[MUSIC PLAYING]
LAVERNE COX: When a baby is born, one of the first questions
asked is, is it a boy or is it a girl?
ZOEY: This is my room.
Beware of girliness.
LAVERNE COX: But what if it's not that simple?
SPEAKER 1: The reality is you were born to me as a female.
ZOEY: I was 10 when my counselor told me that I was transgender.
KYE: I was at daycare.
OK, the boys go over here.
Girls go over here.
So I walk over with the boys and they're
like, no, you're actually supposed to be over here
with the girls, sweetie.
Haha.
That's cute.
DANIELLA: I've been identifying as female for five years now.
ARI: All of a sudden, all my friends
had to stop calling me Ariana and they had to call me Ari.
LAVERNE COX: In the next hour, you'll
meet seven brave young men and women
who will show us what it means to defy expectations.
KYE: I am the first openly Division I trans athlete.
LAVERNE COX: To take risk and make changes.
SHANE: It wasn't just coming out.
It was, how am I going to do all these medical things?
And I never had a major surgery before.
LAVERNE COX: And even endure discrimination and violence.
DANIELLA: I remember him running after me, and he, like--
I'm sorry.
LAVERNE COX: Just to have the same freedom
to live their lives authentically
as who they knew they were meant to be.
I'm Laverne Cox, and this is The T Word.
For many of us, the T in LGBT means more than transgender.
It also means truth.
When someone is trans, it means they identify differently
from the gender they were assigned at birth based
on genitalia.
Gender isn't black and white.
Even Facebook recently added over
50 choices for people to identify their own gender,
from transsexual to cisgender and gender fluid,
so it can be kind of confusing for some people to understand.
But the most important thing to know about how individuals
identify their gender is that it's not
about what's in their pants.
It's about what's in their hearts and minds.
KYE: When I was five years old, I knew that I was a boy.
I didn't question it.
That's just what it was.
AVERY: When I was, like, 15, I realized
that I was so depressed wearing clothes
that people expected me to wear and how
to look and act certain ways.
SHANE: I started exploring my gender identity
when I was about 14.
That whole period of time for me, I was just very depressed.
I hated myself because I felt inherently wrong.
LAVERNE COX: People transition at different points
in their lives.
But many trans people, like 18-year-old Ari,
report knowing their true identity from early childhood.
ARI: Hey, guys.
I'm Ari.
Welcome to my house.
Come on in.
I'm from New York City.
I'm 18 years old, and I love music.
This guitar I just got for my birthday.
It's a beautiful instrument.
Thanks, mom and dad.
This is an ASCAP award, and I won it
for my songwriting and stuff.
I've been playing music and singing and songwriting
since I was about three.
I want to make it my career, and I love it so much.
SPEAKER 2: I'm looking for Ariana.
Where's she?
There she is.
ARI: I knew I was a boy since I was really little.
Since I could dress myself.
I'd always dress up in, like, boy outfits
and I only had guy friends, and we all
used to scream at the girls and tease the girls.
There was something about me that just never connected
with a female.
SPEAKER 3: Here's my little pumpkin.
SPEAKER 2: I have cheese--
these things.
ARI: Do you have any peaches or anything?
SPEAKER 2: Trail mix.
ARI: You have peaches?
SPEAKER 2: No.
ARI: I was just really confused all the time.
Like in middle school, it was especially difficult because I
hit the wrong puberty and got a menstrual cycle
and started growing little things up top.
Nothing any boy wants to have at 13 years old.
I wanted to be a teenage boy and I couldn't.
One night I talked to my dad and he was like,
you don't sound happy.
So I told my dad I hate being a girl.
That night, he did a little research into it
and he told me, like, you're transgender.
And I was like, oh, yes, there's a word for me.
Yes.
Thank God.
LAVERNE COX: Ari was excited about finding a word
to describe his truth.
But there are some terms that these young trans
people don't want to hear.
AVERY: Some of the words that are
offensive to me are tranny, shemale,
and just a flat out man really hurts.
ZOEY: The word tranny.
It's very offensive to us.
It's like calling a gay person the F word.
KYE: Girlboy, he/she.
Transgendered.
