[CrossTalk]

[CrossTalk]

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

All right, Tori, thank you so much for taking some time with us on your Sunday. I'm Andrea Pino-Silva, I'm a board member at OUTWORDS, and I'm also a community organizer. I've been involved in the queer movement, pretty much since I came out. I'd love to hear your story from where you want to start it. But I will say where I'm really curious, and I always ask folks, is, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

what were your early days like? At what point did you find out that you were different? When I say different, I don't mean your queerness. I'm referring to how you saw the world and how those early days kind of shaped your foundation to where you are now.

TORI COOPER:

Thank you so much for having me, on a Sunday. I appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit about my life and my experience as a Black trans woman. 

TORI COOPER:

I'm an only child by my parents. My parents were married for 20 years and I'm the only kid who came out of that marriage. I guess because I always navigated the world as an only kid, even though I'm now the eldest of several siblings, I always felt a bit like an outsider or weird or different because there weren't that many of us who were only kids in my circle.

TORI COOPER:

Then being a Black kid, and a Black kid who lived in and was educated at predominantly white schools for most of my life, I always felt a bit like an outsider and I always felt a little different. Then, perhaps, not having siblings to bounce ideas off of, I didn't realize just how different and weird -- and I mean, in the best way -- and quirky, 

TORI COOPER:

and all those other kinds of things, I was. Because I didn't have anything really to compare it to.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yeah, that's such a big thing to point out, is precisely that. I think even this idea of weirdness and how we only think we are weird, and in a bad way, because somebody tells us that. What was your family like? You said you being the only child, you were like the golden kid, I'm assuming, like everyone's attention, in some way. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Maybe not. Maybe you weren't. I was the oldest so that's how I

[inaudible].

TORI COOPER:

I'm laughing because yeah, that was the name. That was a nickname. One of the many nicknames that was described by some of my family members was 'the golden child'. I was often on my mom's hip, and we were the nuclear family for quite a long time, from the outside, looking in. I think many viewed our family 

TORI COOPER:

kind of as role models for how a family unit should look. Certainly, from the outside, looking in. Even the bad times, you remember things how you remember them, and you experience them in their moment how you experienced them. Often those things are not the same, how you experience them and how you remember them. For many of us, myself included, I think 

TORI COOPER:

that as a safety mechanism, you remember the best of things and often play down the not good parts of your childhood.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yeah, that's so true. I think, also, it's because for so many of us, it's just the foundation of who we are, and going back there and starting from the beginning, it sometimes undoes a lot of what you think 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

you know were your early days, the innocence. When you say nuclear family, did you not have anybody, your family? Did you have, like, cousins or uncles or other extended family that were a big part of your life?

TORI COOPER:

I always say my parents were quite young when I was born. I was actually at their wedding, that's how young they were. Yet, they had an absolutely beautiful love story. 

TORI COOPER:

For most of their marriage, things were really, really good. My parents are both children, the second eldest of very large families, also. There were always cousins and there was always aunties and there were always uncles and great uncles. When you're young and have children, their siblings may be much older 

TORI COOPER:

or much younger, and both of my parents, their youngest siblings are within two years of me. That creates this really interesting dynamic and relationships where your auntie is also a friend, you're going to school with your aunt, or your cousin is 30 years older than you. There are all of these interesting things that are going on at the same time, and it just worked for all of us because ultimately what it ends up is a lot of different levels of support and family,

TORI COOPER:

some of them you have very close relationships with. Again, because my parents were so young when I was born, my parents' first cousins are more like my cousins.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yeah. It's interesting that, for me, I always call going to college my coming to America, because up until I was 18, I was only really among Black and Latinos, that was basically it. There was one white girl in my school,

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

that was the extent of it. The concept of family was something that for me, yes, there was a nuclear family, but everybody else was part of the bigger family and not even just the people that related by blood, but also people in your community. I think when we talk about like coming out and coming to terms with like who you are as the person in the LGBTQ community, it's not just the coming out to your parents, but also like what it means to navigate 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

that a part of you is unexpectedly different, and what it means to navigate your community after you realize that. I want to know a little bit about how young you were when you realized there was a part of you that you wanted to share but weren't sure how to, and how your family responded. I can imagine that you had a traditional coming out process precisely because your family was a big part of who you were.

TORI COOPER:

I've had several different coming out stories and several different coming out processes with different members of the family, also. The first part of your question is when did I realize something was different? Again, I process things as an only child. I can't remember, ever, a time when I thought I was like the other boys, even though I knew I wasn't like all the other girls. So, I created siblings. 

TORI COOPER:

It's funny because I still have books somewhere, notebooks and notepads where I created 22 sisters and married them off to men who were famous at the time, and guys that, in hindsight, I had crushes on. They were actors and they were sports guys. In hindsight you realize those ways of me expressing what I couldn't articulate or what I didn't have words for.

TORI COOPER:

I drew families around each of my sisters, because they were all girls, but again, it's ironic. So, my coming out processes were all different, depending on who there was in the family. For some people, we never said the words. I showed up dressed a little differently because I never looked differently as far as I can tell. I never did anything to my face, 

TORI COOPER:

so I just grew into my face. For some of them, maybe we hadn't seen each other for a while, so I'd grown breasts. Or we had seen each other pretty recently, so the transitions, to them, didn't appear as large because we would see each other a bit more often. There were all kinds of different stories. One of the funniest ones involved my official coming out to my mom, 

TORI COOPER:

which was absolutely hilarious. I'll tell you about it, if you want to hear it. I grew up in Virginia and some friends and I were coming to Atlanta for, I think it was Labor Day weekend. At the time, my parents are going through a divorce. I was in college and I was one of the contact people. There were all these guys and folks 

TORI COOPER:

who had all kinds of different voices calling the house, "What time are we leaving?" "Which car are we taking?" "Who's driving?" "What hotel would we say?" It was called, back to back to back. My parents were going through a divorce and my mom was just absolutely out of it. I remember, she finally got frustrated with hearing the phone ring and she said, "What are these men calling the house?" I thought that she was kind of outing me,

TORI COOPER:

 so it turned into this thing. I said, "Well, I'm gay." She said, "What?" I said, "I'm gay." She said, "Don't say it again. Don't say it again. I thought you were selling drugs." We laugh about it now, it took us a long time to get to that -- It was one of those in-the-moment things because I just cracked up laughing when we had that conversation. 

TORI COOPER:

I was 19, I think, at that time. But that was a coming out. That was part of a coming out, and there've been others. Again, I choose to view them in the most affirming senses. I see the fun part of it. It pissed her off, and it did help her mental state or emotional state at all, but to me it was really a freeing moment because suddenly

TORI COOPER:

I never had to hide that part of myself again, because she knew at that point, and I felt a relief. I remember saying to her, I said, "Oh, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulder." She said, "And you put it on mine." She went to her room, slammed the door. I went to Atlanta and all's right with the world.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I love that. And I would say this is how I came out to my grandmother, similarly, where I was freaking out. I think it would be terrible. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Basically her response was like, vaginas are so much work, why would you want more than one? I was like, this is hilarious. It was literally like, this is not what I was expecting. I wasn't expecting her to make it about vaginas and then being too much work. But that was her response, and that was it. That was the last conversation we had. I mean, not last conversation, but that was the coming out process. I think it's really interesting, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

especially because of how negatively communities of color are, oftentimes, portrayed in responding to it, the coming out process. Really, a lot of this is just taught. It's just taught that we're supposed to respond this way, I think especially when it comes to being trapped in a very conservative framework, whereas, my family wasn't really religious. I mean they were culturally, but not really. For them, it was like, I never got the sin talk, I never got any of that. It was literally just like, okay, cool. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I love that you had that experience with your mom. I mean, it's funny where it's like, Oh, it could've been so much worse, much worse like maybe selling drugs,

TORI COOPER:

But it's such a grandma thing to say about the vaginas. I think of the sin talk. I got the sin talk until I was 47 years old.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

So, there were people in your family.

