I got a call just like any other call.
You know, a dude hit me up, like, "What's up, Ma?
How are you? What you up to?
- What's your rates?
How much you charge? Da, da, da."
So I told him, "What you trying to do?"
"Oh, I wanna get fucked," "Okay," boom.
So he comes over,
everything is cool, everything is normal,
everything was going great, you know?
I just... I don't expect anything of it.
Next thing you know, he's like,
"Can I use your bathroom real quick?"
I said, "Okay sure, go ahead."
So I guess he said he needs to freshen up,
or wash his dick or whatever.
So I'm like, "nigga, your dick should've been washed
before you came in this bitch."
So just as I'm about to pull down his pants,
he sits on the bed,
and I'm right here in front
in missionary position on my knees,
like, you know, getting down,
about to suck his dick, and I pull down his pants.
Bitch, and I notice
there is a big-ass motherfucking pistol, bitch.
A big-ass glock next to him.
And I gag, like, bitch, like honestly,
this was one of the most scariest moments of my life
doing sex work, because I didn't know what to expect.
I didn't know what was gonna happen.
My first instinct was, "Bitch, grab the gun."
That was my first instinct. And I know people
just like, "Bitch, that's crazy as hell.
Why would you do some shit like that?"
Bitch, the way that I thought was,
it's either his life or mine.
So I grabbed the nigga's gun and he was like,
"What are you doing, what are you doing?"
As he's walking towards me,
I click it, I click the gun, but I notice
it's not going off, bitch. So I'm like,
"Bitch, what the fuck is going on, hoe?"
Like, I'm just like, I'm just clicking this gun,
like, trying to get it to go off, like,
I'm thinking, I aimed the gun at this nigga head.
Like, I was bold-bold,
I don't know what the fuck I was thinking.
It didn't go off.
Mind you, I've never shot a gun in my life,
so I don't know how this shit works, like,
so I was like, "Damn."
So at this point he gets scared and he feel like,
"Oh, this bitch tryna kill me."
So he charges at me...
...and we start wrestling over the gun.
we're tussling over the gun
and we fucking knocking shit over, bitch.
Dentin' holes in the wall.
We literally fought from here down to the hallway,
and nigga, we started tumbling down the stairs together,
fighting over this damn gun.
So I ran outside by my neighbor's car.
My neighbor's looking at me, like,
"Bitch, what the fuck is going on, bitch?
Don't put me in your shit.
I don't have nothing to do with it, hoe."
He actually end up just getting in the car,
and as he's like coming around, I'm still ducking
because I don't want him to do a drive-by on me.
So I'm still kinda, like, getting low and like ducking.
But he ends up just speeding off.
He just sped off. So I was like, "Thank God, like, bitch,
this is over, I survived this." Bitch I was like, "I'm done.
I'm done with this shit, hoe.
I'm never doing sex work again in my life."
So, he gave me a... he sent me a text,
"You ruined my night,
I'm sore, I'm limping, my leg is broke.
I'm a rapper in Atlanta, I'm known,
and I carry around my strap with me because, you know,
it be girls, you know, trans girls in the community
that be setting me up and trying to rob me."
I was like, "So did you still wanna do this?"
He introduced himself again. I introduced myself again,
and we decided to fuck.
♪ I play the street life ♪
♪ Because there's no place I can go ♪
♪ Street life, it's the only life I know ♪
♪ Street life ♪
♪ And there's a thousand parts to play ♪
♪ Street life, until you play your life away ♪
♪ You let the people see just who you wanna be ♪
♪ And every night you shine just like a superstar ♪
♪ The type of life that's played ♪
♪ A ten-cent masquerade ♪
♪ You dress, you walk, you talk ♪
♪ You're who you think you are ♪
♪ Street life, you can run away from time ♪
♪ Street life, for a nickel or a dime ♪
♪ Street life, but you better not get old ♪
♪ Street life, or you're gonna feel the cold ♪
♪ There's always love for sale ♪
♪ A grown-up fairytale
♪ Prince Charming always smiles behind a silver spoon ♪
♪ And if you keep it young, your song is always sung ♪
♪ Your love will pay your way beneath the silver moon ♪
♪ Street life
Okay, get that skin nice and cunt,
and nice and pussy.
So hopefully these trades don't clock, darling.
My name is Daniella Carter.
I almost told you my middle name,
but Daniella Carter originally from Queens,
Queens, New York.
I guess this is a good thing to see...
see toothpaste on the mirror, right?
At least you know the girl's got a fresh mouth.
Because I do electrolysis, I can't wax my face,
I have to shave it like this.
But I like it, it's actually, like really good.
So to any girls who's trying to figure out
how to get a close shave,
Miss Conair, Miss Thing. And give me my coin,
'cause I'm giving y'all a little shout out.
But this is very much the tea,
to be honest with you, I keep this in my purse.
If you out, I'm out and about with a trade or something,
or you know, you gotta wake up at somebody's house honey,
but you know you're a very spiky girl,
make sure you carry your little tools.
Cause you might've looked real going in there at night,
'cause you don't want to walk out there giving clock
during the day in these. And if you do, fuck it.
Just be you. Be true to you.
But this cunt? Oh, no, honey.
Not me.
I'm sorry, walk in your truth, but that one's just not mine.
I had gotten introduced to sex work
because I was working at a restaurant,
a very famous restaurant here in New York City, called Lucky Chang's.
And all my girlfriends were like,
getting all surgeries,
like breasts and faces and nose jobs and you know,
I'm 19 at the time, 19 going on 20.
And like, you know, we were making good money,
but it wasn't enough money to pay
thousands of dollars of surgery.
So I'm like asking my friends, I'm like,
"Hey, you guys, like, What? How did you do that?
Like, what's going on?" And they're like...
they're like, "Oh, you know girl,
we're working, you know, we're working."
I'm like, "Well, we're working here.
Like, what do you mean we're working?"
And they're like, "No, we're working."
The only reason I started sex work was because
my mom, my sister and I was homeless.
We had family members
letting us stay at the house, but they wouldn't feel
comfortable with me being there,
- because I was gay.
My oldest sister let us come stay with her
and she was like,
she had just got married and she was like,
"I don't feel comf... My husband does not feel comfortable
with you staying here,"
Which I don't know why, cause he never seen me.
Like, we stayed in the basement or whatever.
He would never see me, so I didn't understand
how he didn't feel comfortable with me being there.
