1
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Hello.

2
00:00:06,467 --> 00:00:07,619
Hey.

3
00:00:07,643 --> 00:00:08,793
(Laughter)

4
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As you just heard,

5
00:00:10,696 --> 00:00:12,434
my name is D-L Stewart

6
00:00:12,458 --> 00:00:15,878
and I'm a faculty member here on campus
at Colorado State University.

7
00:00:16,593 --> 00:00:20,037
But what's most important
for you to understand about me right now

8
00:00:20,061 --> 00:00:22,807
is that I identify as both Black

9
00:00:22,831 --> 00:00:25,275
and as transgender, or trans.

10
00:00:26,193 --> 00:00:29,923
And yes, I'm going to talk to you today
about how Black trans lives matter.

11
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As I do so,

12
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I'm going to share
a few scenes from my own life,

13
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mixed in with the ways

14
00:00:37,434 --> 00:00:43,013
that race and gender have historically
and currently intersected

15
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to shape the lives of Black trans people.

16
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Ready?

17
00:00:48,061 --> 00:00:49,614
Audience: Ready.

18
00:00:49,638 --> 00:00:50,788
Scene one.

19
00:00:51,899 --> 00:00:53,840
I am at home with myself.

20
00:00:54,907 --> 00:00:57,074
My body, a sovereign country.

21
00:00:57,831 --> 00:00:59,982
Sovereign meaning

22
00:01:00,006 --> 00:01:01,939
it is superlative in quality.

23
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Of the most exalted kind.

24
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Having generalized curative powers
of an unqualified nature,

25
00:01:11,468 --> 00:01:12,912
unmitigated,

26
00:01:12,936 --> 00:01:14,317
paramount,

27
00:01:14,341 --> 00:01:16,847
possessed of supreme power,

28
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unlimited in extent, absolute.

29
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Enjoying autonomy,

30
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independent,

31
00:01:24,029 --> 00:01:25,180
royal.

32
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My body defies the restrictions

33
00:01:28,332 --> 00:01:31,827
of a society consumed
by boxes and binaries

34
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and "are you a boy or a girl?"

35
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Independent of such conventions,

36
00:01:37,049 --> 00:01:39,814
my body clings instead
to the long ago lore

37
00:01:39,838 --> 00:01:41,827
that understood its magic.

38
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I contain multitudes.

39
00:01:45,783 --> 00:01:48,431
From this supreme power to name myself,

40
00:01:48,455 --> 00:01:51,441
define myself and be myself,

41
00:01:51,465 --> 00:01:53,799
I stake a claim to myself

42
00:01:53,823 --> 00:01:56,091
and organize my resistance.

43
00:01:56,115 --> 00:02:01,751
A resistance that boldly proclaims
that Black trans lives matter.

44
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My body is a sovereign country

45
00:02:05,686 --> 00:02:08,178
and my first site of resistance.

46
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End scene.

47
00:02:12,355 --> 00:02:16,593
To say that Black trans lives matter
is a claim to sovereignty.

48
00:02:18,553 --> 00:02:22,664
As much as Black Girl Magic,
and trans is brilliant,

49
00:02:22,688 --> 00:02:27,100
Black Trans Lives Matter
is also a chorus of resistance.

50
00:02:28,092 --> 00:02:31,911
Because Black trans lives begin
by defining our bodies

51
00:02:31,935 --> 00:02:33,887
as sovereign countries

52
00:02:33,911 --> 00:02:37,077
from which we first begin
to resist the messages

53
00:02:37,101 --> 00:02:38,901
that we have no place here.

54
00:02:43,319 --> 00:02:46,906
We push whole movements forward
on the strength of our vision.

55
00:02:48,399 --> 00:02:50,987
We set trends and create new worlds.

56
00:02:52,282 --> 00:02:54,146
We are the vanguard.

57
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Black trans lives have always mattered.

58
00:02:58,512 --> 00:02:59,750
And yet,

59
00:02:59,774 --> 00:03:02,499
caught at the time-traveling intersection

60
00:03:02,523 --> 00:03:05,816
of Juneteenth emancipation celebration

61
00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:09,039
and Stonewall's emancipation declaration,

62
00:03:09,063 --> 00:03:13,335
Black trans lives
are both seen but yet unseen.

