Transcript | Ep. 114: Beyond Trans Visibility with Raquel Willis
[CLIP from Brooklyn Liberation March]
Raquel: We have been told that we are not enough to parents, to family, to lovers, to johns, to organizations, to schools, to our government, to the world. And the truth is, is that we’re more than enough.
[Theme music]
Cristen: Hey y’all, and welcome to Unladylike. I’m Cristen.
Caroline: I’m Caroline, and y’all just heard today’s guest, Raquel Willis, speaking at the Brooklyn Liberation March last June.
[CLIP of crowd sounds from the Brooklyn Liberation March)
Raquel: It felt like the air was like electric, like something new was happening here, like we were entering a new era.
Cristen: By day, Raquel is the communications director for the Ms. Foundation for Women. But for the past five years, she’s been on the frontlines of the trans rights movement 24/7. Last summer, as historic numbers of protestors flooded the streets in response to George Floyd’s murder, a group of multiracial, gender expansive activists — including Raquel — organized the Brooklyn Liberation March. They wanted to call attention to the fact that police brutality disproportionately harms Black trans people.
Caroline: The march was quite possibly the largest protest for Black trans lives EVER.
Raquel: The bigger estimates are around 20,000 folks, which is huge. We thought, OK, well, maybe we'll get, you know, a few hundred folks, maybe a few thousand folks. But, you know, when we were speaking at the Brooklyn Museum and we were kind of on this balcony level, the dress code was to wear white and it was a nod to a silent parade that the NAACP had in the early 20th century focused on the victims of lynching. And so that was kind of like our aesthetic nod. And when you looked out from that balcony, it did look like a sea of white, you know, and people came in in their attire and it was just - it was a powerful day.
Caroline: Yeah, can you describe standing up there and talking to the crowd, what what did that feel like for you?
Raquel: It felt powerful, but it it it also felt like, I was really just a vessel. And that was one of those moments was like not worried about how my voice sounded. You know, I think as a trans woman, that is a very common experience of like having all of these second guesses about how do do I sound feminine enough? Do I sound like a woman, you know, like those are real insecurities I carry around as a trans person. And to speak to tens of thousands of folks as my authentic self, open as a trans woman, not being worried about what it meant for anyone to read me as trans, not necessarily feeling unsafe in that moment was a powerful experience and not one I had had before that moment.
Cristen: Today on Unladylike, it’s the making of a modern-day movement leader. First, we’re following Raquel’s path to that Brooklyn Museum balcony and the pivotal events that awakened her activism.
Caroline: Then, we’re digging deeper into transgender inclusion in feminism, the weaponization of womanhood and the onslaught of anti-trans laws that are sweeping the nation.
[Stinger]
Cristen: Ok, so back before you were out here leading an entire movement, we actually all worked together - and that is how you, me and Caroline met. I think it was around 2014. So, we were all working for HowStuffWorks in Atlanta, which is now iHeartpodcasts. So how would you compare the Raquel we met back then to Raquel today.
Raquel: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, Raquel in 2014 was a much different person, so I was definitely um coming to terms with what it meant to be open in my career as a transgender woman. Interestingly enough, when I started at then-HowStuffWorks, I wasn't out. You know, I hadn't had any conversations with any of my colleagues at that point. And I had kind of sworn to myself that if the need arose, I would come out, but I was still kind of navigating in what we consider to be like stealth. So that means kind of, you know, people not saying you're trans, you're not saying you're trans, it’s there, but like, you know, you're kind of flying under the radar or in the closet, as I think most people know it to be. I actually came out December of that year, just a few days after the holidays, the death of Leelah Alcorn, a young transgender girl. She was 17 years old. She died by suicide after being estranged from her family and community. And sent to conversion therapy, there was so much that went on in her life. And she set her suicide letter to published on Tumblr after committing the act. And I remember reading her letter, and she just talked about how she didn't see a future for herself, that she wished that society would be fixed, that somebody needs to fix it. And that really just kind of tore down my thoughts around staying stealth in my journalism and online media career. And so it's it's interesting. I posted a video on YouTube. It got like 4,000 views, which at that time was like, oh, my God, is this viral? And now, you know, like four trillion views is like really viral, shout out to Lil Nas X. So it's like it was it was resetting for me because it really put in perspective the importance of everyone. And I didn't have a platform at that time. Right. So it was really me, Raquel, as like the person who was going to work every day and trying to figure out herself in the world who had to decide it's time to take some risks and put some things on the line, because there are trans youth who are out here who don't see a future for themselves.