TORI COOPER:

Yes. I said the word gay, because I didn't have another word to articulate 

TORI COOPER:

what I was feeling. This was like 1989, because I'm over 50 now. I probably have used the word 'gay' less than maybe five or six times throughout my whole life to identify myself because that didn't describe fully the experience. I used the only word that I had available to me at that point.

TORI COOPER:

So, there's that. But, yeah, I got that. I'm also a person who has experimented with a lot of different education. I've always thirsted for education. I was one of those kids, if I used the word or somebody around me used the word and needed to know what the word means, my mom would literally take a dictionary or the source out and say, "Here, look it up." She used to carry a little book with her. 

TORI COOPER:

That's weird, but it helped because it broadened my vocabulary, even from a kid. But the Bible talk, yeah. I'm also Black and I'm from the South. Certainly folks in my family were like, "Oh, you're going to hell." Or all of this other stuff. I said, "Look, Jesus and I have conversations every day and God has affirmed me." 

TORI COOPER:

I don't tell everybody this, but I actually went to theology school. I didn't graduate from there, but I went. I wanted to know more, I didn't want to be a clergy person. I felt that that validated my existence, I needed to have God affirming. In the same way that religion is used to beat some people down, I got out of it that I am powerful and wonderfully made.

TORI COOPER:

If I'm made in God's image and God is neither man, nor woman, but a spirit, then I'm good with God. Once I realized that, my emotional and mental state around, using today's terminology, my transness and my trans identity, suddenly so much of the anxiety and depression that I felt around being so different, it dissipated 

TORI COOPER:

because religion affirmed for me what some other people couldn't. It also gave me, when folks would use scripture to tell me I was going to hell, I could use scripture to tell them how they were wrong. You have to fight. If people are using spears to fight, then either you use spears or use stronger weapons. I used the same word, with a capital W, that they use against me to affirm me. 

TORI COOPER:

For the most part, it has been very successful because you can't take this part of the Bible of any religious doctrine and not look at it in the full context. So, several different coming out stories. That one I thought was the absolute funniest.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I wasn't expecting the religious angle, but I'm really glad you brought that up. I think, especially because I have a lot of friends who are queer, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

who are trans. I have a friend who's a trans man. Who's here in Durham, at the Duke Divinity School. I used to go to Foundry United Methodist church in D.C. when I was living in D.C.. For a long time, I thought that queerness and religion we're just not compatible. Because what I had seen in religion was precisely the weaponizing of it against queer people. Also, I never really got direct sin talk, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I got indirect sin talk. Because I'm a survivor of sexual violence, a lot of it was also the weaponizing it against people who were survivors. The last time I was in a Catholic church was when I heard somebody in the parish say the good girls don't get raped. That was like, what's actually do is anymore. That was the same year that the marriage amendment passed in North Carolina. That was what I saw over religion. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

But to me, it's been so beautiful to see queer people, particularly trans people that have taken up space across denominations, for precisely what you're saying. I'm very curious. You mentioned earlier about education and a thirst for learning. I'm very excited about who you were as a child, specifically that thirst for learning. I also had that as a kid. Sometimes it was insufferable, sometimes it was charming. But very much like you. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Every time I saw what I didn't know, I would look it up. Every time I saw a plant or a flower that no one knew what the name was, I would look it up. I'm curious if that thirst for knowledge and that desire to assert who you were gave you the confidence to try to find the definition for what made you different. Because it seems like it did. The story that you're telling of that confidence of who you are, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

that's very rare. It's not just for queer people, but for all children. To even feel that, one, in the right and are able to resist when people tell you these things; and two, that you're able to even name who you are and what you feel, and how that is worthy of love and support. That is something that is very unique. I'm really curious about what events 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

or what people made you this way, this way that your thirst and your curiosity was celebrated and that the space that you took up was celebrated. Was it friends? Was it other folks in your family?

TORI COOPER:

Celebrated is a strong word. Even as confident as I was in my own, again, using today's terminology, gender identity, it wasn't something I felt the need to share with my family for a long time. 

TORI COOPER:

I moved away. I had just turned 18 when I moved away for college, and then I was 19-20 when I moved even further away to another college. I was 23 when I moved to New York. Between 18 and in my early thirties,

TORI COOPER:

many of my family members, I would see once or twice per year, for over a decade. Some, I wouldn't see at all, we might talk every once in a while. They didn't see the physical transition. I learned to be self-reliant being an only child. Also, I sought with so many members of my family who were self-reliant. Certainly, I grew up in a two-parent household, 

TORI COOPER:

but everybody in my family didn't and all of my friends didn't, so there were all of these different aspects. There's self-reliance, but then there's also accountability that you learned early on as an only kid. If you break a glass, you can't blame it on your little sister. If you break a window, you can't blame it on your older brother. It has to be you. If it wasn't mom and dad, 

TORI COOPER:

then it was you. You learn levels of accountability early, early on. At least, I did. Those were things that were supported by my parents and by my whole family, so there's that. When it comes to acceptance for my transness, I didn't change who I was. I never did. My birth name is Tori, 

TORI COOPER:

so I didn't even change my name. What changed is the clothes that I was wearing, and my body shape changed. I didn't have my face done. I wore wigs for a very short amount of time. I sold and did make-up professionally for years, so seeing me with some makeup on wasn't even a big deal to most of them. I think in many of their minds, 

TORI COOPER:

they just thought I was like extremely gay, or gay to the nth power, rather than trans, because I was still the same person who had a big chest. I'll take responsibility over that, that I should have much sooner outed myself as trans to many more of them earlier. But I remember having this conversation with myself, because as only children, we talk out loud to ourselves 

TORI COOPER:

and we answer ourselves out loud. I remember saying, I don't remember anybody talking about their puberty with me, other than a couple of cousins who were the same age. I don't remember my auntie talking about when her breasts developed. I don't remember my uncle talking about when he developed hair on his testicle. I don't remember hearing folks talk about those conversations. I didn't feel a need to have to talk about when my breasts first developed with members of my family. 

TORI COOPER:

Because people outside of my house saw me differently, I just assumed they did. We weren't seeing each other there often either. I should have outed myself much, much sooner because there are so many interesting things that kind of came out of that. During my visits home, I would go places, and I might be with a cousin or somebody 

TORI COOPER:

or an auntie, "Hey ladies, how can we help you today?" I remember my grandmother, one of my grandmothers, she passed recently, I remember we'd go out and people would say, "Hi ladies, how can I help?" She's like, "That's my grandson." Out of respect, I wouldn't correct her in front of other people, until I just couldn't allow that anymore, and it created a whole thing. 

TORI COOPER:

But out of that came a level of acceptance that really changed my life. It really did, in a positive way.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

What's really interesting is, I honestly haven't come out individually to many people. At some point, I just stopped caring. Or like if somebody just assumed that I had a boyfriend or ask when I would have a boyfriend, and I said, I've never had a boyfriend and don't intend on getting one. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

That was basically it. There were very few people that I could actually remember having that conversation with. I would say, for me, probably the most, kind of, awkward ones I had were with my friends. Even with my friends, I never had a coming out, it was kind of like, so I'm dating this girl, and they're like, Oh, okay. And that was basically it. Granted, these were my friends who I was really close to, but even with them, I didn't really have a coming out process.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I think that, again, this whole coming out process, I feel like, for a lot of people, it's very prominent, or it's hyper focused on a lot of film and TV. For me, I don't really remember those very intense coming out moments. But I am really curious about your community beyond your family. What your friends were like growing up 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

and what role they might have played in you, maybe realizing, maybe not finding a word, but like starting to exert a part of you that was different?

