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Good morning, everyone.
So I just saw from my feed yesterday,
I was at the apartment,
of Ed Buck, in West Hollywood.
There is something a lot bigger
than what we're focusing on that's going on.
Not to take away from the death of the two individuals,
but there's...
There's something that's going on.
And there's a whole language about crystal meth
and what they're doing when it comes to sex,
and it can go -- it goes into HIV,
it goes into self-love, it goes to the love
that we're not getting as children
and us trying to figure out what is going on as adults.
It's so layered, it's -- I'm, like, getting emotional now.
But we have to, like, really open up our eyes,
and figure out what is going on
to our brothers and sisters out there, 'cause it's bad.
And me personally, Jayce Baron Sadler,
will do all that I can to make sure that this is like,
not something that goes on forever.
All right, be blessed, bye.
All right.
How much longer are you guys gonna turn your head,
and act like you don't see anything?
Till another dead Black man is in here.
This is ridic-- This has to stop.
No more to Gemmel Moores. No more Timothy Deans.
I don't care what they did, what their past was,
what they agreed to.
They didn't agree to get killed. They didn't agree to that!
He's a predator! He is preying on Black men.
These too young men belonged to somebody.
They're somebody's children, they're somebody's brother,
they're somebody's uncle.
And the comments of, "Oh, they should've just said no."
Any one of us could have had this card in life.
Arrest Ed Buck! Arrest Ed Buck!
Gemmel Moore! Gemmel Moore!
Mysterious deaths sparking protests in Los Angeles.
Two gay Black men died at his home.
Two men have died in that apartment
in such a short amount of time.
on methamphetamine.
Found dead in the apartment
of the political activist and Democratic donor.
tens of thousands of dollars
to high-profile Democratic candidates.
Former governor Jerry Brown
and Hillary Clinton.
Whose name now is more synonymous with the deaths
of two men in his West Hollywood apartment.
A violent, dangerous sexual predator.
The Democratic Party donor Ed Buck.
Democratic donor Ed Buck.
-Ed Buck. -Ed Buck.
-Edward Buck.
Who is Ed Buck?
I will not claim to know Ed Buck personally,
because I don't know him personally.
But what he represents and who he is,
I don't want to give him any power.
What we need is...
...for us to be able to identify how we end up on doorsteps
like men like Ed Buck.
the excitations
When I first met Ed, he was very talkative.
He had intelligence.
I knew, or learned shortly thereafter,
he had run for governor in the state of Arizona.
I knew that he was a Republican, and I'm not.
I'm a Democrat.
But the fact that he'd run for office
and almost took Governor Mecham of Arizona out
made him interesting to me.
But he was out as a gay man,
and if you move into West Hollywood,
you're either gay or presumed to be possibly gay.
And so I think by the time Ed got here,
he intended this destination to explore his sexuality.
He was very involved with the Democratic Party,
the Democratic clubs, the Stonewall Democratic Club.
But his role in West Hollywood government
has been primarily as a agitator.
You know, he'd come to council meetings on occasion
and scream and yell about development issues.
That's what I recall.
Now I'm wondering whether some of those appearances
before council were under the influence of meth,
because that sort of anger and agitation
and the sweaty brow, the clenched fist,
the teeth being gritted.
I mean, now I recognize all of that to be the symptoms
of somebody under the influence of amphetamine.
Folks, a disturbing story out of California,
where pressure is now growing on some Democratic politicians
to return money from a wealthy white party donor,
following the death of a young Black gay man at his home.
26 year old Gemmel Moore died on July 27th,
at the West Hollywood apartment
of prominent California donor Ed Buck.
Authorities rule that Moore died
of an accidental crystal meth overdose.
But police are now taking a closer look
at what happened at Buck's residence the night Moore died.
And Moore's mother is openly questioning whether Buck
may have had something to do with her son's death.
Gemmel was scared. He was scared of this man.
He came and he laid in my arms and he cried,
and he was scared.
He was scared that this man was going to hurt him.
And he went to the police station,
and they told him to go away.
You know? They told -- They did not believe him.
He called me in tears,
crying that he didn't want to be this person.
He wrote a diary saying that he did not,
and he was scared he was going to die.
This man, he went out there searching
for other men that were struggling
and on the streets and had no money, you know?
And I mean, men who had never experienced drugs before.
There's a lot of things that I would go out there and do
for $600 and then another $600.
Oh, you know, "I'll do it again.
I'll give you $1,200 if you do it again."
This is what Ed Buck said to him,
It's easy money.
But it's not.
It's not, and we are allowing people in power
to pay for our lives
and to take them away with their money.
Ed Buck is a predator,
that masqueraded around
just to hunt down the bodies of Black men.
Someone that was hiding in plain sight,
masquerading under the Democratic Party,
masquerading around, wanting to help people.
Ed Buck was someone,
and still in many ways is likely someone,
who still has money, access, resources, and power.
And even if he doesn't necessarily have it,
there's a transference of his power to someone else.
And so there wasn't a doubt in my mind
that America wasn't going to hold him accountable
because we have watched America time and time again
never hold their own accountable
for the things that they have done to other groups of people
who come from communities that deal with
the additional marginalizations of race
and queerness and any other intersections,
such as being poor.
The indictment alleges Buck solicited men
through a recruiter
or gay dating sites like Adam4Adam
to his apartment to "party and play" --
aka get high and have sex and sometimes get paid.
Seeking out men in that category
and providing them food, shelter, and drugs
are the signs of somebody with a scheme in mind.
It was only when Timothy Dean happened,
when there was a second death in Ed Buck's apartment,
where all of a sudden everybody went, "Whoa, wait!"
The news came on,
and I seen it on the Internet.
And so I text Tim, and I was like, "Tim..."
And his message went green.
Investigators in California
looking into the second death of an African-American man
in the home of Democratic megadonor Ed Buck.
The man now being identified as 55-year-old Timothy Dean.
He died of an apparent overdose.
I miss that laugh.
When he would come up to you, you know,
he'd tickle your sides or, you know, give you this big hug,
he'd smile at you.