Caroline: At what point did you in in this mix, did you start getting interested in activism and organizing and and using your viewpoint and your voice.
Raquel: Everything kind of started to coalesce after learning about Leelah's Leelah Alcorn's death, the young trans girl. The backdrop for those years leading up to it was kind of the emergence of the movement for black lives. I had known about the death of or the really the murder of black trans woman named Islan Nettles in 2013. So this social justice space was kind of emerging, particularly for young Black millennials. And Atlanta was such a part of that, even though I don't think a lot of people know that. But the shutting down of the highways after moments of police brutality. The community organizing that went into different direct actions, that was the landscape of Atlanta that I became a part of right at that time that I came out professionally as trans. So it just was kind of natural to kind of fall in line there.
Cristen: Raquel grew up in Augusta, Georgia — a mid-sized city a few hours from Atlanta.
Raquel: I mean, it was an experience of just feeling very isolated. I always had this idea that there was something greater in a more metropolitan area. Right. That as I was coming in to my identity as a queer person, didn't have language around what it meant to be transgender, as I don't think most people at that time did in the - in the 90s and early 2000s. But I knew I was different, and I knew that largely from how I was being bullied, how you know my peers approached me, the fact that I was always kind of in these gaggles of of girls. Like all of my best friends for the longest time, were really just girls. And for me, it wasn't about my sexual orientation. It was that there was a part of me that knew that I was a girl and that there was something important about my femininity that was strong, that - that I really needed to kind of figure out, but I put it on hold because of the language I had at the time was “gay” because that was all I was ever called.
Caroline: How did those those dynamics and growing up in the South, how did that shape sort of the path you ended up taking?
Raquel: Yeah, you know, I think that being Southern — and I only know this now because I live in Brooklyn — I think being Southern. It truly did give me a different type of character. There's just something about growing up in a space and knowing that that space isn't the center of the world that I think gives you a new lens. And so in all of my work that I've done here in New York, it's always been important to clarify that yes, you know, some of these bigger cities are a bubble right. And there are a lot of myths about the experiences of people outside of them. And so this - this idea that we can kind of paint huge swaths of this country in particular, the United States, with a kind of ignorant brush stroke is unfair. It's so interesting politically to see all of this like hoopla around Georgia, and Georgia means so much, and the election, it really is contingent on what happens in Georgia. And everyone can sing the praises of someone like a Stacey Abrams now. But we forget nationally that we have thrown so much shade at the South and forgotten that all of our deepest organizing histories and activism histories were rooted in the South. You can't talk about social justice in the United States without talking about what enslavement meant in the South, right? You can't talk about the civil rights movement without thinking about Selma and Birmingham and Atlanta and all of these different spaces. There's just so much richness there. And we ignore that when we act as the systems of oppression, like white supremacy and the patriarchy only exist and exert their power in the South.
Cristen: After high school, Raquel went to the University of Georgia where she started taking women’s studies. Those classes gave her a lot of language and context for her own personal gender awakening. And then, tragedy struck.
Caroline: When you were 19, your dad died unexpectedly from a stroke. What effect did that have on you at the time?
