ve not liked myself for most of my life and I’ve never met someone like you and you helped me realize like who I was and like, I just want you to be happy. But like even in him saying that he didn’t open up the space for me to be like, well why did you come into my room when you were drunk? Like, let’s talk about that. And like what it means for him to like commit to this version of himself, but also not to like reckon with what it, like what he did in that process. And then like his roommate was someone that I really liked. But by the end of the summer I learned that he had sexually assaulted someone and I ended up being questioned by police and we didn’t talk. And then I reconnected with him later and like I don’t talk to him really anymore because like he would just like call me once every few months and talk about how much he missed me and loved me and how he talked to all of his guy friends, the way that you talk to me and like how he wanted to like travel and I don’t know, be confident in himself like me, but he never did it. And so I also think it’s about like that your commitment to like, I don’t know, just like trying to actualize things. You’re not hearing other people. And then it’s also about like the truth. Cause the other part is like I never confronted him about what he did to someone else, but that’s because I was protecting whatever he and I had together. And so also in a way it was on me because I was just afraid and I didn’t want to lose this thing. //

I’m definitely a person who’s been really bad at communication. My entire life. So i’m also just tryin to learn how I communicate with people. And also re-learning boundaries with myself and others. Yeah, it’s definitely like an emotional outpour cause I feel like a lot of my life I grew up hiding all of my emotions because I had a very emotionless stepfather and then my mother was no help. So it was just like my entire life I spent like covering up my emotions and it’s made me like kind of a really angry person on the inside and music’s away from me to like channel that anger. Um, or if I feel like an overwhelming emotion that I don’t know how to express with words. Um, so, but I also feel like I want to put music out there so that other people like don’t feel alone because I feel like once I started hearing from people like after shows that I played at a young age like that they could like relate to me and that like they’re so glad they got this new performance stuff. Like when you hear things like that, that just makes me want to do it more. //

being surrounded by my people and not my people. I don’t want to say not nice people, but being surrounded by the majority and the minority at the same time and then just taking it in or watching or listening and commenting to me about it. That to me was the moment I knew this. This is what I want to do. Like this. Having people react and tell me, this made me cry. It made me feel, I never knew this. I never knew that are the moments that I colored into because goals are like such an important moment in life for me as an artist because it’s me getting out there and because that’s the point I wanted to make with it being made. //

I regret not telling my little sisters that the reason I hadn’t seen them in so many years had nothing to do with them and everything to do with my dad. I also regret, um, not letting my brother know that, um, I love him and, uh, just not letting him, not letting him feel that love early on because we were so young and we’d just be fighting and playing around. But I regret not being able to teach him love and not saying it enough and wondering if he knows that he feels it. //

I’ve always worked at venues or hold or like dives. Um, what do you know when we say straight bars? And I would be the token everything y’all token gay when who brought the like, Oh you can like [inaudible] alright. You know, like I the lab where I work, I ain’t saying that was a thing where uh, the owner wanted me in there because he wanted to change the, the face of his, he wanted to make, he wanted the clientele to um, resemble all the different looks of the neighborhoods. And I guess you would take what I’ve been used to like as a kind of, I don’t know what, what I’m looking for. Like what to say, like, like bait. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. But I like being the one //

I think that what that kind of clarity can make you. I want to stay in bed every day and also just really be in a lot of pain and she instead chooses to continue to like try to find the most exciting and really beautiful parts that still exist and [inaudible] I think that’s awesome. //

the pain, but it’s not available in the way that they either feel comfortable or [inaudible] and Jack, I feel like girl, a lot of different, uh, people and trying to fight for the cause of the minority and they’ll press, but [inaudible] I don’t, I don’t think shoving it down people’s throat is necessarily the way of getting the point across. Well more so allowing the people that want the knowledge to ingest it and letting them spread it. And that way eventually you’re going to hear about it instead of it being, Hey, well sometimes it works sometimes, but only people that want to listen are going to listen to it. //