63
00:03:14,163 --> 00:03:18,290
Unseen by the antiblackness
of queer and trans movements.

64
00:03:19,068 --> 00:03:23,298
Unseen by the transfobia
and trans-antagonism of Black movements.

65
00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:27,410
Our sovereignty and resistance are blocked

66
00:03:27,434 --> 00:03:30,164
by layers of systems and structures

67
00:03:30,188 --> 00:03:31,723
that have always sought

68
00:03:31,747 --> 00:03:36,696
to contain, define and erase
Black trans bodies.

69
00:03:39,458 --> 00:03:40,867
Scene two.

70
00:03:41,982 --> 00:03:44,233
I am with my therapist.

71
00:03:45,900 --> 00:03:50,098
The one whose testimony I must rely on

72
00:03:50,122 --> 00:03:53,540
to declare me man enough
to have my documents changed.

73
00:03:54,303 --> 00:03:56,604
The one who is to be believed.

74
00:03:57,612 --> 00:04:01,260
Despite my own declarations
that I am not this body,

75
00:04:01,284 --> 00:04:06,228
that this body is neither hers
nor yours to define,

76
00:04:06,252 --> 00:04:08,249
I sit with this doctor.

77
00:04:08,273 --> 00:04:10,273
And she fills out a form for me.

78
00:04:11,098 --> 00:04:13,931
And when concerning what all I've done

79
00:04:13,955 --> 00:04:16,529
to affirm my gender,

80
00:04:17,690 --> 00:04:21,444
"Has the patient's gender presentation

81
00:04:21,468 --> 00:04:23,959
aligned with their gender identity?"

82
00:04:25,868 --> 00:04:29,563
She decides that my gender presentation

83
00:04:29,587 --> 00:04:32,007
is more neutral, really.

84
00:04:33,912 --> 00:04:35,934
While I sit there, mind you,

85
00:04:35,958 --> 00:04:39,220
head to toe in clothing
from the section of the store

86
00:04:39,244 --> 00:04:41,792
where the dress buttons
go down the right side,

87
00:04:41,816 --> 00:04:45,378
and my pants give away
the number of inches around my waist,

88
00:04:45,402 --> 00:04:48,577
and my hair is cut
like Denzel's "Man on Fire,"

89
00:04:48,601 --> 00:04:50,799
but I'm still more neutral.

90
00:04:51,117 --> 00:04:52,645
Really?

91
00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:55,590
Because she still sees,

92
00:04:55,614 --> 00:04:57,082
and you see,

93
00:04:57,106 --> 00:04:58,667
a Black woman.

94
00:04:59,093 --> 00:05:04,333
And Black women's bodies
are always already made genderless.

95
00:05:06,646 --> 00:05:07,978
End scene.

96
00:05:09,558 --> 00:05:12,315
From mammy and Sapphire,

97
00:05:12,339 --> 00:05:14,887
to "Mandingo" and Sambo,

98
00:05:14,911 --> 00:05:18,782
Black bodies and our genders
have been caught in the White imagination.

99
00:05:19,568 --> 00:05:22,504
And the imagination
of whiteness is fanciful,

100
00:05:22,528 --> 00:05:26,837
and powerful enough to turn
its fancies into realities.

101
00:05:27,553 --> 00:05:29,633
Imagined as a thing,

102
00:05:29,657 --> 00:05:32,276
we were made to become that thing

103
00:05:32,300 --> 00:05:35,844
and so we have been bred like horses,

104
00:05:35,868 --> 00:05:38,566
fed like turtles to alligators,

105
00:05:38,590 --> 00:05:40,185
branded like cattle,

106
00:05:40,209 --> 00:05:41,725
milked like [unclear],

107
00:05:41,749 --> 00:05:44,300
made into oxen to plow.

108
00:05:45,531 --> 00:05:47,690
Gender did not matter,

109
00:05:47,714 --> 00:05:50,142
so long as our body parts,

110
00:05:50,166 --> 00:05:52,713
our arms and legs and backs,

111
00:05:52,737 --> 00:05:54,276
our breasts and genitalia

112
00:05:54,300 --> 00:05:56,300
could be turned into profit.