TORI COOPER:

I remember we had moved into our first, it was a townhouse, and we lived in, it was a really nice neighborhood, and I was one of the new kids. 

TORI COOPER:

We moved in February. Even though it was in the South, it was still cold. In February, it's not like there are kids outside playing. I tell all that as the backstory. We probably been there for a couple of months before I started meeting other kids in the neighborhood. I was sitting outside, the way that I remember it, which is going to be the name of my book, actually. The way that I remember it, I was sitting outside and just kind of my mom or dad, one of them encouraged me to go 

TORI COOPER:

and meet some of the kids a few months after we moved there. I was sitting outside on the stoop and some kids were playing, and a little boy came up and asked me, I guess he was about my age, he said, "You a little boy, a little girl?" I said, "I'm a little boy." He said, "Okay, you want to play with us?" That was the first time that I can remember that someone, interesting in its own way, kind of, saw me.

TORI COOPER:

It wasn't the boy or girl, it was just something other than a boy that was affirming. Even the fact that I remember that so vividly all these years later. Fast forward, I was 11 or 12, I was at one of my other grandmother's house, playing at a neighborhood park, and met this kid who was a year older than me,

TORI COOPER:

Aubrey Jefferson. Immediately we just clicked. It turns out he was an only child like I was, and was absolutely the best, best friend that you can have, that any kid could have. We used to do this thing where we used to take imaginary butch pills. If we had to be around our parents or do something at school, we would literally either have tic tacs 

TORI COOPER:

or we would literally put this imaginary pills in our mouths to butch up for other people. But I remember Aubrey for many, many years. Aubrey was also the closest person to me to have died from AIDS, very early in the epidemic. But I remember, when we were in middle school, we were in high school, and as young adults, Aubrey would say, "You're going to make a beautiful woman one day." He would always say that. 

TORI COOPER:

Even when I didn't have words to articulate it, he saw it, and he saw it for me. That was affirmation. Through Aubrey, I met a whole bunch of other people that were like, okay, I don't care who you are, what you are, how you do it, if you're cool with us, we're cool with you.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

You mentioned that you lost Aubrey to AIDS. How recent was that, when meeting him?

TORI COOPER:

I think I was 11 when we first met, and by the time we started hanging out, I was 12ish. Aubrey died when I was 23. We had just over a decade. There are a few people in life who, from the moment you meet them, you know that you're going to be together forever,

TORI COOPER:

Aubrey was one of those folks. I was one of the first, I think, I was the third person that Aubrey had told that he was diagnosed with HIV. And because this would have been the super early '90s, right around '90, at that point there wasn't treatment for it, at least not in our community.

TORI COOPER:

He realized pretty soon that it was going to be a death sentence, and had prepared himself for it and prepared all of us for it too.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Was that your first experience with AIDS in your life?

TORI COOPER:

Ironically, no, it wasn't. There was a time when I was in middle school, my mom, her dad and her cousin died on the same day. 

TORI COOPER:

My grandfather died of cancer and some other things, he didn't die of HIV. It was like one in the morning before work, and the other at night, when she got home after work. As a kid, you remember seeing your mom struggle with having to lose two people who she was very close to, on the same day. Her cousin died of complications from AIDS. 

TORI COOPER:

This would have been in the early to mid-eighties. That was my first experience with someone that I knew. I remember him and I remember my parents having gone to visit him. They had to wear space suits and all this other kind of stuff. Just hearing them describe the experience was heartbreaking. That was my first experience, but 

TORI COOPER:

I knew people in the community who died, people who we came out together -- that's the term that we used -- and we socialized together. Even after I would get out of school in my neighborhood, I ride my bike to go and play with my friends who live in the city versus in the County. I knew folks that were dying in the late eighties and throughout the early '90s.

TORI COOPER:

They'd be here with you partying and kicking on Thursday, and Monday they'd be dead, and they'd be cremated on Tuesday.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Because they didn't know what to do with the bodies, right?

TORI COOPER:

Oh, folks knew what to do. They would get rid of the bodies. You knew because there was this shame that from the very beginning just permeated in our community and in our families. 

TORI COOPER:

Folks would say, well, so-and-so was 21 and they died of cancer, and that would be the end of it. Never any type of cancer. You'd never say what type of cancer, but they just say they died. Or you notice that someone that you partied with was no longer around and nobody knew what happened to them. What we soon realized is

TORI COOPER:

that the families in an attempt to hide their stigma, their own self-about shame, would just ... It was as if they would wipe all memory. The person was dead, and that was the end of it. They'd never talk about how they died. They never talk about the pain that the person endured. They were more concerned with their own shame around somebody being diagnosed with, using terminology back then, AIDS,

TORI COOPER:

 because it was still deemed such a gay disease. We knew so little about transmission, and again, because so many of these folks died relatively early in the epidemic, there weren't treatments. Even in the community level, I've worked in public health for a number of years, but we knew at the community level also when AZT became available, the AZT was killing Black people 

TORI COOPER:

at a quicker rate than AIDS was. AZT was not a great medication, but then it was even worse for Black people, because there was no research on how it would react in Black bodies. If you were fortunate enough, and I used that word fortunate, for lack of a better word. If you were fortunate enough to have seen someone 

TORI COOPER:

Black who had taken AZT or who had been prescribed AZT or was doing AZT treatments, then you could see the physical results. I remember people just saying, I just want to die. I remember that as a teenager, because what AZT was doing to their body was worse than AIDS was. 

TORI COOPER:

Which medical mistrust that goes into that. It goes to lack of research on Black and brown bodies and with Black and Brown people, it goes to lack of Black scientists and researchers. It goes to a lot of things, and that's just how it was even from the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

And you know what's currently happening, of course. I think it's really interesting because I feel like I've learned about AIDS in two different ways; 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

what I learned in some of my science classes and I learned about AIDS, and what I saw in Liberty city, Little Havana, Little Haiti in Miami. People who didn't identify as gay, people who were perhaps gender queer or trans, but didn't identify that way, predominantly Latino and black, and who were dying, who are still dying. I think it's really interesting because I think that a lot of us, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I mean, I say gen Y because I'm a gen Y, in particular, we're taught about AIDS in a way of the past. And what you were saying about lack of scientists, I know a lot of people who I went to college with who ended up making a career out of AIDS, and they certainly don't have many Black colleagues or many Black friends. The way they talk about AIDS is in a way that is very

[inaudible]. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I'm really curious about how you found yourself being a voice around combating the illness. If it was something that you did because you saw a need in your community, and what those early days were, if you saw yourself as an activist right away, or you just saw yourself as a member of the community that needed to step up.

TORI COOPER:

I will first say, thank you for sharing what you did. I would bet every dollar and every number in my credit score that the AIDS epidemic looks very different in those places that you mentioned, Liberty City, Pork and Beans, Little Haiti, Little Havana, AIDS looked very, very different than it did in Boynton Beach and in Hollywood and in Miami Beach, and in South Beach. It looked really, really different. 

TORI COOPER:

The systems of HIV care that we all operate in, that we work in were created by white gay men to take care of themselves as they were dying from AIDS. That's it. Thank God for them because they created entire care systems and a model for care that still exists today. If you look at how their numbers have continually gone down, 

TORI COOPER:

how these early white gay folks, in large part, not all, but in large part, advocated for things that folks who weren't them couldn't understand, it's wonderful. You look at the Denver principles, established in 1983, it was mostly white gay men who were living with AIDS, again, using the terminology then, who advocated for a patient bill of rights,

TORI COOPER:

and came up with the concepts of nothing about us without us is for us. That type of mentality and so many other wonderful things that have really impacted, not only HIV care systems, but care systems for all manners of illness. kudos to them.