And then there was a moment when she was in an incredible amount of pain and I would just like felt such a panic. Yeah. Cause I was like, I don’t know, like how do I, I’m trying to find like a doctor or someone to like, how do we fix this? Like how do I, how do I stop pain from happening? Which is like, I don’t know. That’s hard. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t stop paying. No. So minister, that’s one of the things that we’ve learned is that we couldn’t stop the pain, but we could be present and, and that’s all we could do. But it was, it was enough sometimes just to be present. A lot people want to understand //

It’s really hard for me to self-soothe. So it’s really important to me to be able to be with other people, even if I’m not talking about what I’m feeling. It helps a lot to just be around community and friends and to be just surrounded by people, even if it’s just one person. Like not being alone is a coping strategy for me because if I’m by myself, I can’t, I’ll run my thoughts. I like my only, my only way of sort of escaping intrusive thoughts if I’m alone is to like watch TV and focus on something that’s not my life and not the world. Like not any of the terrible shit that’s happening. Um, so yeah, just being in community with people and talking to friends, even if it’s not about what I’m feeling and not about what I’m fearing, like it helps a lot. //

It would just be like, Hey, you cozy yet every like, no, almost. But then like if the other one, if like I found out that she was cozy, I was like, it’s time for me to also get cozy. And so like I think there was, I don’t know if we would like texted bad or just like kind of just be like, all right, well good night. But we like would like try to catch up even though like we like lived very close to each other, we would still just like, okay, like I wouldn’t go to bed too because you’re going to bed. I think that’s really care. // 

I’m in a drought. Yeah. But I have like other things. That’s why I’m thankful that I’m being a little bit more like slow with the process of creating now. So like I have like not new things, but I do have a lot of things that I’ve been working on for months. //

And then meeting more people out in the world. You know, you continue to build that community and sometimes that community exactly what you needed and you didn’t even know that they needed it. I think the moment I found my people would definitely in high school, that’s when I knew the, you know, but them folks, the queer folks, the transpo that, you know, folks that are up are my people. And I’ve always known that, you know, um, since middle school, but you know, those friends stayed away and new friends come in, but their friends that are going to be there forever, people in your life that are going to be there forever. And those are the people that you want to protect. So when we see people that you share so much with so much joy and pain and frustration, you start to form this attachment and want to take care of each other. So I think high schools, when I found my people. //

So when I’m, you know, having kindred, having people that are friends, um, and who are also brothers and sisters and siblings are, uh, this is very important to me as an Italian American, like I said in, in most Italian American families, um, that are closer to immigration. So like second, third generation. Um, even if the grandchildren don’t speak Italian or not type to speak, a tie in the word for family has never translated. It’s always left by media and it means something very, very special. So, um, you know, if he’s giving this, one of my friends who’s Italian, also one of my very few friends who’s Italian actually, um, he, he said that at the Thanksgiving table he said, this is love Amelia and this is what I always wanted when I was a kid and never had, and thank you for this. And other people said the same thing from their own ethnic and family heritage histories and heritage and stuff. But it was very moving to me because that’s not again, something I was trying to do, but they got it anyway. //

Literally. Like if, if we didn’t live in that shitty $200 house that we used to right after. Yeah, like after I didn’t have any connection to my biological family. Like if I didn’t have you and Kylie, and if I didn’t like, especially like you that like if I didn’t have anyone in my life like I would be, so I would just fuck, don’t really, I would be fun. I’m like, yeah, like [inaudible] has helped me like love people and trust people. That’s like when you were talking about all the people who’ve like showed me who are loving care. You son of a bitch. I’m going to cry. I told you this before though. //

I use to be a loner, until loneliness turned sad, i used to be cool, but cool went to my head, and i try pretending, confusing who i am, i even play the fool, and let love beam me again, in each stage of mind, i come to realize, that in my evolution, in my evolution, i begin to grow, i begin to grow, i begin to grow, in my evolution //