We used to call him Too Much Drama.
And he was, you know -- Tim Dean was just larger than life.
He had this personality that you knew when he entered a room.
You knew how he loved you by the way that he treated you.
I never knew that Tim was using
until I started having my battles with it.
And you know, I talked to Tim about that situation.
And Tim in turn started to talk to me about
things to look for, you know,
his situations and things that have gone on with him.
That was Tim's way.
He was always serving, always honest, always open.
About a month or so before, we were at Gym Bar
out here on Santa Monica.
And, you know, we had a conversation.
We were just like, "Can you believe
that this happened to Gemmel Moore,
and you know, there were no repercussions from it?"
And...
He looked at me, and he said,
"Promise me, don't you ever take your ass over there."
He's like, "I'm not trying to go over there
and end up dead."
All these people calling for his arrest,
a second man dies in the course of all of this.
Was there ever a point --
I mean, if I found that you have this
what could be used as evidence, but now you can't,
how does that make you feel?
It's extremely frustrating, because we as prosecutors,
if we think someone is guilty,
we want to do our best to make sure
that they're brought to justice.
But our justice system is based on testable evidence.
-You know what I mean? -Yeah.
You can't bring in a mob, a crowd,
and say to the jury, "Well, the mob says they're guilty,
so you better convict."
But the sad reality is that
overdosing in West Hollywood, tragically,
I hate to tell people, happens every month.
I mean, every month somebody O.D.s in an apartment
in West Hollywood.
So the fact that somebody overdosed,
I hate to say it, is pretty common.
There's just this underlying messaging,
like, "Overdosing happens.
People use a lot of drugs out here,
people overdose, it's just a thing that happens."
I think, though, that's very dismissive
of what this particular case was,
especially because of the power dynamics at play.
You're talking about, again, a rich white man,
and a young, poor Black queer man.
I think that just speaks volumes about where we are.
And as long as we are Black,
we are always going to be harmed by a system.
It is that additional layer, though,
of queerness that then puts us in even more harm's way.
It is not the person who does not have.
It is the person who has everything
and offers you everything with this particular type of risk,
i.e., the meth.
And the sex.
Those types of offers,
a young, poor Black queer person has to balance out,
"Do I eat today? Do I have shelter today?
And do I engage in this activity that may be dangerous,
but at least I ate, at least I had money in my pocket.
At least I'm going to be okay for a few days?"
And that is why we have to make sure
that we are supportive of the victim here.
And even at the community level,
when we have community interventions,
it's about kind of individuals coming together,
to kind of try and change bigger structures and systems.
But that doesn't feel equitable,
that doesn't speak to the reasons
why we see disproportionate impacts,
and it doesn't change how all of these things
are interconnected.
So, we have to go to the root of it.
West Hollywood has been a city since 1984.
However, the place known as West Hollywood,
has been here for a hundred years.
And it's always been a place for outliers,
non-conforming people.
All the speakeasies and bathtub gin,
and all the underground nightclubs got formed up here
on the Sunset Strip.
And then during the 1940s, the Rat Pack took over,
Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.,
and Don Rickles.
In the 1950s, communists and socialists
and other social undesirables began to flock here
to be away from the patrol
of the Los Angeles Police Department.
In the '60s, it was the hippies
and the Mamas and the Papas and the flower children,
and the anti-Vietnam War protestors.
And in the '70s, the gays finally arrived in the '70s.
This is the face of Santa Monica Boulevard,
that is familiar to most outsiders.
But the street also has a private side,
perceived by outsiders only if it dawns on them
that almost all of the people they see here are men.
For this area of West Hollywood has become a gay ghetto,
a sociological phenomenon of these times.
And the main street of the homosexual community here
is Santa Monica Boulevard.
And it's always been a place where you could be anything,
do anything, Bohemia.
But the reality is that the city of West Hollywood
is not as diverse as other parts of Los Angeles County.
Looking at West Hollywood's racial makeup today,
it's about 4% Black, about 4% Asian,
about 12% Latino,
and everything else, 80%, is white.
It's funny that you asked me this
because the most overt racism that I have ever experienced
has been at the hands of West Hollywood.
The most.
I'm talking about in-your-face, N-word-type racism
has been in West Hollywood.
People who have run their fingers through my hair
without my consent.
There's been finger waving,
"I got an inner Black woman in me," without my consent.
And at nighttime,
I'm not going to even discredit it
because West Hollywood gets really fun at night,
but I also know what comes with that.
Like, I've seen white drag queens in blackface.
So West Hollywood, it doesn't feel safe to me.
It feels safe in the daytime, so to speak.
Santa Monica Boulevard grew into its own identity,
mostly around LGBT culture.
You know, the "Historic Boys Town" District.
And the reason it's called Boys Town --
I know that's offensive to some people today --
is that West Hollywood is 40% LGBT, but of that 40%,
90% identify as gay or bisexual men.
So it is a city of, you know, LGBT,
but predominantly white gay and bisexual men.
I have a lot of friends that are gay Black men.
So I've also witnessed extreme fetishism, like, extreme.
Might as well place them on a proverbial auction box,
if you know what I mean.
You go into a bar and a lot of people ignore you,
you know, until they start drinking.
And then after they done had about three or four drinks,
they approach you and go,
"Oh, you're pretty cute for a Black guy."
Bitch! Is that supposed to make me feel attractive?
I knew I was a fine piece of chocolate ass
before I left out the house!
Tell me something original, you know?
And it's, "Oh, I want some of that Black cock."
Ugh! Cock?
Ain't no chickens running around nowhere on me.
And it's just like this is supposed to turn me on
and make me feel special, you know, being fetishized.
White men just grab.
Just grab.
I have been, like, walked up on and kissed
in the mouth before by a white gay man.
I mean, it's happened once in front of friends
who actually had to --
like, two friends who were cishet Black women,
who literally had to, like, tell the guy, like,
"You don't do that."
And literally his response was,
"Oh, y'all aren't in our community.
This is what we do."