Raquel: Yeah, losing my father had a profound effect on me. That experience, I think, was interesting and it really kind of forced me to think about what it meant to live my life on my own terms without kind of these restrictions and expectations, and I was mourning my father, but I was also realizing, oh, but, you know, we had a complicated relationship. He loved me. I loved him dearly. And there are really great parts of our relationship. And he didn't fully understand my queerness and definitely I think it would have been a struggle on the gender tip. And so I think his passing freed me up to kind of break down some of those expectations that I think I had inherited from his own kind of dreams of who I was supposed to be.
Cristen: When we come back, Raquel takes the stage at the 2017 Women’s March in DC. As a Black, trans woman addressing a sea of pink pussyhats, Raquel felt she had to choose her words verrrry carefully….
Caroline: That story and Raquel’s relationship with feminism after a quick break.
[Stinger]
Cristen: We’re back with trans activist and writer Raquel Willis.
Raquel: I see the work that I do now, even though I use the term activist, particularly like in my bio, I see the work that I do as cultural organizing because you know I'm trying to shift our culture to be more affirming of the trans experience, but to also be about protecting our rights, just like we need to protect the rights of any other marginalized group.
Cristen: One of the most challenging spaces to shift cultural ideas about the trans experience and need for inclusion has been within mainstream feminism. Transphobia has dogged feminist organizing for decades. Within the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1970’s, some feminists were openly hostile toward trans women and painted them as dangerous interlopers. (Some even believed they were government agents in disguise out to destroy the feminist movement from within.)
Caroline: Even in 2017 at the Women’s March, the pink pussyhat symbolism reflected the trans and nonbinary exclusion still happening within feminist culture. (Because, y’know, having a pussy doesn’t make you a woman, and not all pussies are pink)
Cristen: Here’s Raquel telling us about her experience speaking at that Women’s March
Raquel: I felt like I had to generalize so much of what I wanted to say, and so in a way, it kept me from just being very clear and concise and specific about what it meant to be a Black trans woman in America at that time.
[CLIP of Raquel speaking at the Women’s March]
Raquel: Black women, women of color, queer women, trans women, disabled women, Muslim women and so many others are still asking many of y’all “aint I am woman?”
Raquel: I think also at that time, it was about so much about “I'm a woman just like you.” I had to put so much energy into trying to hold the mostly cis women leaders accountable for making trans women in particular an afterthought that I couldn't even completely put energy into holding Donald Trump and the people that supported him accountable, you know, it was weird. It was like my energy was stifled in that fight because there was a smaller fight that was happening within women's movement, for me. My microphone was cut in the process of me speaking. And I know who made the call.
[CLIP - Raquel’s mic getting cut off]
Raquel: So as we commit to build this movement of resistance and liberation, no one can be an afterthought anymore. We must hold each (mic trails off)
Raquel: It felt like I was - I had my voice clipped and - and I was discarded, you know,
Cristen: Why - why was your mic cut?
Raquel: So a lot of the earlier speakers didn't adhere to their time restraints, but they also added, I think, celebrities into the lineup. At least that's some of the knowledge that I heard after the fact and so that meant that a lot of the activists and organizers who were in the last half got the short end of the stick. I really already only had like three minutes, so so I had timed the speech and everything together and it was yeah, it was very disheartening.
Caroline: Damn. I didn't - I don't think I knew that Raquel.
Raquel: Yeah, I mean, so it actually was a very interesting experience because I know so many folks left that day feeling so empowered, most - and let's be clear - mostly white, cisgender, straight women, I think, left that day - and privileged, class-privileged women left that day feeling some type of energy or, you know, empowerment, but I didn't, as an individual, leave it that day, and I don't think that a lot of women of color left that day feeling that way. I don't think a lot of queer and trans women left that day feeling that way of speaking to those hats. But among other things, know, I think we learned some valuable lessons that day about what intersectionality truly looks like. And and also, let's be clear, intersectionality was still on its way to becoming a buzzword at that time, so the concept of thinking about patriarchy right beside white supremacy was not there, it just was not there yet. I think we as a nation had to go through some things, unfortunately, to really start having a true conversation around what intersectionality is.