113
00:05:57,934 --> 00:06:00,831
The Black body was made not White

114
00:06:00,855 --> 00:06:03,156
and therefore not worthy of gender.

115
00:06:04,185 --> 00:06:06,590
And under the weight of the gentile tool

116
00:06:06,614 --> 00:06:10,447
and virginal lace that dressed
plantation mistresses,

117
00:06:10,471 --> 00:06:13,539
Black femininity has always been denied.

118
00:06:14,238 --> 00:06:18,118
Instead, she is either beast or porn star.

119
00:06:18,753 --> 00:06:21,894
Neither a proper gender, dehumanized.

120
00:06:23,631 --> 00:06:27,599
Made a social threat
that endangers civility.

121
00:06:28,306 --> 00:06:31,188
That puts civilization in danger.

122
00:06:32,473 --> 00:06:35,567
The angry Black woman cannot be escaped.

123
00:06:36,139 --> 00:06:39,416
Not even by a first lady
of these United States.

124
00:06:41,315 --> 00:06:44,395
Likewise, ill-suited for chivalry,

125
00:06:44,419 --> 00:06:48,014
and outmatched as masters
and captains of faith,

126
00:06:48,038 --> 00:06:50,117
Black manhood lays flaccid

127
00:06:50,141 --> 00:06:52,433
in the hands of White man's dominance.

128
00:06:53,911 --> 00:06:56,415
Body measurements taken,

129
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speed measured,

130
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draft pick forecasted.

131
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This is the NFL combine.

132
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Body measurements taken,

133
00:07:07,046 --> 00:07:10,926
teeth and body cavities inspected,

134
00:07:10,950 --> 00:07:12,800
number assigned.

135
00:07:13,232 --> 00:07:15,233
This is the prison intake room.

136
00:07:17,106 --> 00:07:19,855
Body measurements taken,

137
00:07:21,323 --> 00:07:24,688
talents and abilities advertised,

138
00:07:24,712 --> 00:07:28,510
teeth and body cavities inspected,

139
00:07:28,534 --> 00:07:31,765
name and value assigned.

140
00:07:33,479 --> 00:07:35,479
This is a slave's bill of sale.

141
00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:41,563
Made either stud or farcy
is not for his own pleasure,

142
00:07:41,587 --> 00:07:44,667
but rather for profit and gest.

143
00:07:45,441 --> 00:07:48,631
Athletes and comics

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contained.

145
00:07:50,734 --> 00:07:52,734
Made not a threat.

146
00:07:55,074 --> 00:07:57,820
"My gender is Black," said Hari Ziyad,

147
00:07:57,844 --> 00:08:01,593
because Black bodies
and our genders have been caught

148
00:08:01,617 --> 00:08:03,034
in the White imagination,

149
00:08:03,058 --> 00:08:05,533
and we have always been transgressive.

150
00:08:06,022 --> 00:08:08,291
Transgressive meaning

151
00:08:08,315 --> 00:08:14,232
a violation of accepted and imposed
boundaries of social acceptability.

152
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Blackness is transgressive.

153
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And once set free

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from social acceptability,

155
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blackness challenges the limitations
of what gender can be.

156
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We have always been fugitives here.

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Escaping from gender surveillance

158
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to claim our sovereignty

159
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and right to exist and to live free,

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to proclaim as beautiful

161
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that which was made ugly,

162
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to defy convention,

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Black lives and trans lives
and Black trans lives.

164
00:08:52,193 --> 00:08:54,176
And yet, in this world, that fact

165
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that Black trans lives make a difference,

166
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make differences,

167
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and make a matter of mattering
is doused by the fire hoses

168
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of past and current denials

169
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of our rights to exist and resist.

170
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We must fight to be seen

171
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as we see through fences

172
00:09:14,098 --> 00:09:16,600
into the play yards
that we are kept out of.

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Scene three.

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00:09:20,769 --> 00:09:22,293
I am at school.

175
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The bell rings, it's recess.

176
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We line up to go outside.