And I just remember in that moment,
like, "That is really sad,
because that is what most people think."
"This is what we do in our community,
and, like, we have the license to touch other people
in a way and to grab people in their private areas."
I think it happens a lot of times
in primarily white-queer-dominated spaces,
where they really, really think they have ownership over us.
And that's like Fetishization 101 almost.
But it is a historical element to where this is coming from.
Mandingo! Purebred Mandingo.
4,000!
I'll pay more! 500 more!
It might be linked to the fetishism
around Black and brown bodies.
And this is historical. It goes back to slavery.
It's about the control and manipulation of Black people.
People could be sold from their families.
Men, women, and children could be sexualized,
sexually abused.
You attacked me.
So now, lessen you do what I want...
...I'm gonna tell him everything.
It links to issues around segregation
and the control of Black people moving in spaces
and white-only spaces and Black-only spaces.
I have watched people in this country,
generation after generation, have this ownership
and have this power over this particular race.
A white woman lies about a young Black boy whistling at her,
and he gets murdered.
Like, we have seen time and time and time again,
what the reverse of that fetishization looks like,
what a rejection of the fetishization looks like,
what a lie around fetishization looks like.
And it looks like our death.
And so Black trauma in America
I think is very much linked to
Black people's history in this country.
And people don't really have conversations around that.
Most people think that,
"Well, slavery was like several hundred years ago
and people aren't still affected by that."
But there are generational things
I think have been passed on to people,
that have never been addressed around that trauma.
Whatever you kind of look at,
you see how these kinds of systems of racism,
show up today in our everyday life.
And there's no stronger example of racial inequity,
racism, anti-Blackness than health outcomes.
And if we're talking about West Hollywood,
then HIV in particular really shows the intersectionality
of oppression.
In Los Angeles,
we have higher cases in some pretty specific areas.
You see it more in West Hollywood.
A lot of that is 'cause we see a lot of same-gender loving
and queer people living in West Hollywood,
and we have higher numbers of HIV and STDs
in that community,
not because people are having more sex,
but because this is what oppression looks like, right?
You kind of group people up,
and push them in the margins further, further, further,
you have a smaller group of people
where infection kind of happens.
10,000 people in West Hollywood
and the surrounding neighborhoods
were lost in a 15-year period.
That's unbelievable,
if you think about losing 10,000 people
in a place that's 1.9 square miles.
I mean, it's like a bomb got dropped
in the middle of a community.
And so West Hollywood has been at the forefront
in doing a lot of the pioneering work around HIV and AIDS
since it's inception.
City was created in 1984, right?
And so even though HIV had been around since '81,
all the development of the response to HIV,
a lot of it was based and centered around West Hollywood.
When you look at the city of West Hollywood,
or, you know, more affluent areas,
more areas that are, let's just say, white,
you see that the money is going there,
and you see that the resources are there.
But when you go to South Los Angeles,
and you can have those same kinds of hot zones,
for lack of a better word,
there is not the dollar there,
there is not the enthusiasm to really combat it
like you see in West Hollywood.
And so even though West Hollywood's a red spot
and South L.A. is a red spot,
the experience is very different.
When you have more HIV or any type of infectious disease
in a community, it's more likely to spread.
And then when you think about kind of Black communities,
you think about communities of color,
we are smaller in proportion,
and we tend to associate ourselves in smaller circles.
So, most of my friends are Black, right?
That's a smaller number of people.
And so when you take an infectious disease like HIV
and put it in a smaller circle, it's going to move faster.
And this is the bigger kind of 50,000-foot picture
of what centuries and centuries of oppression
have looked like for Black people.
When you look at the history of health care,
especially Black folks in the United States,
there has been no reason to ever trust
the health-care system here.
Experiments were done to slaves.
Experiments to test out surgeries,
to test out the removal of body parts
and attaching them in other places,
and how the body would respond.
Like, there've been a lot of heinous things done
to Black folks in the health-care arena
to "create breakthroughs."
But we were the people who were used
for those breakthroughs.
In 1932, America's Public Health Service
set out to study syphilis,
but it pursued this worthy goal in a manner
that was irredeemably cruel --
the infamous project called "The Tuskegee Study
of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male."
Several hundred African-American men,
men the Public Health Service recruited
at churches and clinics and farms, were used in the study.
Most of these men had syphilis.
None of them knew their bodies harbored this disease.
And then the Public Health Service
followed the men's lives,
watched how the disease developed,
all the while withholding medicine,
withholding treatment of any kind
for these innocent American citizens.
Medical professionals willingly, intentionally,
let human beings suffer from a treatable,
and then later a curable illness.
The major cases, of something like the Tuskegee,
that is the one case where everybody is like,
"This is why we don't necessarily trust
when the vaccine comes out.
This is why we don't necessarily trust
when anything new comes out,
any new medication, any new drug,
any new procedure, any new treatment comes out."
And it is truly because we remember that,
and we remember what was done to us.
We were treated unfairly,
to some extent like Guinea pigs.
We were all hardworking men and not boys
and citizens of the United States.
The wounds that were inflicted upon us cannot be undone.
Even if you wanted to invest in your health care,
there's a fear there, a very real fear,
because it is based on truthful events
and things that have happened.
Men who were poor and African-American,
without resources and with few alternatives,
they believed they had found hope
when they were offered free medical care
by the United States Public Health Service.
They were betrayed.
It's just embedded into our culture
to not seek medical attention until the necessary moment
to have to seek medical attention.
And so you have that playing a role,
but then you also have the fact that if you just look
at our socioeconomic status in this country,
we don't have the resources to have annual checkups
and annual physicals.
Some of us don't have health insurance.
Some of us don't have primary care doctors.
So it's not even just as simple as saying,
"Oh, we don't trust the health-care system."
Many of us don't even have the finances
to even invest in our own health.
So, we're asking people to try
and go through this piecemeal system,
on top of potentially having genetics
that kind of make you predisposed to addiction,
without social services and other support systems
that really respond to these outcomes that,
you know, are traumatizing.
And this is why we see people who abuse substances,
or people who use substances as well.