Movement II

Um, we often talk as though the, the fight for LGBTQ equality is somehow over. Um, we are, we one, and it’s very, very clear right now that we haven’t, um, and that we still need to build these communities of resistance so that we can help each other survive. I can’t very deeply about my own husband and loved ones. Um, but because I am concerned as a queer and trans person in the United States about the way that my government is using a critique of caring about damn lesbian civil right to distract from it, larger, um, lack of concern over queer and Chan liberation. //

I think that’s as trans folk like presents this like ultimate power of transcendence. But so often it’s like we wake up and we have to like, literally like shake the dust of our psyches and then like redo the same shit all over again with like the same amount of energy and or force. We have to like do that sometimes. And it’s like we, we come up to these people whole and like some people just really can’t take that. Some people just really don’t know how to dissect and like, go wow, how did they, like how did this person build the mental stamina to like even undergo ways of like self discovery., you know, like how do they do that? How do the trans folk transcend like, and where is the key to this door? And like some people are like, take me to the door and give me the key. And it’s like you were saying before, it’s like they put all this work on us. //

Um, and so anyhow, we have a first international, um, drag King extravaganza, it was a four day, three night event and started on Thursday with the meet and greet. And then Friday we decided, I mean, you know, we’re graduate students so we just decided to add a conference to it. // 

We want to feel like we have our head phones on and we’re the only motherfucker there. But then you open your eyes in the club is full of people who get it too. Yeah. It’s a thing. Yeah. That’s, it’s that simultaneousness of being like, I am here by myself making this music, but to then, to see yourself as one of so many, cause you could see yourself in those other people cause you’re having the same experience. //

The main one was when we, um, we occupied the Ohio union for so many hours. Um, and there were like 700 people there and [inaudible] we were all wearing black and just sitting on the floor and repeating the Ooh, IO racism has got to go chat for hours nonstop. Like just that one chant. And nobody got tired of it. And like I just felt so United, um, cause that was my first protest and it was like, it was just such a fucking sight to see, you know, like, so it was just so much dedication and so much time going into the action and people were with us from the beginning until we left the union. Like it was still sunlight outside when that protest started. We were, we started outside Hale hall and March to the union and stayed there for like nearly eight hours and like [inaudible] it was just, it was, it was beautiful. It was magical. There was like so many powerful people involved in that organizing and it really changed me. Like that specific action really shaped the rest of my future. Um, I met Saara and like they really shaped my political growth and beliefs and convinced me to switch my major after that. Um, and that’s why I majored in black studies just because I felt so powerful in that moment. Yeah. //

And, um, I think that moment that I realized that it was way bigger than I thought it was when we were in the neighborhood, um, surrounding the area where Mike Brown was gunned down and, um, it was just this ocean of black people like grieving and wailing and crying and screaming. And I mean an ocean like as far as I could see there were black folks everywhere and they were hanging from like the balconies of the apartment buildings. They were all in the streets. We took up the entire foreseen area. And I just, I think I was both lightened and broken down by this visual sight of support and care and sadness. And it just penetrated me and I… //

And, uh, they were playing music and then the police came and pepper spray to everybody heard about inside the house that was at the house that I was staying at like that you stay so insane. Yeah. Um, and I think about like moments like that, like really radicalizing moments because like you walk in there and there’s like, it was like gold and silver everywhere. Every single person that you knew in town was in that house, like everybody and plus some, and then like stuffed into the corner was the DJ’s. And then like, it was just like dark, but it was like, there was like flood lights everywhere and it was crazy. And then, um, we were all just like in awe at ourselves, like having created this moment and then like, just like that it was all over because the cops just came. //

I feel like it’s definitely a conversation to be had, but I felt they’ll listen. They’re like, we want you to speak and like give a speech. And I was like, okay, we’re going to be a pride. They will not hear me. Even if I had a blow horn, they will not hear me. I think it would be more powerful that we are capable on now to show how I’m going to say silence, you know, and you know, we all were black. We need a sign that said what we need to pay. And they’re like, okay, well what should the sign say? And I was like, well what about it? She’d say, what about that? Like actually angling the conversation to the fact that they left us behind. What about us? So they made up a sign and everything. Everybody in the group chat alone in agreement, but there were a whole bunch of organizations really. 