177
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Those made boys on one side,

178
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those made girls on the other.

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We file out of the doors.

180
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The boys stopping to fill in
the closed off street.

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The girls and I,

182
00:09:42,431 --> 00:09:44,256
walking across the street.

183
00:09:44,280 --> 00:09:46,967
"Keep your eyes
straight ahead," we are told.

184
00:09:47,992 --> 00:09:50,166
Because there's a park across the street.

185
00:09:50,896 --> 00:09:54,698
But there is a rot iron fence
that encloses that park.

186
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This is where the girls and I play.

187
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Mostly, I stand at the fence and watch,

188
00:10:02,284 --> 00:10:05,617
as my fellows play ball in the street,

189
00:10:05,641 --> 00:10:07,212
and be loud,

190
00:10:07,236 --> 00:10:08,856
and be rough,

191
00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:10,656
and be sweaty,

192
00:10:10,680 --> 00:10:13,836
and I am behind the fence.

193
00:10:19,355 --> 00:10:21,545
Accused of thinking naughty thoughts.

194
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They have no idea.

195
00:10:25,607 --> 00:10:27,123
End scene.

196
00:10:28,638 --> 00:10:31,701
Sissified and bulldaggered,
we are all made up.

197
00:10:32,204 --> 00:10:35,506
Just boys in dresses and girls in suits,

198
00:10:35,530 --> 00:10:37,458
the Black transgressive body

199
00:10:37,482 --> 00:10:40,164
caught in fantasies of boxes and binaries

200
00:10:40,188 --> 00:10:43,828
that make our genitalia
representative of our gender,

201
00:10:43,852 --> 00:10:46,582
and our mannerisms our sexuality.

202
00:10:46,606 --> 00:10:51,649
Black trans lives are therefore
written off as merely gay effeminate

203
00:10:51,673 --> 00:10:53,522
or lesbian butch.

204
00:10:53,546 --> 00:10:57,927
And the overlay of femininity
on bodies marked as male,

205
00:10:57,951 --> 00:10:59,260
and therefore as man,

206
00:10:59,284 --> 00:11:01,149
adheres like a "kick me" sign,

207
00:11:01,173 --> 00:11:03,733
except the consequences
are much more deadly.

208
00:11:04,839 --> 00:11:09,964
The majority of trans people murdered
in this country are Black trans women.

209
00:11:11,409 --> 00:11:15,482
Because when manhood
is located between one's legs,

210
00:11:16,463 --> 00:11:19,582
and defined in opposition to womanhood,

211
00:11:19,606 --> 00:11:21,653
what's between one's legs

212
00:11:21,677 --> 00:11:25,163
cannot be seen as having anything
in common with womanhood.

213
00:11:25,652 --> 00:11:29,326
And this same acidic wash
serves to blanch trans masculinity,

214
00:11:29,350 --> 00:11:31,707
making it fade into nothingness.

215
00:11:31,731 --> 00:11:35,061
Black trans men become
illusions of manhood,

216
00:11:35,085 --> 00:11:39,700
women merely playing at being men
because you can't get a real man.

217
00:11:44,249 --> 00:11:47,352
Forever put in our place,

218
00:11:47,376 --> 00:11:49,733
we are indelibly marked as "woman."

219
00:11:50,990 --> 00:11:55,172
And at best, the looming threat
of black trans manhood

220
00:11:55,196 --> 00:11:58,113
is contained, inoculated,

221
00:11:58,137 --> 00:12:00,621
made more neutral, really.

222
00:12:02,646 --> 00:12:04,431
Scene four.

223
00:12:04,455 --> 00:12:06,257
I am with my therapist.

224
00:12:07,122 --> 00:12:08,891
I tell her what I think about,

225
00:12:08,915 --> 00:12:13,380
as my body begins to slowly morph
into another version of itself.

226
00:12:17,134 --> 00:12:20,988
What will happen as I move

227
00:12:21,012 --> 00:12:25,456
from the social threat
of angry Black womanhood

228
00:12:25,480 --> 00:12:28,267
to the physical threat
of looming Black manhood?

229
00:12:28,779 --> 00:12:33,040
When will my neighbors
forget to recognize me and my pit bull?

