Tag: remy black

Bushwig 2021 – Day 2 (NSFW)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date October 26, 2021

BUSHWIG DAY 2

(NSFW)

09-12-21

KNOCKDOWN CENTER, QUEENS

Looks and performances from the first day of Bushwig featuring Casey Spooner, Dahlia Sin, Evah Destruction, Jasmine Kennedie, Kevin Aviance, La Zavaleta, Maddelynn Hatter, Miss Malice, Neon Calypso, Rify Royalty, The Dragon Sisters, and much more.

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Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, please consider donating:

EVENTS

Tags alexey-kim_, amanda lepore, azealia banks, baby love, beaujangless, bones jones, boulet brothers, bushwig, casey spooner, ceyenne doroshow, charlene incarnate, chevy lace, chiquitita, christeeene, coriander spice, dahlia sin, Dirty Martini, elle no.5, emi grate, evah destruction, ginger von snap, glow job, heidi n closet, honey davenport, horrorchata, J'Royce Jata, janelle no. 5, jasmine kennedie, jay kay, jette grey, joey arias, k james, kevin aviance, knockdown center, La Zavaleta, lady shug, Lola Von Rox, louisianna purchase, luxx noir london, maddelynn hatter, magenta, marcy richardson, marti g cummings, martyr, megami, miss malice, mondo guerra, mthr trsa, Neon Calypso, new york city, nicky ottav, qween jean, remy black, rify royalty, robyn edges, rollingray, serena tea, simone moss, susanne bartsch, switch n’play, the dragon sisters, the illustrious blacks, The Royal House of LaBeija, tommy genesis, tyler ashley, Untitled Queen, west dakota

Events Festivals Timeline

Bushwig 2019 – Day 1 (NSFW)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date September 14, 2021

BUSHWIG DAY 1

(NSFW)

09-11-21

KNOCKDOWN CENTER, QUEENS

Looks and performances from the first day of Bushwig featuring Azealia Banks, Boulet Brothers, Ceyenne Doroshow, Chiquitita, Heidi N Closet, Horrorchata, Louisianna Purchase, Mondo Guerra, Nicky Ottav, Qween Jean, RollingRay, The Royal House of LaBeija, Untitled Queen, West Dakota, and much more.

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Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, please consider donating:

EVENTS

Tags alexey-kim_, amanda lepore, azealia banks, baby love, beaujangless, bones jones, boulet brothers, bushwig, casey spooner, ceyenne doroshow, charlene incarnate, chevy lace, chiquitita, christeeene, coriander spice, dahlia sin, Dirty Martini, elle no.5, emi grate, evah destruction, ginger von snap, glow job, heidi n closet, honey davenport, horrorchata, J'Royce Jata, janelle no. 5, jasmine kennedie, jay kay, jette grey, joey arias, k james, kevin aviance, knockdown center, La Zavaleta, lady shug, Lola Von Rox, louisianna purchase, luxx noir london, maddelynn hatter, magenta, marcy richardson, marti g cummings, martyr, megami, miss malice, mondo guerra, mthr trsa, Neon Calypso, new york city, nicky ottav, qween jean, remy black, rify royalty, robyn edges, rollingray, serena tea, simone moss, susanne bartsch, switch n’play, the dragon sisters, the illustrious blacks, The Royal House of LaBeija, tommy genesis, tyler ashley, Untitled Queen, west dakota

Videos

Conversations: What Are We Doing To Protect Black Trans Women? (Part II)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date February 29, 2020

What Are We Doing To Protect

Black Trans Women?

(Part II)

Remy Black is an artist, a sex worker, and a black trans woman. Remy explores many sensitive subjects and the reality of “living in a dangerous body.”

ARTICLE PART II

VIDEO PART I

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Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, please consider donating:

Tags Alexey Kim, alexey-kim_, conversations, Felix Santos, felix-santos_, remy black, transgender, videos

EDITORIAL Timeline

Living In A Dangerous Body, Or What Are We Doing To Protect Black Trans Women? (Part II)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date February 26, 2020

EDITORIAL | CONVERSATIONS

Living In A Dangerous Body,

Or What Are We Doing To Protect Black Trans Women?

(Part II)

WATCH VIDEO

Conversations is a series of stories involving heart-to-heart talks that touch upon provocative subjects and bring them to life.