I felt like more... she was more uncomfortable, you know,
not knowing who I was as this new girl.
Like, but I transitioned and she asked me
to leave her house, that was the last straw for me.
I was like, "I gotta find a way."
My mom and my sister left too because they didn't...
they was like, "She gotta go, we gotta go."
And we all slept in the truck on National Highway,
I'll never forget.
And that was the first day I started working
to put us in a hotel, and then from then
I would like, catch my clients, like every other day
to make sure that I had enough money to pay
for like hotels, and make sure we had food to eat,
and we would go hotel to hotel.
We did that for a couple of years
until I got stronger in my craft
and figured out how to master this shit.
- ♪ Yeah, mm-hmm
♪ Yeah, uh, mm-hmm, uh
♪ Yeah, uh, yeah, uh
♪ Yeah, uh, mm-hmm
Girl the neighbors be all in my damn business, girl.
These walls are paper thin.
Most of the time it's niggas that you would never know
that they get down, you would never know.
I've had the most thuggish hood type niggas, you know,
saggin their pants, "What up, bro?"
You know what I'm saying? Like those type of niggas,
like when you come around you would never...
Dread heads,
fine-ass dread head light-skinned niggas
with big dicks,
you know the type that the average girl would go for.
You know.
It's crazy because these types of men,
like you would never think
that they would do anything with a trans woman
or just a gay person or anything.
But they would walk up to you and say,
you know, it depends.
If you're getting a client off your ad, that's different.
But sometimes I meet clients in real life,
and they'll be like...
"Hey, psst.
What's up, ma? I'm trying to get at you," you know.
"Can I get your number?"
Just trying to, you know, looking around and shit,
making sure nobody is watching.
I've had some type of men that you just,
you would never expect at all that they like trans women,
and especially ones that you would never think
like to take dick up the ass.
Niggas can't accept being with a trans woman
in public because it's their ego and they going to feel like,
because that's what they like, the world is gonna look at them
and belittle them for what they like.
Or if they married like, like I said,
if they married or have children, you know,
that's something that could compromise his whole,
- his whole... His whole situation.
Whatever job he has, you know.
It could stop, you know, depending on what situation,
but now... He got, I mean,
that shit get a nigga fucked up too.
That goes to him, that's going for the dudes not being true to they self.
That shit get a nigga fucked up too.
But that's why niggas can't, they...
like if that's what you like,
you have to be true to yourself, but they can't.
Because you done built this whole life,
this whole lie, you done lied your whole life,
of about, yeah, you this tough top dude
or you this family man.
You got your kids, you married,
she owns half your stuff. You can't lose none of that.
But you know, you in love with a trans woman
and you can't come out with that,
because that's gonna compromise everything.
So like, this person is transgender,
I know that they got a past.
I know that at one point in time they was
- another gender, okay? They was a, yeah.
So now I have like within this mindset,
if I'm gonna start a relationship with this person,
I have to basically take in they...
see I have to accept that.
Now I think acceptance is a lot of the problem too.
I think acceptance of, they've overcome whatever it is for them.
Their acceptance is not at the same level
that the trans person's is obviously,
because they've made that jump.
Yeah, they already jumped.
As a person, no matter
how attracted to it they may be, no matter what,
they in their mind, they ain't make that jump yet.
So because they ain't make that jump, they're not gonna.
They ain't, they ain't gonna.
They physically made the jump
- as far as dealing with one... Right, right, right.
- But not mentally as far as... - Let's experience it.
Letting the world know that that's what they like.
That's why I said if you like them, go hard for them bro.
Because you, if you feel like you're gonna be embarrassed,
you shouldn't be doing it if you feel like you gonna be embarrassed.
Go hard, if that's what you like, it's okay.
If you go hard, who's gonna say anything?
What they, what they gonna say?
Just don't try to live a double life.
Don't live a double, that's when you get caught up.
don't live the double life.
No ass.
But they still live.
Flat ass.
Flat ass bitch.
No I'm...
I'm really a Kiki.
They say, "Yo, flatty,"
"Yo shorty with the flatty."
"Hey, yo, muma."
A girl finally get a good sugar daddy,
"Oh yes honey, he got me living like the white women."
Guess there is no successful Black women in this world.
Can't be a fab Black woman.
Only gotta be the fab white women.
I used to be problematic like that too, so.
I wanted to be white, I wanted to be cunt.
And it's giving, bitch, they don't even want you in their neighborhoods,
at all.
So now you trying to keep up with the fucking Joneses,
and the Joneses don't want you.
And that's how dumb we becoming.
All right, you ready?
♪ Do, do, do, do, do
♪ Do, ooh
♪ Do, do, do, do, do, do, do ♪
Rich-Paris: We met through a mutual friend.
I'm not gonna say his name,
but we met through a mutual friend
who called this one on FaceTime.
And when he called this one on Facetime and I seen him,
I was, I went to flirting.
He was acting stuck up.
He didn't wanna add me back on Instagram,
even when I DMed him and was like...
- That's crazy you didn't say... - "Are you gonna add me
- back on Instagram?" - ...none of this on the call.
Now you wanna snitch on me. That's so crazy.
That is so crazy.
I was already cooking spaghetti.
That shit was good as fuck.
And then I knew he liked me,
because when we slept together he nudged me. So...
I who?
- I nudged you? - Yeah.
- What that mean? - You put it up against me.
I knew about everything that came with him as well.
Like, so I seen the pictures.
So I already knew.
I was with a girlfriend of mine and we were in the Bronx
and we met these guys at a club.
We ended up going home with them,
and we went to some basement apartment.
And you know, we were messing around with the guys, oral sex, whatever.
♪ Ah, ah
♪ Hey, yeah
♪ Yeah, yeah
It's like, after the fact when I'm cleaning myself,
like standing there washing myself and I had a skirt,
and he wanted to like, go under my skirt.
And he like grabbed me like by force,
like and felt that I have a penis.
And the same time like came and smacked me so hard in the face.
I ran out of the apartment.
The fact that, that happened after the orgasm,
you felt embarrassed after you came, which is usually how it goes.
Like, violence doesn't happen before the orgasm.
It happens after and then they wanna realize and act out,
because they feel like their masculinity is threatened.
And that's why like, you know, you need to be honest.
I used to do those shows all the time.
I used to have sex with guys without telling them
I was trans and telling them I have my period,
and bending over with the lights off.