If you're saying I'm transgendered,
it's like something happened for me to be trans.
It's like saying you've been blackened.
Like, what happened for you to be Black?
SHANE: Any sort of language that is not gendered male
is not correct for me.
But the one that gets to me the most
is when people refer to trans people as it.
LAVERNE COX: 12-year-old Zoey has been experiencing this kind
of name calling from as early as she can remember,
but no amount of harassment can stop her from living proudly
as the girl she knows herself to be.
ZOEY: I'm from the Los Angeles area.
I have one brother and I have one sister, and I have a mom.
She's a single parent.
And my dad has recently passed, but everything's still good.
I still cope with it very well.
So this is my room.
Beware of girliness.
I mean, it just has so much girliness.
I love dancing.
I love performing arts.
I love acting, and I love drawing.
This is Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
When I was two, I first started feeling like I had a burden.
When I was little, I always thought
that boys and girls had the same genitalia
and that we all had the same body parts,
so I just thought, oh, they're confusing me for a boy.
Then I found out that they actually have separate body
parts, and I felt very anxious because I was wondering,
why do I have to live as a boy when I really feel
that I'm a girl in the inside?
And I was just very sad and depressed.
OFELIA: You have to get ready for camp.
You have to start getting your stuff together.
When she started walking and talking,
she would generally gravitate to playing princess.
She would wear my shoes.
So I kind of understood that there was something different.
ZOEY: Oh, and we got to go pick out
something for the formal dance.
My friend Nikki, she wore this really pretty, like,
out there Cinderella dress, and I was like,
I'm going to top you next year.
When I was two, I remembered that my mom just got me out
of the shower and she was drying me.
And I remember crying and saying, I know in my heart
that I'm a girl.
And it was just really confusing for her
and she didn't know what to do.
OFELIA: When I started googling more information
about transgender people, most of the information that I found
was negative.
Horrible words were used.
Abomination.
And I was like, that's not my kid.
She's gorgeous.
LAVERNE COX: For Zoey, Ari, and countless others,
deciding to transition to a different gender
can be powerfully liberating.
But having to explain your new identity and appearance
to everyone else can be incredibly difficult.
Coming up on The T Word.
SPEAKER 1: I see you as the child
that I gave birth to, which is a female.
LAVERNE COX: And later.
ARI: I've had so many opportunities to have sex
and I haven't been able to ever have it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LAVERNE COX: Some trans people feel
it's not necessary to undergo medical transition, which
could include hormones and/or surgeries.
But others choose to make changes
on the outside that align with how they feel on the inside.
SHANE: I guess first thing was I picked my name, Shane,
and I started asking my close friends to call me Shane.
I would be Shane out in public.
I felt so happy and so confident and so fulfilled.
DANIELLA: I didn't know if I was trans.
I didn't know who I was.
But I knew that when I walked outside in a skirt,
I felt happy.
ZOEY: I transitioned in front of everybody's eyes.
I came in hot pink and I walked out
the bus and everybody was like, whoa, that makes sense.
LAVERNE COX: Transitioning can be
both exciting and challenging.
One of the biggest hurdles can be
the time it takes friends and family to accept the change.
So imagine how hard it must be to experience all of that
under a national spotlight.
KYE: I am the first openly Division I trans athlete.
There we go.
My action shot for today.
LAVERNE COX: In 2011, while playing on the women's
basketball team at George Washington University,
Kye was featured in a piece for the website Outsports
announcing he was trans male.
The story caught fire and made national headlines.
SPEAKER 4: Why come forward now rather than play out your career
and then do everything?
KYE: I mean, that's what my plan was, and then it
just-- it got too tough.
It got too tough to not be me and to hear people call me
a girl, say she, or just refer to me as something that I knew I
wasn't.
LAVERNE COX: Kye's coaches and teammates
were quick to offer support, but he
found himself faced with a barrage of questions
from the media that made focusing on basketball
difficult.
KYE: I went from doing a post game
interview about the game of, oh, hey, Kye,
so what did you think about this?
How was that pass?
Things about sports, to, so are you attracted to your teammates?
Are you going to get the surgery?
Do you have a penis?
Like, what?