PART I

Remy Black is a drag performer, singer and a black trans woman. In the first part of our Conversations we spoke to Remy about religion and spirituality, the culture of drag, creating spaces for trans women and the reality of “living in a dangerous body.”

In the second part of our sit-down discussion we touched upon many other sensitive subjects seen through Remy’s eye, like her journey towards becoming a sex worker, her dreams and goals on becoming an artists, on realizing her trans identity, and who should be given the microphone to speak on behalf of their community.

On Sex Work

SWK: You told me you’re a sex worker because you chose to be, but there are also very minimal options for trans women to find work. What kind of experience did you have with that?

Remy: So I was pursuing a PhD, prior to transitioning, in Clinical Psychology. I had gone through some life circumstances, I was basically really smart. The most reasonable thing for me to do would be to pursue a career in academia and secure that bag. So I applied to PhD programs. I ended up going to WVU â€“ they were paying me to go there. When I started transitioning, I realized that being a trans woman in the profession that I have chosen, was definitely not going to work. I’m dealing with people and I’m dealing with people’s emotional vulnerabilities. People are already coming with assumptions about trans people and so I was censored and it was basically advised that I present male at all times, and this is while I was on hormones literally growing tits, right?

So I’m sitting here, growing these tits and these people made me work in a prison, and they were like:

â€œYou have to dress like a dude there.â€

But nobody was convinced, and all the inmates just wanted to fuck me and it was just like this weird thing.

I am kind of a hermit. I don’t leave my home unless I need to because I don’t like to deal with the people out there. Everywhere I go they either are trying to fuck me or they are trying to clock me, some of them are trying to get violent. People fucking misgender me all day. And it’s just really fucking annoying. So then you have that mixed into a professional setting, when Iâ€™m trying to make my money and it’s just like too much to deal with. So could I go get a job at H&M? Yeah, probably. But Iâ€™ll be misgendered all day. How many people do I encounter at a fucking retail job, like maybe a couple hundred people a day or something? Most of those people, if they’re not queer, they don’t have contacts for trans identity. So existing in that is really difficult, so I choose not to.

I also am able to make a decent amount of money doing what I do and you know, there’s options for trans women with desirable bodies, and I happen to be one of those people and I’m also a very sexually liberated person.

So, I don’t fucking care, yeah I’ll do porn, yeah I’ll suck your dick, yeah Iâ€™ll fucking, you know, dick this dude down. You’re giving me $300? Yeah Iâ€™ll fuck you and then I’ll go about my business. Right? So, you know, I’ll probably see a client today. Maybe I’ll make a hundred fifty. Maybe I’ll make $300 today. That’s an hour of my time. And then that’s it. You’re not making $300 today [speaking to me]. And so I can basically live the life that allows me to experience less transmisogynistic violence both in physical and spiritual and metaphysical ways.

On Being An Artist

Remy: But you know, that’s not my long-term goal this year specifically. I am intending upon being recognized as an artist outside of just a drag career, outside of my body and sex.

So I have a couple things on the books this year that I’m really fucking pumped about.

So, HBO is doing this documentary called Wigstock. There was a former Wigstock documentary made back in 1994 when Lady Bunny did the first festival. And so they wanted to revisit the drag community in Brooklyn and show like the evolution of drag through this community specifically. And they chose a couple people to follow in this documentary. And one of those people is my friend Charlene.

She’s a writer. She’s a drag queen, sheâ€™s a thinker, a really powerful figure in the Brooklyn queer community, definitely. And she has been doing it for quite some time. So like 2014 maybe.

So, the documentary will feature her and her work in her community. And being someone who’s been best friends with her for like a decade now, our stories are intertwined in a lot of ways that were relevant to this film and some of that was highlighted and put into the film. As well as some of my performance, some of me talking and dancing and shit. So Iâ€™m going to be in the HBO documentary, that is probably going to be a pretty seminal piece of drag film work. You know, we have Paris Is Burning, the original Wigstock. It was directed by Chris Moukarbel who just did Lady Gagaâ€™s Five Foot Two and won a Golden Globe for that. So this is his next project. And funny enough he and I, and Charlene really, met through the connection to the Tennessee queer community that I was telling you about. So it’s just like this weird small little family. So thatâ€™s on the horizon.