And you know, at the end of the day
these guys wanna act out, and of their masculinity,
they feel like their masculinity is threatened.
The whole stereotype that you're gay
if you sleep with a trans woman,
just because we have male genitals
but a lot of us are way woman than a lot of cis women.
The only thing is we have male parts.
What we usually do as trannies, we be broken down,
but we need to stand out.
Okay, broken the fuck down and needed all of that sound, all of that attention.
Maybe I'm lying to myself here, you know, but,
it's kinda funny because it's like,
with that moment of the car going by,
like being broken down but making it sound
like it's a motherfucking Mustang or a Porsche.
It's like that's what we give. We're good at being broken down,
but before people see us, we have a great way of making ourselves stand out.
Having that loud roar.
You know, it's like we gotta be the bitch in the room with the 28 inches.
You gotta be the bitch with the biggest boobs, the biggest body, you know?
And it's like, but meanwhile whether you use
materialistic things to cover it up or not, are you really at peace?
You know, are you really at peace with yourself
knowing that the best of you is only seen
when you're a survivalist.
Something like for me that I've always had to think about,
is the best of you only when you are seen as a survivalist
because that man that's giving you the money,
that man that's helping us pay our light bill, okay?
But he don't gotta worry about that because his Stacy,
his Barbara Ann, oh trust, she's laid up.
That bitch don't gotta suck a dick, flip monkeys,
tickle a prostate to get her light bill paid.
Okay?
I can't speak for other trans women,
but I'm not a judgmental trans woman.
I think that when they're around us
they feel like they can release themselves,
and be who they really wanna be.
And they feel like they don't have to hide or put on a front.
that's also what guys like about trans women,
because cis women tend to be very judgmental.
Most cis women don't even wanna date bisexual men.
As soon as they hear you're a bisexual, bitch, they're out.
Okay hoe, like that's, that's done for.
Me personally, I love bisexual men.
I've had butch queens,
if you don't know what that is, that is gay men,
you know, that are more on the feminine, submissive side.
I've had, you know, more trade, top kinda guys that,
you know, there's some guys that they just wanna fuck you.
They don't wanna touch the dick,
they don't wanna see the dick,
they don't wanna do anything with it.
They don't wanna be reminded of anything,
that you were even once born male, or any of those things.
So you have different types of clients,
there's different guys that are into you
for different reasons and different things.
♪ I've been looking for someone like you ♪
♪ A kind man who's honest and who's true ♪
♪ The kind of man who will love me just the way I am ♪
♪ Who will love me, the good, the bad, the ugly ♪
My name is Lo.
I wrote for people like P. Diddy, Beyoncé,
Usher, Mario Winans to name a few.
Oh. Janet Jackson
Oh, another thing that I did,
I smoked weed with Rick James
You know what I'm saying? I mean, I guess you could say I'm a ladies man.
I love women and I always go for the women
that niggas afraid to even approach,
you know what I mean?
I don't want somebody like that he can get,
you know what I mean? I want the one that they say,
"Oh. She ain't gonna give you none.
All she gonna do is do up all your drugs and leave".
That's the one that I want.
I ran across this girl online.
I was looking at her like, "Damn, she bad".
And I was like... I was started looking close
and reading the captions and I was like,
"Oh, she's transgender."
And I was like, "How?"
I was like, "She's like Beyoncé fine".
Like to this day I still never met her in person.
And when it came down to, okay, come out to where she lives,
I would, I just would never do it.
But I think it's because I had too much going on,
and too many... If I didn't have any options, like I said,
she would probably be my girlfriend.
I get a lot of guys that's bottoms
'cause I'm a top. I'm a full top and
well, I bottom sometimes.
But mainly, majority of my clients,
they call about big dick girls.
If you in the workin... if you're a trans girl,
you know that the clients like big dicks,
and if you don't got a big dick,
you won't make no money in this industry
being a trans girl, I'm sorry.
And that's what the men in, that come see me,
that's what they're attracted to.
They want to see a pretty-ass girl with a big dick.
And titties, you gotta have titties and body,
'cause if you don't, they won't be attracted to you.
'Cause before I got any work done,
they would walk out on me.
They would turn around and walk out on me.
If you didn't have no work done, or like,
but once I started getting work done,
I start getting clients like, the price went up.
♪ I met a girl, let her give me head ♪
♪ It was fire
♪ She told me she was trans I said liar ♪
♪ She proved me wrong ♪
♪ Shit was hot
♪ I like what she's got
♪ I know it's so hot ♪
♪ I don't give a fuck ♪
♪ I like that I like that you like ♪
♪ Shit we might fuck on two dykes ♪
♪ Tonight
I'm supposed to, you know, have my... get my letters and,
and start the hair removal process.
I've always wanted to have a vagina.
I think they said it's like three hours,
and then you spend five days in the hospital
where you have to deal with your you know, your packing,
your catheter, and your dilation.
Then you go home and you start the long process of recovery.
It's a very long process.
It's just, I embraced my transsexuality
through all the years of sex work.
But I've played the both sides of the fence.
I've lived my life as a woman without telling everyone,
and I lived my life as trans.
And personally I like the other side when I'm a woman
and no one knows that I'm trans.
Life is a lot better that way for me.
I feel like it's a normal life, you know?
More normal.
But it's a lot of work, 'cause you know,
you gotta to work on your voice, your mannerisms,
you have to hide who you really are.
It's very uncomfortable, very taxing on the brain.
It's a very stressful situation.
But like, as that being said, like life is a lot better.
You get treated better, you get, you know,
people acknowledge you publicly, they're more affectionate.
I will say this much.
I'm not villainizing black men because,
or black people, because I do have
some very great Black friends.
Like I have a Black friend who lives down in Tribeca,
and I've known him literally since I was 16 years old.
He thought I was a little older, but I was actually 16,
and he was the first actually example
of a successful Black man that I had ever seen,
or encountered or had access to.
And because of him I was like,
"Oh, Black men can be successful."
But then I realized in that very moment
that I'm dealing with this Black successful man,
that I'm actually a part of him cheating on a Black woman.
She's not aware of the fact
that her Black successful husband is upstairs
in their beautiful condo down in Tribeca
laid up with a Black trans woman.
Right, but that could happen with a white man as well.
Yeah, but the way that it's happening with white men,
it's easier for them to talk about the ways that
in our Black culture and communities, that we're not.
Like we act as if it does not happen,
until people are put in positions to be shamed.