TORI COOPER:

The problem is the epidemic has affected and infected so many other groups of people for whom that same system of care doesn't work for. We can talk more about that later, because you asked me what made me want to get involved. I got involved because I walk through the world and navigate society with a whole bunch of privilege. I have privilege that in spite of a deep voice, I can go pretty much anywhere and not be clocked, 

TORI COOPER:

using our own terminology. I do sometimes, and it's okay. But I get to navigate the world and not feel unsafe for the most part because of my gender identity, that's a lot of privilege. I know that I navigate the world as a college educated woman, that's privilege. I know that I have private health insurance, versus 

TORI COOPER:

if I were experiencing a health challenge, having to navigate through public funding. I know that if something hurts, I can go to a doctor to figure out what's wrong, versus a government funded healthcare system that doesn't pay for prevention, it only band-aids treatments. I understand that's a lot of privilege. I get all of that. I understand that I get booked for a lot of things and I can charge a lot of money 

TORI COOPER:

because I have good subject to verbal agreement, most of the time. That's privilege. Early on, my experience at an HBCU, I talk about it all the time, I went to predominantly white schools growing up and graduated from one. I purposely chose to go to an HBCU. It was intentional and it was the right thing to do. I remember seeing and being validated by so many beautiful, articulate, 

TORI COOPER:

different Black folks who were my age. Who were smart and intelligent, and committed to causes, even then. Which, again, is a privilege. Even going to college. The fact that at any point in our lifetimes, that going to college is a privilege, it's ridiculous. It should be something, but that's all another story.

TORI COOPER:

But with all of the privilege, I realized that I wasn't the only person living in the world, so I couldn't just navigate the world as if I were, even as an only child. I could use some of that privilege to impact the lives of others. I purposely didn't use the word help because I also knew from an early age that I could not espouse a captain save the whole mentality, I couldn't espouse a mentality 

TORI COOPER:

that I was saving other people from themselves or from their decisions. But then I simply had to do what I could to move all of the communities that I represent forward.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I actually love that you brought that up, and it's a question I'll have later on about, specifically, the LGBTQ community, but precisely what you were saying about all the communities you represent and what that means 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

when you've navigated LGBTQ spaces, even the beginning of your work around HIV and AIDS. Did you always come headfirst, bringing the perspective of the Black community or at any point did you put that aside because you saw the attention that the movement was getting or where the resources were coming from? Did you come in headstrong and said this is a movement that needs to center the Black perspective? 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I'm very curious about, like, did you come headfirst that way, or at any point did you feel like you had to tone down that other part of you to, kind of, only center the part that fit that narrative?

TORI COOPER:

Great question. That's an absolutely phenomenal question. There's several answers to it. I don't believe that I came to this work thinking, Oh, I gotta make sure that Black people are centered in the work. 

TORI COOPER:

I have to make sure that, using today's terminology, trans people are included in the work. I don't think I came in there. What I realized is that, when I first started volunteering with folks who are living with HIV, I didn't feel a need to talk. I did. It was simple things like helping folks to create pamphlets, because I'm old and that's what we used to do, 

TORI COOPER:

and creating safer sex kits, and going over and creating ... Gosh, what were those things? There were these little community magazines where I used to live. And there was, obviously, the queer ones, and helping people to write stories, and doing a little research. Even back when we still used micro fish, for all of the folks that don't know, that preceded personal computers.

TORI COOPER:

Even just research at a library. Going to do all of those things. I did all of those things, and first of all, I didn't feel that I had a voice, but I also didn't feel that I needed to use my voice. I just wanted to be a part of something. But what I realized later on is that from the very beginning, I was always making sure that if this white dude over here was getting housing for folks living with HIV, then this Black dude needed it too. 

TORI COOPER:

Because I remember this lady's face from the drag community, I needed to make sure that she got what the white dude got and the Black dude guy. Even though it wasn't intentional, as soon as I started being able to navigate those spaces, I was, I believe, unintentionally creating an environment for greater equity in HIV health care.

TORI COOPER:

Then as I started using my voice and started being bestowed, having some power bestowed on me, in a sense, which could be a trigger word for some people, power. I realized that Black people were being left out of the decision making processes, Black people were being left out of funding. Very, very early on, when I did start literally using my voice and speaking up and being invited to tables, 

TORI COOPER:

I was like, well, what about the Black people? Well, it didn't always come out as what about the Black people, but what about the people who live in this particular healthcare center, which all or most were black? What about the people who live in this particular neighborhood? Most of whom were black, or all of them were black. But what about the people who go to this doctor? Most of whom were black. I saw the inequity, 

TORI COOPER:

even before I was using the term equity. Because I'm still a Black person. I don't care what I am, what my job title is, I'm always going to navigate the world as a Black person and as a Black woman and as a Black trans woman. Being able to recognize my privilege, which goes back to what I talked about earlier, it would be an affront to everything that I ever learned from my parents and in front of my family members 

TORI COOPER:

and in school, to be the only Black person in the room and not invite somebody to come along with me.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

This is a whole other lecture, by the way. I honestly wonder if you have ever considered doing, because this idea of bringing people with you, it's incredible how rare it is, I understand. Even your insistence on talking about privilege. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I say this because the LGBTQ movement, and actually any progressive movement, just loves to talk about Black trans women are always the most disproportionately impacted by insert trauma, insert violence here.

[Crosstalk]. Which is true, absolutely. But it's interesting because Monica Roberts, rest in power, did an interview where she talks about precisely this. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

It's like, you talk about us when we're dead, but you don't bring us to the table more alive. I think it's really interesting because the way that you insist on talking about your privilege, I think is precisely because of how you navigate the world, because you're like, yes, these are things about me that perhaps to other people and to society across the board marginalized me, but it's almost like you refuse that marginalization.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

It's interesting just the way that you talk about it, I think, especially because of the spaces that I'm always in, the amount of times that I only hear Black trans women referred to in terms of what they're at risk of, what their life expectancy is, and this idea of marginalization. I promise I'm leading to something. What I'm leading to is, at any point, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

did you go through the process of, not accepting, but coming into your womanhood. At any point, did you feel that access or power or anything about you changed? I say this because it's really interesting, just as a person who has always navigated the world, assigned female at birth, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

but what it meant to be a woman, and all of a sudden see that my being the oldest child, my being a strong-willed person, there was an assumed marginalization. I'm curious about if at any point, when you fully came into your womanhood, at any point did you feel like anything about you was lesser or that the world saw you differently?

TORI COOPER:

I never felt any part of me was lesser, but I've always felt, and still do believe that folks view womanhood, and more specifically trans womanhood, as different, and folks will attempt to make you feel that it's less. Here's an 'I' statement. As I transitioned, I was really, really fortunate that I had gainful employment, 

TORI COOPER:

wonderful insurance, and I lived in New York, when my physical and medical transition started. I used to order what I assumed were, they were called feminizing hormones, out of the back of dirty magazines, because it was the early '90, and that's what you did. Again, I didn't have the word articulate to a medical provider, "Hey, this is what I want, this is what I need, and this is where I want to go." I used to order this stuff from the back of dirty magazines and take them.

TORI COOPER:

There was this cream that you would rub on your chest, it was caffeine based, so it caused -- and you found this out later -- a skin reaction which actually made your skin react to it by swelling, because that's a part of the healing process, and it increased your busts for 24 to 36 hours. Now that's probably the most terrible thing

TORI COOPER:

that you can do to yourself, but it worked. In New York, I realized, also, no matter how crazy I look going out in public, and especially in those early experimental days, it was New York city, there were people who looked a hundred times worse than you. I make a joke out of it, but it's true. I had 6 million people to experiment with my look off of.