I will maybe be doing this off-Broadway situation, this queer production of Hair the musical, which would give the world an opportunity to hear my voice, and bitch that’s all I fucking need. Thatâ€™s all I fucking need â€“ is an opportunity for the world to hear my voice. And then I’m also working on producing some of my own music. So I’m working on transitioning out of sex work and drag. Not transitioning out of, but more so expanding my repertoire. It would be nice to be known as a musical performance artist and not just a voice on Facebook or a drag queen in Miami.

Who Are We Giving The Microphone To?

Remy: There’s been some news publications about the Miami queer scene, you know, that have had a bunch of the young drag queens talk about gender and talking about their scene and whatever, and I see these lines getting crossed, right? These 18-, 19-year-olds, 20-, 21-year-old kids, because of their social media followings, are being viewed and positioned as leaders in discourse on trans identity and on gender and I’m like. Okay. Okay. I’ve literally written research papers at the PhD level on this. You know what I’m saying?

So it is really weird for me to have these kids on the cover of magazines. You know what Iâ€™m saying? People don’t understand why that frustrates me and then they see my outrage and they are saying, why is she always mad. Iâ€™m not mad, Iâ€™m really not, I think that we just need to be careful. That’s all, because there’s national attention to…

SWK: Who we are giving the microphone to, and who we are giving voice to.

Remy: Who we are giving the microphone to. Exactly. Thatâ€™s all, thatâ€™s all. Are we giving the voice to any black people? Are we giving the microphone to any sex workers? Those are two communities that, of course, I rally for, because I’m a member of them.

SWK: Well, this is exactly why I wanted to give you the microphone.

Remy: Thank you and Iâ€™m glad that you did.

On Realizing Her Trans Identity

Remy: And you know what, one of the greatest ironies in life is that as long as heterosexuals keep producing children, which they will, because they believe that that is their purpose in life, they will continue to produce queer people, period. Like, homosexuals are made from straight people or from people that need to be straight at least. At the very end of the day as long as you continue to produce life, you will produce it with all of the complexities of life. The sooner that we can come to appreciate that… And I’ve had to learn to appreciate that within myself and I think that a lot of my own understanding of my trans identity comes from an attempt to hold space for all of the dynamics of my being.

When I say that I’m a woman, you know, sometimes I don’t really have a clear idea of what that means. Other than that I had actively engaged in the process of revolting against the manhood and the assumptions of maleness that I was born into, but what it doesn’t mean is that I’m invested in the traditional gender roles or understandings of womanhood as it is dictated by cis-normative society.

I’m not trying to affirm the binary, but I am trying to affirm the fact that I am claiming space as a woman, you know what I mean? I’m not doing that temporarily, I’ve been doing that for years now and I’m going to continue to do that going forward.

SWK: How did you come down to that realization?

Remy: It was a process honey, Iâ€™ll tell you literally what happened. I was watching Charlene Incarnate in Brooklyn, New York on acid going into 2016 right? I was on this heavy fucking trip cuz that was my first time in a queer community, ever. Iâ€™d been to a gay bar, but Iâ€™d never seen a queer community. Iâ€™ve seen queer people. But not the whole gathering of them and it was in Charlene’s home, which was a very large space. And so Iâ€™m like, you know helping my friend get ready for her show, and I was like helping as a part of her number. She was doing this number called â€œLucy In The Sky With Diamonds.â€ But it was done by Natalie Cole instead of The Beatles and so I had this light that I was shining on her â€“ it was a spotlight.

In the beginning there’s this monologue and it goes:

â€œAs we continue along on our time machine, we pass the many different eras of time. Times when ladies were very very special, like Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Venus the goddess of love, and who do we have for the future? You’ll never, ever guess.â€

And then the number starts.

*Remy starts singing

â€œPicture yourself in Nevada.â€

And it’s like the whole gag, at least the way that she played it. I understood, because I know her and I also am intuitive. Iâ€™m like, she’s announcing herself as what we have for the future and in a trans body. She’s making a statement about trans women being that woman who we have for the future and sheâ€™s positioning herself in the narrative of a trans woman.

So then when I also came to my trans identity it was kind of the same thing. I was like, oh there’s layers to this shit. So not only Iâ€™m a cocksucker, Iâ€™m also not a man. Well that makes sense, you know what I mean? So then it was like.