If anybody is better at anything, I believe, and this is no shade,
that Black people are more prevalent
to be in a position of the imposter syndrome,
and having to propagate that because they're,
they've always been perceived as a second-class citizen.
So they're always trying to find a way
how to be seen as enough.
But that is something so common.
You know? It's so common.
Like you may not understand it to be that way
I don't but I do.
I don't understand it cause I am not Black.
- Right. - No, but...
And they'll give you the treatment that I will never get.
- But... - They really will.
Okay, and I, okay.
- Simply, because you look... - I'm just trying...
You don't look like,
you don't look like a part of the problem.
You look like you're a part of a solution.
For the females, I want you to understand,
it's nothing but respect.
I don't bash females at all, that's not something I do.
I'm willing to teach the females how to keep these dudes.
The dudes love how dominant I am, 'cause I like basically
make them do what the fuck I want them to do.
Like if they come here, I'm like,
"Get on your fucking knees
and suck my dick and don't look at me".
That's how your average hood nigga want to be treated.
Like, that's how they want to be treated.
Like, the reason you girls can't keep,
the reason a lot of females cannot keep a man
because you don't, you gotta know how to operate,
how they operate. Bitch, they go work 12-hour jobs.
Bitch, they don't wanna come home
and hear you talking about, "Who you've been talking to,
where you been," and da, da, da, da.
Bitch, I'll be on my knees with my hands tied behind my back
with my mouth open, like that's how you keep a man.
They come see us, they don't go straight home to y'all no mo'.
It's because, and I'm not against y'all.
I'm willing to, I'm willing to share this with you guys.
I want y'all to know like, so y'all can keep y'all man,
'cause I don't want them.
Bitch, I just want a few dollar, you know,
I want what they can do for me, that's it.
I don't care about being in a relationship with them.
I'm never gonna be in love with them.
I don't care about how they feel.
I don't care if they had a bad day at work.
This is not something I care about.
I only care about their bank account,
their income...
...how good they can suck dick and get on their knees
and get fucked and that's it, that's all I care about.
I really don't care about nothing else with them. Like, I just don't,
I don't have a heart for them, and I'm being honest.
She's just an exotic looking girl, she looks different.
Like you don't know what nationality she is.
You know she's, she just looks like an attractive woman.
that's you know, that's all I see.
I just saw a girl that I liked that I thought was a girl,
and then when I found out that she was trans,
you know, I still liked her.
And then she has breasts. I'm like, I might play with her titties and all that.
I'm definitely not touching any dicks.
You know, I might squeeze her ass or something.
Nobody's touching my ass, 'cause that turns me off, my dick go limp.
Even regular girls, if they try to do that,
get too close with a finger, limp.
I don't know, it's just I mean,
I'll probably let her suck my dick because she's so pretty
and she looks good, you know what I mean?
It depends on what state you catch me in, I guess.
Just not, it's not that cut and dry.
If somebody's attractive, they're just attractive.
XoTommy: I feel like my oldest brother on my mom's side
always knew but never said.
Well, I feel like he knew when I started being DL, I feel like.
Now my sister, she hangs around gays all the time,
so I'm pretty sure she knew, and she didn't have a problem with it.
My mom, my older family,
like the older generation of my family,
like my mom, aunties and all of them,
they found out through social media.
And one day I was in Atlanta at a hotel room,
and my mama called me.
And I was just sitting right there like, "Hey Ma."
She called me and was like, "You know if there's anything
you need to talk about, you know you can talk to me".
But in my head I'm like,
I know my mama don't like the LGBT, she does not like gays.
Like, they old school, my mom is 70.
I lied, very fast, my mom is 70.
So if y'all like parents or guardians are around that age,
y'all should know, they don't play that shit.
Like they just don't, even to this day it's still weird
having to talk to my mom.
Like, and it's super weird to say that,
because it's like my mom has been
like my number one backbone since I was a kid.
I've never met my father ever, for real, for real.
Like, I don't even know him.
His personality, I don't even know his lingo.
My father started calling me from prison last year around,
down around the time I got shot.
He was calling, still never saw him.
He called me and I had told him,
I think I had told him like,
after like the second phone call I told him.
He was like, "Oh, that's fine.
My best friend's gay whoopty whoop."
But I wanna say a couple of months went down the line.
Remember I told you, I told you I ran into my,
ran into my brothers and I end up talking to them and shit,
and they told me that my dad was in there gettin down.
I was like.
♪ Hey, hey
♪ Hey, make my pussy say
♪ Hey, hey
♪ Yeah, make my pussy say
♪ Hey, yeah, make my pussy say ♪
♪ Hey, hey, mwah
I wish like at least like half of the guys
that I've dated, been with, slept with, celebrities,
would you know, say that they are been with me.
I mean any normal guy would not be ashamed
to say that they've slept with me.
And my thing is, why do you care
where somebody else is putting their dick?
Like if they wanna put their dick in the girl, in the wife
and they're trans, like that's their dick.
That's who they wanna fuck.
Why does everybody else care about who wants to fuck who?
It should be nobody's business.
Worry about who you're fucking, and that's it.
Like, this is the problem with this world.
Everybody's so worried about who's fucking who,
when at the end of the day they wanna fuck each other.
So that's the whole tea.
♪ I've been a fool for too long ♪
♪ In my eyes, there's no wrong ♪
♪ Oh god, I'm blind ♪
♪ And now he's lying to my face ♪
♪ I wish he knew a cooler way ♪
♪ To break a girl's heart today ♪
And girls ask me like why I don't give a fuck about trade, 'cause I don't.
They will come fuck on you, drain you of all your energy,
and go back home to their girlfriend.
And what I had learned about trade too,
like it's hard to deal with them men
when they got baby mamas, 'cause they always,
they'll drop you at any time to go back to them.
So that's why I learned like, pay me.
Pay me and get the fuck outta my face.
But trade is the average straight man.
And those are the people that wanna bottom,
like it's the hood guys. Like they want to get fucked,
and they go right back home to their girlfriends
like nothing never happened, and get in the bed
with they girlfriends like nothing never happened.
But it'd be like real tough, rugged trade like,
and
but trade also will kill you too.
So you have to be very careful.
Things that, like even when I think about my experience
as a Black trans woman and how, you know,
most Black women think, you know,
that their husbands aren't sleeping with us.
That their husbands aren't attracted to us.
But they're the first ones that when they see us,
they'll call us out and say that we're beautiful.