TORI COOPER:

These are all levels of privilege, because I was gainfully employed. I worked at a front facing job and your appearance matters, and we had dress codes. I have to conform to the dress code, 

TORI COOPER:

whether I was presenting as male or female. In many ways, that impacted the way that I present myself even to this day, because I'm very binary in my existence. I identify as trans more of a political statement than anything else. If I'm picking out groceries at the local grocery store, don't ask me, am I a trans woman. 

TORI COOPER:

You know what I'm saying? I'm not presenting myself that way. I'm presenting myself as a woman. I didn't transition to be a trans woman. I transitioned to be a woman. I started using the term trans really, specifically here in Atlanta, as a political statement, to make myself part of community, and also to combat stereotypes. I have a lot of flaws and a lot of experiences, good and bad. But I also realized, 

TORI COOPER:

similarly to what you just said, that there will be people and systems who will continue to relegate trans people, and more specifically, Black trans women only to statistics, or only two data points, or only to talking points. If me and so many others, because we're such a broad spectrum community, if so many of us embrace the title trans and identify as trans and live what public health would say is a non-stereotypical life, 

TORI COOPER:

then we're really in our own way, changing the narrative. Because trans people have always existed. There have always been trans women, even when we didn't have the word for it. And all of them were statistics. The CDC just started creating us as a category about two years ago. There's so many more layers to us. It is important that those of us who are trans, 

TORI COOPER:

in the proper context, and when it's safe to do so, identify as trans because our story is still vitally important to create this story and the narrative, and really best showing folks that we're more than one dimensional bookmarks.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I had this later in the interview but I'm actually very curious. What you were saying about identifying as trans political statement, I think it's really interesting. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I say this because when I was coming to terms with my identity, I mean, I've only had female partners, people will call me lesbian, will call me queer. I don't really care what they call me, but I think it's really interesting because at some point, even with my current partner, she was saying like, sometimes I affiliate with the word lesbian, sometimes I don't, and it's really because of how loud 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

the anti-trans TERF community is and how exclusionary a lot of spaces are. I just tend to call myself queer because I want to be in a space as accessible as possible. I think it's really interesting when we think about this idea of presenting, you were saying the world sees you as a woman, and you don't go out there and say, "Hi grocery store person, I'm a trans woman." But in organizing spaces, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

community spaces, you actively make that choice. I'm really curious about what it means to make that choice and to like when you are afforded passing privilege, which Janet Mock, in her memoir, does such a great job of illustrating. She was able to transition, as young as she was, most of her life, people don't look at her and assume that she is trans. What it means to actively make that choice, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I think, especially if they can come with a risk of violence and why you choose to do that. Was it something that you realized, "The world has seen me as a woman and I don't have to challenge that, so I'm going to make it a point to identify visibly as a trans woman, for those that don't have that privilege"?

TORI COOPER:

I will first say, I'm not a martyr, but I just knew it was the right thing to do. I knew it was the right thing to do because -- if someone only hears this part of the interview, they will think the absolute worst of me, but in the context of it, I hope folks will understand the intent, and the impact won't be so negative -- but I realized that even from early on 

TORI COOPER:

in many of my jobs and then in my even educational systems, and then as I got more involved in advocacy and started using my own voice, I realized people would attempt to segregate some of us, even from our trans peers. "Oh, well, you should be over here because you're not like them." I've heard people do everything that they can to say, "Well, we don't want that kind of person representing us."

TORI COOPER:

I've heard people do everything that they can, use every word in the thesaurus, not to say that, even though that's what they were saying. It just seemed intrinsically unfair that there've been people who've been doing advocacy work a lot longer than me, but opportunities have been afforded to me, some would say because I look a certain way, others because I have a background. 

TORI COOPER:

Again, that subject-verb agreement thing is there, but for a number of reasons, I'll just say it that way. That's intrinsically unfair. It is intrinsically unfair. I didn't want to perpetuate that foolishness by not saying, "Okay, so if I'm coming, my sister should come too."

TORI COOPER:

If this opportunity is available for me, why can't others do the same type of internship? That you shouldn't have to have a master's degree to be a tester in a freaking HIV clinic. That the people who were in the lobby should dictate what your programming looks like, and not the other way around. You shouldn't dictate what your program looks. 

TORI COOPER:

The people in the lobbies of your healthcare centers should tell you what the program should look like, rather than the people behind the scenes telling the people in the lobby what your program is going to look like. That doesn't make sense either. It didn't seem reasonable that folks would separate us, because we're stronger together. I wouldn't be career-wise, I certainly wouldn't be where I was, 

TORI COOPER:

if not for a whole bunch of people who've had doors turned on them and water hoses, figuratively speaking, turned on him or them. Who've heard a lot of 'nos', even when I heard, 'yeses'. It hadn't always been nice, but it just didn't seem right to do that. As leaders, I think one of your responsibilities is to bring other people along on the journey. Then as a Black woman, we've always lived 

TORI COOPER:

and made ourselves part of community. Simply because I also identify as trans didn't mean that I wasn't going to look for community. If I were rich, and I am not, but if I were rich, it would be terribly lonely being the only rich person. You want your friend to have as much money as you, so you don't have to treat every time, right? Or for whatever reason, just because you want them to be able to reap the same benefits as you are. That's part of leadership. That's part of advocacy. 

TORI COOPER:

That's part of life. That's part of womanhood. It's part of sisterhood. It's part of Black people in our communities, and Black and brown communities, that none of us wants to be there all alone. We always need to feel a part of something.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

This is pretty much across the board, but of all my non-Black friends of color most of us have an experience in which we say, the reason we are here today is because as a Black woman brought us with her, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

and this is pretty much every one of my friends who's non-Black who has said this over and over again. I think it's precisely that the community that Black women build, y'all bring us with you. That is something that I do feel is particularly strong in organizing spaces, that is so beautiful and so essential to the growth of any community space. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I have a friend of mine who says this, she's like, "The reason we talk about Black women liberation is we're free, everyone's free. Because for Black women to be free, everything has to be completely taken down and rebuilt." That's what I think, especially when we think of the LGBTQ movement and where the movement has to go next, it's precisely that. It's building a world in which Black trans women 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

in particular are free and are able to live and be in every space without any hindrance. Actually, I'm very curious about when you were finally at the point in which you were in these public spaces, what those first moments were for you. You were kind of quieter in the beginning, but at some point, people started listening to you, and at some point you had audiences and you were in those rooms. What was it like to end up there?

TORI COOPER:

Because I also have a strong spiritual and religious foundation, I also believe this is just part of the journey, it's part of my journey. There were times, quite often, when I would think to myself, you know what? I was supposed to be here. This part of the journey. This is on page 368 in the book of life.

TORI COOPER:

I was supposed to be in this room. I've always navigated life that way, that this is just part of the journey. I'm thankful, certainly, to be in those meetings and in boardrooms, and in the mud and in the trenches and all of those places. But I do think they're part of the journey. I also know that there was a season in process as well.

TORI COOPER:

I'll go into a meeting, when I go into a new job, people think I'm very quiet. And I am more quiet by nature than people assume because part of it is learning how to do stuff. When I made an official change from corporate to non-profit work, I took the lowest paid job at the agency where I was working. I literally made less money there 

TORI COOPER:

than ... I made more money at 21 years old than I made there, and it was extremely humbling, but I worked my ass off. One of the reasons I say that, and I don't encourage everybody to do that, but what I did was, I went in as an open book and I wanted to know how everything was done.

