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AUTHOR INTERVIEW
-----------------------------------------------------------------------internal discomfort. I think I’ve always had a feeling that I will be able to tease out whatever’s happening internally in due time if I’m given the space and grace to, but it’s that external discomfort that has often eaten up so much of my energy. I dealt with peers at a young age who didn’t understand why I was so feminine or the discomfort externally that I felt for my dad, who didn’t understand who I was in so many different ways, or the discomfort I felt working, or when I was a student at the University of Georgia. Luckily, I found some LGBTQ+ community there, but I was still a Black student at a predominantly white institution and I was still the only openly trans woman student in that context in 2012, 2013. So it’s that discomfort in those spaces or the discomfort of going to Out magazine and being the first trans woman to hold a leadership position at that publication. It has been a series of discomforts in this life of mine, but I think what I’ve learned from that is that those are opportunities to evolve not only for me but for the environment to evolve for the folks around me who are invested in something tangible and different. Have you ever needed to compartmentalize some of this external pressure where people are constantly pointing out that you’re the first “this” or “that” when you’re really just trying to do your job some days? 10 Fab Vegas
I think at this point in my career, it can be comforting to understand the history, particularly trans history, and to know that there have been others who came before me. Maybe not exactly the same with the exact same credentials, but there have been trans storytellers before me. There have been trans folks trying to carve out a
space in media before me. And so I can take comfort in knowing that wittingly or unwittingly, they did leave some bit of a broken pathway for me. My hope is that whatever space I enter, I am carving out a container for the next folks to not have to check off as many boxes. My hope is to make it smoother for the next people. But also, everyone is
