00:00I can't even tell you how many times I've been in public space, particularly early in my transition,
00:05when I would walk into a subway car and people would just burst into laughter.
00:08And I think people have been trained to have that reaction.
00:14According to a study from GLAAD, 80% of Americans don't actually personally know someone who is transgender.
00:21So most of the information that Americans get about who transgender people are,
00:26what our lives are and are about comes from the media.
00:32We've been around since there was footage.
00:35You just have to look for us.
00:37Can we all just talk about D.W. Griffith for a minute?
00:40Not only is he incredibly racist, but he turned gender non-conforming people into the joke.
00:47So it's like you can't have like queer trans people and blackness in the same space at the same time.
00:51So what's it say about my queer trans black ass?
00:55They've died so many times they can't even count on camera.
00:58I've been a prostitute, prostitute one, prostitute two, call girl, hooker, you know.
01:02The crying game created a ripple effect.
01:04You are a trans person who existed, made people physically ill,
01:08was the way in which my favorite movie as a child ended.
01:11There are lots of ugly things about our history, but I think we have to know them.
01:25There is a one-word solution to almost all the problems in trans media.
01:32We just need more.
01:35And that way, the occasional clumsy representation wouldn't matter as much
01:40because it wouldn't be all that there is.
01:47You see a fierceness that's coming up now.
01:49That's because we ain't got nothing to lose.
01:57These are my sisters up here, but the struggle is real.
01:59The ways in which trans people have been represented have suggested
02:04that we're mentally ill, that we don't exist.
02:08And yet here we are.
02:10And we've always been here.
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