TORI COOPER:

Privilege. Because I could afford to do that. I was able to pay my mortgage still, because I had put a little money aside. I bought the house before I left corporate America, because I wasn't stupid. But I took that job and was still able to pay my bills because I put a little money aside, and I started getting speaking engagements. But I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know, 

TORI COOPER:

so how do you write a grant? What does the grant look like for a nonprofit? Because in a corporate structure, you have paperwork for everything. If you have a problem to report, there's a paper for that, you just fill it out. If you have a scheduling and request, there's a paper for that, you just fill it out. But I needed to know how nonprofit worked, and I needed to know how HIV works, specifically work behind the scenes. I was afforded that opportunity 

TORI COOPER:

and I worked there for one year and 16 days, then I went on to the next job. I went in, making a little bit more money, but still with an opportunity to learn more. I took jobs that were well beneath my credentials and my work history because I wanted to learn how stuff was done. At that job, I was able to learn more. Not only now do I know what a grant looks like and what all of these things mean, but now

TORI COOPER:

can I write the narrative for you? I was afforded that opportunity. Then it was like, "Okay, can I take the lead on this next grant? Then you review it and tell me what I need." It was all about increasing skills. My community organizing went up a lot while working there, because it was opportunities to work and get folks to come out to meetings and that kind of stuff and just to show up. It was all a part of the journey. 

TORI COOPER:

My overnight success in business came from 20 years. It took 20 years to become an overnight success. I can go back way further than that to when one of my girlfriends Zakiyah Giamatti in Virginia was doing something called Sisters Too, which was an adaptation of a CDC intervention. She's like, "Sister, I want you to help me with this." That was, I think in my thirties.

TORI COOPER:

That was a long time ago, in my early thirties. So much overnight success has been periods of just shutting up and listening and taking a lot of notes. I went back to school because I wanted to make sure that I had some of the degrees, so you couldn't tell me that I couldn't have this job, even though I had the experience. Then just learning the ropes and learning what everybody else's job was. Now there've been some times, 

TORI COOPER:

because I was so busy trying to learn everything, that I didn't focus on my own responsibilities enough. But I always knew that wasn't my last stop. I hope I answered your question. But that's part of the journey. For those who, no matter how old you are, I encourage you to learn as much learning, lifelong learning, which is one of the keys to cultural humility, is so important. It is being open to life, 

TORI COOPER:

always wanting to learn something more and then make changes accordingly.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I would say that's been probably the most frustrating part of my own career, has been a lack of opportunity to learn. I say this because I was that "gifted kid" who was just thrown into the fire and no one taught her what to do when she got there. Yeah, that was me. That's been me in pretty much every one of my jobs. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I'm going to graduate school, so now, I'm fine. Hopefully, I'll just get to start over from the bottom. But I feel like, sometimes, I was kind of promoted too quickly because I'd just be like, "Oh, you're really productive," so they just gave me more responsibilities, but the mentorship wasn't there anymore. You saying that you went back from the bottom, I have literally removed parts of my resume just so that I can be qualified for a lower role where I know that they will teach me what to do here. You saying that, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I think is really interesting. And that's precisely it, it's like that kid who likes to learn never really goes away.

TORI COOPER:

Yeah. Unless people beat it out of you,

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Correct? Yes. Unless people beat it out of you, which I think if you, if you surround yourself with the right people, there's always somebody who reminds you who you are and why that's a skill. But, absolutely. I mean, that's what you were saying. I definitely relate to what you were saying, where sometimes it feels like, "Man, am I just dumb? I just don't get it." When really it's just because nobody's taught you 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

and you're still eager for it. That's really interesting. I think, especially in the LGBTQ movement. I think that the movement has in many ways been professionalized. It's made into an industry. Whereas, before, it was oftentimes tied to survival, especially for Black folks in the movement. Not just because of AIDS, because of everything else; non-violence, no access to healthcare, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

just opportunities being lesser. What it means for the movement to be industrialized. I want to spend the last half hour of the interview having some, maybe, more controversial ... I'm really curious about what your answers are about the movement more broadly, which I have, personally, a lot to say. I'm gonna start with this question, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

the LGBTQ movement has evolved a lot in the past of 10, especially the past 10 years, but more broadly the past 30 years. It's gone from being something that we maybe didn't hear about to being in every politician's, for both good or bad, platform points. We have marriage equality. We have queer people in office. Kamala Harris has a Black lesbian in her circle.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

In many ways, and for a lot of people, that's just what victory looks like. But what we know is that the movement hasn't necessarily delivered as much, particularly for Black folks. For a lot of people, survival is still the priority because that's where a lot of folks are. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Do you feel as if the movement has been more invested in professionalizing itself and making itself mainstream than it has on liberation?

TORI COOPER:

Ooh. Okay. Interesting. The Black Lives Matter movement, that's not what this is about, yes, 

TORI COOPER:

has done a wonderful job of transitioning from a hashtag to a movement, to a business. With that being said, there are still incredibly huge gaps when we talk about trans equality, and more specifically Black trans equality. 

TORI COOPER:

I would like to say that the opinions expressed in this interview are entirely my own and not for my employer or employers, plural. But there's also this thing that people are so focused, when you talk about trans or anything other than cis-gender or heterosexual white maleness, 

TORI COOPER:

when you talk about anything other than that, suddenly it becomes about your genitals. That's the truth. You look at Rand Paul and his absolutely disgusting questions, never just disrespectful, but disgusting questions for Dr. Levine, this past week. He was so focused on genitals that he came off as even more of a creep than he really is. 

TORI COOPER:

But the truth is, for communities outside of trans people, when you talk about trans people, genitals comes up in people's minds; well, I wonder if they have this combination of stuff, do they still have the original body parts? It comes up in people's minds because white cisgender, heterosexual-ish men have created so many of these systems that we all navigate. 

TORI COOPER:

That's what happens. That's one of the reasons why men were able to vote a hundred years before women, because the fact that women menstruate, men thought that they weren't people and qualified enough to vote. It's stupid. All right. When we look at equity for trans people, and more specifically for trans women,

TORI COOPER:

 if we're thinking, again, of this system created by white cisgender heterosexual men who, not everyone, but when the conversation compares white men and Black men, we talk about Black men, sexual proclivity, Black men's endowment, et cetera. I swear, some people are gonna think I'm off on a tangent here, but I promise you it's all related 

TORI COOPER:

because so much of this stuff I really think is subconscious, and it just becomes part of our psyche. If in the United States alone, if we just talk about in the United States, you look at society, how society has treated Black male bodies, people who were assigned male at birth; slavery, Jim Crow and every system from the beginning of the US history, 

TORI COOPER:

let me make that clear, then it makes sense that some of them still view trans women as feminine male bodies, and the same issues that they have with Black men, they have with Black trans women. But then the same issues that they have with women, they have with trans women, and then the same issues that they have with Black women they also have with trans women, 

TORI COOPER:

Black trans women. Our issues are just compounded because of this archaic and barbaric thinking that white cis-gender heteronormative behavior and bodies are the ideal. And that's not the case. We live in a world where most people are not white, cisgender heterosexual men. That's the world. That's not who takes up more space in the world, but that's who created the United States. 

TORI COOPER:

They took it over from folks who were already here and claimed it as their own. Then they brought in people from other countries, particularly across the African diaspora to build for them. The wall street banks are run by white men, but the banks themselves, the physical buildings, were created on the backs of Black people. All of these things combined. They play a role in societies' 

TORI COOPER:

acknowledged and unacknowledged feelings about Black trans women. For many of us, there's still this belief, and you alluded to it in one of your previous questions, there is this thing that people think of, if we view masculinity and folks who identify as men as being more dominant in society, 

TORI COOPER:

then there are people who feel that people who transition to womanhood have downgraded themselves in a society. That you have given up a certain amount of privilege. Whether it's a spoken rule or an unspoken rule, that's how people feel. Rand Paul would not have had those conversations if he were interviewing himself. He would not have had those questions if he were interviewing himself instead of Dr. Levine, because they were disgusting, they were inappropriate, 

TORI COOPER:

but that's how people view us. They believe, "Oh, we can say anything to you that we want to, and get away with it."