You know, because, "The shit is hard,
so why wouldn't I try and get something
to make me feel better?"
Methamphetamine, methedrine,
which is known among drug users as speed.
The person who is using this drug as a drug user
will smack or mainline -- that is, take intravenously --
a thousand milligrams,
100 times the dose that any person would give
in the medical use of this kind of drug.
Causes a fantastic speeding up of the mind.
At the same time,
his heart is beating at a fantastic rate,
maybe in excess of 150 beats a minute,
normal being 72.
As this drug begins to wear off,
there's a tremendous psychic reaction,
so the person becomes markedly depressed,
severely depressed,
which in itself is enough reason for him
to want to take more drugs.
Back then it was called crank.
It's associated in the gay community as a sex drug.
So if somebody is wanting to party and play for days on end,
notwithstanding the fact nobody can maintain
any sort of erection for days,
but still the party and play atmosphere of using that drug
in those sexual scenarios just feeds the beast.
McInjecting drugs for the purpose of having sex.
You party, and you all do different types of drugs
like crystal meth.
When you see the large "T" for Tina.
Sometimes you'll see, like I said, like blue elephants,
and you'll see things that indicate Ecstasy,
or things that indicate Molly usage or pill usage.
Getting high on any various amounts of these drugs
and having sex for hours.
There's a high, there's a moment that one chases.
There's a moment when I'm either high or drunk
where the world seems to suddenly make sense
and everything falls into place.
It's that one moment.
It can be on a dance floor,
it can be in the middle of an orgy,
it can be in the middle of a sexual scenario.
For me, when I used to get drunk or high, was at Gay Pride.
When I was out on the dance floor with 2,000 people,
LGBT of every stripe in the community,
and the bass was pounding
and everybody was moving like a tribe, right?
Like a tribe of people, and there was no difference.
That's the moment for me,
that connection to a tribe of community.
And, you know, you think you're having fun with it,
but you also didn't want people to know
that you're doing this and that you're partying,
you're having sex, and you're into this world,
because of everything else going on around you.
Crystal meth, to me, was Middle America,
"We ain't got nothing to do.
And we're gonna hit this pipe,
and carrying on with our lives."
When I heard that it was affecting my community,
and even in the way it was,
with sex work, even intimacy,
it broke my heart because I knew,
coming from a place who has had issues
with dealing with family and friends, with sexuality,
that it was coming from a place of hurt.
And the fact that sex was involved,
some people are seeking some type of intimacy
they didn't get from mommy and daddy.
It's a myriad of factors just relating back to surviving
and relating to just trying to get through their day-to-day
and deal with the social factors that come with being gay,
with being Black in America.
There are issues that are not being processed
around sexual orientation.
And the Black community historically
has had problems with that.
But before we get so aggressive in our chastisements
or, you know, put them in some kind of program or whatever,
we need to understand the why, the root cause.
Many people grow up in the Black church.
In the Black church, people don't necessarily believe
that that's condoned.
They see that as two different issues.
They don't see the LGBT community
or people that are part of it
as part of the Black community, necessarily.
That perverted homosexual spirit
is a spirit of delusion and confusion
and it has deceived many men and women!
And it's caused a stain on the body of Christ.
And those homosexual spirits have been angry,
and they come up against you, saying,
"You got to love everybody."
Sit down, you serpent!
Come on! Talk!
And there's a lot of shame and guilt around being gay,
for many people who've not processed that,
because of family rejection,
community rejection, religious issues.
And so they come into these relationships,
and in order to function,
whether it's like a hookup or a relationship,
they have to be intoxicated
in order to connect to that person.
When they use drugs,
it helps them to overcome that hump,
overcome the shame they may feel.
So, I have seen a huge correlation
between drug use and sex work.
I had an individual that I mentored for years,
and this person disappeared.
And when the person resurfaced, you know,
they shared that they had been
working the block or working the street.
And when I inquired, "Well, what happened?"
it was no judgment, they shared that they engage in sex work
because it makes them feel loved.
This person said that, "When I'm on the street
and when someone picks me up and pays me and holds me
and we have sex, I feel loved.
I feel like I matter."
And knowing that this person grew up in a home
that kicked them out because of their sexual identity,
that kind of shunned them, you know,
it was a religious background -- shocking --
I thought that was a huge statement,
to know that someone is engaging in sex work
not because they don't have money,
not because they're trying to survive,
but because they want to have some level of intimacy
with an individual that needs them.
I was not aware of what went on in West Hollywood.
I was not aware of white gay men using crystal meth
to bait young Black gay men
and use them as their little toys or whatever.
I was not aware of all of that.
And it's just proof that,
just because we say we're in the fight
or say that we're out there being advocates,
our eyes are not everywhere.
And unfortunately with Gemmel, he lost his life as a result.
This is something that shouldn't have happened.
It just shouldn't have happened.
My son filed police reports.
He cried out to so many people,
and we all failed him.
There is no such thing as a Black victim.
So, you know, you kind of got to start from there.
Like, what is a Black victim in this country?
-- What do you want? -- Justice!
-- When do you want it? -- Now!
-- What do you want? -- Justice!
-- When do you want it? -- Now!
No justice, no peace!
No racist police!
Gemmel Moore! Gemmel Moore!
Society has never stood up for, again, a Black victim.
And so I think you can just easily shift
that whole framing to this same situation.
Had Ed Buck's victim had been a white gay man,
not only would you have had
just people up in arms about it,
but you probably would have seen a lot of those
white-centered LGBT orgs have more statements about it.
When it comes to the death of Gemmel Moore,
and the media coverage,
I think a lot of it had to do with just his connections
in the community that Ed Buck was not aware of.
Gemmel was known, Gemmel was loved,
and Gemmel had some very influential people in his life
that were going to do what they had to do
to make sure that his death was not in vain.
Had it not been for Gemmel and his connections
and who he knew,
this whole situation would have been swept under the rug,
and it would have happened again and again and again.
Arrest Ed Buck! Arrest Ed Buck!