"You really gorgeous, you're a woman."
But until the moment they find out
that their son or their husband likes us.
It's for them, it's surprising to find out that their kids can be gay.
If they understood that it's something in our culture
that your kid can be trans,
then we wouldn't be in a position where, you know,
at a higher rate Black
LGBTQIA plus youth are being rejected.
You have to sound a certain way, you have to look a certain way.
You have to be a certain way.
That most of the time the strife that comes with who we are
is because we didn't become who our parents
- wanted us to be. - They wanted us to be.
And I don't need to be anything you say I need to be.
Because when your husband encountered me,
he saw me as a Black woman, and he too would agree
that I deserve protection as a Black woman.
But your ignorance keep making you think that he don't see me as one.
When I carry out my Black womanhood experience,
know that it looks so much like you, and it is very close to home.
It is so close to home that I may be in your home when you're not there.
♪ Lord, I woke up this morning ♪
♪ With my pork-grinding business in my hand ♪
♪ Yeah, I woke up this morning ♪
♪ With my pork-grinding business in my hand ♪
♪ Lord, if you can't send me no woman ♪
♪ Please, send me some sissy man ♪
♪ Hey, Kokomo
I do this literally every day.
Literally, every day I'm in the mirror looking at myself...
Yes, period.
I don't like the concept of passibility,
because I feel like...
I feel like fuck passibility.
Everybody should just do them and just be them, you know?
And not every girl's gonna pass.
that's, that's just the reality of it.
Not every girl is gonna pass to look like a biological girl, you know?
But it's, I feel like it's about working with what you got...
just owning your look that's unique to you.
There's all types of girls out there, you know?
There's alternative girls,
there's more, you know, hood bitch type of girls.
There's the white college girls type of trans girls,
like nerdy, you know, anime,
Black girl lovers, like trans girls, you know?
They're into cosplay and stuff like that.
So there's all different types of trans women out there.
Like, there's not just one girl.
Personally, I don't care about passibility,
because I feel like it stops you from living life
the way that you wanna live life.
And I don't feel like you should live by rules.
You already transitioned and said fuck it,
you might as well just do what you wanna do anyway.
A person could be in the suburbs, right?
And raise they child to be the most, you feel me?
But they be a gangster,
they out there shooting, selling drugs.
And they parents ain't, they have great jobs.
They have no reason... - They don't have to do
- none of that. There's no reason for...
- You feel me? There's no reason for them.
And then you see somebody in the hood,
they're parents was hood, ghetto, crack baby, you know, crack whatever.
And he ain't want none of that now,
he wanted to be something different.
He wanted something totally different, like...
You know, this is what you wanna do, just be real.
Don't be hiding and actin' like you not
be real nigga.
Have a conversation first.
The fuck, nigga? You like dudes
nigga you like dudes? I don't wanna hear that.
Now you trying to hide, you in school,
you wanna be, no nigga.
If niggas try to make fun of you, beat them niggas up.
- That's right. - The fuck, nigga?
You gotta be a tough gay nigga. The fuck,
- like that's it. Toughen up.
My son, he gonna be a tough gay nigga, that's it.
Gonna be knockin' these niggas the fuck out,
- like that's how I see it.
You can't be soft and gay.
My son, I'm gonna be real with him.
If you gonna be gay, nigga, you better be the toughest nigga in there,
'cause they gonna tease you, nigga.
What they gonna say, nigga?
My pop's a real nigga,
I'm gay, I'm knocking you out. What's up? Whatchu wanna do?
If she had the full operation, and you know,
and she had a vagina now
and didn't have that, those parts,
I probably would've met her by now.
I would've probably, wouldn't have kept, you know,
hesitating and not doing it, not going to,
not just going to, just to meet her,
you know what I mean?
In fact, I prob- I know I probably would have.
It's like, I don't wanna feel,
feel that just like poking up against me.
Like I don't, I don't have no desire to, to feel that.
But you know, it's just I look at, I look at her as, as a woman.
And so when things come, when facts come around,
like to make it seem like,
oh well, she's not all the way a woman yet.
So that makes, that makes it, you know,
that's where I feel I can't go through with it,
you know what I mean?
Like when I see my sister and them nowadays, I don't even...
it's not that I don't respect them.
It's just I don't, I don't have a heart for them.
Like because that's why I,
that's why I think I love so hard now.
♪ Don't wait for me, honey
That's why I think I love so hard now, because...
like people showing you,
and that's the thing about our community now,
is why the gay people can't love each other
and they always fighting and da, da, da,
because they don't grow up in homes
where they teach you how to love.
They just throw you out to the street.
And you know, I had to learn as a adult, as a teenager,
how to be in a adult world,
and like dealing with different people.
And like, that's why today I can't even date guys now
because I've dealt with so many different men.
It's just my brain is so connected to like work,
work, work, work. If you don't have anything for me, I don't wanna deal with you.
You can't do this for me, I don't wanna deal with you.
Can't buy me this, I don't wanna deal with you.
It's, it done got like that for me.
♪ You'll always be my heart
Now I can laugh and kiki and ha-ha with them,
but at the end of the day,
I know what they did to me as a child.
Like put me out on, like put me,
pushed me to the streets like that.
I can't be around them for too long.
Like my brother now, I can't even look him in his face.
Like I, I won't even look at him.
So when trans, when us trans women out men,
I'm not a big fan of that.
Because you know, we have to make a living at the end of the day.
A lot of us are secrets to many powerful people
who pay our rent and you know, take care of us.
And when you expose them, it just dries up the well.
Girls like me, you know, we need that well
to be plentiful, you know what I mean?
So I'm not with exposing.
I really don't appreciate when girls do that,
or try to blackmail guys or you know,
because that doesn't bring good karma, you know?
And the end of the day they're suffering,
because they're not living in their truth,
and that's enough punishment as it is.
They have to lay with that every night.
By exposing them, you're not really getting anything.
You're just ruining the game, and we're all in the game.
It doesn't only affect you, it affects other girls too.
♪ I've got a man back at home ♪
♪ He ain't worth a dime, but he's my own ♪
♪ I ain't going broke with you, nigga please ♪
♪ 'Bout to go and get myself a sugar daddy ♪
♪ Don't tell me to get a job ♪
♪ Look at me boy, I'm a star ♪
♪ Woman go crazy out in these streets ♪
♪ 'Bout to go and get myself a sugar daddy ♪
Most of the time, like as trans women,
we're not meeting the guy who's already this millionaire
and they're taking us to the penthouse, and they're putting us up.