How many sports do people play with their genitalia?
I don't understand.
How many jump shots has LeBron James made with his penis?
I don't know.
I don't think any, right?
So why are you asking me that as if that has anything
to do with my athletic ability?
It doesn't.
I was extremely overwhelmed.
It was a lot, having everybody pay attention
to me just because I want to change my name and my pronouns.
All I wanted was for people to just focus
on my athletic ability.
And maybe the fact that I needed to work on my 3-pointers
a little bit more.
LAVERNE COX: While transitioning in college
was complicated for Kye, coming out
as trans in elementary school presented
its own set of unique challenges for Zoey and her family.
OFELIA: Oh, drama?
ZOEY: I'm going into--
I might be going to the mad dramas.
After I transitioned, I had a lot of problems
with the school board.
They would always give me a hard time.
The students bullied me as well, but they didn't bully me as hard
as the administrators did.
They said, stay away from her.
She's a really bad kid.
She's like the Antichrist.
Yeah, it was really hard.
Next year, for sure, I'm doing a talent show.
OFELIA: Good.
Finally.
A lot of people gave me a really hard time
and they asked me to stop.
They asked me not to encourage it.
It wasn't up to them.
If you see that your child is happy
and they're living a regular life,
why would you even want to change it just so they could
fit into someone else's style?
ZOEY: I had other people come and tell me, oh, you're a sin.
You deserve to live in hell and you're going to burn someday.
And I was like, OK, I'll see you there too.
OFELIA: I remember sitting there in the whole crowd
and being so afraid of how they were looking at her.
But she does great.
She's not afraid, and that's the good thing.
I fought a lot with everybody to let her buy her Barbies,
let her play with her toys.
Just leave my kid alone.
ZOEY: If my mom had not been supportive,
I wouldn't be here today.
I would probably be a suicide.
OFELIA: You're just a little kid still.
The more you grow, the stronger you're going to become.
LAVERNE COX: Family support is crucial.
A staggering 41% of transgender people
have attempted suicide in their lifetime.
That's nine times the national average.
But the rate is lower for those who
maintain a positive relationship with family after coming out.
KYE: I can't hear you, Mom.
SPEAKER 1: Can you hear me.
KYE: Yeah, I hear you.
In terms of who's on board with me being trans,
my siblings are great.
They call me their brother.
My mom is just-- she's--
I'm her oldest.
If you ask her, I mean, she'll say that I'm her daughter.
Hi, mom.
SPEAKER 1: How is New York?
KYE: It's busy.
It's fun.
It's cool.
I went to Philly Trans Health Conference this past weekend.
I talked to a trans kid and he was asking me
about how to talk to his parents about pronouns
because they won't switch.
SPEAKER 1: What do you mean they won't switch?
KYE: Like, they won't say, this is my son or he.
They just-- they do what you do.
They'll just play the pronoun, like, game and just--
SPEAKER 1: I don't say that either.
KYE: You don't say anything.
That's not better.
That's worse, I feel.
After I told my team, I told my mom.
Being raised a Jehovah's Witness, it was difficult.
It was difficult for me, difficult for my mom
to process that.
And it tore us apart.
She just kept saying it was a phase.
This is a phase.
It's not right.
The Bible says this, the Bible says that.
SPEAKER 1: What I want you to understand is this.
I gave birth to you.
I breastfed you for a year.
And it's very difficult to just wake up one day
and go, OK, this is Kye.
And you know it took me two years to just call you Kye,
and I still will not call you a different gender
because I see you as the child that I gave birth
to which is a female.
KYE: When my mom will give my siblings pronouns--
so like my little brother, this is her son, or my sister,
this is her daughter.
And then, this is Kye.
That is the most hurtful to me because it makes
me feel like I'm not a human.
SPEAKER 1: An orange is an orange.
You can't make it an apple.
You were born in a female body.
KYE: Yes, I was born with a female body.
Yes, I have.
Yes, we know.
But that's just a body.
Mom.
But that's just a bod--
SPEAKER 1: Why would you want to do that?
Just answer that for me.
KYE: Because being in that old body,
I literally-- being in that old body
made me feel like I didn't want to be alive anymore.
