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(TRAFFIC RUMBLING)
(CAR HORNS HONKING)
KRISTEN LOVELL: The first time I ran away from home, I was 15.
As soon as I moved to New York, I was working at a coffee shop.
When I decided to transition, I was fired.
And that is how I found out about The Stroll.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KRISTEN: I was doing sex work there.
There were no other opportunities
for trans women at the time.
I spent almost ten years of my life out there.
It was fun at first. I was like, "Oh, I'm making more money
than I'm making in my job." Please.
Then I started doing the weekend ho thing,
and then it just became, like...
(SNIFFS)
...an everyday thing.
It's been good for me in a way,
you know what I'm saying? Because I've been able to eat.
I've been able to live. I've been able to survive.
Some filmmakers were doing a documentary,
so I had cameras following me,
and these videos, majority of the time
I was on cocaine.
And I think in that clip right there, I was explaining
how exhausted I was of the every day
just living to do this.
(KISSES)
When I was approached to be a subject of a documentary,
I knew that that could be a segue way into filmmaking.
But what I discovered is that didn't have control
over my own story.
♪ (MUSIC TURNS PENSIVE) ♪
KRISTEN: And so it really motivated me
to start my journey as a director.
I was determined to make a film about The Stroll.
I wanted to know the history of how long trans women
had been coming into the area,
and for how long sex work has been a part of our story.
We were pushed out of the neighborhood years ago
and now you don't see us here anymore.
My mission was to tell this story before we're gone.
I felt that I could get it right if I was the one to tell it.
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
CREW MEMBER: Egyptt interview, A camera. Take one.
Welcome, Egyptt.
Um, I'm so excited to speak to you today about our history.
For somebody who has so much lived experience
that the little time that I was out there,
you know, I can't even encompass half of the stuff
that you've been through
and the history that you're gonna share with us.
I'm so honored to have you sitting here with us right now.
Well, I feel so blessed to be here to tell my story,
because a lot of times when they do stories like this,
they cut out the good parts
on the true meaning of what we had to go through.
Some of it is traumatic.
Um, some of it was happy, some of it was sad,
but overall it was an experience
and history that needs to be told.
CREW MEMBER: Izzi interview, A cam. Take one.
I want you to be comfortable.
-Right. -KRISTEN: Your regular self.
It's just me and you having our everyday conversation,
-you're telling me stories. -IZZI: Okay.
I consider myself to be of transgender experience
because I spend half of my life as a transgender woman
and half of my life as a non-binary boy.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
IZZI: For me, life as a young trans person
was very difficult.
It was a whole different kind of learning process
for me and everybody around me.
Coming from a prominent Black family, middle class,
um, my dad was a mason,
had a lot of rules and regulations
around masculinity.
I was the child that didn't want to play football,
didn't want to mud roll, didn't want to do any of that.
I wanted to jump rope, cut up the curtains
and turn them into evening gowns.
That was me. I was the child that got caught
in high heels all the time.
I started at an early age.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
Growing up, for me, being in a household,
there was specific gender roles.
The women cooked, the men worked.
The kitchen was, like, specific for the women,
and, um, for me,
my mom would let me in there with all my sisters.
I was the only male born one that was allowed there.
Even though my grandmother was affirming,
my other siblings weren't.
My aunts and uncles, they didn't understand.
My community in the neighborhood that I grew up in,
was very harmful.
We're siblings. Biological sisters.
One hundred percent. I'm the oldest.
And a lot of people don't believe us,
but we are literally siblings.
Don't breathe. (BLOWS)
Being Pentecostal, my uncle was the pastor of our church.
There was a lot of pressure in being the stereotypical,
cisgender heterosexual male for them.
Our family did not give us the tools
necessary for us to grow healthily.
My mother always told me, never let anyone tell
you can't do something.
And when they told me that I had to leave
because of all of this,
I said, "You always told me,
'never let no one tell you can't do something.'"
-♪ (SOFT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪ -(TRAIN WHIRRING)
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I ran away. I ran away to save my life.
I ran away so I could breathe.
I ran away to get the hell away from those people.
I ran away for peace of mind, for safety.
Yes, I had to sleep on the train.
Yes, I was homeless.
I'd rather the A train than that house
with all that pomp and circumstance
and all of the "religion."
I was safer in the street
than I was ever in that household.
EGYPTT: It was 1983. I was on my own.
I was transitioning at this time.
Back then, being a trans woman,
unless you had your ID changed
and Social Security card,
you couldn't just walk into a place and get a job.
Some people choose sex work because they want to.
Some choose it because they had no choice.
A lot of us back then did not have a choice
because jobs were not accessible to us.
At that time, people were not hiring
people that looked like me.
So girls did what they had to do,
and that was to go to the Ho Stroll.
I would say every borough had a stroll
where the girls would work.
The Stroll in the Meatpacking District
was nothing but transwomen down there.
It was a place where
the young gays, the older gays, cross-dressers,
trans women, drag queens, they can go and make money.
So the tricks knew what they was getting
because that was the only people
that hustled down in the village.
♪ (MUSIC TURNS WHIMSICAL) ♪
KRISTEN: Every queer young person knew
that Christopher Street in the Village was the gay mecca
of New York City.
-SPEAKER: Hey, girl! -(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
KRISTEN: And the further west you went,
the more empty it became.
There you could see queer people
having fun and being sexually free.
By the water, there were these dilapidated piers
where you would see gay men having sex.
(LOUD MOANING)
KRISTEN: And in the center of it all
was this ten-by-12-block radius
called the Meatpacking District.
We called 14th Street The Stroll,
and that was our turf.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(TRAFFIC HUMMING)
(CARS HORNS HONKING)
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
IVY: The Meatpacking District
was not a neighborhood people came to.
You never walked into this neighborhood.
There was a very defined dividing line at Eighth Avenue.
I am a long-time resident of the Meatpacking District.
I have a gallery in the Triangle Building
and everybody knows this building
'cause it's in the middle of the street.
This space was in The Village Voice.
Eighteen hundred square feet with a wood-burning fireplace.
I called somebody who I knew lived in the building,
and I said, you know, "What is it like down there?
You know, it looks really grimy. It looks really dangerous.
Everybody says it's dangerous."
And she said, "It's not dangerous at all.
It's wonderful.
It stinks because it is the Meatpacking District
and there's blood and inedibles and meat all around.
But besides that, it's a great neighborhood."
JOHN: People wouldn't even walk through it.
People walked through the meat market back then,
they-- they held their nose.
I mean, you had to be one of us to get used to the odors.
Without a doubt, it was its own little city.
And every building had a meat company in it.
Back then you would have to be careful,
when you were walking down the street,
you couldn't walk too close to a truck
because the meat would come flying off.
That's how fast the trucks were unloaded.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
JOHN: Just the amount of meat that was cut here.
Back then, to me,
it was just the most amazing place.
-♪ (SOFT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪ -♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
EFRAIN: Well, the first time I came here
was when I was driving a taxi. I was born up in the Bronx,
so I had all these questions about my sexuality
that I was trying to come to terms with,
and I discovered The Meatpacking District.
You have all these fetish bars, fetish clubs,
underground events,
brick factories, and falling apart buildings
and empty lots.
The life, the light, the shadows.
It was such a film noir kind of atmosphere,
and that's what I wanted to capture with my camera.
There were prosties here almost 24/7.