And they’re like, well, we’re in the parade. And I was just saying, this doesn’t sound like it’s gonna happen, but I learned, okay, cool, whatever. But we went, we got together and I saw 10 probably 11 almost 12 people and I was like, huh, what happened? All those people are there. They said they’d join it if they see us in the parade. And I was just like, you know the parade is happening now. People are walking by now. This parade is going now. Like where are they? So they asked me like, where are y’all? We’re at the back of the parade. I was like, that’s the back of the praise, but you want the praise to be over for us. But then the street, they’re like, well that’s true. Okay, but what are we going to do? And I’m like, I don’t know. So I started to walk away. I was like, you know what, I don’t think it’s going to happen and started to walk away, but we’re standing in a crowd. I have sent some people across the street so that we can come out across together and like lock arms and they were waiting for my signal and I was to call them. As you know, we decided to call it off while I was standing there. On the shoulder. I watched the police officer, um, usher an anti LGBT white man back from standing in the street, like plants. He was in the middle of the street and the police officer came over politely, sir, could you just, you know, sir, could you step back sir? Could you please like step back please? Very kind. Um, and then I heard a white lesbian woman and like having a conversation about a black man who had walked in line, who didn’t have on a shirt and was like, Hey, I’ve got your black trim fist. I got some flags. I got to LGB flags. Like I said, I got that once, wants to come when she’s like, we need to get a flag. And the other woman said, no, I would never buy anything from [inaudible] talk talking. And I was just like, Oh, okay. So either way, the conversation that needs to be happening. So I got angry. I put the tape over my mouth. I went into the middle of the street and I tend to signal that I have others come into the streets. //

and as I watched these people marching by at that first parade, I mean, people were, were, um, marching by in Brown paper sacks that they just cut two holes up so that they could see or in all kinds of things that to hide their face, they’re either overly, overly loudly gay or trying to be hidden and so conservative that you couldn’t see them. Streets were lined. Um, at least it seemed to me, and I feel like if there more than one riot cop standing on a corner, I’m surrounded. Um, but there were helicopters flying overhead, there were officers in Riot gear, um, with rubber bullet guns. Uh, it was so much chaos going on and these people were just spewing and shouting hate. And I just kept thinking to myself, I don’t know what time of Jesus or God they’re talking about, but that doesn’t work for me. And I looked down at this kid and I just thought to myself, why are you standing here though? //

I tell people, some of the shit I saw there and its like insane like, you know, like wasn’t there a cop that like, he pushed someone out of a wheelchair at a healthcare protest? Yeah. I mean definitely. I was in Baltimore when that happened, when all of this was happening. And I just remember like, to me like, you know, like for, I remember for a long time I was like, I didn’t second guess it at all. Like, I was like, yeah, that’s fucked up. Like, I didn’t second guess that these cops were racist. Like, I never, I was like, well yeah. I was like, well, yeah. //

I think it’s taking a lot of willpower and it’s like a challenge. Um, like I feel like I have like a really like huge amount of desire. Um, and uh, I mean I’ll be, everybody does I think, uh, it just like takes a lot to just like not um, settle for what you see in front of yourself every day and like, um, to challenge yourself to like want everything, um, you know, and not be like satisfied with like, uh, like the level of comfort that you have. Like, Oh, like you know, I can, I can like make it through the day. Like I have food on my table, like dah, dah, dah. And it’s actually like, no, like what I want is for like, like the whole world and for everybody. So like you have to like experiment in your daily life with like these like little moments of like joy, these little moments that you can like, say, I’m going to get, I’m going to get out of my house and be like, do something that makes me uncomfortable because it’s all I can do today to like try to get as close as I can to like what I want at the end. //