It didn't feel comfortable.
I couldn't even focus on basketball.
I couldn't focus on school.
I couldn't focus on doing anything.
And until now.
Now I finally see me.
I feel comfortable and I can actually focus on my life.
But before that, that wasn't me.
SPEAKER 1: That's wonderful that you feel comfortable,
and I'm glad you feel in tune with yourself.
I would not love you any different than what you decide.
But my reality is that you were born to me as a female.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
KYE: Would I love for my mom to say it or to say, he and his?
Yes.
At the end of the day, my relationship with her supersedes
pronouns.
But the fact that she's not on board
means that I can only handle so much.
Yeah.
I got to go.
SPEAKER 1: OK.
Well, I love you and be safe.
KYE: All right.
Love you, too.
I'll talk to you tomorrow.
(SINGING) But we're going to be OK.
LAVERNE COX: Coming up on The T Word.
ARI: I've never been comfortable enough
with myself to let a girl touch me.
SHANE: My mother said straight women will
want to date a man and lesbians are
going to want to date a woman.
So who's going to want to date you?
LAVERNE COX: Building friendships and finding romance
is rarely easy when you're young.
But growing up trans can add another layer of complication
to all of these rites of passage.
ZOEY: If I was walking by a crowd
in a school I was supposed to go to,
they'd be like, OH, hey, gay boy.
So I decided that it's best for me to move schools
so I could find friends.
DANIELLA: As a trans woman, I've lost a lot of friends.
My life consists of Daniella, home, but that's it.
AVERY: I think that friends are everything,
and having supportive people around you is really important.
Just one person that you can confide in and get
some sort of validation of being a normal human being
could mean everything to somebody.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ARI: What's good, dude?
SIMONE: How are you, man?
LAVERNE COX: For Ari, the social complications
started when he revealed that he was trans to his classmates
in ninth grade.
ARI: I came out before high school when I was about 14
as Ari, and that was really the beginning of my journey.
I started really allowing myself to feel like a boy in public.
SIMONE: Can we go?
ARI: Yes.
My high school was not the greatest place.
My first year there, I got bullied a lot.
There was just a group of guys that just really didn't like me.
They went to the head of my high school
and said that they weren't comfortable with me changing
in the boys locker room.
One of them mentioned that I watched them
pee, which is just ridiculous.
Like, nobody watches anybody pee.
You've never seen Clueless?
Dude.
It's kind of a chick flick, but it's so funny.
It was a really rough place to transition.
I ended up not really making it there.
I left.
Do you want to sit here?
SIMONE: Sure.
ARI: OK.
I started testosterone my sophomore year in high school,
and that was one of the most exciting points in my life
because I started a new high school, new people, fresh start,
and my voice was low.
From that point on, my transition
became more of a life for Ari as a young guy.
LAVERNE COX: Even though Ari has had several girlfriends
in recent years, he still struggles
with how to express his sexuality.
SIMONE: What happened?
ARI: This is how I get changed by myself.
Dating and my sex life.
It's a rough thing, especially because, at least for me,
sex is something that's always been really scary to me.
If I get with a girl, what if she
tries to put her hand in my pants and then freaks out?
Because that's happened to me before and it really sucks.
SIMONE: Who are you excited about seeing?
Anyone specific?
ARI: I mean, everybody.
Definitely super ultra mega excited for Rachel
to come, though.
Today is my 18th birthday, and I'm going to be having a bunch
of my really close friends over for a decent size little party.
Aw, you bought me a cake.
I'm warning all of you, Mobley might hump you.
No, no.
He will hump you.
Hey, get out of my house.
RACHEL: Happy birthday, you.
ARI: Thank you so much.
I've had so many opportunities to have sex
and I haven't been able to ever have it.
Welcome, welcome.
Even with a girlfriend, I've never
been comfortable enough with myself to let a girl touch me.
[CHEERING]
Thank you, guys.
The relationship relies on everything but sex.
Now I gots to make a wish.
And it can't be the wish that I told certain people.
Being trans and dating can be really tricky and a really
emotional thing, and you have to really find someone who's safe
and who is really, really supportive
and proves to you that they're supportive.
