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00:00hey guys i'm shawah evans associate beauty editor here at essence and i am here at beauty carnival
00:10and super excited today because i am about to just embark on the most one of the most important
00:17conversations i think that i'm gonna have this week i'm excited this woman is um becoming such
00:22a legend in her own right um without further ado i'm just gonna bring her in um miss dominique
00:28jackson hello hello hello how are you i'm so great first of all the colors in the background
00:37are amazing i love the match with your top and the fish tank is beautiful oh thank you so much
00:45thank you so much thank you um someone very special to me has created this uh for me and it feels very
00:54relaxing it feels very cool so yeah nice nice well i want to just jump right on in because i have so
01:00many questions um just so much to talk about there's been so much going on um but you know
01:06we're on the beauty carnival stage so i do really want to kick it off talking about beauty yes beauty
01:11i'm glad you're you're a beauty girl like me so you can relate
01:17yes um so just kind of dig it into you know fashion and beauty they've always kind of served
01:24as an avenue for expression um i know you know just being on pose we got to see so much
01:30of what you do um and what you bring and what you deliver with that beauty can you talk a little bit
01:36about how um your self-expression has translated through your beauty your regimens your looks like
01:42yeah let us know all the teeth well um for me personally in the beginning i never felt like i
01:48was beautiful because i didn't have anyone that i could look up to you know to look on television
01:53except when i would see like jet magazine and stuff like that yeah i'm dating myself anyway and um so
01:59beauty for me was something that i did not see in myself and when i started to look at magazines such
02:05as essence and stuff like that i realized that being a black woman can be beautiful and it can and it's not
02:12about that you're not beautiful it's just that you have to learn to embrace it and so that's what i had
02:17to learn and working on polls so amazingly i was at a point in my life where even though many people
02:24around me told me oh you're beautiful you have to embrace it i didn't really feel it because for me
02:29it was because as my truth was not celebrated my entire truth wasn't celebrated so uh once i got
02:38on to pose and i started to see the love and feel the love and then i got into those garments i realized
02:44that someone valued us enough to say this is what she's going to wear and that also prompted me to
02:50feel like look girl you have to now dress and feel the beauty that others see in you and see it within you
02:58yourself i i mean that's something we talk about so much here at essence um you know because especially
03:08for the beauty editors we're digging into these stories and we're looking at these things all the
03:12time and one of the things that comes up constantly is this lack of diversity right in these brand
03:19campaigns uh in just you know across their their companies even down to who is who's making these
03:26decisions who's in those boardrooms who we see as the faces of these brands and so i'm glad you said
03:32that because i want you to talk a little bit about you know being on post and how not only did that you
03:38know shed light on you know trans women but trans women of color specifically and allowed us to see
03:46just just just a group of people that we typically don't see in certain spaces and um what that means for
03:54the transgender community and what that can mean for diversity okay you might have to break that up
03:59for me i know that's a lot right so first i guess talk about talking about what it means for the
04:04transgender community and specifically um transgender women of color well i cannot speak for all trans
04:11women of color i can only i can speak for myself and through my expression i hope that other women have
04:17similar stories and then from the work that i've done i do know working in non-profit especially
04:22working with destination tomorrow um i have been able to gather stories and the consensus is that
04:29we just want to see ourselves we want to be celebrated just like anyone else because in all
04:35actuality when we would look in years before to uh magazines when we would look to brands these brands
04:42that we used ourselves sometimes we couldn't even walk into the stores to buy them because we would
04:47be shamed we would be ridiculed but then they wouldn't have an issue sending us our money you
04:52know i mean taking our money taking it yep you know so for for as a trans woman i even got to the point
04:59where i didn't want to deal with certain brands i just felt like look if you don't see me you i'm just
05:05not with you and it was seeing the mac ad um in the village with uh rupaul on it and that was just like
05:15oh my gosh so within a week i was in the mac store and i felt like look they see me you know
05:23they see versions of me they see me so yes and then i get into the store and there are people that
05:29are working there that are like hey girl i saw the show last week you know so that just makes you feel
05:34now okay i'm included and that's all it is that's beautiful i love that um and i actually want to talk
05:42about that because you know it's pride month we're celebrating pride and we've started to see and
05:48i think more specifically this year for obvious reasons that the brands are trying to go beyond
05:53just you know these campaigns and just words and really trying to support the lqbtq community um do
06:02you think that there is more that they could be doing or if there are things that they could be doing
06:06that they just aren't or that they're not they just don't have the understanding of quite yet
06:11i think a lot of it is understanding and maybe it could be to the market that they think are the
06:19ones that are really purchasing their products you know maybe they have not really done the research