Ed Buck is behind bars
after his arrest overnight.
Buck taken away in handcuffs,
charged with operating a drug den
out of his West Hollywood home
and providing methamphetamine.
First off, I would like to thank U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna
and Sheriff Alex Villanueva
for their interagency effort,
which has now culminated with the arrest
and subsequent filing charges against defendant Buck.
Unfortunately we can't bring those Black men back,
but the reality of it is they're getting the justice
that they deserve.
They are getting the justice that needs to be served.
The problem with that is, though, is that
we shouldn't only show up in their death,
and we shouldn't only show up in their violence.
We should be showing up in their life.
People were so fixated on getting this man in jail,
without addressing the heap of issues
that are also involved in this case.
The more further down on the totem pole you are
when it comes to being marginalized,
the less your body is valued.
And this had so many components when it came to sex work,
when it came to drug addiction, when it came to race,
when it came to gender identity, when it came to sexuality.
This wasn't just a death.
All of these issues played a role,
in Timothy and Gemmel's fate.
And they're plaguing our community,
not just for gay men, not just for Black gay men,
but our transgender brothers and sisters
who are right in front of our faces in our communities
and in your community all over the world.
Transgender people are being murdered, and nobody cares.
Everybody needs someone to make them feel superior.
That line ends with us, though.
The shit runs downhill, past the women,
the Blacks, Latins, gays,
until it reaches the bottom and lands on our kind.
I have been to jail!
I been raped and beaten many times
by men, heterosexual men!
I have lost my job, I have lost my apartment
for gay liberation!
And you all treat me this way?!
What the fuck's wrong with you all?
Think about that!
And investigators are looking into a hate crime
after three transgender women were attacked,
and one allegedly robbed.
The victims say, instead of helping them,
witnesses mocked them.
Hate crimes directed
at transgender individuals increased 42% in one year.
Two men have been arrested in the murders
of two transgender women this month.
We're getting a first look at one of the suspects.
This is Dontarius Long.
Jaida Peterson was shot and killed
outside this Quality Inn on Queen City Drive.
With the support of the LBGT community,
support of the Richmond Police Department,
as you can see out here with the community,
we're going to continue to keep looking.
And all those who love the Lord would say amen!
Amen!
There was nothing for me coming up.
There was no sisterhood of trans organizations.
There were no clubs that really catered to people
that I identify with.
And that in itself speaks volumes.
So it takes entertainment for someone to take us seriously,
but this subject matter has been going on
since the beginning of time.
And to be honest with you, it is, as we say,
at the bottom of the totem pole.
It is the community that needs the most help, the most help.
Any one of us could've had this card in life.
Any one of our family members could have had
this card in life.
Any one of us can still have this card in life.
There should be just as much energy from Black people
from the LGBT community
that are out there protesting for Gemmel Moore,
Timothy Dean, all those people.
And it seems to fall short when it comes to
the lower you are
in the marginalized identities that you hold.
When it comes to the Black community
showing up for the Black trans community...
...do I believe that they're showing up?
No. No.
I have a friend who identifies,
he's Puerto Rican and Black,
a gay male, engaged to a man.
And we've had conversations around his support
of the current presidential administration
and their war on LGBT people
and their beginnings with the trans community.
And his response was,
"Well, they're not part of the LGBT community."
Like, "What are you talking about? They're the 'T.'"
Like, that doesn't make any kind of sense to me.
Does the LGB community support the "T"?
No.
That was the answer.
As a Black gay man,
I find it funny that so many of us
do not really get involved in transgender issues.
We don't really take the time to understand the challenges,
the struggles, the obstacles.
I oftentimes think about my challenges, you know,
with with cisgender heterosexual men
and them understanding my gayness.
The same grace should be extended to transgender persons,
especially transgender persons of color.
I was on set, and there was a group of male dancers
that didn't know my truth.
They didn't know that I was a woman of trans experience.
And some of the other dancers that were there
that did identify as gay
had basically disclosed my truth to these people,
which could have put me in harm's way,
which could have caused me to be hurt,
you know, in the parking lot.
At the end of lunch, that entire room had shifted.
No one was talking to me.
People were saying little remarks to me,
and I saw those gay men snickering.
And I think that a lot of cisgender people
think there we're all this happy family
under this beautiful rainbow.
And it's not -- it's not true.
We weren't necessarily raised to feel
that we belonged in this community.
So a lot of times you learn these tactics of survival
that aren't necessarily healthy,
for, you know, the simple fact of surviving,
for the simple fact of not being able to be hired somewhere.
So what are you going to do?
If you're being discriminated against because of who you are
and no one will hire you, but you still need to eat,
your natural instinct to survive will kick in.
And what do you have? You have your body.
I'm a prostitute.
And, but I'm taking care of myself.
We're all prostitutes.
It's a fact.
That's what mainly most of these transsexuals --
not most, all -- start off prostituting, you know,
making money out here to support themselves.
It's the truth.
You know, you can joke off of it here and there,
and stuff like that, but it's the truth,
and you go through a lot of danger,
but it's just a fact of life
being for the discrimination out in the world.
No matter how lovely you can be, you know what I mean,
how real, how beautiful you can be,
you will always be discriminated for the simple fact
that you're a transsexual.
I felt like I could not get a job
because I was transgender,
because there's a phobia when it comes to transgenders.
And it held me back for a long time.
I had surrendered to the fact that, "You know what?
I'm just going to be a sex worker and just...
Like, this is it."
I really came to that point of just surrender.
"I'm going to do drugs,
and I'm gonna prostitute.
That's it."
I filled out numerous applications for places.
And I had an interview at Victoria's Secret.
But Victoria's Secret told me that
they would not call me by my girl name.
They're going to call me by the I.D. I had
prior to the application.
And I told them, "No, you will not call me that."
And I done did this over and over,
and ended up, like, finding sex work.
A friend told me about it, and the money was great,
and that's what I did.
Being a Black trans woman in the music industry,
I've faced countless examples of discrimination.
One particular was that I was invited
into a producing-writing room,
and it was just me and this well-known producer
at the time.