LAVERNE COX: Dating and sex can definitely
be harder for some trans people to navigate.
SPEAKER 5: Let's go back and graph
some more of these equations.
LAVERNE COX: But Shane from Baltimore, Maryland,
is living proof that true love can transcend gender boundaries.
SHANE: When I came out as trans, relationships
were a very complicated thing for me because I really--
like my mother said, who is going to love me?
She was worried as a mother that I wouldn't
be able to find a partner to share my life with because she
said, straight women will want to date a man and lesbians are
going to want to date a woman.
So who is going to want to date you?
So I had this little, like, Amish boy haircut.
I hated having long hair.
And every time that I did have long hair,
I just threw it up in a ponytail.
And I believed it for a long time.
I didn't think that anyone would love me.
I played baseball for a while.
And I thought that it would always
have to be the baggage that I brought along
into whatever relationship that I was bringing.
Hey, I'm trans.
I hope that that's OK.
JESS: Trying to spice it up?
ARI: You're always spicing it up.
I didn't think that anyone would love me or be able to love me.
JESS: I can't believe it's been a year.
I mean, I can believe, but I can't believe it's been a year.
SHANE: Until Jess.
We met through a mutual friend, and then one day our friends
had gone out and we were left alone,
and we started talking about life.
I'd never heard another human vocalize the thoughts
in my head so articulately.
And from that point on, I was like,
she's going to be in my life somehow.
Come on.
JESS: Don't pull me in.
I don't trust you.
That's why I don't trust you.
I did not know anything about trans people
or the trans community prior to dating Shane.
[CHATTER]
The first time we were intimate, we were taking a shower
together, and he said, I know you haven't seen any other trans
people naked, and I just didn't want
to get naked and throw you off.
I say, Shane, you're not an alien.
You're going to have parts that I'm familiar with,
and that's fine.
I'm kind of treading water.
SHANE: I know.
I avoided pools for so long, I forgot how to swim.
JESS: I can imagine.
SHANE: No, it's a real thing.
I knew from literally the first time I kissed her
that I wanted to marry her.
Within the week of kissing, we were officially dating,
and within six weeks, we had moved in together.
She is what I largely attribute to how successful I am,
because she shows me support, unconditional love,
and makes me feel like I can do anything.
And it's amazing.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LAVERNE COX: Coming up on The T Word.
AVERY: I wrote, hey, I have to tell you something important.
LAVERNE COX: Avery reveals the complexities
of dating as a trans woman and the danger
she faces just for being herself.
AVERY: I don't like to disclose in person.
It's a very real possibility that we
can be harmed physically.
LAVERNE COX: For most people, being perceived as the gender
we identify as goes a long way towards making
our daily lives less stressful.
SHANE: I have what I call passing privilege, which
is that when I'm walking down the street,
people don't know that I'm trans.
They're perceiving me as a straight white man.
But not everybody has that privilege.
KYE: I decided to take testosterone
because every time I would walk anywhere,
I would try to order a sandwich, they would
ask, how can I help you, sir?
And I would answer and I'd say, I want a roast beef sandwich.
And they'd be like, I'm sorry, ma'am.
I'm like, no, no, no.
You had it right the first time.
LAVERNE COX: But sometimes the consequences of not passing
can be very serious.
AVERY: My definition of getting clocked
is somebody realizing you're not a cis born
woman or a regular girl.
When I got clocked, I felt like I
was representing what I wanted to show,
and it made me feel very insecure.
LAVERNE COX: 20-year-old Avery has been identifying as female
for five years.
AVERY: I grew up with a single mom and four sisters.
It was a lot of estrogen, a lot of girls.
LAVERNE COX: At what point in your life
did you realize that you were different?
AVERY: Probably when I was, like, 15.
I had two older sisters and they always
wanted me to be their hot little brother that got girls and was
a player and stuff.
But that really wasn't me.
Ever since that kind of stuff was happening, I was like,
this doesn't feel right.
LAVERNE COX: Because more often than not,
Avery's perceived as the female she is.
She struggles with how and when to reveal she's trans.
She knows all too well that doing so to the wrong person
at the wrong time can be dangerous.