â€œWell, I don’t know, is my cocksucking that strange or is that just something that girls do? Girls like to suck dick, girls like dudes, I like dudes.â€

My concept, my queerness evolved with every layer that unfolds. And I’m probably still discovering the truth of who I am daily. Like I learn new things about myself, I unlearn habits and I am just trying to live as honestly and as authentically as possible and I try to be considerate of others. I think it’s important to know your truth and to live your truth and to broadcast your truth, but I also think it is important to be considerate of where other people are.

On Seign Beyond The Veil

I think that without a real-life spiritual commitment outside of this scene, outside of that, is really difficult to really progress beyond the veil, right? Because you’re really still plugged into the immediacy of the community and the moment that you are experiencing. For some who have professions within the community, then that gets tied up with monetary gain and capitalism, and then we get back to recreating those structures that really, we are trying to break apart, but it’s because the foundation isn’t there.

It can’t just be about

â€œI want to be able to wear whatever I want.â€

It has to really be on an empathic level,

â€œI want to take on the role to be, essentially the villain of society, to troll all of these concepts, to break all of them down.â€

And I know that that is dangerous, but I’m making it my life’s work. Not just because I want to be cool, not just because it’s fun, but because I’m trying to better the future for the kids, for the world. Do you know what I mean? To make more space. So when I look at somebody in the scene, I’m always assessing, like are you trying to be cool and famous or are you trying to change the world? Who knows? And itâ€™s a process.

SWK: To me you seem very liberated and open and you’re very, obviously, intelligent about realizing your path and how you’re living your life. Why didn’t you just pretend to be straight and you know, please your parents, live by what the community wants from you?

*Remy laughs

Remy: Do the thing, right? Be in the box.

Itâ€™s just I never had any other desire than to be honest with myself. I’ve only ever wanted to be me as authentically as possible. Thatâ€™s always been important.

If you would like to support Remy on her journey, you can donate to her Patreon account here. Please support, protect, speak up for and cherish our trans sisters of color.

Alexey Kim

Founder

For image use or to request to see the full album of the event e-mail

[email protected]

If you enjoy our work, plese consider donating:

EDITORIAL

Tags Alexey Kim, conversations, remy black, transgender

EDITORIAL Timeline

Living In A Dangerous Body, Or What Are We Doing To Protect Black Trans Women? (Part I)

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date February 4, 2020

EDITORIAL | CONVERSATIONS

Living In A Dangerous Body,

Or What Are We Doing To Protect Black Trans Women?

(Part I)

WATCH VIDEO

Conversations is a series of stories involving heart-to-heart talks that touch upon provocative subjects and bring them to life.

Conversations project started about a year ago with a very uncomfortable situation, that became a learning experience, when I attended my first drag party in Miami. I took photos of a trans woman, named Remy Black, who performed in the nude and got them published on an online queer blog without asking her permission. She reached out to me the next day and asked to have a conversation about consent. I was mortified, but the way that Remy approached the situation was very mature, and we resolved the conflict in a matter of minutes.

At that time, I had no idea why, but I asked Remy to do an interview with me next time I would be visiting Miami. I sort of liked having an open discussion about “an uncomfortable subjectâ€ with a stranger.

I felt that both of us were more open with each other, as our purpose wasnâ€™t to make a first good impression; it was rather about sharing how we really feel about a situation.

We talked for about an hour, about everything queer and trans related, and it felt so right. It felt nice to hear and be heard, not to judge or be judged. I learned a great deal on the subject of what it is to be a trans woman of color â€“ and I thought that I already knew a great deal about it. I found that the information Remy presented to me made me understand things so much better on a human-to-human basis.

In this conversation Remy gives us a glimpse into the reality of being in a â€œdangerous body,â€ as she refers to it.

Religion & Spirituality

I arrived at Remy’s house in Miami in the early afternoon. I was a bit nervous, as the last time we spoke was when I was confronted with posting her nude photos online without her consent. After a couple of unanswered calls, she finally picks up the phone and says she is going to be right out. One minute later, she opens the door of her front gate and greets me with the brightest, widest smile: “Hi! Welcome to the House of Cummies!” She gives me a quick tour around her property with a large front, side, and backyard, while explaining that all three people who live here (including herself) are sex workers, hence the House of Cummies name. She takes me through the back of the house to her kitchen, gives me a glass of water filled with ice, and proceeds to give me a tour of the house, which ends in her room. “I lived on this couch for months before I was able to move into this room and now look how fucking cute it is!,” she exclaims. Her room is very cute indeed â€“ it is neat, everything has its own place. I notice a Buddha statue: “Are you into?..”