Uh, they would conduct their business in parked cars
right on the street,
and the prosties would often hang out under the elevated
West Side Highway,
and, y'know, wait for passing johns.
The S&M bars, the hookers,
the meatpackers. That's what was down here.
-♪ (TENSE MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪ -(TRAFFIC WHIZZING)
♪ ("ANGEL" BY TELEPHONE MAN PLAYING) ♪
CAREY: When I first went out there,
it felt like we were going through a secret passage.
I just saw all these beautiful women,
and I was like, "Oh, my God,
what is all these girls doing out here?
They so beautiful."
I remember one particular night,
this girl asked me to block her while she fixed her tuck.
I said, "Tuck," I said, "What is that?"
And this girl looked nice.
So while she was fixing her tuck,
I turned around and I looked,
and I said, "Oh, my God, you have a penis."
She was like, "I'm a trans woman."
And I said, "This is what all these girls out here are?"
I said, "Oh, my God,
I want to do this. This is me." I said, "I... I got to do this."
♪ (MUSIC TURNS SOFT) ♪
KRISTEN: I remember, like, when I first stepped on
to 14th Street, when we came around that corner
and all I seen were,
like, it felt like hundreds of trans women were out there.
But I remember it was...
I saw you, and Ceyenne, and a bunch of other girls.
And it was just amazing, like, to see
strong Black trans women.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)
EGYPTT: Yeah. This is what started my journey
because I wanted to be that.
And I used to watch the girls.
And then it was when I came to the decision,
I was like,
"I'm going to... (CHUCKLING) ...you know, transition." And...
Because I had seen everybody so confident in themselves.
And so I was able to draw that out of myself.
So when I first stepped on to that Stroll,
it empowered me to be like,
"If they can live their life like this,
then I can live my life like this too."
♪ (SOFT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(CRICKETS CHIRPING)
Right here, the picture was taken back there...
-BRENDA: Oh, really? -...the reflection of the--
-It was water. -BRENDA: Okay.
LADY P: The coat opened out-- It was taken right there.
BRENDA: Wow.
LADY P: Because there was nobody back here
-but me and the photographer. -BRENDA: Okay.
LADY P: I was gonna let you see the goods for free, baby.
(BRENDA LAUGHING)
LADY P: You can't see it for free, girl.
But I didn't have all this va-va-la-voom then.
-But, um, I have arrived now. -(BRENDA CHUCKLING)
Thank you.
I can't believe it's still here.
I'm reminiscing.
This was my favorite little corner right here.
This is where I worked at.
I didn't allow no one in that corner.
-LADY P: Oh, my God. I'm right here. -Oh, she loves the trucks.
I used to-- We used to take them back here, look,
because sometimes the people would forget to lock the trucks,
-because there was nothing in the back of the trucks -BRENDA: Mm-hmm.
but funky meat that ain't there no more,
so we would take the clients right back here.
BRENDA: Don't get stuck back there, honey.
-Oh, no, baby. -(BRENDA CHUCKLING)
-Big Mama's in charge now, she gets stuck nowhere, darling. -(BRENDA LAUGHING)
-Open the door. -Yeah. I'm not touching it now.
But, you know, back then, we would open up the door
and take a client back, that was like the hotel room.
You know, the guy's back there. And do what Mother does best.
-(BRENDA LAUGHING) -(LAUGHS)
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
The Stroll mothers.
They was the ones who took us under their wing.
These girls showed me the ropes.
These girls showed me what streets to stay safe on,
what not to do,
so that the minute I got off on 14th Street
on the PATH train and I started walking,
and you could hear the clickety-clack of the heels.
(HEELS CLACKING)
TABYTHA: I knew that was Ceyenne,
I knew Nicole was around the corner.
I knew where everybody was at.
It was just the banter,
the allure of just having that, "How's tricks, girl?"
"Oh, it's late... oh, it's late for you,
not for me, girl. You should go home."
-Just the cattiness of it. -(POLICE SIREN WAILING)
Like, these girls taught me how to survive.
EGYPTT: In the middle of West Side Highway,
that people today call the High Line,
was the train tracks.
When I first went out there with one of my girlfriends,
I was petrified.
I mean, she's walking up and down the street,
calling cars,
and I'm like, "What are you doing?"
She said, "This is how we're going to make some money."
(CAR HORN HONKING)
EGYPTT: People are tooting their horns at me,
and people trying to get me in their cars
and I kept saying no.
Until she said, "Girl, the only way
you're gonna get money, you have to get in a car.
Go do what you gotta do.
Don't let them make you do anything you don't want to do."
I've had clients that want me to do
some of the weirdest things.
But let me tell you about this client.
This client was weird.
This guy would do pretend blowjobs
and pretend sex and pay me
-for prete-- Yes. -For dollar?
Yes, I remember. I remember now, he was very, like, hygienic.
He was practicing social distancing
before it became a trend.
Yeah, I was-- This mortician guy, right,
and he would date me and I would go up to his house
and I would sit in his stairwell,
it was like a 100 dollars in, like, three minutes,
maybe less than three minutes, because all he did was take me,
spin me around, and by the time I came back this way,
he had already nutted on the floor and I left.
(LAUGHS)
♪ (TENSE MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
CAREY: One of my first nights out there,
I went with this guy to a hotel,
and I was like, "Okay, so...
um-- I'm going to be a bottom for you." Whatever, whatever.
Is it okay if I explain it?
-Girl, you're fine. (CHUCKLES) -CAREY: Okay.
Pegging, they call it pegging today, but...
-(LAUGHING) -Okay.
In my mind, being on 14th Street
when I was a beginner, nobody told me
the... the ifs and outs about,
"Okay, you're a trans woman, you use your tool, or, your wand."
(CHUCKLES) I figured out that I was very well-endowed,
which I didn't really look at my private parts, so...
That played... That played a lot in my life with...
'cause-- because I used to make so much money.
And how old were you when you first went out to The Stroll?
Um, I think I was 15. Fifteen.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) -(CAR HORNS HONKING)
IZZI: The first time that I've ever seen The Stroll,
stepping back, was scary.
I'm not gonna lie. It gave me anxiety.
I was having a panic attack
because I didn't wanna have sex with people.
That wasn't really what I was interested in.
But I had no clue
on how to get money at 15 years old
on the street. So that's where I ended up.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
EGYPTT: I cried. I cried like a baby.
First time I had to do sexual acts
with someone for money and he told me to get out.
The first time, I was traumatized
because this man wanted me to do some sexual act
with him for money.
And I knew what I was going to do.
But it's-- when you actually do it
the reality sets in, "What are you doing?"
And it was terrifying.
Right, 'cause like,
I'm not really attracted to this man.
EGYPTT: Not at all. (CLEARS THROAT)
Because you got to realize,
you have all different shapes, colors and sizes.
I've gotten in cars with people with the worst thing
I've ever seen in my entire life.
It was like, "Oh, my God."
But those Benjamins sounded great.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
ELIZABETH: I remember, it was a warm night.
And I was feeling myself. I was.
This young man pulled up in a car
and he was mad cute.
And I thought to myself, "Elizabeth, you deserve
a little bit of fun time.
So go ahead. Have your fun."
I remember him taking me
to the side of St Vincent Hospital.
Went to go perform on him.
And that's when I heard
the back door is open to the car.
-(CAR DOOR CLOSING) -ELIZABETH: Next thing I know,
he punched me out. And between all three of them...