I was just happy to be in the space,
to be presented that opportunity.
But then I realized that that said producer
did not know the fullness of my existence,
which means he did not know
that I was a powerful Black trans woman.
And I saw the switch
soon as I divulged more of my truth.
My talent went out the door,
singing ability went out the door.
My production ability went out the door,
all on the notion of understanding
because I was a Black trans woman.
I had really hit a bottom in downtown L.A.
And I remember sliding down the wall,
and I was like, "Is this where my life is going to go?"
And...
I was just like, "No, I just can't be on the streets
of downtown L.A."
I wasn't gonna allow that to happen.
So I started going to the streets of Hollywood.
The girls, they were sassy and they were funky,
and I was attracted to that.
And I started doing drugs,
and I started getting into this lifestyle of prostitution
because it was only something I can do with drugs.
I remember I did weed, I did shrooms,
I did acid, I did PCP.
I've done it all.
But once I got to crystal meth, it was...
That was all it took.
It made my transition just a little bit easier.
I didn't care so much about being liked
or whether it was okay to walk down the street anymore,
because it made it okay.
I could hop into cars, I can get paid for sex, you know?
And after a while,
I started to connect prostitution with love.
I felt like I can get love through this.
I felt like if a guy was giving me money,
he was showing me some type of attention or love,
which was something I was lacking for many years.
And that's kind of how it started.
Cindy-rella.
Looks like someone has a crush.
Cindy's back on the block?
Oh, yeah, she's back.
How much? Honey, thousands.
Sorry?
Do you want to say that in a complete sentence?
Yeah, the money was like
over thousands and thousands of dollars.
Nonstop.
Day and night.
I used the money for my mother and my sister.
For drugs, hotel room,
the money was reused for food and drugs.
The girls would just be wearing their Daisy Dukes.
You could just be out there at00 in the morning.
I mean, it was just a setup for prostitution.
There was the adult bookstore,
there was a Donut Time where all the girls would hang out.
There's Benito's.
And when I was out there,
there was Del Taco across the street, there was Arena.
Like, it was just the hub of everything.
Prostitution, drugs, the party life, the fast life.
It took me places I never thought I would go.
And then it just stopped working for me.
Hello?
You want to see me? I'm available now.
Darling, my minimum is $150.
Is that a problem?
Well, how generous can you be on negotiable?
You're really horny?
So am I.
You want to be raped? I don't have a problem with doing that.
You've been with hundreds of women and seven transsexuals,
and the transsexuals turn you on more than women?
Okay, are you ready to come see me now?
Okay, great.
So I'm gonna run in the house
and put on something real sexy, honey.
Yes, I got whips,
paddles, dildos, handcuffs, all of that.
All right, baby, well, come and get it.
Bye-bye.
Oh, duty calls.
It's a job. It's a living, honey.
Pays the bills.
You're literally in the world alone.
And so if you're constantly getting fed that
by the notions of what society gives you,
you then sometimes believe that,
and then you go into a certain space of the negative,
and that can lead you into so many things
that are detrimental to your life.
When you have to wake up every single day, okay,
and take about 20 to 30 clients a day --
sex work, not something you wanted to do --
when you have to do that every day
just to keep a dirty motel over your head
and you have to succumb to sex work to survive...
...your only coping is drugs.
I know that some gay-identified individuals do drugs
to cope with depression,
so I don't want to exclude that,
but I do want to emphasize that there's a great difference
in the usage of drugs when it comes to the trans community
and the gay community.
And I think that that says a lot,
that here we have a lot of gay individuals
who do drugs for the thrill of it,
so that they feel a little bit more sexual,
so they enjoy their sex.
But the girls, every single day,
they are giving their body to someone,
they're giving a piece of their soul to someone,
just to live.
And so you're setting human beings up for failure.
It was Monday morning, and I...
I didn't have anything to eat.
And I would have done anything just to get something to eat.
And it was just a really dark moment in my life,
and I got into this car...
And I, like any good prostitute,
you always get your money first.
And this was one of those times
where I thought I was gonna get my money first,
and this guy told me,
"You get out of my car before I beat you down."
And as I tried to get out of the car,
he proceeded to sexually assault me
and beat me up.
And it was a very traumatic situation.
And then after he was done,
he tried to run me over with his car.
And I called the police.
And when it comes to safety...
...it seemed like they were just kind of just,
"This is just what happens."
They didn't do a rape kit.
They didn't do anything.
They were just, "Well, we'll stay here by your side."
But I think that they had kind of, you know --
'cause after that was done, I had to get back on the streets
'cause that's all I knew.
A lot of people who I grew up with
are not alive today.
They have either died from alcoholism and drug addiction,
overdoses, or died, or killed by...
In the streets.
Violently sometimes. Or you know, died of AIDS.
Tell them, because I don't want to die.
You know?
Look, you seen "Paris Is Burning"? Venus?
She got killed.
I don't want to be that way, you know?
That's my fear.
It's absolutely crazy.
You won't hire the girls,
but they're not supposed to escort either.
So what are they supposed to do, die?
Because that's what the message gives to me.
We've seen that as a fact,
in the hate crimes and discrimination,
in the murders.
And that saddens me.
It saddens me that, as a community,
we still in 2021, don't know how to come together.
I needed to talk about Iyanna Dior.
Black transgender that was assaulted
by over 30 men in a convenience store
where we're protesting for "Black Lives Matter"
because a Black man was shot by the police.
But meanwhile, we're in a convenience store
beating down a Black transgender female.
They tried to justify it,
that is justified that a Black transgender
gets beat down by men that are three times her size?
Black people. This is Black people.
And when I saw that, I was...
I was like, "That could be me."
The thing that hurts me the most
is that I got to face white supremacy from the white men.
Then I got to turn around and face...
...hatred from my own Black, you know?
So, I think what people don't understand with trans women
is that it's hard.
With me, not even feeling included,
I know that it is my duty to still stand up
for Black lives, Black lives protests and movements
because I'm Black first.