Cristen: Yeah, I think that the the overwhelming whiteness and cis-ness, the pink pussy hat of it all, of that moment also seems like it. I don't know. I feel like it also helped catalyze the conversations that have been happening over the past year around white feminism and really holding - holding that movement more to account than it had been and really kind of forcing more and more introspection and reckoning within the you know so-called feminist tent.
Raquel: Right? Yeah, you know, I almost liken it to, you know, I think that for a while a lot of cis people were like, “well, why do I have to be called cis, like, I'm not speaking from a cis experience.” I think when it comes to feminism, it does feel weird for a lot of white women to consider, “Oh, yeah, I'm a feminist, but I am a white feminist. And that has played a role in how I've spoken about things, thought about things and navigated the world in accordance to some of these systems.” Right. And that's a hard pill for anyone to swallow. Right. When - we all have to grapple with the fact that we all have some type of privilege and that we are all oppressed in some way. And I think the harder pill for a lot of people is the privilege piece. It just simply is.
Caroline: Yeah how how has your relationship to feminism evolved?
Raquel: You know, I am still a feminist, you know, I I believe that there is still a lot of work that we can do in the name of feminism. I've moved beyond a time when I felt like I had to defer to cis women in a particular way and and wink, wink and nod, nod, “I'm just like you, right?” Like. You know, we are women, you know, but we aren't just alike. And that - that is fine. You know so me as a trans woman saying, you know, that we're different, I'm not saying that that means go off onto this bi - biological essentialism tip. Right. And use that to make really damaging statements about trans women and our bodies. But that doesn't mean that there aren't commonalities there around what bodily autonomy means. Right. Because there is a connection there around conservative lawmakers trying to restrict me from having access to that surgery and trying to restrict you from having an abortion. Right. And having access to that. Right. They're still trying to police our reproductive systems. So I think we've got to get more expansive about how we think about these connections and not try to restrict people based on their identity.
Cristen: Is the move the mainstream movement at this point, do you think wiser than it was in regard to inclusion and identity.
Raquel: I think. I am hopeful, right, that there are more feminists who are with the trans community than who are against the trans community. Or at least are curious about what being with the community looks like. I do think that we are in a time when we can have more nuanced conversations. Unfortunately, I think the world needed to see what it looks like to have lawmakers and and particularly a president specifically go after the trans community to kind of understand how discriminatory our society is towards trans people. Right. I think that. We can fight for reproductive justice and understand that we don't have to fuel that fight with these kind of essentialist ideas of of of womanhood. I think there's so much space here for us to be invested in our fight against the cis-hetero patriarchy and not fight each other, because that's really, I think, what the conservative agenda is about, it's about turning would-be allies against each other. There there is a concerted effort to sow that division because they know that if all of these people who understand how bullshit the patriarchy is come together, they're going to be in a fix. And I think what you see now as well across the board on the conservative side is they know that they have to tap into some type of identity when it comes to their fight or they're going to get left behind. They're going to continue to lose as big as they've been doing. And so you see the weaponizing of womanhood, white womanhood in particular. Right. So if you look at miss thang who was just appointed to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett. You know. She in some ways is being used by a conservative agenda to kind of wipe away any critiques that anyone would have about them being patriarchal or catering to white, cis, het men. So. So we've got to get smarter and more in tune with how identity can be weaponized against us.
Cristen: We’re going to take a quick break. Up next, Raquel walks us through the tidal wave of anti-trans laws that states are trying to pass and why they’re dangerous for all of us.
Caroline: Stick around.
[Stinger]
Caroline: We’re back with Raquel Willis. The day before we interviewed her, Raquel had been on TV discussing the news out of Arkansas. That state just enacted a law making it the first in the country to ban gender affirming healthcare for trans kids.
Cristen: There have been so many anti-trans laws being proposed on the state and federal level this year, it’s hard to keep track of them all. Most would either restrict healthcare access for trans youth or ban trans girls from school sports. But conservative lawmakers are spinning them as pro-women and -girls by calling these bills things like the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” and the “Protection of Women and Girls In Sports Act.”
