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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Here in Pride Month, we'll wrap up the show for today talking about a particular LGBTQ group at the intersection of race and gender who face particular challenges and who are also at the heart of the incident that made June Pride Month in the first place, people who are Black and trans. Black trans New Yorkers, especially a trans woman named Marsha P. Johnson, some of you know that name, are remembered as some of the people at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village on June 28th, 1969 who resisted when police raided the bar touching off the days’ long protest that has become known as the launching pad of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Gay bars couldn't get liquor licenses at the time, which is why police raided the Stonewall for the egregious crime of serving drinks to its customers.

Despite that important place in history, today Black and trans Americans face higher rates of homelessness, violence, unemployment, employment discrimination and other problems than other LGBTQ folks according to the website, The Conversation. With us now, Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, a health and equity advocate, community educator, writer and leader in the transgender and HIV communities. Good morning, Tori, and welcome to WNYC. Thank you so much for joining us.

Tori Cooper: Good morning, Brian. Thank you so much for having this really important conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Want to talk a little about history first, Marsha P. Johnson or the place of Black trans people in general at the Stonewall?

Tori Cooper: First, I want to thank you for that wonderful retelling of how the events happened. You gave it with just the right amount of snark, how egregious that a bar would sell alcohol to its patrons but yes, it happened. It happened and it happened because it was time to happen. People just like me, and so many others of us were simply sick and tired of being treated differently because we were not straight, we were not cisgender, we weren't white, so many other things that we weren't, but being treated poorly simply because of what and who we are.

Brian Lehrer: Yet, it seems progress toward equality and let's say mainstream cultural acceptance for LGBTQ people other than trans people in general, has gone much more quickly than for trans Americans of any color. Is that your impression and if so, why?

Tori Cooper: That's a very, very scary and accurate way of depicting it because yes, there are folks who understand because they have a gay brother, or they have a lesbian sister, or they have an aunt [unintelligible 00:03:00] who's had a lifelong roommate. But there are folks who still say, "Well, I don't understand trans people so I don't want them to have equal rights. I don't understand trans people so I'm going to create laws that prevent trans people from having access to the same thing that everyone else does."

One of the biggest things that we fight as trans or non-binary people is misinformation. When folks find out who we are, when they actually meet us, when they learn about trans people, then they realize we're your cousins, we're your sisters, your brothers, your friends, your relatives, just like everyone else, and really are deserving of the same equal and equitable treatment as everyone else.

Brian Lehrer: Can you talk about the intersectionality involved here, xenophobia, racism, cisnormativity for the Black trans community in particular?

Tori Cooper: You brought up a lot of really important things. Intersectionality is extremely important because you might be-- So I am a 52-year-old Black transgender woman who used to live in New York and now lives in the South. You may be fine with the fact that I'm Black, but you hate the fact that I'm a woman. You might even be fine with the fact that I'm a Black woman, but it disgusts you that I identify as transgender. Intersectionality is all of those different parts of me and parts of each of us, that people will use to discriminate against you, that they find different.

As Black transgender people-- Well, one of the exercises that I do when I'm with people is I have people describe themselves using commas for each thing that they described about themselves. For Black transgender folks, more specifically Black transgender women, we have a lot of commas and there's a lot of room for discrimination there. People will use those things because the majority of folks in the country are not like us. As a society, we often feel that we must hate things and we must treat things poorly if we don't know or understand them.

Brian Lehrer: When you say a lot of commas, you're talking about the punctuation, right? Black, trans, female, like that?

Tori Cooper: That's exactly right, our intersectional identities.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anybody want to call up and state your commas? You could state your pronouns if you want and--

Tori Cooper: Well, perhaps you could do that for folks also, Brian. If you give up some of your commas [inaudible 00:05:33].

Brian Lehrer: I've done it before. I'm a straight, white, cisgender, male, that's it. Not reluctant to do that and do it again. Listeners who are particularly Black and trans for this segment, we have a few minutes where you can just let your voice be heard and say what's important to you in this Pride Month or at any other time, about that particular identity with those particular commas. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

I mentioned the article on the website, The Conversation before. One of the things it says, “Many hate crimes go unreported against Black trans people due to both fear that one's identity will be questioned and lack of trust in law enforcement." Can you talk about the reluctance to call law enforcement for people who are victims of crime?