Remy: I studied traditional Tibetan Buddhism for three years. I took my bodhisattva vows, I was on my way to be a monk, thatâ€™s a whole other story â€“ do I consider myself a practicing Buddhist? No, not really.

SWK: What made you change your mind?

Remy: I found that the flaws that I find in most organized religions were still inherent in Buddhism, the way that they stratify gender, how I was being taught, where I was being taughtâ€¦ It was not in line with commitments to my own self and to my own truth, so it felt at times like I was allowing another system to take control over the way that I express and understand myself. In Tibetan Buddhism, specifically, itâ€™s very rigid. When most people think of Buddhism, they think, â€œOh prayer and meditation and monk shit.â€ When you get into Tibetan Buddhism you are heavily involved in ritual, and at the position that I was in as an ordained bodhisattva, I had a lot of expectations and commitments and responsibilities that I quite frankly wasnâ€™t ready to uphold. I found that I was using that path as a way of escaping from the parts of reality that I didnâ€™t enjoy.

Drag Culture: Perception VS Reality

Remy: But yeah, I got my own vanity set up, my butters and my oils, all these spaces have different intentions, like this is my sex space, because Iâ€™m a sex worker.

SWK: â€œWhat about this?â€ I point at a microphone sitting on a windowsill. â€œDo you sing?â€

Remy: I am a singer. Singing is actually my primary talent, itâ€™s my first talent, itâ€™s my best talent. Itâ€™s what I want to be famous for. But somehow I found myself doing drag, now Iâ€™m this drag queen and recently I sort of made an announcement that I am done doing drag and it was mostly because I donâ€™t like the culture of drag, I really donâ€™t like being associated with it.

SWK: Why is that?

“…My access point

to a queer identity

is not so much

about the fact

that I suck cock,

as much as it is the fact

that I am black.”

Remy: I love doing drag, I think drag is a really powerful performance art and I love that itâ€™s an avenue for really anyone to have a moment on a stage to do whatever it is that they want to do.

When I think of drag I think of open-ended performance art and expression, and I really enjoy that. Thereâ€™s a culture of drag around the country that has been influenced by the way that RuPaulâ€™s Drag Race has shaped our understanding of what drag is and who gets to do drag, what is qualified as good drag versus bad drag.

That influences, then, the mentality of the audience and what they are expecting to see from drag. So in South Florida you have a large culture of battle drag. Itâ€™s these lip-sync battles and, you know, a lot of the drag queens are very young, they are kids. They are 21, 22, and Iâ€™m 29 years old. I’m going to be 30 in a month. It felt weird to be in the position in my life where I’m almost 30 competing against 20-year-old kids lip-syncing to pop songs. That’s not what I do, that’s not what I like to do, that’s not the kind of performer that I am. I would much prefer to sing Nina Simone songs all day.

Not that I don’t like pop songs, but I think that there is a drive towards what is relevant, or perceived as relevant culturally, to the young queer community, and I find myself just uninterested in most of that, because my access point to a queer identity is not so much about the fact that I suck cock, as much as it is the fact that I am black.

More than even being a trans woman, my queerness has always started at being a black person, and so when I see queer communities built around this nebulous word â€œqueer,â€ I’m like, what does that mean? And why do I have to sign up and subscribe to your definition of â€œqueer,â€ if your definition of â€œqueerâ€ includes people that are my oppressors?

Gender Identity

SWK: Why do you think people generally want to put everything into a box?

Remy: I think it helps to know who your community is and who you’re aligning yourself with and who your oppressors are and who your companions are.

SWK: Talking to you right now just confirms that in our generation, there is more to it than just putting something in a box and compartmentalizing it. I think there are more blurred lines at the moment and people are understanding that itâ€™s ok to have these blurred lines and it’s ok not to belong to a certain box, even if you are a queer person.

Remy: I think it’s wonderful to live at a time when people are expressing themselves in ways that defy the boxes that we’ve been conditioned to go into. Exploration is fun and creative and can be really spiritually enriching, but I think that, at times, there is an urgency to feel the need to redefine yourself, even if that redefinition is â€œI don’t go by any labels.â€ And so I feel, in a lot of ways, that this rise of the queer community is really sometimes enmeshed with the privilege to be able to explore gender in this way which isn’t a reality for everyone.