230
00:12:33,652 --> 00:12:35,818
They've seen us nearly every day,

231
00:12:35,842 --> 00:12:37,688
pre-dawn or after twilight,

232
00:12:37,712 --> 00:12:40,500
for what will have been
over two years by then?

233
00:12:41,767 --> 00:12:44,212
When and how soon

234
00:12:44,236 --> 00:12:46,867
after I am no longer misgendered woman

235
00:12:46,891 --> 00:12:49,828
will the cops be called
to come and contain

236
00:12:49,852 --> 00:12:51,852
and erase my presence?

237
00:12:52,765 --> 00:12:55,745
How soon before the purse clutching,

238
00:12:55,769 --> 00:12:57,769
the sidewalk crossing?

239
00:12:59,027 --> 00:13:01,833
What does it mean to become a brute?

240
00:13:02,812 --> 00:13:05,899
To turn my body
into another kind of threat?

241
00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:11,705
She's stunned that I'm already
recognizing this.

242
00:13:12,468 --> 00:13:14,468
I can't afford not to.

243
00:13:15,087 --> 00:13:16,388
End scene.

244
00:13:17,292 --> 00:13:21,300
Who can see me and my Black trans kin
in the skin we are in?

245
00:13:23,100 --> 00:13:24,577
Who dares to love us,

246
00:13:24,601 --> 00:13:26,299
who holds us close?

247
00:13:26,323 --> 00:13:29,145
To whom do we matter other to ourselves?

248
00:13:30,788 --> 00:13:32,915
We're not looking for saviors.

249
00:13:33,550 --> 00:13:35,267
We have each other.

250
00:13:35,788 --> 00:13:37,910
As Lilla Watson said,

251
00:13:37,934 --> 00:13:41,561
"If you have come here
to help me, you are wasting your time.

252
00:13:41,585 --> 00:13:43,643
But if you have come because you recognize

253
00:13:43,667 --> 00:13:45,752
your liberation is bound up in mine,

254
00:13:45,776 --> 00:13:47,776
then let us work together."

255
00:13:48,164 --> 00:13:51,967
Let us work together to make
Black trans lives matter.

256
00:13:52,712 --> 00:13:54,809
The lived experience of Black trans people

257
00:13:54,833 --> 00:13:56,167
out into the world.

258
00:13:56,474 --> 00:14:00,474
And if you believe that your liberation
is bound up with mine,

259
00:14:00,498 --> 00:14:01,966
then I invite you

260
00:14:01,990 --> 00:14:05,233
to make Black Trans Lives Matter
your personal ethic

261
00:14:05,257 --> 00:14:07,098
by being transformative,

262
00:14:07,122 --> 00:14:09,264
loudly and mindfully.

263
00:14:09,884 --> 00:14:11,772
You can do that in three ways.

264
00:14:11,796 --> 00:14:15,133
Transform your thinking
about blackness and gender.

265
00:14:16,063 --> 00:14:18,904
Be loud by taking the risk

266
00:14:18,928 --> 00:14:23,212
to confront false assumptions
and other's fears and biases.

267
00:14:23,831 --> 00:14:27,918
Be mindful and pay attention and believe

268
00:14:27,942 --> 00:14:31,033
what Black trans people say
about our own lives.

269
00:14:32,361 --> 00:14:34,480
Being transformative loudly and mindfully

270
00:14:34,504 --> 00:14:35,861
takes practice.

271
00:14:35,885 --> 00:14:37,885
Just like getting
someone's pronouns right.

272
00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:41,770
Mine are they, them, their,
and he, him, his, by the way.

273
00:14:43,525 --> 00:14:45,318
And getting someone's pronouns right

274
00:14:45,342 --> 00:14:48,567
and being transformative loudly
and mindfully matters.

275
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Because Black trans lives matter.

276
00:14:52,117 --> 00:14:54,117
My life matters.

277
00:14:54,490 --> 00:14:56,974
My body is a sovereign country,

278
00:14:56,998 --> 00:14:59,467
and my first site of resistance.

279
00:15:00,733 --> 00:15:05,467
(Applause)