Tori Cooper: Certainly. Many Black people have articulated over the years and over the generations that there's a general distrust of police officers. I happen to be a homeowner. I am a fan of police officers. I want my home in my neighborhood to be safe. I support police officers and respect the fact that they put their lives on the line for all of us. With that being said, as Black people, many of us learn to fear police officers and not always in a healthy way.

Add to that, being what's considered a gender minority, a person whose ID may not match with the person who is standing in front of you. That can be a problem because police officers bring their own personal bias into the situations. First responders do as well. If you happen to be a person who is a public servant, and you don't understand trans people or don't like trans people, then you may not give me the best service in that particular time. Trans people have experienced that and so it makes many of us much more leery about contacting the police.

Brian Lehrer: Drilling down even one step further on some of what you brought up there, do trans people of color face from police officers or anyone else more, let's say, deadnaming and misgendering? For people who don't know the term, can you say what deadnaming is?

Tori Cooper: Well, thank you for bringing that up. Yes, we do face a lot of misgendering and deadnaming. Deadnaming is when you use a person's name that is not the name that they use. For instance, my name is Tori Cooper, my pronouns are she and her. However, let's say hypothetically, I was named Thomas at birth, but the world only knows me as Tori. That's how I identify, that's how I present myself to the world as a Black woman named Tori who happens to be transgender. But if you call me Thomas, then you're deadnaming me and that's disrespectful.

It's disrespectful if you're a relative, it's disrespectful if we're at the local grocery store picking melons. It's even more disrespectful and can even be dangerous when there's someone of authority who is doing that, especially when it's intentional.

Brian Lehrer: I know you're involved in the HIV community as well. Have Black trans people gotten or suffered from HIV more than other people or had more barriers to treatment?

Tori Cooper: Yes, without a question. There’re going to be folks who are going to listen and they're going to say, "Well, everyone has access to things." That's kind of true. We know that in 1995 this magical cocktail, highly active antiretroviral therapy, also known as HAART became available for some white folks across the country. Those at the time were white cisgender gay men who had good insurance or who have participated in certain research studies.

In '96 is when the highly active antiretroviral therapy became available to everyone else. And- -then even further than that, there’re places in the South where folks didn't get it. We know that there are a lot of HIV medicines and treatment and even prevention modalities that didn't include Black people or queer people or trans people, or non-binary people in research. We know biologically, there may be some differences in the way that our bodies take on certain medications or react to certain medications. AZT is a great example of that because research wasn't done.

We also know that racism, systemic racism exists in all of the systems that we have to navigate. The medical system, the HIV care system was built by white gay men who were dying of AIDS. That's according to the wording of the Denver Principles of 1983, and thank God for those white gay men because they created a health system that worked until it didn't.

As more people were diagnosed with what we now call HIV, healthcare systems weren't prepared to take care of people who spoke Spanish as their first language Those are people of color. Healthcare systems weren't prepared for folks whose culture says that they as an Asian woman cannot be in a room having conversations about sex with someone other than another woman or with a man. That's a person of color.

We also know that again, systemic racism exists in the way that folks have access to jobs, which could provide private health insurance. That could continue to go on, but we don't have a lot of time today,

Brian Lehrer: Before we run at a time. I want to cite one more quote from the article on The Conversation we were reading that says, "Throughout history, transgender people of color have had a place of honor in many indigenous cultures around the world." I'll be honest, I read that line and I thought, “Really? Is that just romanticization of anything non-European or is that really true?” Do you have any history or knowledge of anything like that?

Tori Cooper: Oh, it's really true. It's really, really true. We have to think when the puritans came here to the place that we now call the United States, there were folks who identified as two-spirit even before those folks appeared here. When they colonized this land that we all live and happily thrive on now, they changed the entire dynamic and they got rid of things that they didn't agree with and cultures. We know that in different parts of Africa that there were words to describe folks who using today's terminology would be something other than cisgender.

We know that words like ‘Hija’ and ‘Mahu’ exist in other cultures, the Hawaiian cultures and Indian cultures and that they are words that are far older than these United States that we live in. There have been cultures who have identified trans people and owned and accepted, and even worshiped trans people for far longer than we have on this land.

Brian: That is the last word for today from Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, also a health and equity advocate, community educator, writer, and leader in the transgender and HIV communities. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Happy Pride Month.

Tori Cooper: Thank you and happy Pride to you and your listeners as well.

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