I think, I don’t know. Um, and like, and actual crash, probably my, my best friend in high school, I remember like kind of beginning to see, uh, um, I guess sort of like challenge seeing around him and then they’re like towards him. And then I sort of realized that it was kind of coming out of this like, attraction that I had to him. And, um, yes. And that was probably like my first crush //

Oh my God, yes. I can see his cheeks, just like, quivering. Yeah. Just like, you know, when you see like a guy thrusting and like you see as like, but just like two ice cream balls, just like BAP, BAP, BAP //

I love, um, like I said, I love to make people happy. So I love watching people lose control and just let go and like be taken over by an orgasm. And I love the little ego trip cause I did that. I just liked her watch people like, you know, you watch their eyes close and their mouth come agape and they’re like trembling and yeah, they’re sorta like, there’s sort of like tugging’ away from you a little bit  cause it’s too much, you know, so you gotta grip the thigh so they don’t move, they knocking shit over. Oh, I love the noise. //

I mean, I think one, I would like to have more sex cause I feel like, uh, I don’t know. I still feel like if I’m being totally honest, like the person I hooked up with like a week ago, like there’s still that feeling when you haven’t had sex in a while and you’re like in bed with someone and you’re like, am I moving my arm? Right? Like, where should I put my arm now? Or like what part of their body should I touch? And it’s like, I still feel like some part of me still wants to feel like a, I don’t know, like, I want to feel like a consistently sexual being in a way that like straight people get to feel because maybe they have more options or there’s like, I dunno, I dunno. It’s like we all know it’s a spectrum, blah, blah, blah. But I feel like we still live in a very fucking heteronormative society. //

Um, it’s always really exciting and it makes me cry like all the time. It’s like, I love to cry. So maybe that’s like part of it. It’s like half of the joy is like the, the catharsis that comes after like, um, uh, it’s like I am constantly like finding out new Kings or something. And then like, as soon as I find out new King and get to explore it, I just like saw Bob and the sharing of the emotional, um, the emotional moment I may, I have maybe perhaps like after a scene or something is like something that I like to share almost as much as I like the actual cake. It’s just like, Oh, like I got to be extremely vulnerable with somebody and then very vulnerable and get an essay, you know, tell them like, Oh, like this is like something I never thought I’d be able to share with somebody. So it was just like, really just trying to get into like really intense, uh, deep levels of emotional and like, um, psychological, um, sharing //

it’s okay. Um, you know, Mumus and comfortable shoes, the whole lesbian vibe and [inaudible] and all of that. That wasn’t exactly who we were. And we wanted more than a girl with a guitar, you know, and we were tired of being represented like that. So we, we were like, well why do gay men seem to own all the day entertainment? Trans men weren’t in. Even in our conversation. That was something we, we’re hearing kind of from the toast, you know, kind of from New York kind of from um, San Francisco and Oakland that we hear in the Midwest. We didn’t know anything about some male illusionists or um, drag Kings. //

Well, queer spaces here work kind of commercialized for a while because that’s all, at least at the surface and the mainstream queer spaces, that’s all it was. Just commercialize gay. Nobody really knew any different and yeah, it was really nice to not have to do that. I made sure I didn’t do that, and I feel grateful that I wasn’t, that I got invited to play lots of different things in different places. Yeah. //

Oh, I’ve seen it change. There are more places for people to go in? You know, we had maybe five. What’s sad is the block fibers, this gay nightclubs, and I know how this might sound, but the gay night clubs aren’t the best night clubs. Nobody can touch a gay nightclub in terms of music, in terms of fun. Excetera if they could, we’d have someplace to go and they’re gone. And I, you miss that. I do miss the, um, we went there to, to hear the newest gay music. Um, you’re hard pressed to go anywhere gay now and hear gay yard, you know, like you just, they used to be preference and now you know, you ask somebody, they don’t even know who that person might be. //