“…I don’t have access to male privilege and that’s what being a woman means to me.”

There are certain spaces in which it’s safer to explore gender identity than it is in other spaces. For those who don’t have access to safe spaces to explore identity, I feel like it’s nice that these people have access to the resources and communities to explore their gender in these ways and then go back after the night is finished and assume whatever gender identity is convenient for their day life.

I don’t mean for my statements to ever invalidate non-binary identity, because in ways I understand myself in that context, but I am a woman, and so it’s been challenging for me to be able to say, â€œNo, I’m not exploring my gender.â€

I mean, I guess we all are, but I am a woman, I am a trans woman, I am a woman who has a penis, I am a woman who has a natural estrogen deficiency. And so when people see me and my association with queerness or queer nightlife or drag, my identity becomes associated with this queer clusterfuck thing happening, â€œOh youâ€™re a drag queen? Cool, so what’s your boy name?â€ Like no no no, I’m a woman.

My name is Remy Black, period. Sometimes I get onstage and I sing, sometimes I get onstage and I lip sync, sometimes I dance, sometimes I drink coffee, but at all times my name is Remy Black and I’m a woman. So, you know, it’s not so much that I feel some sort of way about people explain their gender identities in whatever ways they choose.

It’s just that some people assume womanhood for a moment in time that is fun or cute in whatever ways they think of being a woman is, and then they go back to not holding or claiming that identity, and that to me is just something that I don’t understand.

I don’t understand, because I don’t have access to male privilege, and that’s what being a woman means to me. And so when people assume that I have the ability to do that when my reality is really different, itâ€™s a little frustrating.

And so my desire to distance myself from the queer community doesn’t come from disliking the queer community. It comes from not wanting my womanhood to be compromised or invalidated by my association with queers.

Dangerous Body

SWK: So that event that brought us togetherâ€¦

You performed. Your performance was so fucking powerful, and then at the end when you took off all your clothes and you just stood there, for me, the message was, â€œI’m fucking beautiful, I accept myself the way that I am.â€ So when I sent the photos from the event to the magazine and got it published, I got a message from you about it the next day. I was fucking mortified.

Remy: To me itâ€™s water off a duck’s back. I thought your photos were beautiful and I was very happy that you captured that moment. There were certain photos that I thought were less flattering and as a performer and as a trans woman existing in a body with which I experience a lot of dysphoriaâ€¦ To have my body broadcast to people I donâ€™t know, to a community who I have not chosen to show my body to, thatâ€™s more of a boundary. It was just like who’s going to be looking at the pictures of my dick?

I also think that the trans body in general is sensational and it provokes.

Most people just have never seen someone with tits and a dick naked in front of them. You know what I mean? And I think it’s important to show â€“ this is what my trans body looks like, it looks different from any of the other bodies that youâ€™ve encountered and there is beauty in that, there’s eroticism in that, just like there are in any other bodies, but my performance that night was about the danger of being in my body.

What you saw as a celebration of the beauty of my body was absolutely there and that was implied. It was a secondary message; the primary message was the reason that I’m wearing white and covered in blood is this idea of being in this very dangerous body.

Being a black trans woman is very dangerous and I always want to remind people of that because I think that we become over-concerned with viewing trans identity as exciting, as sexy, as cool, as edgy.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I think a lot of people want to be cool and sexy and outrageous and sensational and so they flirt around trans identity as a way of accessing coolness mojo â€“ the juice. They are like, â€œOh I’m cool. I’m not like those other cis people, fuck cis people, I’m queer.â€ And it’s like okay. Alright. My experience is not that I’m trying to be cool, I’m trying to exist and my reality is a very dangerous one. I have been physically assaulted for being trans. There were five black trans women murdered in the state of Florida in 2018. Murdered. They were all black, they were all trans women.

So when I’m onstage when I’m going to those communities, wherever I am, I’m always aware that yeah, it is fun to party, it’s totally fun to celebrate queerness, but what are we doing to protect black trans women? Because black trans women are always dying. It’s not light-skinned trans women who are dying. I’m sorry.

“I think it’s important

to show â€“ this is what my trans body looks like, it looks different from any of the other bodies that youâ€™ve encountered and there is beauty in that…”

It’s the black trans women who are being murdered and it’s happening in this state and every other state.

