Well, sweetie, that night changed my life. Because that night I met this old lady on the dance floor with white hair and a bob and a football jersey and leather pants. And I was like, "Ooh, she's fabulous." And, she was like, "Oh, my God, I love you young people. You should come back to my house." And, I looked at my girlfriend and my girlfriend looked at me. Her name was Ronnie. And she said, "Girl, we're gonna go back to her house and we're gonna have some more wine and we're gonna drink and we're gonna talk and this is gonna be fabulous.” We jumped in the car with this lady and we go up to 73rd Street. And, I'm like Okay, 73rd. Girl, you hit big time.We get in her apartment and she says, "Listen, I gotta do a long distance conference call. Give me an hour. There's wine, there's food; make yourself comfortable and when I'm off we're gonna party some more." We waited. Me and Ronnie was high as hell. We're sitting on the floor. I'm like, "She must have the world's biggest cat…”We're just laughing and she finally gets off the phone and comes in the living room and sits in her throne, her little chair, behind her desk. I says, "Excuse me, what kind of cat do you own?" And, she says, "Cat?" I said, "Yeah, the white hair on the rug." She starts to peel this cemented wig off her head. I almost faint, ‘cause you can hear it ripping from the skin."I couldn’t have imagined it: an old white, Jewish woman taking a Black girl home."
Then I went to Covenant House. And, Covenant House told me, "Oh, no, no, no. We cannot house you. We're a Catholic charity and we don't condone what you're doing." Well, it led to the question, what am I doing? And they went, ”Oh, you have on a bra." And, I said, "Well, yeah." And, they were like, "No, you can't stay here." So, once again, I'm homeless—and on 42nd Street, no less.Then I found out about the Port Authority, which was a hotbed of steamy shit for a teenager, and found out I can make some coins there. That worked a for a little while because I was able to get a hotel room. But, how long would I be able to do that, before someone kills me? And there were some moments with clients. Back then there was a real epidemic with crack. Clients would get cracked out and I didn't know how to handle that. And, of course, if they're paranoid and I'm trying to leave, they're trying to hold me down and I was like, "This is not good." So, once again, I find myself at the door of Flawless."Clearly they were not hiring a young person who identified as a young woman, who wasn't a young woman, who had no support for being a young woman and no name."
I tried the shelter systems and they were a mess, and dangerous. I don't known whether it was wrong being me, or they were wrong for being themselves. They were able to live in their skin, I was not able to live in my own, and was persecuted for being me.So, I stayed on many people's couches, including some of the people I knew it was toxic to be around; but if I could have a place to stay for the night, it was a good thing."I would be asleep and get punched in the face and I'll be like, 'Oh God. My life is really not worth anything.'"
Finally, I passed my evaluation, and I said, "After I pass my evaluation, I'll spring it on them: I'm gay." Once I passed my evaluation, I went for a makeover at Macy's. I went shopping. I went and had my hair done. I used my next couple of days, because I worked four days for 10 hours and had three days off.Well, that Monday afternoon when I went to work, I was Ceyenne. I walked down the block in sunglasses and perfume, and I smelled good, and I looked fabulous. I walked into the building and I walked past security, and security was like, "Miss, miss, you can't walk in this building. Miss, miss." I just kept walking, and I went to my station, and I grabbed my clipboard. Security came running downstairs, and they were like, "Miss we told you, you cannot be in here." I pulled off the sunglasses, and they went, "Eddie?" And I said, "Yeah, about that." They ran upstairs and they got the manager, his name was Reverend Peacock, and he comes downstairs, and he turns and he looks at me, and he goes, "I knew it." And I go, "You knew what?" And he goes, "I knew there was something that you wasn't comfortable with. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew it." He said, "Come up to my office.""They respected me, and I respected them."
It was a struggle being trans, trying to navigate so many waters and trying to just keep my head above water, but also realizing that home was not an option. I remember some of the moments when I was really, really depressed where Flawless was like, "You're gonna do this. Either you wanna live or you wanna die. Now how do you wanna do this?… 'Cause I could wear a pretty black dress anytime." And I'm like, "Oh shit."I moved to New Jersey. Because, again, it was away from New York, and I feared my parents finding me."It's not so easy working with community. There were times when I wasn't doing good."