I was working in a hair salon and one of my managers suggested it to me. Uh, actually funny story because my phone was about to get turned off and I did a competition back there and I went by the name Bianco road now and I, I assumed that I wanted my drag to be hide them like an extravagant, um, later on in 2000 and I want to say 15 ish, 15, 16. Um, I moved to Columbus and through kaleidoscope youth center I was a lot of chances to do drag and gangs cause I only did it once cause to be honest and as I grew and learned more about like the gays thing, uh, that’s when I came up with the name [inaudible] Patty. Cause I wanted this to be a misnomer about the type of art that I was going to present. I didn’t want there to be any preconceived notions or like any, any idea of what I was gonna do.//

Uh, somebody invited me to a queer party in Brooklyn at this space and they’re like, yeah, queer People don’t have to pay cover only CIS people. And I was like, so who’s the, who’s the literal gatekeeper who’s saying who’s queer and who’s not [inaudible]if I walk in there looking wrong, are you going to be like you’re not queer give me five dollars…  who’s the Oracle who’s like “you are not it” you know like they scan you” [laughter] //

It doesn’t matter. Right? Because it’s like you’re like, I don’t know. I’m feeling, I feel like the safety of those spaces for me often feels like I don’t have to answer to anyone else other than everyone that’s in this room. And I trust us to like be able to handle it the best possible way. //

Like I literally am asking myself if I’m trans sometimes. Well, I’m injecting myself with T [laughter] //

Oh, that’s funny. You know, like, but like, but I get that and I moved here, um, for a number of reasons. One, my, um, my partnership with Philip Porter and my, um, partner of 16 years ended to, I buried everybody during the AIDS years, buried my best friend. I buried so many friends, people that I love dearly and even people that I didn’t know very well, I, you know, I buried them after relatives would talk to me about them and I loved them after they died because I discovered how extraordinary they were, you know, but people ask me to do these things all the time. Um, I lost like three best friends that are row basically. //

so, um, because I’m dramatic and um, have to put a little flare on everything, I set up and set all of the stuff up and I decided that I would take one more walk around campus. Um, just, you know, one more bit of oxygen before I came to swallow a whole bunch of pills and not wake up again. While I was out I came across a group of people that look interesting and I’m nosey, and they seemed a little bit fine. So I went towards them and went towards all the commotion and found myself in the very first, um, Stonewall Columbus, I don’t even think it was Stonewall Columbus at that time. Um, the very first pride March //

I broke through this really thin layer that seemed like a matrix, shattering it. And it was like there was this dialogue, there was this context that permitted so much space for me to like understand myself. //

I think that’s what it leads people to like isolation which is the worst thing you can do for yourself and other people. I think that’s what I’m trying to not do get bogged down by the daily oppressive things. I think the things that are repressing and oppressing me or like not severe enough that, you know, it’s like putting me fully out and I’m able to keep grinding a little bit, but I would love to be in a position where I’m able to like, uh, explore pleasure and desire and community without like thinking about like the next month’s bills so intensely. //

They have put a connotation on what it means to be friends in the community. That is unrealistic to have people who are happy, who are non passe such as myself. Like when I get a holding quote as they call it, a dress up. Uh, I am six, eight, six, four out of heroes. Um, so people, people know lagging. My teachers are strong, masculine. But I feel as though in society there is, there is a more respect towards trans women who present high STEM and more, at least I get more questions about my pronouns and how I choose to identify when I curse [inaudible] and then if I am lax and letting myself go, letting my natural hair out and just have on a black mascara and a lip gloss, then if I, um, wig on heels on, dress on types on, which I don’t want to do at the time. But it empowers me in the sense that more people respect my pronouns and I, I, I feel more comfortable using the backroom that I want to use and I feel like there are less questions about why I’m in there or less questions about what I’m doing with my life, which I feel like I said, this is my big love and hate thing. What poles and the rest of the, uh, trans girl who’s made it and modern day strength is that those girls //

and like you have to be like on all the time. And I’m like, Mandy, you wake up everyday feeling like a man. I’m pretty sure you don’t wake up feeling like a dog or feeling like a piece of shit or feeling like you’re not enough for like, you’re not like meeting the standards that were put out for you. Like, why can’t I as a man feel these things too? //