Caroline: How chivalrous.
Cristen: That doublespeak infuriates me to no end. But if anyone knows how to effectively respond to it, it’s Raquel.
Caroline: Raquel, how do we counteract that bullshit language of like, “Oh we’re not bigots. We’re just trying to protect our girls.”
Raquel: It's hard. We are in a year, all right. We're not even halfway through the year. Right. We're we're about a quarter through the year, just a little more than that. We have had an insurrection at the Capitol. We have had mass shootings, one of which largely targeted Asian women in Atlanta. And the focus of these lawmakers on on trans people and the few trans youth in particular who want to access sports and deserve to access playing the sports that that fulfill them and trans people accessing health care. The priorities are all out of whack, people, like seriously, if they really cared about anybody's lives, you would see them having real conversations on gun control or having real conversations about how their mis- and disinformation efforts have increased the amount of violence that we see, particularly socially against groups on the margins, but also against the lawmakers who are supposed to be showing up for us. So it's ridiculous.
Cristen: So, like you mentioned, we are barely a quarter through the year and it's also, I believe, already a a record year in terms of just the sheer volume of transphobic legislation that has been introduced on the state level, just dozens and dozens and dozens of bills. And there's so much, it's moving so fast. What are the top line things that that you really want unladies to know?
Raquel: You know, I think the biggest thing is this year, you're right, we're seeing more than 90 pieces of anti-trans legislation, which does not include companion bills, which is above 100. Now, this is an evolution from a few years ago when there was all of the hoopla about the bathroom bills. Right. And I believe that they saw that they couldn't get a foothold with those. And obviously, the fight around HB-2 in North Carolina, which had a devastating economic impact on the state as brands and corporations pulled out of that state. Kind of you know silenced that a bit, but they have come back and are kind of more laser focused on largely trans youth. The conservative agenda against trans folks, and and I say conservative but there are also places like in South Carolina where one - where one of the people pushing the bill as a Democratic person. It's about exploiting the ignorance of the general public. They know that there are still a large part of the United States or a large part of Americans who say that they don't know a trans person. And when you don't know a person, you can become victims to all sorts of misinformation about them. But, you know, I think the other thing that people don't often know is that there has been a long history of criminalizing gender nonconforming people, you know trans people, even though we weren't necessarily using the term trans throughout history, have always been under attack. You now, this is just the evolution of, like I said, those bathroom bills from a few years ago, but also a lot of the anti-crossdressing laws from decades ago, which in large part led to the Stonewall riots and and that uprising during the late 60s and other ones as well. So it's always been here. I think, you know, the conservative agenda is about kind of rehashing these fights, just like the voter restriction and suppression conversation as well. Right. It's about continuing the policing of communities on the margins.
Caroline: Is it is it possible to to stop this tidal wave, like Cristen said, it does feel like it's just coming so fast like a firehose. Is it is it possible to stop this?
Raquel: I think that our biggest effort in kind of heading off some of it is by continuing to educate ourselves, continuing to have conversations like this, right. And not just on Trans Day of Visibility or Trans of Remembrance or Pride Month, but all the time. You know this when I think about some states, you know, some of the legislation that they're pushing is to create registries that have genetic information about all of their athletes, which is weird, right, it’s such a weird invasion of people's privacy and their bodies and that won't just impact trans people. That will impact cis athletes as well in those states. You know, so we're all at risk. My thing these days is that I want us to get to a point where we understand that everybody is some kind of gender nonconforming. You will never be the perfect ideal version of masculinity and manhood, right. You will never be the perfect ideal version of femininity and womanhood. We all deal with this kind of restrictive idea of who we're supposed to be. You know, the boys and the men who are told they can't cry and have - have a well-rounded emotional experience are losing out on a part of humanity. The - the women and the girls who are told that they can’t be strong, brilliant, creative, capable leaders are missing out on a part of their humanity. And the folks who are dealing with all of that at once, the trans, the gender nonconforming folks, are missing out on it as well. So. We've got to fight this now before it gets worse.