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-ELIZABETH: ...assaulted me and robbed me. -(AMBULANCE SIREN WAILING)
ELIZABETH: I ran into St. Vincent Hospital,
into the ER waiting area.
I was just literally assaulted and I was screaming for help.
And the security guard told me that I had to leave,
that I couldn't be there.
And I remember...
basically telling him, "You know what, fuck you,"
picked up my strap, one of my straps,
and walked out and walked to The Stroll crying.
You know, whether it was from the police
who chased you and beat you up,
and wanted to force you to have sex,
whether it was from the john who didn't have enough money
and you knew he was short,
so you was trying to get away from him,
but he wanted you to finish the job.
A lot of the guys knew where we populated at,
and sometimes that became very unsafe.
I had a little bit of everything in my pocketbook.
Mace, hammer, you name it.
I learned to defend myself
because I was always in close proximity of violence.
There was a lot of times where I came into danger.
Then that's when I became the Battle Bot.
You know, you wasn't gonna take my money.
You wasn't gonna beat me up. I was gonna get you
before you got me.
EGYPTT: Wonder Woman is this all-powerful woman
who can handle anything.
I call 'em my Wonder Woman powers because I have to deal
with crazy people,
when I'm getting in and out of your car.
I don't know where you're going to be at.
You don't know what their motives are.
You don't know what type of mood they're in.
So you have to be able to think that fast.
And I love that you call it Wonder Woman,
because I used to call it Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
-(EGYPTT LAUGHING) -And I'm out here slaying all these dicks.
(HIGH HEELS CLACKING)
EGYPTT: If I ever got in trouble with one person, a guy,
every girl that was on The Stroll was there.
The girls stuck together more then
and protected each other.
Especially when we were in danger.
Because if one was in trouble, we all were in trouble.
And that, I miss that part
about the rallying together to protect each other.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-NICOLE: Oh, he is cute! -CHARISMA: Look, they ready.
-Hey, boo. -DRIVER:
-Uh-uh. No. -No!
DRIVER:
NICOLE: No, we're talking about our lives.
We're talking about our lives...
out here before this became this.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
DRIVER:
Oh! (LAUGHS)
He said, "I remember that." (LAUGHS)
I'm sure you do. What's your name?
-(LAUGHS) Bob. -CHARISMA: Bill.
Bill? Bob Reg, Bob Regular?
CHARISMA: Still got it.
Wait, you gotta get in the mirror.
That bitch has still got it.
NICOLE: (LAUGHS) You got to tell them.
Come on, baby. Check your face.
What did you say? The diva will what?
KATRINA: Will succeed.
Pump. Pump.
NICOLE: The diva will succeed.
You know this is huge.
And you ain't probably take this trip in a minute.
I remember, with The Vault. And RuPaul.
Remember when RuPaul used to be out here?
And she used to film her videos with the tricks?
Located in Manhattan's Lower West Side.
The meat market is filled
with transvestite hookers by night.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
I ought to know because I live right around the block.
I asked some of the girls,
boys, girls, whatever. (LAUGHING)
If I could, you know, take a look
inside of their world. Let's go see what's going on.
Maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe I'll make my rent money.
(LAUGHS) Come on, you guys.
KRISTEN: I was looking for footage for the doc,
that's when I seen the clip.
When I was researching, I was starting
with transgender hookers.
And that wasn't the right word.
The right word was transvestite hookers.
(LAUGHS)
RUPAUL: Do you have a boss? Do you work for yourself?
Oh, yeah, for myself, of course.
RUPAUL: Are you ever scared out here on the street?
Yeah. Huh. Sometimes it's hard, you know? Sometimes...
Sometimes people get really rough, though.
And, uh, you know, I have been in some-- my purse has been stolen
several times, though.
But it's very much to be careful.
You carry some mace or something in your purse,
honey, and you've got to mace these motherfuckers
'cause they crazy.
KRISTEN: Ru should have known better.
I felt like, from her tone that this was lighthearted
and a joke for her.
RUPAUL: I've had to talk to people or be with people
who I didn't necessarily know
and I had to be friendly with them, you know?
And that's the hooking sense. And so what's the difference?
I guess the difference is I didn't have to go down
on those people, but if you ask me...
(LAUGHS) ...it's almost the exact same.
I love it. I may have to change my vocation. (LAUGHING)
The reality of homelessness
and transitioning and trans life in general.
It was r-- it was difficult.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KRISTEN: Because we got shunned from society.
We couldn't find work without having to revert back
to presenting as cis.
The longer you are there,
it becomes more like a dead-end street.
I had to sleep in a movie theater.
And being like... (SCOFFS) "I'm a trans woman,
a homeless trans woman
sleeping in this movie theater, like,
this is as close to Hollywood I'm gonna get."
But I refused to let the world beat me down.
Back then, we just took our punches.
We've been taking them for decades.
♪ (SOMBER MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
REPORTER: The sixth precinct is located
in Greenwich Village, where many homosexuals live.
It also encompasses a parking area for trucks
under the West Side Highway along the Hudson River.
The trucks are a known gathering spot
and solicitation area for homosexuals
who use the trucks for sexual acts.
Certain acts committed by homosexuals,
uh, such as dressing in drag, hanging around the trucks,
as we refer to it in the sixth precinct,
and certain-- As we term it, unnatural acts
or which may be committed on the street.
Do you think that has really helped
the image of the homosexual?
I absolutely, 100 percent, wholeheartedly think
that the sixth precinct of the NYPD had full,
utter contempt towards the trans community.
I had a total of 68 arrests.
-If I'm not mistaken. -Oh, wow.
BRENDA: You know, I passed through
a lot of experience with the NYPD.
Especially sixth precinct.
Tasty Tuesdays and Tasty Thursdays.
It's funny that y'all called it that
because we called it TNT.
You... You know, there was times that the girls already knew
the schedule and it would be empty.
So, I guess once they seemed to have been emptied,
the girls started getting the hang of the lock up days.
That's when they started switching it around
and lock you up on a Friday.
You didn't want to get locked on a Friday
-because then that's all weekend in jail. -BRENDA: Yep.
You know, the days that you know that you're gonna spend
the weekend in the bullpens.
Yeah, I've made those mistakes a few times.
-(LAUGHS) -BRENDA: Yeah.
CEYENNE: You had to stay busy to avoid the police.
You had to, like, stay on the move.
And sitting, sitting on a car, smoking a cigarette, maybe,
acting like I'm talking on a phone that don't work...
-(CHUCKLES) -...and that kept me alive.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CECILIA: "Walking While Trans" is a piece of legislation
that allowed sex workers,
especially trans sex workers,
to be stop-and-frisk for decades.
I was arrested many times just going to the store
to get bread, for example,
and police officers would arrest me
under the suspicion that I was loitering
for purposes of prostitution.
POLICE OFFICER: You would sit in a police vehicle,
a half a block to a block away.
You would have a set of binoculars.
All right. You would focus in on a particular area.
While you're focusing on that particular area,
you write down the time you started looking.
As vehicles make the turn, depending on where it is,
either the he/she or transvestite waves him down
or they stop and have a brief conversation.
That's one, it repeats again. That's two.
It repeats a third time. That's three.
After the third time, we will slowly drive up.
One of us will exit out of the radio car.
The other will drive past. And we'll basically close in,
and put the individual under arrest.
Put the individual in the back of the police car,
take it to another location,
put it in a van as a holding area.
Then we will go back and repeat it,
depending on how many girls we're gonna take in that night.