And I said, "My mom knows but my dad will be angry." And she said, "Then you continue to do what you're doing. You're honoring her by helping her. He doesn't need to know."Well, he figured it out. The day after my grandmother had passed away, he came to my house. I literally hired security, 'cause I didn't know where his anger would go. I had breasts now; I'm a full on trans woman. I didn't know how he would receive this.He was like, "I just wanted to tell you that, you know, some of the things that happened in your childhood were not all your fault."I needed to know this. For the first time in a long time, I cried. I full out boogery cried. And I went uptown and I went to the door, and of course Flawless came out in her little tighty-whiteys and she said, "How are you surviving this?" And I said, "I don't know." I said, "But for the first time in my life I feel like I got some clarity.""Every now and then, I would run into people who knew me from childhood, and they would say, 'Oh, I heard you were dead.'"
I don't know what it would be like. Are we gonna go back to the Stonewall days where you need to have on two male articles [of clothing]? I remember Flawless telling me them stories of how she would take a shirt tie and tie it around her underwear or sew it on—she would have these articles of clothing sewn into her clothing because they were gonna get her. That's determination. I'm gonna be who I wanna be and you're not gonna tell me who I can't be.I will never go back to those times, I'm sorry. When I had to be Eddie Morales, it was for survival. When I had to do sex work, it was definitely survival. Because even working a part-time job for a non-profit where I'm saving lives was not paying me enough to sustain in life. Yeah I'm doing the work. I'm working almost 12, 13 hours a day but not being paid like I should be paid, not valued like I should be valued."We can systematically turn people off when we let a government ordain what femininity looks like, what women's rights looks like, what protection looks like."
I remember one day, me and Flawless went to the board of education meeting to meet with Sweetie. I don't know what was going on with me, but my eyes looked like a rainbow. I had 52 colors up on these eyes. And Sweetie said, "Girl, girl, meet me in the bathroom." I've never seen Sweetie as her normal self. And I was like, well who is this big queen telling me to come in the bathroom?Finally, in the bathroom, she said, "Yeah, we're just going to wipe some of that off, because you're speaking on the behalf of young people for the board of education, so we're going to tone this down a little." And I said, "Well, wait. Why?" She said, "Because you need to present yourself proper at meetings like this. They already know the deal, but take it down a notch."I never understood that and I got it that day: If I want to earn their respect, it's not me being who I am, it's how I present myself that could make or break a meeting—or how society sees me.I had never actually thought about my presentation as a trans woman. What the girls were teaching—they said the uniform was a mini skirt, a pushup bra, and a wig. If I'd have listened to that scenario, I would never have a job and I would never be taken seriously.It was odd to look across that room and see Sweetie with no makeup and well manicured eyebrows. And I was like, Oh, there's a time and place for everything. I didn't know that, because these were not lessons taught to me before. But they were damn sure important.I was like, Wow, I took a lot for granted. I had to look [back] on some of the attention I was getting in some of the places I was going. Yeah, maybe I should not be there, maybe I should listen. And it made sense because I was putting myself in these high risk situations.We're not having these conversations when girls get attacked, that you know presentation is everything. The idea is, as a youth, I didn't ever get well because I didn't know. As an adult, I'd learned to navigate and get respect in areas where I certainly wouldn't have because pay me no mind. Why? Because I blend in. I'm tall as shit and I'm bigger than life, so it's not like they don't know the situation. But presentation is everything. And that changes the narrative on how you waffle through society, how you just navigate these waters of oppression and discrimination."If I want to earn their respect, it's not me being who I am, it's how I present myself that could make or break a meeting—or how society sees me."
I see so many of these horrible videos where girls are being jumped. And one issue with one person turns into three or four people attacking this trans woman. And I can't watch the video. I turn them off because they're so disrespectful; how society will just jump in. It ain't got nothing to do with whatever the situation is, but they will jump into the fight and just attack this trans woman because of who she is. Did she do something wrong? Probably not, probably not at all. What was her crime? Waking up and going out. That was her crime.She didn't do anything, didn't say anything. But what we don't teach and we need to be teaching is conflict resolution, how to deflate a situation. I already know who I am, and what I am, so I don't need to clap back when somebody says something. Even if it's gender different and somebody says, "Oh, that's a man." Sweetie, I'm okay with that. I am totally okay with that. But what you're not going to do is put your hands on me. And could I make it through that? I could live another five fucking minutes if I just walked the hell away. You don't have to fight every fight. It's not meant for you to have to answer for every idiot's discrimination.