Cristen: So big question, what does a world where trans identity is not only tolerated and accepted, but completely normalized? Like what - what does that world look like?
Raquel: Yeah, well, you know, I don't know if the goal is to be normalized, right, or assimilation necessarily. I think the goal is the destigmatizing for sure. That world looks like one where we don't build expectations for other people, particularly children. And when they don't fit in line with those expectations, we chastise them and are violent towards them because of it. Right I think there's such a universal experience that we we have where we don't fall perfectly in line with the expectations that maybe our parents our guardians had for us. And that means that we really need parents and guardians and folks to expand beyond that and to understand that it's not really about them, it's about them supporting and facilitating us and being the best people that we can be. Right. And that that we're destined to be.
Caroline: I wanted to ask you, you know, I think it is so crucial to continue to highlight, you know, the violence and the danger that trans space, you know, you you have the Trans Obituaries Project that you started and I think it's so important to get to know the names and stories behind the statistics that we hear. But how do you balance the importance of talking about that, the violence, with the joy of celebrating trans lives and stories and experiences.
Raquel: Yeah, you know, I think. You're right, like there there is a balance that we have to hit with telling the real and kind of gritty experiences of trans folks, but I think that just means that we have more stories. I don't think that that means we silence the hard things because if we don't talk about the hard things then those things don't get addressed and change. You know, when I think about the Trans Obituaries Project, it wasn't just to talk about the epidemic of violence, though that was the main thing. My aim with that was never to do a woe-is-us kind of experience or or contribute to a tragic narrative, it was to give those trans women of color in 2019 the obituaries that they deserved, and it was just as much about shining a light on the epidemic of violence as it was about celebrating their lives in a way that our media landscape largely still isn't equipped to do. It was also about bringing some bit of catharsis to the people left behind. You know, I think that that is the stronger story. People have got to know that trans people aren't just floating in air, solitary. Right? Like we have loved ones, we fall in love, we break up with people, you know, we have full lives. You know, I have a mom who loves me and has evolved with me on this journey. We're very close, and she worries about my life and she celebrates me. I have good friends that I can talk about all types of things. And it's not always or even largely about being trans. Right. It's just about connecting to each other as human beings. But I got my girls, my black trans gaggle, and then I got you know gaggles of folks who are not black and trans, but who are all varying types of experiences. Right. And I love them dearly. I have a sister, a brother. I got nieces and nephews who love to squeal my name, "auntie Raquel, auntie Raquel." Right. And I want love, you know, and I want to continue to tell stories and dream. And that's what we've got to get to for everyone, and particularly for trans people, is that we're human.
Cristen: You can find Raquel on Twitter at @raquelwillis_ or on Instagram @raquel_willis.
Caroline: You can find us on instagram, facebook and Twitter @unladylikemedia. You can also support Cristen and me by joining our Patreon; you’ll get weekly ad-free bonus episodes, listener advice and our undying love at patreon.com/unladylikemedia.
Cristen: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford and Andi Kristins. Executive producers are Peter Clowney, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.
Caroline: This podcast was created by your hosts, Caroline Ervin
Cristen: And Cristen Conger of Unladylike Media.
Caroline: Next week…
Sen. Mazie Hirono: I was talking with Dick Durbin and I had a we were coming up in the Judiciary Committee on a bill that I wanted. It was my bill and we were going to mark it up in committee. And he said that the Republicans are going to have all kinds of amendments. What do I want to do with them? And I said, you know, under normal circumstances, we would try and work it out. And and but I said these are not normal circumstances, so fuck them. And Dick Durbin said, I hate it when you use technical terms that I have to look up.
Cristen: We are talking with Mazie Hirono, the curse-slinging senator from Hawaii, about leading the charge for AAPI inclusion in the Biden cabinet and why she’s finally getting angry.
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