Last Sunday night that just passed,
we locked up six females...
the rest of the night, the whole area was clear...
which basically lets them know that we're not playing around
and we'll be out again and we'll lock them up again.
Until they get the message and realize
that 14th Street is not prostitution.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
CAREY: A lot of my clients were officers,
a lot of my client-- COs, officers, all of it.
One, he used to drive a paddy wagon.
He was a Black guy,
and he would pick me up
and we would go right on the West Side Highway.
You know, so he wasn't shy about what he was doing.
♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Two days ago, there was an officer.
And he turned trick with me and he said that he was--
he's all for it,
and he wanted it to be legalized.
He was a nice officer. Very cute, if I must say.
INTERVIEWER 1: How'd you pick him up, was he on duty?
No he was off duty, in a gorgeous car.
He was in a stingray. I was gasping
when I found out he was an officer.
I actually gave fellatio
to a very beautiful, beautiful, beautiful young Black man
who was a cop.
And after I was done doing his deed, he arrested me.
I drive around here, but, uh, I don't go out.
INTERVIEWER 2: Why d'you drive around here?
'Cause I lock 'em up on occasion.
BRENDA: They used to come around in different type of vehicles
to count the girls on The Stroll.
We didn't know who's who.
You know, everybody's a client. Everybody's a trick.
So we would not notice that and then the paddy wagon
would come like 15 or 20 minutes later to swipe us all up.
(POLICE SIREN WAILING)
KRISTEN: When the police were around,
the girls would scream, "Mag," like the TV show Magnum P.I.
Once you heard "Mags," then you would see
the girls dipping and dodging under trucks and around corners.
The police would scramble the girls
by driving the squad cars on top of the sidewalk,
blaring their sirens to chase us out of the area.
And after the cops went away, the girls would reemerge
from under the trucks and get back to work.
Some nights you may get arrested,
spend the night in jail, get a little community service,
and then we'd be back on The Stroll
the very next night.
CEYENNE: We can't just be normal people that work.
They will categorize us as sex workers first
before employers, employees, before anything.
We will be drug addicts, whores, and prostitutes
-before we're-- -(POLICE SIREN WAILING)
-♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪ -(POLICE SIREN CONTINUES)
I hope their tires bust.
(ALL LAUGH)
(SNORTS)
NARRATOR: (OVER VIDEO) ...specifically homosexuals, uh, on the street,
possibly fondling each other in a-- in an unlawful manner.
KRISTEN: A lot of my time I would go to the library
to rest and have some kind of shelter over my head.
And so I would find myself researching.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
KRISTEN: I was always into history,
specifically trans history,
and I would always talk to the older girls on The Stroll
about the '70s and '80s.
And then one day I met Sylvia Rivera.
I said, "Are we happy?"
KRISTEN: When I first met Sylvia Rivera
in the summer of 2000,
I wish I had just paid a little bit more attention.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KRISTEN: Sylvia was a sex worker and activist
who had been around for decades.
She was one of the initiators of the Stonewall riots.
I think Sylvia being out on the streets
and having to fend for herself at such an early age,
she saw herself in many of our shoes,
in many of our situations.
ELIZABETH: She is the icon.
She was like the mother of the community,
her and Marsha.
KRISTEN: Marsha and Sylvia founded STAR,
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries,
the first trans sex workers rights organization.
SYLVIA RIVERA: Marsha and I both grew up
at a very early age on Times Square.
Marsha was seven years my senior,
and we had seen the suffering from the '60s into the '70s
of the trans youth
and the gay youth being homeless,
because, um, we'd either run away
or either we get kicked out from our home.
(CAR HORNS HONKING)
KRISTEN: I think the gay community wanted
to be accepted into mainstream society
to show people that homosexuals are just like everybody else.
So when you have trans and gender nonconforming people,
it just makes things a little bit
more difficult to explain.
(INDISTINCT CLAMORING)
Y'all all better quiet down.
Y'all tell me go and hide my tail between my legs.
I will never longer put up with this shit.
I have been beaten, I have had my nose broken,
I have been thrown in jail. I have lost my job,
I have I lost my apartment for gay liberation.
And you all treat me this way?
What the fuck's wrong with you all?
-Think about that. -(CROWD APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
ELIZABETH: Sylvia was like a blueprint,
you know, seeing her up there on that stage, getting hoarse,
screaming at everybody.
I knew that there was a need for that.
And if she could do it, I could do it.
Or at least try. (CHUCKLES SOFTLY)
KRISTEN: The mainstream lesbian and gay community
drove Sylvia and Marsha crazy
because they put themselves on the line to fight
for gay liberation and power.
After all they fought for, they were pushed to the side.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
Gay America does not care.
They don't care about their own.
We did. We did, when we-- in 1970. (SNIFFLES)
We had to build them, we did everything.
We fucking fed, we fed children. We took care of children.
Damn it! This is my history.
This was literally a dilapidated pier
with holes in it.
There was nothing here for years.
-ELIZABETH: Nothing. -And then you had this
whole, like, area with Sylvia’s encampment.
'Cause this-- I can't even tell what it is anymore.
STEFANIE: Oh, that's right.
KRISTEN: But basically where we're at, right,
standing right here is where the encampment was.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
STEFANIE: It used to be where a lot of homeless
queer youth used to spend the night.
Didn't have anywhere to go.
They knew this was like a safe place
to be able to congregate,
sometimes spend the night and sleep here.
I actually spent several nights in this.
We've all spent the night on this thing.
-At some point. -Yeah.
EGYPTT: I was on the pier where we literally had huts.
People started making more and more and more.
You had single room ones. You had three bedroom ones.
That's how big they got.
They was like your own apartment.
SYLVIA: This is my little segment of the house,
because Vinny and Tom live on that side.
You can go in.
You know, it's, you know, very decor, you know,
we have a film crew. You know, we have it dressed up.
Down there was Shady Brook Lane.
We had like five or six other houses down there
with another open kitchen.
We had a Thanksgiving dinner,
and we had Christmas here one year.
And, um, we had lots of fun here.
EGYPTT: It became a village of people
taking care of each other. This our neighborhood.
♪ (SOFT MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
(SHOUTS) Excuse me. Don’t be going in my house!
EGYPTT: One day, policemen came over.
They gave us a certain date.
"On that date, we’re putting gates up."
This is when they said, "You guys have to leave."
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
RUDOLPH GIULIANI: I, Rudolph William Giuliani.
BAILIFF: "Do solemnly swear."
GIULIANI: Do solemnly swear...
"That I will support the the constitution of the Unit..."
REPORTER 1: With the pledge to fight crime
and the city's nagging deficit, Rudolph Giuliani
took the oath of office as the 107th mayor of New York.
Giuliani, a former US attorney
and the first Republican elected in nearly two decades,
narrowly defeated incumbent David Dinkins on a platform
to take back New York's dangerous streets.
American cities can't survive as we know them
if they remain so violent.
The era of fear has had a long enough reign.
The period of doubt has run its course.
REPORTER 2: New York is in the middle
of its worst recession for 50 years.
But the economy isn't the key issue here.
The one issue today that obsesses New Yorkers. Crime.
JEREMIAH: Rudy Giuliani brought in
Broken Windows Policing.
Broken windows theory is basically that,
where there is disorder there-- it will lead to violent crime.
So, they basically elided things like graffiti, loitering,
boomboxes, sex work, with rape and murder.