Like no, we're meeting guy after guy,
who's this is guy after guy who's in denial after denial.
And so in no way are they there to protect us.
They're there to exploit us, to fetishize us.
And so whatever we face as a reality,
once we leave that experience that benefited them, they don't give a fuck.
But so many of us are caught up telling each other like,
"Oh girl, don't worry about getting a job.
Oh girl, don't pursue your real dream.
Bitch, cause you can make a coin and that's gonna be easier."
But they don't tell her how easy it is
when you lose a sense of yourself,
when the only thing you know of value to yourself
is what a man put on you.
And that's not healthy, that's not reality.
Like, and I'm not shaming it, I'm not shunning it.
I'm not saying that it didn't work for me, it did.
It gave me some of the greatest experiences of my life.
It even taught me value from a man, okay?
Because I walked in playing cheap cunt,
and he threw stacks on my ass, you know?
And so, so at one point I would even be the person
to say, "Yes that's okay, get your coin, catch your bag,"
and I would've never told you to go get your knowledge.
And that's fucked up.
That's fucked up that we've normalized as a culture
of whoever we are, whether it's cis women,
whether we trans women, whether we goddamn
just motherfucking survivors in the hood, okay?
We've normalized letting grown men take advantage of our bodies.
But we all out here motherfucking preaching,
"Women lives matter, trans lives matter."
Bitch, how much do we really matter when we know
that we are still seeing each other
right after that motherfucking protest
in the hands of the man that could kill us,
all because of survival?
For what I'm going, I'm supposed to tell people,
"Oh this shit is cool, this shit is safe"?
Nah, that's not like, don't let no motherfucking fancy thing
that gets in front of you confuse you
as to what the fuck this is.
This is survival work, this is risky shit.
This is putting your hands in the life of a man
that don't know shit about you.
And the only thing he there for
is escaping his own goddamn reality.
And you know what that reality is?
Ten times better than the one he's giving you.
A lot of girls don't make it out of it, to be honest with you.
A lot of girls do not make it out of it.
'Cause I've almost been killed like two to three times.
Like just to even still be here,
like all my girlfriends are dead and gone.
All my girlfriends are dead and gone.
Yes from sex, all my girlfriends.
One HIV, one, two clients killed.
Two of my girlfriends killed by clients.
One of the killers got out by,
they charged him with manslaughter, said that she tricked him.
And my other homegirl killed on Candler Road in Decatur.
Whoever the killer was she let him in,
it was a client.
'Cause her last calls was, "How much did you have?"
And you just gotta be careful, 'cause like I don't,
like people done came after me.
Like, and then when you put your pictures,
your numbers, your locations on the internet,
you got people all, from all around the world
is watching you, and you gotta understand that
and you have to be open for that like...
And you have to know how to protect yourself.
Like, I had to learn all of that.
But like coming outta high school, I didn't even have a education.
I didn't, when I came outta high school,
I didn't even know how to read. I didn't know how to write.
I didn't know how to really do a lotta shit,
and they still graduated me.
I still walked across that stage and got my diploma,
and da, da, da, da.
But I didn't know how to do a lot of shit,
and like being in the sex work taught me a lotta shit,
like my math and all that.
The shit that I need to know to survive, for real.
Like, but I did what I had to do to survive, so.
'Cause nine times outta 10 what you did doing,
the monkey flips, the dog tricks for,
there's a woman that he respects,
that he says he respects her value,
and allows her to lay in his home that he provides for, and gives her the world.
But come to our rinky-dink-ass apartments,
our so-called hood-ass environments,
where they women won't even come to.
Why they women feel disrespected?
Because they gotta come here in these environments to escape.
And we, but we've normalized that being degraded,
being devalued, not realizing that this man
is bringing pocket change, okay?
To my real fucking reality, thinking it's doing something.
And because I'm so goddamn oppressed, okay?
I'm letting this rich man come give me,
uh, pennies of his investment, okay?
And in any other woman's life,
and make me think I'm grand from that?
Make me think I'm safe from that?
'Cause why is it that a woman got a suck a dick
to be able to go to Benihana's?
Why is it?
A lot of bitches at Benihana's won't say it,
but why is it you had to suck a dick to get there?
Oh, and to the independent bitch,
who you didn't have to do it, kudos to you, sis.
You had agency, you had resource.
But you know what a lot of us motherfuckers on the other side
of this Benihana's experience had to go through?
A lack of agency, a lack of resource.
And the only resource we had was to the men, okay?
That fetishized us to get us to the table.
So my bad if my glamour has had to come through sucking a dick to get there.
My bad if me being real enough to not wanna be in my hood and be limited to that reality,
and I had to put myself in that position
to sit next to you.
My bad.
My bad if that's how it makes you feel
when you are uncomfortable around me.
But know that my money, that my swipe
has the same motherfucking value as your sacrifice
to start your Fortune 500,
to start your cornerstone business.
'cause all it is is two different sacrifices,
and I used my body unfortunately,
and you used your brain.
But you know what? We were just two ambitious women
trying to ultimately achieve a goal.
Yeah, I grew up in a small town, Hiram, Georgia,
real little country town.
Grew up with both of my parents in the household,
and I grew up in church. My dad never went to church,
but my mom always had us in church
every Sunday and Wednesday night and all that.
I had a, you know, the all-American upbringing,
I guess. I always had girlfriends.
You know that's, it's a pretty normal life.
And after, I don't know why, after all this time
I found myself attracted to this one particular trans girl...
you know, after the norm for so long.
What I'm doing right now, like a lot of niggas are scared
to do and would never do.
I know they're just waiting on somebody to,
to say what I'm saying so they can
feel better about themselves.
And I haven't, I haven't even had an experience.
I'm just admitting to an attraction.
One of the things that gave me the courage to do this
is I think about so many people I know
that are actually acting on their attraction
and getting caught and still lying about it,
and still like in denial about it.
So I was like, it made it easier for me
to just say I have an attraction to somebody.
At this point we are at a good place,
and I definitely look at her now as more than just a sex object.
I definitely have gained some kinda feelings for her.
I don't know where it's going or,
I mean we still haven't met or whatever,
but I definitely look forward to hearing from her
at some point every day, you know?
And we, and I'm just,
I'm just enjoying getting to know her.