06:24to realize where or maybe they just don't care we we don't know it's it's all just um assumption
06:32but um many times what has happened that has kind of uh and i'll be honest has disgusted me is that
06:40during the pride month everyone is ready to celebrate with us the brands are there you're
06:45everywhere you know flags are up and then when june is finished that is over it's over yes you know
06:53people are hired maybe for the pride month because they're doing some extra work at macy's or something
06:58like that not to say that macy's has done anything to us you know just as reference you know and then
07:04when that seasonal work is over which includes pride month we're not even seen you can still go to some
07:11of the stores in new york city and if you are not what is considered possible you may still not be
07:18allowed inside wow it's interesting you say that because we have those conversations i think just my
07:25friends and i but definitely at essence where we talk about you know at all years black history you
07:31know it's black history year why is it black history month right that's when everybody wants to reach out
07:35and that's when everyone wants to have these diversity panels and talk about inclusion and then we're like
07:41okay so as soon as it turns march are we done with black people and so you know it's obviously the same
07:48thing that's happening with you guys and here's where it crosses right as a black trans woman yeah i deal
07:57with this in february and i deal with it in june right yeah and go ahead oh no no you go ahead because
08:07i got another follow-up for that but i want you i want to let you finish no and then i was about to say
08:12for world aids day then oh wow you know and then it's like and then they're gone so yeah i was gonna
08:21say what um can we all be doing as well because we talk about these brands and you know we talk about
08:27the businesses but we see right now that a lot of this movement is happening because the people took
08:33to the street and so what is it that we can be doing that you know just from you know to your fellow
08:39brothers and sisters to open up that dialogue and to open up that space to the to the trans
08:47community well especially for the trans community of color first people are going to have to humanize
08:53us they're going to have to start we're going to have to start people our allies are going to have
08:57to start humanizing us to others in those conversations that you are having it's not about
09:03okay we'll look good if we bring this person in or that person it's about look let's do something
09:10for this marginalized community let's give them some hope and let's give them something to be able
09:15to feel like they have value working on polls have has given me such such self-value such a self-esteem
09:23to know that someone actually wants to advocate for me you know and someone wants to hear my voice my
09:31story you know our voices our stories so it's about advocacy on on each level it's about saying to
09:39your bosses and the higher ups look let's try something new let's go with this not because
09:45it's trending but because these are human beings too and they purchase our products they read our
09:51magazines they do you know yeah yeah now i have a story for you so i saw you i ran into you
10:00in new york this was about i want to say the first season of pose had just wrapped up and you know
10:09we were downtown manhattan like around fulton street and i just remember i saw you and i had like this
10:14shock i had this moment of like you know fandom i was like oh my goodness there's not reject and my
10:20friend's like where and you you gave us like a nice you know smile you were very warm you know we just
10:25wave and you know it it sparked a thought in me because when i think about in my own personal life
10:33i do not have any trans women in my community like you know in my personal life in my group of friends
10:41in my my family and the fact that i was so excited to see you this person that i don't personally know
10:49you know but you were a friend in my head from the show um but we are friends
10:54but you know it really helped me in this understanding of how big representation really
11:06is because i was so excited to see you this person that i don't know but it was from seeing you on the
11:13show that i came to love you and love your character and um and to look into you more
11:20i started researching everyone on the cast and i started learning things for real you started
11:26realizing we were human yes yes yes but i'll tell you this right for a lot of times we are prejudged
11:37so it's and i've had the experience of sitting on the train and watching an actual cis woman be you
11:45know bullied around and treated you know very disrespectfully because they thought she was trans
11:51and the guys were sitting right next to me and he's down there and and they're you know throwing the
11:57verbiage everything at this woman and i'm sitting there and i'm fearful because i'm right next to them
12:02so in my head i'm going i'm next i don't know if i'm gonna survive this and the guy pats me on the
12:08leg like it was his okay to go you see you're a real woman that kind of stuff isn't right turns out
12:16this woman was actually married woman and three months pregnant oh wow so i believe that in our
12:24societies we don't realize that in sometimes trying to protect especially i i black men we forget to
12:31realize that we're also teaching them a form of hatred when we take away from them this ability
12:36to love openly so now that hatred transforms onto us and we're being murdered at a rate that i can't
12:46even it it's just disheartening yeah and you're very vocal you know and uh you've been in like an
12:53extremely vocal advocate and you know even on your social media you've been sharing like very sincerely
13:00uh parts of your story are you ever worried or concerned or fearful that if you give too much
13:07of yourself that you become too vulnerable um every day of my life i look out my windows and i think to