AVERY: So I've been talking to this guy and I met him online
and he's really funny, and I haven't
disclosed that I'm trans yet.
And I'm a little nervous to see what he says.
There's a time where I didn't disclose that I was trans
and that didn't go so well.
LAVERNE COX: The threat of violence
is something that's really real for you.
AVERY: That's a real possibility for me
because, sometimes, especially with girls like us,
we like to test our realness.
We like to go out and be like, oh, we're
so unclockable and everything.
But it's a very real possibility that we
can be harmed physically.
You always see cases where these women are murdered and killed,
and that's always in the back of my head, which
is why I'm always cautious when it comes to dating.
I wrote, hey, I have to tell you something important.
I need to let you know that I'm transgender.
I don't like to disclose in person.
I like to be a little cautious about that.
Texting is the best way.
LAVERNE COX: For safety?
AVERY: Exactly.
OK, so he just asked.
So what do you have down there?
This is actually really typical in a lot of guys.
I feel like it's really kind of insensitive and very personal
to ask.
I don't know.
We just met.
Like, I don't want to talk about that area down there.
LAVERNE COX: So many people will say that no matter
what surgery you have, you're always
the gender that you were assigned at birth.
Even if you have bottom surgery, definitely
if you don't have bottom surgery,
you are the gender you were assigned at birth.
What would you say to them?
AVERY: I feel like that is just ignorant.
Women come in all shapes and sizes,
and I feel like just to discredit us
because we were born with a certain genitalia
is kind of ignorant.
I feel like it's more fluid than that.
He wrote, I'm sorry.
I'm not into that.
I don't know why you took two hours,
but it didn't work out, so.
LAVERNE COX: Most of the time, Avery
says she experiences rejection when
she discloses that she's trans.
But sometimes she meets someone who's
open to getting to know her just the way she is.
AVERY: Hi, how are you?
DONNIE: Nice to meet you.
AVERY: Nice to meet you too.
How do you feel about the whole topic of transgender people
in general?
DONNIE: Does it make you happier?
AVERY: Yeah.
DONNIE: That's what matters.
That's really what the important part is.
AVERY: It's not for everyone, obviously.
And it can be a total game changer, which I understand.
Which is why I'm glad you're OK with it.
The first date went pretty well.
He is really good at keeping a conversation
and he's funny and sweet.
It makes me feel validated and it
makes me feel like I'm a normal person, which
is the most important thing.
Like I'm a normal girl.
LAVERNE COX: While Avery navigates
the politics of dating while trans,
L'lerret is struggling with politics of a different kind.
L'LERRET: My name is L'lerret.
I'm 20 years old.
I go to a very private Catholic HBCU, Historically Black
University.
I try to just perfect my makeup because that's
part of my family.
Makeup is just, like, my armor.
I started hormones in January, and it's
been a wonderful process.
It's been very transformative.
I've learned so much about myself.
So I'm looking for, like, a pore filler.
Something to make the skin smoother looking before I
put on the foundation and stuff.
When you're getting clocked, it's
like when you are just living your life trying
to be yourself authentically, and people can tell.
So people that don't pass, they do experience a lot more
adversity because when a lot of people experience trans women,
they don't know how to react to us.
LAVERNE COX: Across the country, studies
show that trans women of color face
higher levels of police profiling and harassment
than the general population.
And L'lerret is one of the many trans
women in New Orleans who say they have been unjustly targeted
by the police.
L'LERRET: This is Tulane Avenue, and this is probably
one of the biggest hotspots for the police
to come to meet their quota and criminalize trans women,
especially trans women of color.
There's the stereotype that all Black trans
women are sex workers.
No one goes to Bourbon when the sun's out.
We go at night.
So if I'm leaving school to go to Bourbon,
then of course I'm dressed cute because I want
to look cute down in Bourbon.
Just the fear of being stopped by the police is a problem.
They could see that as me trying to flaunt my body
and they would crack down on me as a way
to prevent me from being harmed is what they say.
But when they crack down on us consistently,
there becomes this whole understanding
that all trans women are sex workers
and they must dehumanize us because that's who we are.
The intersections of being transgender, being Black,
and being a woman altogether, walking out late at night
is not a thing that we do anymore.