And then like other than that, like a lot of it is like digging like deeply into like sex and kink in a way that is like new for me. And that’s weird. That’s where I find a lot of like, um, strange and like shocking and exciting like desire and pleasure and just like digging through territory within myself that I didn’t know existed. //

I don’t know. Like there’s a, I’m a, I’m a little bit addicted to it because like one, it’s like actual good money and it’s like a job that I like and I want to do. I get to talk to people, I’ve made friends but also it’s like helping me and people are being supportive and kind and I didn’t think it was going to be that kind of world. I’m going into it and looking at other people’s rooms and stuff. There’s like lots of interesting things happening. Like not just like what you think people are coming to the site for. There’s like this dude who plays piano on there all the time and there was this one person who had an entire live set up and was doing music. Um, and there’s people who like, I don’t know, like there’s a drawing one. There was also animated rooms that are really cool. I think just because they like to make the entire code for it and then they like to make the simulation and the character, which is cool. It’s just a lot of interesting meeting people. And I feel like I could get to a point where, and I’ve met a lot of interesting people doing music and stuff, but I feel like I reach more people obviously on the internet. Um, and I could maybe reach more people if I started touring with my music. //

Yeah. It’s funny cause it’s like, uh, yeah, yeah. And, and a lot of like, um, it’s like a lot of the people who like come to and, and like consume or purchase, uh, adult entertainment are like, I felt like it’s like just like these like undergrad them to creepy people or something. And like, it’s like, it’s like lawyers and like high up business officials and like your teacher from your professor from college and like the guy who works at your bank. Like it’s just like under crown versions of their lives. So it’s like, there is a public thing. It’s like, I literally, you know, though, that is my professor, like he knew, he knows I was stripper. That’s very, it makes me very out. But also like, because they themselves also want to keep it private, like it exists somewhere else. //

I feel like, um, it’s too like very different kind of highs and what, well it’s the same high but it’s like two very different kind of performances. But they kind of both helped me now. Um, because I would get tired of performing a lot like music wise cause it’s kinda redundant. Um, if I’m not like changing my setup a lot. Um, and I’m usually playing a lot of the same places. But um, being on camera is like getting to show an entirely different side of my personality. I feel like on the stage it’s, I need to be a little bit more like sort of [inaudible] powerful and engaging and there was a lot less pressure to be engaging to people online because they can see me but like I can’t see them and I don’t know like there’s a, I’m a, I’m a little bit addicted to it because like one it’s like actual good money and it’s like a job that I like and I want to do. I get to talk to people, I’ve made friends but also it’s like helping me and people are being supportive and kind and I didn’t think it was going to be that kind of world. //

I need you out here like acting on impulse and like just doing things out of the box and living free and not being weighed down by other people’s opinions or like really caring about what’s supposed to be your behavior. You know what I mean? Like I need people who live life on their own terms and make the most of what they have and see beauty in things and create beauty. //

Care is, is like at one of the cores of it I think. Um, I like don’t think that I would have any relationship to kink if there wasn’t like a deep level of care involved. Um, whenever I am like playing with somebody, I have to like confirm with them that there will be time after to like sit and figure out like how to move forward with our day or our lives after the scene is over. Um, and then also that like often the scenes themselves are forms of care and forms of processing and forms of exploring, um, either desire or processing trauma or just, you know, experimenting with pleasure. Um, it’s always really exciting and it makes me cry like all the time. It’s like I love to cry. So maybe that’s like part of it. Like I, it’s like half of the joy is like the, the catharsis that comes after like, um, uh, it’s like I am constantly like finding out new Kings or something and then like, as soon as I find out a new King and get to explore it, I just like sob and the sharing of the emotional, um, the emotional moment I may, I have maybe perhaps like after a scene or something is like something that I like to share almost as much as I like the actual kink. //