So when you see graffiti,
someone's gonna get raped and murdered.
This is not true. It's been debunked,
but in the dominant imagination of the ruling class,
disorder has to be destroyed to keep us safe.
NEWS ANCHOR: If one window is left broken,
the theory goes, others are shattered.
Pretty soon, the entire building,
the entire neighborhood, decays.
Where we seen back in the '70s and '80s,
girls were getting arrested sporadically,
Giuliani literally came for us
in ways that we've never seen before.
We were taken out of a place of freedom
and put into a place where we were cattle.
Christopher Street became his target.
42nd Street became his target.
These were known places
where we could thrive and survive.
GIULIANI: We want to show people improvement in the quality
of their life, that things are getting better for them,
that things are safer, quieter, more peaceful.
A city that they can use and enjoy.
REPORTER 1: Ladies and gentlemen,
Washington Square Park is now closed.
RESIDENT: This is where I live and I don't like to see this
and I don't like to deal with this.
So if they can-- can crack down on that and get rid
of some of that stuff, I'd be very pleased.
REPORTER 2: The police aim to please with their crack down.
This week they showed off the kind of new equipment
which cost the department half a million dollars.
Night vision cameras, miniature tape recorders,
noise meters. Officers in Greenwich Village
have written nearly 2000 summonses since March.
People without IDs are brought to the precinct station,
and those who fail to show in court are tracked down.
If you don't respond,
if you just throw it in your drawer
and forget about it,
it comes back as a warrant for your arrest.
You stop doing it for a while,
it comes back just as bad if not worse than before.
You have to keep after it.
It's like a police state in a way,
sometimes the way they just stop people at will.
CROWD: (CHANTING) Racist, sexist, anti-gay!
Giuliani, go away!
Racist, sexist, anti-gay! Giuliani, go away!
Quality of life initiatives made you ask, "Whose life?"
Because these were initiatives that were supposed to "clean up"
the neighborhoods by removing people
who were unwanted by the homeowners,
the affluent taxpayers.
They wanted to get rid of things like...
-(HORN HONKING) -KATE: ...squeegee people,
panhandlers, young people hanging out,
pretty much anybody of color who was not in a uniform.
I mean, it was profoundly racist,
and also very anti-poor.
You know, during the AIDS epidemic,
a lot of gay-owned buildings became available
because the owners died, and a lot of them
were bought by wealthy, straight people.
And then there were some affluent queer people
who hated the women on The Stroll.
You know, they treat them like they're ants
or something, right? They just wanna
clear off the street.
Those are the people who think that the queer youth
in the West Village should just magically disappear
because it's their neighborhood.
Never mind the fact that the young people were there
decades before the wealthy people were.
I live in-- in an apartment on Christopher Street.
We are in danger. We residents are in danger.
I have to sleep at night.
The immediate need is for more regular police.
RESIDENT 1: Exactly.
RESIDENT 2: We have to get this under control.
HARRY: The trannies were out on the street 24/7.
It was really a very bad situation.
They would do their business inside cars.
Sometimes parked right in front of a residential building.
You'd walk out of your door at 7:00 am,
and there'd be two people having sex.
Uh, not the kind of thing
that anybody should really be subjected to.
The problem is they were using our streets as their bedrooms.
I voted for Giuliani because I thought
he was the right man for the job,
and having him on our side definitely was a plus.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CAREY: In the '90s, I remember there was this old man
that always used to walk past me,
and he used to be, "Ah, look at you,
you're so disgusting.
You don't have on any clothes. You're terrible."
I remember one day this fool
came out with, like, 20 other people,
and they had picket signs,
and they were like,
"We want you out of our neighborhoods.
Get out of our neighborhoods, transvestite bitch."
"Tr--" And they cursed me out,
but I used to put my middle finger up
and get in the car still,
or go down the steps by their house.
-I didn't give a shit. -(LAUGHS)
I didn't care, honey. (CHUCKLES) Okay.
(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)
HARRY: We started a group called Villagers Against Crime.
We collected money from the neighborhood,
and we used it to purchase three
large professional banners.
So, there was a banner facing the eastbound traffic
that was coming on 12th Street.
Uh, another banner facing the southbound traffic here,
and another one also on Washington Street
a few blocks north.
The banner said, in big letters, "Johns and hookers beware.
We note license plates, inform your job and home."
In those days, you could contact the motor vehicle department,
and for a small fee,
get the name and address of the owners.
So some of my neighbors
would note the plates of the johns,
-and they would call them up... -(DIAL PAD BEEPING)
HARRY: ...and they would say, "Mr. Smith,
-some of my neighbors... -(TELEPHONE RINGING)
HARRY: ...have seen you in the neighborhood,
dealing with prostitutes.
They've told me that if they see you again,
they're gonna call your wife,
they're gonna call your employer
and they're gonna call your neighbor."
People would say, "Oh, prostitution,
that's a victimless crime, isn’t it?"
And we’d point it out that no,
the people living in the neighborhood,
we were actually the victims.
♪ (TENSE MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
-(CAR HORNS HONKING) -(TRAFFIC HUMMING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
KRISTEN: Elizabeth, you're very protective
of your little sister.
Did you bring her to New York?
I did. You want me to...?
-Yeah. -Um...
my sister was struggling out in California.
One day I called her,
we were talking on the phone and she expressed to me
that she had been on the night news.
-And, uh... -♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
...I asked her why and it's because
she was getting ready
to jump off of a freeway overpass.
And no one in the family knew about it.
STEFANIE: There was a lot of things
that I was going through in LA,
I was working on The Stroll in Santa Monica Boulevard.
Um, I had pimps pushing up on me.
I was getting robbed every other night.
I almost got killed by a john
who dragged me for half a block in his car
and almost ran me over.
So and then also just being new to my transition,
it was like, I was having a hard time
with the, um,
turning of the backs from the family.
I felt...
as her older sister,
a sense of responsibility, and at the same time,
I felt like...
I left her there by herself.
I felt guilty.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
ELIZABETH: Me, my sister, and my friend Desire
were returning back from our trip
to go pick up my sister.
And when we arrived in New York, at Port Authority...
the person that I had ran into, I remember they were like,
"Hey, Elizabeth, how you doing?" And just--
The next thing out of their mouth is,
"Did you hear what happened?" And I said, "What?"
"Amanda Milan was murdered just a couple of nights ago."
And this person is explaining it to me, and I could just see
that look on my sister's face-- (EXHALES)
KRISTEN: What happened to Amanda Milan...
was every trans woman's worst nightmare.
She was at the Port Authority.
She had gotten into a verbal altercation with some man,
and he stabbed her in the neck.
But that wasn't the worst part of it.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
KRISTEN: The worst part is that all the people
that were standing out there watching,
laughing and cheering because she was a trans woman,
refused to help her...
and she bled out and died.
REPORTER: Two people passing this fence on Wednesday
thought they were looking at a scarecrow.
When they looked closer,
they realized it was the savagely beaten body
of a young man who had been tied to the fence
and left to die in the cold.
The victim, 22-year-old Matthew Shepard,
a student at the University of Wyoming.
Police say he was attacked because he's gay.
BILL CLINTON: Sometimes, when terrible tragedies strike us,
they bring us to our senses in a way
that would never otherwise be the case.
And I think the horrible death of Matthew Shepard
helped to sober the country up.
This is an amazing turnout.
(CROWD CHEERS)
CHRISTY: What happened to Matthew Shepard, I fell for.