13:16myself thank god i'm here um i see the violence the brutality against my brothers and sisters it it
13:25saddens me it discourages me and then it takes me back to that place of the violence and brutality
13:30that i had to endure the stuff that i had to suffer and
13:34you know all we truly want to do is just live our lives if you've ever really been around people
13:45from the lgbtqia plus community a lot of times we are just having fun right we just want to
13:52feel like we are a part of a society that we contribute so much to
13:57yeah and and to exist without fear and without shame um that's also difficult because there are
14:11always times where you may be in conversation i have been in conversation with someone and then
14:16they realize oh my gosh i'm trans and then everything goes left you know for no apparent
14:23reason again it comes back to education so every day of my life that i put up those posts and everything
14:30yes i do have the fear but i'm not gonna back down because backing down just you know gives people
14:37that okay to continue to step on you to continue to oppress you um for quite a while people would
14:46make comments on some of my uh posts that were in a negative and i would ignore them because i said to
14:54myself you know what i'm being the bigger person but now i have come to a point where i'm seeing my
15:00sisters being beaten while we're in the middle of a black lives matter protest where my sisters are still
15:07being murdered in the middle of that protest i realized that silence is not going to get us
15:11anywhere so i have to clap back so i have security yeah um i kind of want to bring that back to
15:21this this idea of inclusion representation because i think that's such a huge part of it
15:28right in the learning and the being able to see people right because when we see different people
15:35in certain settings then we've then then seeing them everywhere begins to become normal right
15:41to normalize their presence and to not look at people as other and um that's what i was saying when
15:49i saw you i was so excited and it was it was it brought to to mind this idea for me that
15:55wow you know that that goes to show how big representation really is because i'm in my late 30s
16:01you know and i learned something oh thank you you know i try i try
16:06you know but i was able to learn something and it was because you know the the creators of the show
16:15said no we are going to put these women in the forefront of this story in the forefront of this show
16:21and we're gonna say no this is not this shouldn't be an odd thing you know um and and that you guys have
16:28that representation let's look at uh african women in general uh african women that are darker skin
16:36build differently and in europe these women were being celebrated at one point in time but in the
16:42u.s if you were a dark woman it was like nothing when alec whack came on the runways it was a shock
16:52not to to in the sense of oh my gosh what is she doing there but in the sense of wait someone sees
17:00me someone sees this skin they see the cheekbones and they're not looking at it as other but they're
17:06looking at it as beautiful at one point in time i used to say people tell to say to people the only
17:12reason you think i'm beautiful is because i'm so ugly that you think i'm exotic you know and that was
17:18kind of friend mind that i i was shaped from because when i again when we look through magazines for
17:23many years we don't see ourselves we don't you don't see that person they're not telling you that
17:29it's okay to wear braids you know it it's something that we have to claim at times right and now i want
17:39to take a little bit of a turn because speaking of claiming i want you to claim this now you know
17:44there's a lot of buzz going on on social media about you being being the next storm in the next x-men
17:53production um i mean what do you think about that and what does that say about the visibility of trans
17:59women in hollywood well first off i'm like to all those people out there who believe in me like that
18:06i thank you i thank you i thank you from the bottom of my heart the x-men represented so much
18:14to a group of us when we were homeless living in like one apartment like 10 deep and we would sit
18:22and watch the phoenix saga and we would allocate like characters to each person and of course i was
18:28storm and looking at you know every every time i watched the x-men i looked at them as like they
18:36were lgbtq ia plus because society didn't see them but yet they were still contributing to society
18:43still saving people you know doing things and i wanted to be that kind of person that you know
18:49would be able to save people even though they hated me you know and so when this came about it's just the
18:57idea that people feel this it brought me so much joy it made me feel really human it really made me feel
19:04like you know i was somebody that i have value that i've been acknowledged i mean it's not even about
19:12the part it's just about the fact that so many people um and are rallying for something and they're
19:19not using my trans identity as something to hold me back right i love that i love that and i think you
19:27are going to be incredible i'm putting my bed in right now um thank you so much i think it would
19:34be perfect and we see you you are enough we see you and i just thank you so much for lending your
19:41voice to this conversation and for doing what you do not just in your roles but um even in your real
19:48life and you know like you said every day you have to be thankful for it that you're still around to do
19:52it and you know it is an act of bravery because there are people out there who still don't understand
19:58and who still respond um they they respond with hate to your love but thank you for for doing it and
20:04thank you for being here to talk about it with us today but most of all thank you for opening this
20:09space for me to be able to be here i really appreciate that absolutely thank you guys god bless you
20:18you
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