So for me, I like my performance in equal parts to be a celebration of my beauty like yes, bitch, I am out here living and I look like this. I look good. Iâ€™m fucking happy.

I love the skin that I’m in, but I’m always aware and I want you to be aware that this is dangerous and at any point I could be murdered for this shit. So, I want to encourage the community to be mindful of that and hopefully encourage them to find ways to really hold space for black people, for trans women, for those who exist in dangerous bodies.

And while I want to also hold space for everyone’s clear expressions, right? And so when we do this big queer wash, where everyone’s welcome, as long as you say you’re queer it doesn’t really matter, we’re open to everybody, and then everybody gets a rainbow brush stroke across and like we’re all like in this, you know, nebulous queer thing. It’s like, okay that’s cute. But when we leave here, you’re going to take your makeup off and go back to your boy job and I’m going to be a threat of fucking dying. I’m going to be responding to fucking calls from my ad of clients trying to come fucking pay me for sex because I’m a black trans sex worker…

I think that I could approach in a way that would make me more popular and a way that would make people more likely to wanna approach me, but I’m less interested in participating in the fun as much as I am interested in challenging the narrative.

Creating Spaces For Trans Women

Remy: I’ve had fun. You know, Iâ€™m 30, Iâ€™ve had so much fun and you know what? I still have lots of fun. But you know what, Iâ€™m sober, I donâ€™t do that shit anymore. If I was fucked up on cocaine and fucking drinking, bitch yaaaahssss [screams]. But Iâ€™m sitting there like, â€œWhat do yâ€™all think about black people? Do yâ€™all really host spaces for black people? When was the last time yâ€™all let a black person speak? Do you know we are getting murdered?â€ And people are like â€œRemy, stop!â€

We’re getting murdered! Yâ€™all gagged from me when I gave you shows, don’t be coming to my funeral like, â€œOh my God, Remy was such a light.â€ Yâ€™all didnâ€™t do shit! Yâ€™all wanna give me $50 to come to Miami, I live in Ft. Lauderdale. I’m not coming there for $50 to pour my fucking heart out on the stage and slay harder than the rest of y’all bitches, for what, for $50? Nah, because I know you pay your out-of-towners $150. So if you wanted to really show some support for black trans lives, I think you could probably get some more money. I think you could figure it out. Redistribute resources, honey. Instead of spending all your money on drugs, spend some money… Like I don’t know… Supporting the girls. You know, if I go on Grindr right now and go to the Trans Tribe, I’ll see all the fucking girls working, right? All the fucking trans girls who are escorts like myself.

“…before I was a fucking gay boy, before I was a trans woman, before I was a gender-nonconforming being, I was always black and I was always queer…”

I guarantee none of them are coming to these parties. None of them are coming to the queer parties. Cuz I don’t even think they know how to access those spaces and if they did access those spaces, I don’t know that those spaces would really know how to take people who are really struggling.

Like I’m fucking sucking dick to get by, you know what I mean? Like do y’all hold space for me outside of the sensational like yeah, real party and wearing cool costumes and assuming gender identities that are radical and awesome? But I donâ€™t know. I will also acknowledge that I’m highly critical while also not having deep personal connections with most of the people in the community that you were talking about.

So I am not here to like rag on them and be like â€œY’all aren’t doing it rightâ€ but I’m skeptical of any communities that call themselves queer, especially if they don’t seem to have a political mission that is specifically embedded in uplifting the lives of black people. That’s the queerest thing to do to me, period. Cuz before I was a fucking gay boy, before I was a trans woman, before I was a gender-nonconforming being, I was always black and I was always queer, and the same queers who were supposed to all be joining this ship because we are all cocksuckers, it’s like no y’all were shitting on me then and yâ€™all shit on me now. So I’m glad we’re all in this queer little umbrella. But have y’all addressed your anti-blackness?

Jump to Part II after the video below.

PART II

Alexey Kim

Founder

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Tags Alexey Kim, conversations, remy black, transgender

Videos

Conversations: What Are We Doing To Protect Back Trans Women? Part I

Post author By sidewalkkilla
Post date January 14, 2020

What Are We Doing To Protect

Back Trans Women?

(Part I)

Remy Black is an artist, a sex worker, and a black trans woman. Remy explores many sensitive subjects and the reality of “living in a dangerous body.”