I marched with the people.
Everybody was right behind him.
-CROWD: (CHANTING) Shame! Shame! Shame! -Back up.
PROTESTORS: Protect the streets!
CHRISTY: You had straight people,
high school kids, all ready
and willing to get maced and hit by police officers.
But Matthew Shepard wasn't even from New York.
They were just giving him a vigil in New York.
One of our sisters died.
Amanda Milan was killed in cold blood in the street.
Literally in front of cameras and cab drivers,
witnesses, people walking.
And when it was time
to give her the proper send-off
to make people aware of this tragedy,
no one wanted to show up.
Very few. And it was only us.
It was only the sisters.
It was only anybody who could understand her story.
-We were on the front line... -(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
CHRISTY: ...with the gay and lesbian community,
marching and fighting for equality.
We-- We knew we were freaks to them
because the only time we were recognized
was when they had events, when they had parties,
when they needed to make money. Then we were of value.
But you're not doing anything to help me
from getting attacked. At the end of the day,
that's not community.
SYLVIA: With the Amanda Milan actions,
when we had the event take place...
who showed up?
Two-hundred people. It's a... It's a damn shame.
It hurts me to see that,
no matter how hard we organize,
and we organize, and e-mail and...
and only 200 people show up. It's a disgrace.
It could have been me.
It could have been one of my friends.
And so that kind of was like,
we need to start advocating for ourselves.
I went to that rally and I met up at MCCNY,
and that was when I met
the legendary Octavia St. Laurent.
♪ ("AMAZING GRACE" BY MAHALIA JACKSON PLAYING) ♪
KRISTEN: I remember we started walking.
We did this whole procession up Eighth Avenue,
and Octavia singing like she was Shug Avery.
Then we get to the Port Authority,
and we all stood where Amanda was killed.
♪ ...Grace ♪
♪ How sweet... ♪
KRISTEN: Amanda Milan's memorial
was a turning point for the trans community.
We began to mobilize and have rallies
to make people understand
-that our lives matter. -(CROWD CHEERING)
I believe in us getting our rights,
or else I would not be out there fighting for our rights.
KRISTEN: Amanda Milan's death reinvigorated Sylvia Rivera,
and brought her out of retirement.
And that's what made me realize that I can be an activist too.
And the best way for me to be a part of the movement
was through storytelling.
To make people understand the reality of our lives.
I wanted to archive the movement
that was building between trans women and sex workers.
We were gaining visibility,
but we didn't know that another tragedy would strike...
one that changed everything.
♪ ("AMAZING GRACE" BY MAHALIA JACKSON CONCLUDES) ♪
(AMBULANCE SIREN WAILING)
(CROWD CLAMOR)
KRISTEN: I was on The Stroll headed to court
when the first plane hit.
The thing I remember the most,
-it just smelled like smoke... -(FIRE CRACKLING)
KRISTEN: ...and ash and death.
New York City came to a standstill.
Everyone was in shock.
And we didn't know
how we were gonna continue to survive out there.
There was a yellow tape that was stretched out
across 14th Street that I used to cut through.
(CHUCKLING) The Stroll was unrecognizable,
there were no dates coming in and out.
I still sit and wonder how I survived that time
'cause it lasted for a couple of years.
When they finally let down the barriers,
the cars weren't coming as frequently.
And when the dates started to return,
the dates weren't as generous as they used to be.
9/11 made it even more difficult to survive
because there was nothing.
There was no resources or anything.
And for somebody who's homeless on the streets
and needed to rely on sex work, baby, I was pissed,
because now our money has been severely cut off.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
KRISTEN: We didn't know how long it was gonna be
for The Stroll to pick back up again.
NICOLE: That was it for a lot of years,
maybe two or three years, 'cause it was bad.
9/11 kind of shut things down,
and forced things to the Internet,
because there was no other way.
(ROCKET HISSING)
AUTOMATED VOICE: Welcome.
(DIAL-UP INTERNET TONE)
KRISTEN: At night, I would be on The Stroll,
and during the day, I would be in the Internet cafes,
-every day. -(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)
-KRISTEN: And there we began... -(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING)
KRISTEN: ...to make ads and post pictures
in the chat rooms to solicit clients.
So, I learned about marketing, promotion and graphic design.
Back then we had no choice...
-(MOUSE CLICKS) -KRISTEN: ...but to hustle.
CEYENNE: It actually kicked in the door for safety.
I can tell you from my own personal story,
I was protected by being able to screen a client,
by being able to pick and choose a client,
by being able to take
my street sex work into fetish work,
so I would not be arrested, and turn it into computer work.
And I didn't even know how to work a computer,
child, but I learned it.
-(KEYBOARD KEYS CLACKING) -NICOLE: There was a lot of learning in that process too.
The Stroll was kind of like, "Okay, you can go to The Stroll,
but you can actually now do this from your home
on the computer."
The time did change and so did the girls.
IVY: For about a year it was as if
the entire city was holding its breath,
and then all of a sudden everything just geared up.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
I'm urging people to vote for-- for Mike Bloomberg.
I think Mike Bloomberg is ideally, uh, qualified
to run the city at this very, very critical time.
Uh, Mike's business background,
the fact that he is a self-made man
who's, uh, had enormous success in business,
qualifies him to be mayor of New York City
at a time in which businesses
are considering leaving the city.
CITIZEN: I think Bloomberg is gonna be good for the city
because Giuliani spoke so highly of him,
and because Giuliani is so popular,
he must know who's gonna do a great job.
After September 11th, we definitely need
more commerce and more business in New York.
And I think, as a billionaire, I don't know
what he's gonna be like as a politician,
but I think as a businessman, he'll help New York.
We will rebuild, renew,
and remain the capital of the free world.
♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪
What was happening in terms of gentrification
had been happening for several years,
but when Bloomberg
became the mayor, and after 9/11,
it was as if gentrification went on steroids.
REPORTER: The Meatpacking District
isn't what it used to be.
And to-- for perspective, when Hogs opened in 1992,
rent was 3,000 dollars a month.
-Uh, and think about it. -REPORTER: That's incredible.
I mean, 20 years ago,
that area was not an area where anyone wanted to live in.
I wonder what part,
like, Sex and the City played with that,
because Samantha moved to Meatpacking District,
it was still pretty sketchy
when she moved there, but kind of like--
REPORTER: Yeah, the transvestites
-were on the streets. -ALIX: Exactly!
REPORTER: Now it's a whole-- totally different neighborhood.
♪ (WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
JOHN: It was inevitable that the decline
of the urban meatpackers came.
I'm one of the seven remaining meatpackers
in the Gansevoort Market here.
There used to be two or 300 meatpackers down here,
employing at least 1500, 2000 people,
and now there's just seven of us employing about 125.
And I will tell you, all those old meat guys
that were down here that were the big guys
in the industry and sold so much meat,
none of them would ever believe
what happened to this neighborhood.
IVY: There wasn't a gradual change.
It was a big change economically
of who came into the neighborhood.
It was shocking.
It was such an extreme jump
from being this gritty film noir,
inviting environment where you could
really do anything,
to all of a sudden,
it felt like Madison Avenue was moving in.
♪ (MUSIC TURNS PENSIVE) ♪
IVY: The whole luxury apartments,
the whitewashing of everything,
the kind of erasing of the culture.
It was a big change.