People think that when you're out here,
you're just like, open bait.
They'll honk their horns, they'll stop.
We in New Orleans are really working
to change this environment and change the system.
So that trans women don't feel afraid of going out
at certain times at night.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CROWD: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
L'LERRET: Five or six months ago, I
joined an organization called Breakout.
Youth Breakout in New Orleans, and it's
centered around the decriminalization of LGBT youth
of color in New Orleans.
Having Breakout as that outlet for all the youth
to come together and start owning their power
and using their truths to really affect
some change in the community, I feel
like that's really important.
I think that's where Breakout is going to go
is going to mobilize the youth.
At the end of the day, I'm not going
to be scared of being who I am, but I
do understand that being that person is dangerous.
LAVERNE COX: Coming up on The T Word.
DANIELLA: Last year, in the middle of spring,
on this very same corner, I was pulled off the streets
and I was raped by a guy.
LAVERNE COX: I always connect to these stories
because I've been catcalled and then someone's
realized that I'm trans and I fear for my life.
The trans community is enjoying more awareness
and social equality than ever before.
But anti-trans bias is still pervasive,
and violence against trans people
remains disproportionately high.
ZOEY: Of course I've been bullied.
I've gotten people threatening me.
I've never been physically harmed,
but I have been threatened.
KYE: I was just walking.
One guy, he comes right in my face
and just like, oh, so you think you a man, you think you a girl.
Like, come on, son.
Like, I'm going to show you what it's like to be a man.
Da, da.
And I'm just like--
and I was just looking at him, like,
is this really happening right now?
SHANE: I went to the 7-Eleven up the road.
These two guys came in and they said, are you a boy or a girl?
I didn't say anything.
I didn't want to get into it with them.
And then they started to get more aggressive about it
and they were like, what is it?
And I became an it, and I was no longer a person.
LAVERNE COX: And since LGBT youth
are much more likely than the general population
to experience homelessness, they're
even more susceptible to becoming victims of crime.
DANIELLA: I'm fine.
How are you?
LAVERNE COX: 20-year-old Daniella from New York knows
first hand the dangers of being a trans woman living
on the streets.
DANIELLA: I was raised in foster care
from 18 months old until escaping around 16 officially.
Growing up in foster care was really rough,
and by the age of 16, I just wanted to be free.
I was sleeping on the trains, sleeping
in the parks, the village.
That was my reality for quite some time.
Last year, in the middle of spring,
on this very same corner, I was pulled off the streets
and I was raped by a guy.
He, like, has a knife.
And he's like, bitch, say another word and these
will be your last words.
It's that moment where you just, like-- you don't realize
that this is happening to you.
You know?
You're like, damn, do I scream?
Do I shout?
So now here we are.
We're in this car.
And I remember, my hand was shaking unbearably.
And I remember him like, telling me, stop shaking, stop shaking.
I was just begging him, please, just take all my money.
Take everything I own and just let me go.
But my property wasn't enough.
The only property he wanted to own was my body.
You feel so helpless that all you could think about is,
will I make it out of this alive?
Every single day when I walk outside at night
becomes that moment for me.
Will I be a survivor or will I be a victim?
LAVERNE COX: So what happened next?
DANIELLA: Then we get to the hospital.
And I remember like everyone saying to me, don't worry,
things are going to be fine.
We're going to give you a rape kit
and I'm sorry to have to put you through this,
but we have to stick it in the female area.
And I was just like, yeah, but I don't think that's possible.
And then they said, so how did he rape you?
And I said, well, he, like, put it
in the anal and stuff like that.
And she says, oh, and he raped you like that?
Because I could feel the shift now.
You're sure it wasn't sex work?
LAVERNE COX: The second she found out that you were trans,
she basically accused you of being a sex worker.
DANIELLA: Yeah.
And then started telling me, like, oh,
you sure you wasn't prostituting and he took advantage
and he didn't give you what you wanted
and now you're saying that it's rape to get back at him?
I'll never forget it, because here I am, just like,
you're not going to get treated with respect.
LAVERNE COX: Daniella was lucky to escape with her life.
But sadly, stories like hers are all too common.