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Well, that's probably why I asked you earlier. I think it's an implied transition to being lesser than. Even in the process of girlhood to womanhood, there's things about girlhood that I remember, but there's something about womanhood where it's like, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

okay, you're now old enough to be possessed by somebody. You're now old enough to be responsible for what happens to you. I think it's really interesting that it's almost like the loss of innocence of girlhood, but compounded. Like, if anything happens to you, it's your fault. If someone talks over you, it's your fault. Why would you choose that if you were assigned male at birth? Why would you possibly choose to become lesser than? But, again, it's this idea of precisely 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

that cis white men deciding who is in the pyramid, when it comes to power.

TORI COOPER:

I will say that heterosexual cis white men, because they tell gay white men that they don't have any role in society either.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yes. I always forget the added one. You know, all the different layers of things that I don't have. I think it's really interesting what you were saying about precisely always coming back to, you didn't use the word anti-blackness, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

but it's something that I, in my own work, bring up constantly. I say this because I think white folks, but also non-Black people of color -- which, of course, I have as a different category, I don't group Black people with people of color.

TORI COOPER:

Thank you.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yeah. People will correct me when I write it, and I'm like, no, no, no, this was intentional. We cannot group the experiences because anti-blackness exists in other communities of color. But I think it's really interesting 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

because when we think about a movement becoming mainstream, even you mentioned earlier, Black Lives Matter becoming a business. Because, like, man, is that "controversial". I'm still waiting for that to be written, I'm not seeing it as much. But I think it's really interesting because when our movements become mainstream, it's that they become digestible to whiteness. They become digestible to who's in power. Amazon gets to say Black Lives Matter. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

The mainstream in LGBTQ movement might still have dinners with folks who are against trans folks in sports, but they're all down with trans inclusion. I think it's really interesting, like when these movements become mainstream, they start to use the language of what at one point was radical, at one point was not part of the established movement, which then becomes dangerous 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

because they get to use the language of the folks who are actually impacted, but they don't actually change their politics. The reason I'm saying this is because what I'm curious about is your perspective about the movement, where the movement is right now and what the movement is and isn't doing for Black Lives. I think, especially, in the context of, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

where I see often is this fixation on talking about the death rates, on talking about illness, on talking about marginalization, but not a very real investment in Black Lives. I think, in particular, when we think about Gillead, for example, having a table at every fundraiser, or the inclusion of Log Cabin Republicans, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

or folks that are part of the bigger community, but are actively invested in keeping Black trans women, per se, as headlines, rather than members of those decision tables.

TORI COOPER:

Ooh, there was a lot there. That was a lot there. Yes, Black Lives Matter has a corporate structure now.  

TORI COOPER:

Let me also say this, I think that's wonderful. I think it's wonderful to an extent. I think it's wonderful because there will be folks ... I also believe in the power of intellectual property, which is something that we don't use in advocacy work enough, intellectual property. There's actually intellectual property law. I think that's really important. I think as things become more corporate, 

TORI COOPER:

and this is larger than Black Lives Matter, what happens is they become more whitewashed because Black people and people of color did not create corporate systems here in the United States, we created thriving systems within the corporate system; Tulsa, but then you see what happened to that; 2nd Street in Richmond, Virginia, but then you see what's happened to that;

TORI COOPER:

Harlem and 125th street up to Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, but you see what's happening with that. And there have been a lot of other places across the country. As things become more corporate and develop more of a corporate structure, whiteness has to infiltrate, and I'm using that word on purpose, because folks want a piece of it. Folks want a piece of it. With that being said,

TORI COOPER:

Gillead scientists, Log Cabin Republicans, some would argue that they don't deserve a seat at the table. The truth is I want to know where everybody stands. I want a bigger table. Because I want to know everybody's opinion. Now I think some opinions are bullshit, but I want to know your opinion because it's also important for me to know whose team you're on. If I don't have an opportunity to hear from you, then I'm relying on somebody else to tell me. 

TORI COOPER:

The Log Cabin republicans, yeah, they're part of the queer community, but they're going to vote against every single law and protection for trans people. I need to know that going in. I'd rather hear from you because you're seated three seats away from me at this table, not second hand, third hand from somebody else. So, they deserve a seat at the table. Also, as money continues to flood into all of these different communities ... We are in a period of racial reckoning. 

TORI COOPER:

In some of the conversations that I've been involved in with some amazing folks and thought leaders, one of the things that we realized is that this atmosphere is not going to last very well long because what's going to happen as a certain number of people are going to get a vaccine, schools will reopen, people will go back to lives as normal. Black people are still going to be treated like shit, Black trans women are still going to be killed because the conversation will be, then, "Remember COVID?" 

TORI COOPER:

And not about Blackness and not about racial reckoning and not about George Floyd and Tony McDade who were both killed by police officers, and not about so many other people and so much inequity, because people won't care anymore. Now your television room is right here. Your kitchen is right there. Your bedroom is right there. Your workout room is right here. The four walls of your home is your entire economic, 

TORI COOPER:

social system, everything, all rolled into one. We have to concentrate on each of those things, but we have to take advantage of it. Black Lives Matter needs to be bigger, but they also need to take much more of an intersectional approach. The fact that two queer women are responsible for starting Black Lives Matter, yet the movement itself is not representative of queer people, in addition to non-queer people as much. 

TORI COOPER:

We don't see uproar on the streets. Part of that is this heteronormative ideal that when Black folks are killed, there's an uproar by Black people, but not from everybody else. But then when Black queer people are killed, that is an uproar from Black queer people, but not from everybody else, and we can't continue to operate that way. 

TORI COOPER:

I don't want to see those systems break down, what I want to see is I want to see other systems built up. I want to see Black Trans Lives Matter; Milan Sherry, I want to see her work being elevated. I want to see House of Tulip in New Orleans to thrive. I want to see the Tiny Houses Project in Memphis, I want to see them become bigger movements and replicated across the country. Ceyenne Doroshow in New York, who's raised $4 million

TORI COOPER:

to combat homelessness in New York. Lasallia Wade in Chicago. Brianne Rivera who's in Arizona and does great work in Philadelphia. I want to see all of these things grow, not to dismantle all of these other systems because they serve a purpose as well. We all have a part to play. Everybody has a part to play. I want to see other parts become bigger rather than the parts that are there become smaller.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I love that, but I am going to challenge you a little bit, because I want to know how you respond to this. I agree with you absolutely, In terms of having to build these other systems. Where I find the challenge is that when whiteness, when the mainstream gets into our spaces, there is this assumption that, well, if we're investing in this, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

then we don't need to invest in this. Like, what's the point of investing in work happening in New Orleans when there's this really great foundation that supports Black trans women? They can just apply for grants and things are fine, or relatively so. This idea that when whiteness takes up the work, that work's not needed anymore. That's the way I'm laying the foundation for the question. The question that I have is 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

what do you believe are the limitations to representation of Black and Brown folks, but specifically Black folks in these systems? I say this because, whether it's a Black woman as a vice president or a queer person as a DA or as a police chief, what ends up happening is that there's outrage around the Tony Mcdade, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

although much less than George Floyd, the response is, "We're gonna start a committee." "We're going to fund an initiative." In that immediate response. But what ends up happening is that the money is given, oftentimes, to white institutions, or they'll hire one Black person and say that this has changed. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Basically, my question is what are the limits to representation in these structures, in these spaces that are not prioritizing the folks who are still stuck in this survival mentality? Because folks that are stuck surviving are not prioritizing going to pride parades.