When we was growing up, we was always taught,
- you can't be like this... Can't accept that.
You can't be that way. You, fuck that shit.
You know, "None of my sons, and none of my nephews,
and none of my brothers gonna be that way," so.
I seen a lot of, you know, people,
homosexual or transsexual people get picked on.
I seen a lot, just because of who they was
or you know, how they looked.
It was just something,
It was just something they did and it wasn't, you know,
at the time, me being young, you know,
I didn't know how to feel about it, you know?
I didn't know if it was the right thing
to help or not help, but you know, it happens.
it's not accepted in gang life at all, in gang culture,
- that's the thing, like... - We're taught to procreate,
- you know what I mean? - Yeah, nobody...
We need to be able to have our kids,
and our kids need to have kids.
So it's like, it starts boiling down to like,
a whole ideal way of like thinking and living your life.
So if that's what the old G's is teaching you,
if they teaching you to hate another person,
and they show you all this love,
when you young, that's what you gonna do.
You gonna hate who the people that love you
tell you to hate.
The Black experience has always been limited
to the way in which a white person
told us we could live, okay?
And we threaten that as Black trans people,
because what we're saying to Black people
who had been conditioned in that mindset,
that a Black man should be this way,
and a Black woman should be that way.
we're saying, "Fuck all that."
And we're basically saying, "I'm not 'bout to be
your good nigga, I'm not about to be your cute house nigga.
I'm 'bout to be me".
And I think so many of us as Black people,
whether we are rich or poor, we are always,
especially in front of white people,
we always trying to figure out, is it okay to be the field nigga,
or do we gotta be the house nigga?
You know, and for trans people
we're interrupting that in itself,
because we're saying we can't be in the field,
because there's nobody in the field that accepts us.
We can't be in the house,
so there's nobody there to accept us.
So we gotta always play the in between,
trying to find our house or field, you know?
And I, and I use that language in particular
because it all to me goes back to slave mentality, okay?
Because it never, I've never understood this shit, okay,
as Black people, how we could do this shit.
We all scream the narrative that we oppressed,
that we all bound by the white man,
but we're the first motherfuckers
to turn our nose up
to the next person who wanna stand out and be different.
Okay, like we are literally the first
fucking group of people to do it to each other.
So the same way the white man won't accept you,
now 'cause I come with my Blackness
and presenting it in a trans way, now you can't accept me?
In the eyes of the white man we all niggas,
whether I show up as a man in a wig,
or you show up just as a man, okay?
You a nigga, and that's it, period.
We motherfucking hurt people hurting people, but we,
it's just very few of us out there, okay,
very few who got a little change in our pocket.
Think we better than the next one.
And now all of a sudden we should define
what a Black man or woman should be?
Kiss my ass.
My name is Lenox Love,
and I'm the CEO of Lenox Love Entertainment.
I promote events that features
transgender dancers and entertainers.
How I started Hush Night is ultimately I'm, I am trans attracted.
I do like trans women as well as women,
I like all women, all women.
Back in 2003 I was fresh outta high school,
but I wanted to try to meet trans women.
And the only place in Atlanta
that you could meet trans women
was on the stroll, as they say.
I've always thought that was kinda degrading,
at least for the guy,
and I'm pretty sure for the trans woman herself.
But and I've, and I never really meshed well
with just in a all-out LGBT club.
So I thought it would be a great atmosphere
to have it in like a stripper atmosphere,
instead of a drag show and stuff like that.
Because like I said it is, it's a little bit different.
The drag show is different than an actual stripper.
So this is a place where you can get your rappers,
your regular guys, your hood guys, the trade trade.
I mean the trade, bitch, if you really wanna
get some trade without being out in the streets
and no judgment, this is the place to come.
Because Hush Night is like for the girls
that wanna come and get the trade.
Like bitch, the trade is no, like they all in the building.
Like, and it's no fucking judgment,
and you can do whatever the fuck you want.
Like they got like private rooms and stuff like that,
and you can fuck and you can suck, and whatever you wanna do,
but be safe and be clean and keep it discreet.
I've even seen like professional athletes inside of here before.
♪ Too many empty encounters
♪ So much I sort of lost track of all the men ♪
♪ All the many men I like
♪ Just take advantage of me
♪ I know I didn't mean anything ♪
♪ You see I did it, but I never did it in love ♪
I want out, I need something else to do,
because I don't realistically know
or see how long that I can see myself doing this.
And it's like, in this game,
bitch, either you get out of it,
or you end up dead, you end up popped,
and that's just how it is.
And I know that I have more potential to do better.
I have a good, I have a great personality.
A lot of people know me for my personality.
I feel like I have so much more, more potential.
And I feel like so many other trans women have so much more potential.
♪ Ooh, ooh
♪ Ooh ♪
Unfortunately because of the society that we're in,
and the way that jobs are set up for trans women,
it's hard to get out the game, you know?
For some girls, it's all that they have.
Personally for me, my dream is to make it outta sex work,
and to put my abilities into something else.
I just wanna try something different.
I never learned anything else in life.
Like and I just, in my mind for a long time
I just depended on catching a client, catching a client.
I've been doing it all my life.
Like, I don't know nothing else, I don't know nothing else.
Like all I know is escorting,
and I wanna try to do something different.
And I was, probably with the money I was making,
I'm like, what else could I, I thought of, I,
it took years for me to even come up with this.
I'm like, "Well, what else can I do
to make the kind of money that I'm making
without doing something illegal?"
And then I done been to jail three times from this.
I done been to jail like three times.
The next time will be a felony.
If I can find something, another way to make my money
the way I, as much money as I'm making
in the escort industry, I'll do it.
And the music was the first thing that came to my mind.
So I was like, "Well, if I can get my music out there."
And then like seeing other trans girls on reality shows
and stuff like that, kinda brought attention.
Like, I kind of gave up.
So I'm just like, "They don't wanna hear no trans girl,
they don't wanna see a trans girl."
And then when I kind of seen some girls on reality shows
and stuff like that, kinda gave me life.
So I'm just like, if I can use the music to get,
to reach the people.
And I really don't want nothing from it,
like I really don't want,
if I make money from it, it's fine.
But I really wanna just send a message,
and I want them to hear me.
I want them to be able to hear me.
And for the girls that can't speak,
I wanna be the girl that,
I wanna be the girl that speak for them, like honestly.
It's so crazy. I've been wanting
to tell my story for a long time.