DANIELLA: I'm taking in this moment
where I'm like, wow, look at the things you've encountered,
but look at all of the things you did to move past that.
And it's making me emotional because I'm
thinking about everybody else that's
coming, and knowing that this is where they have to live.
[THUNDER]
LAVERNE COX: We are going to the site
where Islan Nettles was murdered almost a year ago.
This girl was 21 years old.
She had been homeless and she was
beaten into a coma on Frederick Douglas Avenue in front
of a police precinct.
The police pulled a young man off of her, arrested him
for assault, and once she died, they
dropped the assault charges because they allegedly
want to bring homicide charges against this person.
But they haven't done it yet because they
don't have enough evidence.
It's a year later.
I always connect to these stories
because I've been Islan Nettles walking down the street
and catcalled and someone's realized that I'm trans
and I fear for my life.
Hey.
So this is the place where it happened.
This is for Island, that we never
forget young women like her who are fighting for their lives
or who may have lost their lives.
We remember you and we love you, Islan.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm just having all of these flashbacks to CeCe McDonald's
story.
CeCe McDonald is a young trans woman
who, like Islan, was walking down the street
and then was violently attacked.
CeCe survived.
Her gifts for survival was a prison sentence
because, in defending herself, one of her attackers was killed.
If you look at Jules Gutierrez's story in Northern California,
she was attacked at her school by a group of young girls,
or Chrissy Polis in Baltimore.
That video that went viral when she was attacked in a McDonald's
by a group of young girls.
We just came off of five trans women being murdered in 41 days.
There's a feeling of helplessness and powerlessness.
It feels like it's sanctioned by the state
and by our society to just pick us off.
It's infuriating and maddening that it
feels like these murders are treated as if they're OK,
as if we deserve to be victims of violence
simply for being who we are.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 6: Crazy, sexy smart, fast, next, dangerous.
Ish.
LAVERNE COX: Don't go away.
The T Word continues right now.
We've seen how trans people face widespread discrimination when
they start living their truth.
But despite that, this remarkable group of young people
is rising above the stigma and creating a brighter
future for themselves.
ZOEY: So this is an award I received
from CSW because they saw that I had some leadership in me.
LAVERNE COX: Zoey just turned 13,
and she's already become a powerful voice for trans youth.
She and her mom joined the fight to pass a new law in California
that now provides greater protection for trans students.
ZOEY: The law allows students in California
to use their preferred bathrooms,
and now I can use the girls' locker room without any hassle.
So I'm just really excited.
LAVERNE COX: Kye retired from competitive basketball
three years ago, but his unique experiences in college sports
led to a new passion.
KYE: I went from being an athlete to an advocate
like that, traveling and speaking
to schools about my story, trying
to create safer spaces for other trans athletes.
I've had kids come up to me and say, wow,
I've never met a trans person.
Like, thank you for just coming to my school
and just being here and sharing your story.
And they told me it made a difference.
That's all I'm trying to do.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LAVERNE COX: Daniella is committed
to using her experience to help other trans youth.
She has recently started an online business
and finally has a home to call her own.
DANIELLA: I really do feel blessed.
This is my safe space.
I think I beat the odds as a youth.
That's what my apartment shows me.
LAVERNE COX: Ari survived high school and is now on his way
to college to pursue his dreams of becoming
a professional recording artist.
ARI: Being done with high school means that I've overcome a lot.
I feel really proud of myself.
I can't wait to get this next chapter started in my life
and be more independent and learn
to really take care of myself.
So I'm really looking forward to that.
And I'm looking forward, period.
I can't wait.
[CHEERING]
Thank you guys so much.
SHANE: Being here today is amazing.
There are so many beautiful humans here,
and I'm excited to be a part of it.
LAVERNE COX: Both L'lerret and Shane
are graduating from college this year.
Avery not only has a new job working
with a fashion designer-- she has a new man in her life
as well.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
AVERY: The most important message
I want for people who aren't in the trans community
is just that we're normal people.
We have feelings.
We do normal things.
We're just trying to live our lives like you are.
We're going through the same struggles as you.
You should probably get to know us.
[MUSIC PLAYING]