It's really disorienting, right, to walk down a street
you've walked down a hundred thousand times,
and feel struck by a sudden sense of disorientation,
of feeling like, "I don't know quite where I am anymore."
And, "Am I on the right street?
Am I in the right neighborhood? Is this...
Is this the same city? Is this the same me?"
One of the ways memory works is it relies on triggers.
So, remember when you were there
and who you were with,
and then you have a chain of associations,
but that chain is broken and destroyed
when that place is gone.
So, we lose ourselves.
Then we lose our sense of connection
and ongoingness when that happens.
KRISTEN: When Bloomberg became the mayor,
things started to change fast.
Those older girls that I was out there
on the streets talking to were no longer there.
Bloomberg started a program called Operation Spotlight,
a "three strikes and you're out" system.
If you got over three arrests for prostitution,
then you can be sent away longer than a year.
Bloomberg was able to clean up the Meatpacking District
by sending the girls to jail.
I spent a lot of my 20s on Rikers Island,
New York City's largest jail.
It's a horrible and disgusting place.
People are just piled up on one another.
You have people telling you when to shower, when to eat,
and when to go to bed.
You don't have rights.
CAREY: Going to Rikers, honey, was a whole 'nother ball game,
'cause as soon as you go into the six building,
back then, I'm not going to lie, like,
it would be a lot of hate speech.
As soon as they bring us off the... the bus,
and we're in our little tight skirts and our heels.
"Oh, look at these fuckin' faggots," da da da da...
Come up, put your hands up here...
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) -Let me see that ring.
-Is that a wedding ring? -Yes, it is.
All right, leave it on. You're good. Put your hands up.
(CHAINS RATTLING)
PRISONER: All that is ass and tits.
Don't worry about it, man, go over there,
ass and tits, all right.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER, LAUGHTER)
INTERVIEWER: How did you do that to yourself?
Implants, Daddy.
-INTERVIEWER: Really? -Yes.
INTERVIEWER: When did you do that?
About three years ago.
INTERVIEWER: So when they house you,
they house you with all the other men?
-Yeah. -♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
POLICE OFFICER: Gay housing, quarter mile down
the corridor of building five.
You have to sign papers.
When you go into Rikers Island in the receiving room,
you can request to be placed
in alternative lifestyle housing.
And that was the place where all your girlfriends would be.
All the queens would be there, everybody you knew was always
in gay housing.
They separated the queens
and the gay boys from the population.
My name is Shante
and this is my little... my little home
for my little short stay while I'm here.
You know, my family takes care of me.
They... They don't knock me about my sexual preference.
Um, I have something
I would like, uh, for you to see.
A little bit of how I dress on the streets.
This is my everyday effect.
You know, that's how I like to dress.
That's me and my male friend.
This is how I dress on the street.
On the street, I dress as a woman.
This is where I hang my jackets at.
My suede, my silk.
Gap, of course.
Have a nice day.
KRISTEN: I think I've been to Rikers about 30 times,
the longest time was eight months.
If you keep accruing charges,
you can be sent away longer upstate to prison.
What led to my incarceration? Selling drugs.
I sold everything from cash, ass to grass.
If I could sell it, I sold it.
Right. After a while,
you get tired of being face down, ass up.
After a while, you get tired of hanging from the chandelier,
dropping down and getting your eagle on.
I had made a sale to an undercover,
and that's how I ended up going to prison.
You're up in the mountains, away from your city
where all you see is redneck.
All you see is chewing tobacco and them calling you nigger.
And ain't a damn thing you can say about it.
I was young.
I was afraid.
I was gonna be raped.
And I turned into a monster.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
TABYTHA: How it is to survive as a trans woman in jail,
it's a sub world within the world.
It's like a microcosmic world of oppression.
I realized that people didn't respect peace.
They respected violence.
So I became a very violent person in jail.
And I was ready to fight
and stab anything that came near me.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
When you cut someone
or you stab someone in jail, that's a case.
They add that on to your time,
and that's why you keep getting more time.
My original sentence was five to seven.
So, imagine five flat to seven flat.
I did 14.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
TABYTHA: Well after 14 years in prison,
I was released in 2012.
They just give you a bus ticket,
and whatever you have in your commissary,
and you're on your own.
I knew to go back, like, you know where to go.
So, I'm getting onto this bus
and I started seeing all these pretty stores.
It was very hard for me
to understand what was going on around me.
The community is not there.
Vanessa was one of the girls who I hung out with.
I was like, "Yo, you heard such and such?"
"Uh-uh, baby, she dead." "What?"
"Oh, no, she gone." "What?"
Josie? Dead.
Nunie? Dead.
Vanessa? Dead.
Melissa? Dead.
These people are gone now.
Now, they got all these fancy shoe stores down there.
And what is it, the High Line? The only "high line" we had
was a crack pipe on the pier next to the water.
-That's the only thrill you got. -(BIRDS CHIRPING)
TABYTHA: The world was digital.
-What the hell is an iPhone? -(PHONE CAMERA CLICKING)
TABYTHA: When I went to jail, we had the beepers.
It was still some of the same but the money had changed.
The price of pussy went down. I ain't got time for that.
So I knew I couldn't survive like that.
Before I just decided to, like, I can't do this anymore.
I couldn't. I'm almost 50.
So, it took a lot for me to walk away
from the thing that--
the very thing that saved my life.
The Stroll was over.
(FOOTSTEPS RECEDING)
-(RAIN PATTERING) -(TRAFFIC RUMBLING)
KRISTEN: This rain, to me, kind of represents
all of the tears of the girls who didn't make it to see today.
I like to think that they're
giving me their blessings from above.
I think about...
all of the girls that used to sleep up here.
Back in the day, this whole row was encampments.
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) -KRISTEN: Girls living in cardboard boxes.
And I just can't believe
how many times I had to go to jail... (CHUCKLES)
...for this High Line park to be built.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
IZZI: Do you remember when we used to walk down here,
and all the neighbors used to stare at us,
-and we used to be... -Mm-hmm.
-And we would just be pumping. -...runway.
-And they would look at us like we were circus freaks... -Pumping.
...but you could tell they enjoyed it.
I remember the girls would be on this corner,
lined up against this wall.
Right. I would be standing right here.
-Just perched like... -Perched.
Looking for a date.
Sometimes, we used to just go up to the cars.
-KRISTEN: Yes. -Look, Kristen.
Yes. Let me call a date. Or give him the very...
I could just imagine Josie as she was,
-you know, out in a scandal-- -IZZI: And walking up to the cars like nothing.
She would come down the street
and she would have all this body.
-Right. -She would be in like-- you know,
her ass out up to here, like, "How you doing, baby?"
-(CHUCKLING) -IZZI: And she would come back
with a bag of money.
-Josie was... -(KRISTEN CHUCKLING)
IZZI: ...the true meaning of a trans woman sex worker.
She would show everybody how it's done.
What do you think she would think about today though, like?
I think, today, Josie would still be here
right now, making her money.
KRISTEN: She was out here a very long time,
I think longer than any of us has been out here.
And I could only imagine being 12, 13 years old,
having to come out into the streets
because your family don't accept you
to have to sex work to survive.
I can't stop thinking about,
like, I see all these people walking around,
and it reminds me of the people
that were standing in their place back in our day
that are no longer here.
A lot of people lost their lives...
trying to survive here on this corner.
Today, we’re at this point of liberation and visibility
and everybody's got talking about trans issues.
And act like
-it's something new. -Hold on, I can't.