But the ways that Black cis women
have showed up for trans women,
doesn't align with the spirit of womanhood
that I think we have as Black women,
the experience of oppression that we have.
It's been adversarial,
that Black trans women somehow take away our womanhood.
It's a reciprocation thing
that I specifically don't get
from certain members within my own community.
It feels sometimes as if, "Oh, Black liberation,"
but you're still other, like I'm still othered.
And so it gets very challenging to, you know,
to get out there and march and things
when you know,
I know inherently that if the shoe were on the other foot,
no one would bat an eyelash.
I'm so sorry, I don't want to take this away from you,
but let me tell you something,
Black trans women are being killed in this country.
And CNN, you have erased Black trans women,
for the last time!
Let me tell you something.
Black trans women are dying! Our lives matter!
I'm an extraordinary Black trans woman,
and I deserve to be here!
My Black trans sisters that are here,
I am tired!
I am so tired!
-I was just sitting there. -Ma'am.
It's not just my Black trans women.
With my Black trans brothers too!
And I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say!
LT.The early morning hours of June 13th,
essentially our officers, right before00 a.m. on June 13th,
they get a call for a man down.
Officer responds to that area,
which is essentially in this east Akron area
near the University of Akron.
And the officer got there,
and they found Mr. Powers down on the ground,
unresponsive, with apparent gunshot wounds,
and he was deceased.
I told you I did a deep dive last night
trying to figure out --
"Now, of course this has been solved."
You know, it's a big city.
I'm just amazed, and I'm just...
There's no suspect, there's no arrest.
Maybe I shouldn't be, like, shocked, but...
He would light up a room when he came in.
He was very loud, very boisterous, very colorful.
And you couldn't be sad around him, you know?
Even if he was sad and going through something,
he wanted to make sure you were feeling good and happy.
You know, he was very strong.
And I told him I was proud of him for that,
because I know it had to be hard,
to be who he was in the '80s and the '90s
and even the 2000s.
He was, you know -- he was a gay Black man,
gay Black transgender man,
that was 6'2" from South Akron.
And you know, that's a rougher side of town.
You know, you tough when you come from South Akron,
so he thought he had to be tough,
but he was the sweetest person.
The first big thing I remember is Brian --
my dad was like, "Come on, guys. We only got 20 minutes.
Pick your toy. We got to get to this movie."
And Brian was standing in front of these trucks,
and he was like, "I don't want a truck, Vivian."
I said, "Okay, what do you want?
We've got 20 minutes, you got to come on."
"I don't want a truck. I want a My Little Pony.
So why don't you tell dad that you want My Little Pony?"
He got the toy, he put it on the counter,
he said, "Dad, I don't want a truck."
He said, "Okay," while he's going through his wallet.
He said, "I want My Little Pony."
He said, "Well, Brian, pick the one you want.
Come on, we got to go!"
At first he was Brian, and he was Pocahontas.
He wanted Pocahontas hair.
Then he was Brian, the boy Beyoncé.
Then he was Egypt.
You know, it just depended on how he felt as he grew.
And then later in years he would say,
"Okay, I'm gay. I'm transgender, honey.
I'm everything. I'm everything.
I'm mother, honey. I'm just everything."
That's how he would talk.
I didn't know he was Egypt
until I was passing flyers around
and someone said, "Is that Egypt?"
I'm like, "Egypt?" Said, "Yeah, that's Egypt."
So, that's how I knew.
He had all of our staff and half of the security guards
in laughter and tears
because he was like creating his comedy show.
I would bring him on just so we could laugh.
You know, he was just fun. He was a fun guy.
Someone that anyone would want on their team.
He was a great productive member of society.
His personal choices should not have interfered
with his living his life.
And it caused...
...our world to be empty.
I kissed it. I did.
You just playing?
I did. Okay.
He was self-medicating, you know,
for lack of a better word.
He had a lot of hurt
and a lot of things that he wouldn't let me in on
until later in years,
'cause I don't know if he didn't want to hurt my feelings
or didn't want me to worry,
or if it was embarrassing to him.
Even though he was comfortable with who he was,
I know he still had, you know, pain,
and, you know, heartache.
He was always looking for a job,
and he always seemed to run into an obstacle
because he was who he was.
You know, he couldn't turn off being Egypt or Brian.
He's not going to show up to a job in full Egypt gear,
but he's still very feminine.
So it pushed him into doing other things.
He solicited, he boosted.
The boy could lift your watch off you
with you looking at him.
He would go to Walmart and steal everything.
I'm like, "Brian, stop doing that!"
"I got to make my money. I'm going to go sell this."
He was good.
That's not a proud thing to say,
but he did what he had to do to survive.
And he would say, "Honey, I get out there
and I get dressed up and I'm gonna do me."
If you seen him when he was in his heyday,
that boy looked like a 6'2" gorgeous female.
That's what scared me.
I'm like, "You're going to run into these men,
and they gonna find out, Brian, and they're gonna kill you."
He was like, "Vivian, they know."
And the way he would look at me, you know, I'm big sister,
I'm like, "No, they don't. Look at you. You're gorgeous.
They don't know, Brian! You're not in a gay club.
You're in a regular, you know,
what they call a regular heterosexual --"
He said, "Vivian, they know."
A few years went by, and I'm like, "Oh, shit, they do know."
But they might not have wanted the world to know.
They had their own little secret world behind doors.
But that's what scared me.
I heard he was at a party that night.
As Egypt.
Yeah.
If he was younger and heterosexual,
I believe it would've been solved by now.
Like we said earlier, if he was an Akron U. student,
they would have moved heaven and earth
to find out who killed him.
But Akron U's comment was, "He wasn't a student of ours."
He was a human being. So what?
So he wasn't a student of yours,
so you're not going to investigate
what happened on your campus?
Because he was a Black man, and was gay, transgender.
Outside what society deems as normal.
It's like, "Oh, he must've did something to deserve it."
So, it was hard when it came out that he did do things,
sex work and, you know, or had an issue with drugs,
because I kept thinking, "Don't put him in this light."