Because I want people to understand that it's okay.
Like when you push your child out to the,
not even push your child out,
'cause I can't say my mom pushed me out, but just being,
just being something that you was born to be.
Like how could people look down on you
and say things to, to make it not, people,
I cannot believe how the world make you think
that you've done something wrong, if you came out gay,
or you know, as a boy being feminine.
They make you, they make you think that you're one way.
Like, it's fucking ridiculous, and I'm sick of it.
It's so funny that when we try to understand
why we can't have relationships with the Black community,
and it's, like in particular too,
like relationships with like Black women.
And like, I had to tell my mother this,
and I don't know if this could help, but it's,
I had to tell my mother that when I chose
not to be a Black man, and I transitioned
into what I believe is my Black womanhood,
you know, identifying as a Black trans woman,
I had to in some ways process with her
how it feels to lose another Black man again.
She was so used to losing Black men in her life,
because she wasn't able to have that so-called,
you know, traditional relationship, the way we see
so many of our white counterparts have.
So she already normalized being disposable,
and she was dependent on that Black child
to do everything her Black lover couldn't do.
And so she feels again abandoned by another Black man
when this Black son says, "I'm becoming a Black woman."
And I think that that is, if I be real, that has to hurt.
That has to hurt as a Black woman
to be hurt by Black men,
then give birth to a Black man and he says,
"I'm not here to protect you.
I'm here to be in some ways just as vulnerable as you."
I think that's hard for a lot of Black women to accept.
And so when so many Black mothers stop expecting
their Black children to grow up and be essentially,
you know, those freedom fighters.
You know, because a Black woman don't know how to be Black woman
unless a Black man tell her she can be,
unless a white man give her the opportunity
to flourish and then become successful.
And then all of a sudden
she's now representing Black success.
So we are always existing around systems,
or who we should be for someone else.
And that's why Black women are so forceful
in trying to make their Black kids conform to that system.
And it's scary, it's scary that they would rather us
conform to a system that will kill us,
than to step outside of that system
and redefine our own lives in any way we can,
in order to live out a truth that allows us
to be our full self, our... reaching our fullest potential.
You know, Black women hasn't been able to do
that themselves without needing a Black man.
Let's be real, like there's so many we know,
but it started off with a man giving them an opportunity.
It starts off with some man having the access first.
It didn't just start off like, you know,
how many Madam CJ Walkers do we know?
And then once they become the Madam CJ Walkers,
how many of them are accessible?
So even the Black woman who learned how to love herself,
she's no longer accessible to teach that girl
in the community where I was raised how to love herself.
So I'm dealing with broken Black women.
I'm not dealing with liberated Black women,
because the liberated Black women
don't got time for the broken Black women.
They don't got time for the broken Black people.
"Oh, because I don't experience that," is how they look at it.
But remember this, the way you not experiencing it
is the way I'm experiencing it,
and what makes my shit so different?
Because I'm not carrying it out the way you want me to?
And now ask yourself, who are you and who are you really,
when God is gonna be the one to judge you?
Your man didn't even know I was transgender
and came ready to climb my hole,
giving me all my Black womanness,
but you still don't think we in this fight together.
it's weird, so weird how your man will climb your back
and climb my hole and see us both as equals, but you can't.
♪ I've been crying so long
♪ I could fill a river basin
♪ I feel the scorchin' heat on my back ♪
♪ I've been praying so long ♪
♪ That the good Lord come and take me ♪
♪ Death would be easier ♪
♪ Then raising someone else's child ♪
♪ While mine been sold away
♪ The husband that you're laying with ♪
♪ Come night is raping me
♪ You know the truth, it bothers you ♪
♪ You act like you don't see
♪ But who gon listen to lil ol' me ♪
♪ Ain't I a woman
♪ Mm, mm, ain't I a woman too ♪
♪ Cook your food, wash your clothes ♪
♪ Till my fingers bloody red and ♪
♪ Yet you treat me like I owe the debt ♪
♪ And I'm fed up, God knows ♪
♪ I done spent my whole life serving ♪
♪ Even freedom couldn't get my time back ♪
♪ From raising someone else's child ♪
♪ And mine been sold away
♪ The husband that you're laying with ♪
♪ Come night still raping me
♪ You know the truth, it bothers you ♪
♪ You act like you don't see ♪
♪ Who gon listen to lil ol' me ♪
♪ Ain't I a woman
♪ Ain't I a woman too ♪
♪ Ain't I a woman too
It's like me.
It's big, but... and strong but soft on the inside too.
'Cause I'm soft and I'm delicate,
even though I've been broken down a lot.
But I'm still here.
♪ Don't let the world get you down ♪
♪ Keep your head up high
♪ Don't let your problems get you down ♪
♪ Lift your spirit to the sky
♪ We are the fabulous children of the world ♪
♪ We are the children of the rainbow ♪
♪ We're fabulous
♪ You're killing my sisters every day ♪
♪ You turn a blind eye and simply walk away ♪
♪ Ooh, I wonder why
♪ Is beating me a crime
Crew member: Wit' yo' ugly ass.
Quit looking in the damn camera.
I don't know what else to look at,
- I'm not sure... - Crew member: Her.
All right, I'll look at you.
♪ Yes it's time
♪ Don't let the world get you down ♪
♪ Keep your head up, keep your head up high ♪
♪ Ooh, talking to my sisters ♪
♪ Don't let your problems get you down ♪
♪ Lift your spirit to the sky
♪ We are the fabulous children of the world ♪
She couldn't take it, darling.
She was getting it, but that was cis-late,
dried ends kinda fish.
Very Donna Summers.
♪ Love to love you baby
♪ Love to love you baby ♪
♪ Do, do, do, do
- I need a bump. - Crew member: Yes, right.
Trust, and a hee... and a sickening heel,
and be very,
- Look. - I see it.
♪ Yeah ♪
Baby, the trans girls,
the boys are coming to the yard, okay?
All of them.
They don't wanna admit it.
But they, they're comin' to the yard, babe.
♪ Don't let the problems get you down ♪
♪ Lift your spirit to the sky, yeah ♪
If I was a... be a A-list celebrity today,
I still would be, I think I would still be into sex work.
'cause I'm just not fucking for free, that's just, period.
I'm not, I'm not fucking for free.
I don't give a fuck if it's like,
if I was on the billboards, I'm still not fucking for free.
They gone pay me, I'm sorry.