How do you, how do you have the capacity to be a caretaker when you need a caretaker and know exactly. I’ll tell you were, I think it was the same here. The lesbians showed up in force and they did a lot of the caretaking for their brothers. They, yeah, they just did a lot of the caretaking. Um, and they were organized strongly, no nonsense get out of my way. Um, and they got a lot done. //

I do see like, I see positive outcomes as more in people. More and more people tend to actually find their vocabulary that makes sense to other folks in some type of way. I’ve had to express these things, racist, like trivializing the situation because I think a lot of people opt in to do that instead of like, I guess doing that thing where we’re coming together and really having these conversations with people who have lived experience and all different spectrums. You know? That’s the best way I feel like to have these like conversations where we’re in this, when we’re in this world where we have to be like, we have some things, we have to be radical, you know, because being who we are, it’s just progressive in, in, in general. //

you all are so smart and so dedicated to being healthier emotionally. Don’t hire me if you feel called out because it’s true, but y’all are just all y’all like, y’all are so intentional. Y’all genuinely fucking care about people and you show it and you put him work and no one has to ask you to do better when you fuck up. Like, if I tell you you’ve done something that hurt you, you just automatically are like, I’m going to fix it and not do it again. And like, you’re too though. That’s you though. I want to be answered because of my interview, I just, I love all my friends, like intentionality. I love y’all. His dedication to liberation and the optimism that you maintain despite all of the defeats that we face all the time. And I really fuck with yours. Like additional dedication to healing together. Like not just being healthier on your own and like treating people better, but like making spaces for people to come to and be together after our difficult time. Like I remember folks from the, the Columbus freedom coalition coming over here after Mason ekes sentencing and we all just like sat in a circle and drink and talked and clowned around and listened to mystical. Like we were just like, if it was torquing, like, like we, we just make efforts, you know, we cook for each other, we bring people dinner when they’re like down and out and we have dinner parties when we’re all down and out. Um, we have real parties when we’re all down and out. Like we just know how to, we know how to celebrate and lift each other’s spirits when times are rough and times are always rough cause we live under capitalism. So, um, but yeah, I just really appreciate all of that. The, the true love and the, the intentional love and the love as a verb that I always witness in this community. // 

Mmm. Community means, um, having a strong relationship with your neighbors. And uh, having like trust within people I think means a lot to me in community. Um, and being able to share things with each other, whether that be, um, conversation or like actual materials. Um, I think it’s, you know, and hinges a lot on like friendship, but it doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you’re like close friends. Um, it’s about like allowing, allowing there to be like a common thread between people and knowing what you can give each other, um, outside of, the state. If that’s not clear. Yeah. I mean, I just mean like between just like people //

I’ll probably get shit for this, but I don’t, I don’t remember like our first, like when we first met, um, I do remember that there was a time when we were at the smiling skull and I think I had drank myself into an illness. Like I’d just been drunk, like, you know, probably seven days in a row and was no coming down with a cold of some kind. And we were on the back patio and I was hanging out with some people and somehow she heard through conversation, you know, I’m still drinking. Um, and she hears that I’m sick and we find out that she lives three doors down from me. And she was like, Oh, absolutely, I’ll hand make you a soup. And made me this incredible garlic egg soup that she then delivered to me in a basin jar the next morning. Um, and that’s, I think, my first memory of her. And it was an incredible soup and it did heal me. So maybe that’s it. //

I dunno. I guess i’m asking this question wrong, do you think that folks like us maybe 30 50 years ago can like appreciate a conversation like the one we are having today? Do you think that that we right now currently in this generation see and feel things a lot differently than, you know, folks who… as we were talking, like, you know, people like iconic figures come to my mind, you know what I mean? Like ancestors come to me and like remind me like again, these stories are going to always continue to go on, but like do you think that that is like a significant difference and how we obtain and process the information about what is going on around us versus then. //