And they just gonna throw him away.
As of right now,
Black trans people are living in a state of urgency
because they don't feel safe.
They don't feel safe to be able to live
and imagine what 65 and 75 will look like.
We need a talking-to in our own community
because we do not show up.
There has been countless deaths
when it comes to trans individuals.
And it is so crazy to me,
so crazy that we can applaud the entertainment
because it makes us feel good.
But what are we doing outside of that?
What are we doing outside of that?
What organizations and laws are put into place
for these trans murders to stop?
I haven't seen any.
That saddens me.
This is 2021.
It's no longer something that could just be taboo
and just thrown in the back of a closet and be like,
"Oh, Black lives matter, but trans lives don't."
It doesn't work like that.
Black people are being murdered,
and the reality of it is all of us should come together.
There is racism within the LGBT community.
There is misogyny within the LGBT community.
There is transphobia within the LGBT community.
There's homophobia within the Black community.
Are you not paying attention or are you not seeing
how you are mirroring the exact same thing
that you claim to be fighting against?
Like you're literally parroting what you are
bitching about white people doing to you.
You're parroting that onto other marginalized communities,
and you don't even see it.
You don't even see it,
because you're willfully choosing not to see it.
We cannot be empowered to dismantle white supremacy
but be disempowered to acknowledge the existence
of Black trans people.
Black or brown trans women of color
are being murdered by people like me.
Cisgender men.
Often, here in the United States,
people know that trans women,
particularly the Black trans women who've been murdered,
often have some type of relationship with the murderer.
It may be a sexual relationship.
It may just be a friendly relationship.
It might just be you Snapchatting each other.
But they knew each other somehow before this happened.
And I'm saying it more and more every day,
that as trans women,
particularly as Black trans women,
if we can't trust people that we know,
then who are we supposed to trust?
We already have no respect, in many ways,
for Black queer people.
And then there's an even harsher disrespect
for people who identify as trans.
And the fact that people feel like they can act out
and murder somebody is a problem.
Because we're not holding those people accountable
for what they're doing.
If they're under attack, we're under attack.
And you know, that bar,
it just continues to harm whomever,
or who society deems is the most disposable.
And that bar can move at any time.
That bar in many ways has affected us.
That is why Ed Buck was able to do
what Ed Buck was able to do,
because our disposability came into question,
and many people saw us as a disposable part of humanity.
I represent a population that gets killed every day.
Think about your privilege in the space
that you can access to speak my name and my people's name
that are not here today.
and who have paved the way for all of us to be here.
I think we have to do a much better job of, one,
realizing that intracommunity, as Black LGBTQ people,
we have to do a better job,
if we don't identify as trans, as supporting, protecting,
and creating resources and creating spaces for them
so that they are safely among us.
You have to be grounded and be humble
and willing to check in with yourself every month,
every week, every year -- how can I better --
How can I be a better human?
How can I show up in spaces?
And if it challenges your perception, so be it.
Read, ask questions, talk.
Don't live in your bubble.
Don't be confined to your four walls.
Learn about things outside of yourself,
because once you do that, that's all you can do.
Like, I don't know a lot of stuff till I asked questions,
till I did the research.
Do the research.
And a lot of these things, you can't go back.
Once you read certain articles,
once you have certain conversations,
once you see certain documentaries,
read certain books, there is no going back.
You can't go back to your comfort of ignorance
once you're exposed to certain things.
Care. These are people's kids.
That is the battle that we face,
because we can't just stay bubbled into our own space.
We have to navigate the world in order to change it.
Ohhhhhhhhhh!
-Black lives! -Louder!
-Black queer! Black queer! -Louder!
-Black trans! Black trans! -Louder!
-Black women! Black women! -Louder!
-Black men! Black men! -Louder!
-Black children! Black children! -Louder!
-Black trans children! -Louder!
-Trans youth! Trans youth! -Louder!
This is our time.
I want trans women, trans men,
gender nonconforming individuals to feel heard.
I love you.
I don't have to know you personally. I love you.
Just because you are yourself.
So keep thriving, keep believing.
It's probably always going to be some level of a fight,
but you're not alone.
I see you. I love you.
That's what I want them to know.
Can you say, "No more"?
No more!
One more time together.
No more!
And one more time.
No more!
I want him to know I'm not gonna stop.
I'm not gonna give up on him,
'cause he wouldn't give up on me.
Tell your Brian, "God don't make mistakes."
Hold on to 'em.
Let them know you love them.
Let them know that you're there for them.
And let them know that they matter.
I'm going to do everything I can do to get him justice.
'Cause his life was worth it. He mattered.
I am sober, two years sober.
I am working now.
I'm not a sex worker. I'm a worker amongst workers.
I'm a manager at a grooming salon.
I go to meetings every single day
to help me with my addiction.
I have a strong support group that really cares about me.
And I'm just as free as the life could be.
Today I am working.
I work full-time.
I'm a manager at a call center.
I'm currently going back to school.
I'm working on my business administration degree,
my associate's in science.
In the fall I'm gonna be taking Spanish,
geography, and psychology.
I'm sober. I'm coming up on 10 years.
I have an amazing life today.
Recently, in 2018, I was able to have my sex change.
And I'm...
If I could tell you the feeling that I have
just being in my own skin,
like, this is what life's about.
This is, right here,
to be able to feel comfortable in your own skin is just --
you know, be able to look at yourself in the mirror
and just love what you see,
you just can't put a price on that.
" plays ]
You tears are beautiful.
Your scars, they tell a story.
No pain lasts forever.
You are divinely you,
and there is no one, absolutely no one
that can take your power.
You are my sister.
You are my brother.
You are my friend.
And I will speak your name because your life --
your life has not been lived in vain.
Love -- Love is the key that unlocks a hateful heart.
So trust -- trust in the deepest part of your soul
that all things work together for those who choose love
as the key in the solution to heal mankind.
You are me.
And I am you.
I love you. I will fight for you.
I will speak your name.
My fallen brothers and sisters, you are not lost.
We will speak your name. We love you.