I can’t. (SOBBING)
(INDISTINCT CRYING)
Oh, my God. I can't... (SOBS)
(SOBS)
...then I come here and I feel fucked up.
I can't even believe it. It's like,
the things we had to do. I hate this place.
I fucking hate this place.
-(CRIES) -KRISTEN: Let's go.
-Come on, let's go home. -♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
(TRAFFIC RUMBLING)
(IZZI SOBBING)
EGYPTT: From back then, from the '80s...
let's say there was a thousand girls.
Today, living from that era, it may be five.
Oh, my God.
It might be five of us left from then
that was out on The Stroll because everybody's gone.
Trans women don't...
get to live past 35 or 40.
So, if you were here and you made it...
to live that beyond, you are tremendously blessed,
and you have changed the dynamics of the system.
And you must. You must. Even in your depression.
You owe it to every trans woman before you,
and everyone after you, to keep moving and keep pushing.
The trans community has always been in survival mode forever,
and it is important
that we all get an opportunity to...
thrive.
I believe that the gay rights movement
has consistently left us behind,
and it took trans people and sex workers
to start our own fight.
CECILIA: As a sex worker, as a person who live
-(READS PROMPT) -(CROWD CHEERING)
...for 30 years, exchanging sex for anything that I needed,
I want to remind you all
that we cannot forget sex workers.
(CROWD APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
We've been gatekeeped from the smallest windows
in society to the highest.
Black trans women are now in the fight
and we won't go away.
CROWD: (CHANTING) Black trans lives matter!
Across the country, where we're seeing an escalation
of policing, an escalation of laws
targeting trans people.
-Many places... -(POLICE SIREN WAILING)
CHASE: ...have some criminal law
that is about indicating that one is a sex worker.
And these are, broadly speaking,
the laws, uh, in New York and around the country
that have been referred to as the "Walking While Trans" laws.
What these laws essentially make a crime
is looking like you're going to engage in sex work.
Things like talking to people in cars,
walking down the street,
congregating with others.
Very unclear, vague, overbroad set of laws
that for decades have been used just to target
and harass largely trans women of color.
CROWD: (CHANTING) Trans rights are human rights!
CECILIA: I believe that change
is often reflected in legislation.
CROWD: Black trans lives matter!
♪ (NEWS INTRO MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
Welcome back to Capital Tonight. I'm Susan Arbetter.
Advocates are calling for the repeal of a bill
that's been used to arrest transgender women of color.
TS Candii, a Black trans woman, who on a summer afternoon
in 2017 was smoking outside her apartment
when a police officer approached her.
He threatened to arrest her under this very section 240.37,
unless she performed oral sex on him.
Bring the bill to vote now!
ALL: Bring the bill to vote now!
-TS CANDII: We are ready... -CROWD: We are ready...
-TS CANDII: ...to repeal... -CROWD: ...to repeal...
-TS CANDII: ...the Walking... -CROWD: ...the Walking...
-TS CANDII: ...While Trans.... -CROWD: ...While Trans....
-TS CANDII: ...ban. -CROWD: ...ban.
REPORTER: New tonight, Governor Cuomo has signed
a measure repealing parts of the so-called,
"Walking While Trans" law.
It was passed in the '70s to prohibit loitering
for the purpose of prostitution.
BAILIFF: An act to repeal Section 240.37 of the penal law,
-ayes forty five, May 16. -SPEAKER: The bill is passed.
The most important part of all of this
is like people like me and people like everybody here
that identify as trans are gonna be able
to see themselves reflected
in this important point of the city,
and say, "Me as a trans person, I see myself reflected.
Me as a person of color, I see myself reflected.
Me as a former sex worker, I see myself reflected."
(CROWD APPLAUDS)
Today, sex workers are finding a way
to express their needs,
and to ask for the solutions that they need for themselves.
♪ (HOPEFUL MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
CEYENNE: I didn't want to work for another agency
that was gonna govern my work,
or my thoughts, or my dreams, or my wishes for my community.
I wanted to do that and have ownership of my own.
You took part in a very iconic moment
at the Brooklyn March.
CEYENNE: We had started a fundraiser
exactly three days before the liberation march.
In three days’ time, the numbers blew my face off.
CROWD: Black trans lives matter!
SPEAKER OVER PA: Black trans lives matter!
CROWD: Black trans lives matter!
-(INDISTINCT CHATTER) -(CROWD CHEERING)
-We're whores! -(CROWD CHEERING)
I am the founder of GLITS Inc.,
that's "Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society."
(CROWD CHEERING)
I named it that
because we have always been last.
That's not gonna happen anymore, we're first.
(READS PROMPT)
(CROWD CHEERING)
We have never had equity in the city of New York.
-Motherfuckers, we do now. -(CROWD CHEERING)
(READS PROMPT)
-(CROWD APPLAUDING, CHEERING) -(SOBS)
We made it here.
CEYENNE: We're buying equity.
-(READS PROMPT) -(CROWD CHEERING)
(SOBS)
(CROWD CHEERING)
For every girl that's died,
the police need to be ashamed of themselves.
For every time we had to bury one of ours,
they need to be ashamed of themselves.
You're looking at a Black, international whore, baby.
-It's me. -(CROWD CHEERING, APPLAUDING)
And I'm selling me to save you.
♪ (“I AM HER” BY SHEA DIAMOND PLAYING) ♪
♪ There’s an outcast In everybody’s life ♪
-♪ And I am her ♪ -♪ I am her ♪
♪ There’s a shadow In everybody’s front door ♪
-♪ And I am her ♪ -♪ I am her... ♪
KRISTEN: As a young, homeless trans woman
sleeping in movie theatres, I never thought
I would have the power and ability to make films.
I am so proud that the girls are happy,
and I wanted to give them the opportunity to shine.
♪ All that glitters isn't gold ♪
♪ At least that's What I've been told... ♪
The system never gave us resources.
We created the resources by telling our stories,
by standing out there and rallying.
I am my own liberation.
♪ It wouldn't be The worst thing ♪
♪ That I ever did ♪
♪ It's a hell of a world That we're living in ♪
♪ James 2:10 A sin is a sin... ♪
NICOLE: When people say that there's no honor
amongst hoes, they told a fucking lie,
because for The Stroll for us back then,
there was nothing but honor,
and protect a girl
who was walking down that back street.
♪ There's an outcast In everybody's life ♪
-♪ And I am her ♪ -♪ I am her... ♪
CAREY: A lot of these new girls,
they don't know about what we have done for them.
We paved the way. We fought to be where we are.
No matter how much my future changes,
14th Street will always be a part of me.
♪ Oh, you know I am her ♪
♪ I am shame, she is me We get down... ♪
EGYPTT: To live 20 years on a ho stroll,
being homeless, being on drugs,
doing what I had to do, and I survived all of it,
I feel that I am that Wonder Woman.
And I am here today at the age of 60.
♪ There's an outcast In everybody's life ♪
-♪ And I am her ♪ -♪ I am her... ♪
KRISTEN: After 20 years, we're still connected.
We always look out for one another.
Through all of our shared experiences,
our sisterhood still thrives.
♪ And I am her... ♪
KRISTEN: You can take the girl off of The Stroll,
but you can't take The Stroll out of the girl.
♪ (“I AM HER” BY SHEA DIAMOND CONCLUDES) ♪
♪ (UPLIFTING MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
♪ (UPLIFTING MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