TORI COOPER:

Sometimes, I go to the pride parade just to escape the normal life. Okay. 

TORI COOPER:

Oof, that was a lot. All right. Let's pick one question up there first, or one talking point. You use the word money, which is what I was thinking the whole time you were talking. It is important to understand Black wealth is over a trillion dollars, in the US alone. 

TORI COOPER:

However, we don't write the checks, we spend the money, but we don't write the checks. I don't want us to diverse from every white entity, that's not what I'm saying, at all, because I love Amazon. But there's room for Black businesses, plural, who do similar work. All right. 

TORI COOPER:

Until there is more diversity with check writers, then what will happen is the same thing that has always happened. White organizations will be deemed as gatekeepers for the money. Black and Brown orgs will fare worse than Black and Brown serving orcs. Understand the difference. 

TORI COOPER:

As a Black woman, if I am the executive director of a nonprofit, that's a Black org, but if I work for Sears, nonprofit, that could be a Black serving org. There's a difference because one speaks to the entire nature of the agency and its priority and stuff, not that white people can't prioritize equity and racial disparity.

TORI COOPER:

 It's not there by folks thing. But when you're a person of color, there's a difference. There is a difference. I don't mean like they're Rachel Dolezal version of blackness. I mean like real blackness or real authentic POC BIPOC there's, there is a difference there. Particularly when folks are connected to the community. One of the things that has to be much more diversified is who's actually spending the money 

TORI COOPER:

and where they're spending the money. That makes such a huge difference. That means folks are going to have to be, from a numbers' perspective, you're going to have to make risky investments. If you invest on Wall Street, you know that the riskiest investments often pay off the biggest dividends. Well, if we approach equity work and racial justice work. 

TORI COOPER:

Then we have to understand that as well. When we are riskier in how we're investing our money, it pays off the bigger dividends. I think that answered your question without getting into too many specifics, because I also don't want to get myself into ... I'm fine with the companies that you mentioned. I don't want to start picking on companies either or specifically say some, because there are so many that operate in the same way. 

TORI COOPER:

There's so many funders, six of them just popped into my head, and funding entities that do the same thing because there's so little or no true representation at the top, and with the check writers, it becomes business as usual, or it just becomes 36 months of racial justice and then back to whiteness.

TORI COOPER:

And I'm cool with whiteness. I dated two-and-a-half white guys in my life. I'm cool with whiteness. White people are going to get sick and tired of being told you're racist because you're white. They're going to get sick and tired of it, if they haven't already. We have to also change the narrative, not to demonize white people into doing what's right, but actually creating opportunities and educating non-Black people 

TORI COOPER:

enough to know that what is right doesn't have to demonize you. You don't have to feel like this is reparations, that you're doing it just because it's the right thing. Or that you're hiring people, not because of their color, and, certainly, not in spite of their color, but you're just hiring them because they're the best fit for the job. And notice that it's the most highly qualified, because the most highly qualified is not always the best fit either.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

It's interesting just because there's this idea of not demonizing the whiteness, for me, whiteness isn't even just the color of my skin, but rather like how I was raised into it. The parts of my Latina that were forced to be put aside; the accent, the language, how loud I spoke, whether or not I interrupt people. It's not even just my skin color. I am among the lighter in my family, but rather just like the ways that I was told whiteness was 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

what you should aspire to. I asked the question earlier about this idea of when whiteness and when the mainstream comes in, because what I see often is that the more funded organizations will basically just create an initiative rather than funding an existing one, which I will say that what I did see happen pretty quickly with social media 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

and kind of movement accountability is that the moment that folks were focusing on Georgia, they're like, we don't want you here. Here's a new Georgia project. Here's Fair Fight. Here are all these amazing folks, fund them. Which I think was a really incredible thing that I have not seen before, this, "We don't want y'all here. We know what we're doing, just give us support." Which I would like to see more of. Kind of like the path in North Carolina, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

the path in my home state of Florida and what it would mean to, for example, invest in Black trans women, and literally not for their survival story, not for what they look like or all the hardships they've been through, but because they're the best fit for the job. I'm really curious about what you see as the future of trans leadership in the movement.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

And if you feel as if, as Kamala Harris said, "You might be the first in a space, but you're not going to be the last." Do you see ... Whether it's you specifically or other mentors. I want to know about the heroes in your life, the wonder women of your life that you see as changing that narrative, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

as pushing the narrative of, 'not all trans women the same', 'not all Black trans are the same', but also like allowing more space for work beyond this idea of, 'keep Black trans women alive'. Basically, that's my question. Who are the heroes of your life, and how do you see your role in changing the narrative to make sure that Black trans women have more space and, or, more capacity in the movement?

TORI COOPER:

First, let's talk real briefly about why Wonder Woman is such a central figure in my life. All right. I'm not the biggest fan, but I am a fan because I realized early on, and I'm tying this into your question, wonder woman was so unique in that she didn't look like everybody else on the show. Number one, because she had dark hair and she was strikingly beautiful, and she was from this place that nobody really knows much about, 

TORI COOPER:

and her family didn't all look alike. That's blackness for them. As a Black kid, I'm like, "Oh, that could be Africa." We know it's someplace that we've heard about, but we don't know exactly where it is, and all the people don't look alike and folks speak all of these different languages, because I think there are a 100-something languages that speak on Amazon Island, and all of the women aren't physically the same. They're not all white, they're not all black.

TORI COOPER:

They're not all whatever. In a kid's mind, especially in an only child, you make that fit your narrative. It's like, okay, cool. And she's beautiful. That's my transness. And the fact that she is the most powerful person in every setting that she ends, but people just don't realize it, that's how, as a Black trans woman, I feel. 

TORI COOPER:

I feel that many of us are the most powerful people in the room, but people just don't realize it yet. Because many of us have experienced a rarity in today's society, having to navigate life in more than one gender identity, for some of us. Some of us has been

[inaudible] the whole way. But for some of us, we've had opportunities to navigate the world with our glasses on, where people perceive us as one away, and with our glasses off, another. 

TORI COOPER:

That's one of the reasons I relate to that character. I totally forgot what you asked me because I had to bring that into the conversation.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

No, I don't think that you did because I love that. I will now see Wonder woman totally differently.

TORI COOPER:

And you're welcome.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yes. I am. I'm so thankful. My question was how do you see your role and that of other heroes in your life? I'm assuming you have sisters, you have brothers that you also see as instrumental 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

in changing the narrative around what the role of Black and Brown trans women is in the movement, that goes beyond just your survival.

TORI COOPER:

I have a lot of folks that I look up to in terms of their work, and there's so many to name. It has changed and transitioned over the years, also. Where I think leadership is coming from, 

TORI COOPER:

where it is and where it's going, leadership in trans communities is going to continue to get much, much younger. As a very binary Black woman, who happens to be trans, it took a long time, not a long time, but it took a while for me to even understand the concept of non-binary. Because I used to use boy pronouns, and now I use girl pronouns, and that was it. That was really no in-between for me. 

TORI COOPER:

This is the truth, and perhaps a weakness, I didn't understand why anybody wanted to be other than what I considered holy male or holy female. I have now grown to understand that's not everybody's experience. I, probably, was allowing some of that whiteness to come in and say, "You know what? Because I only think of it this way, can only be that way." That's growth. 

TORI COOPER:

As we see more younger people identifying as queer and somewhere on the spectrum and not using pronouns and using various pronouns, we're going to see much more of that. That's going to be a big shift in thinking, and it's also going to be wonderful for everybody. Because if you are a cis-gender woman who dresses in masculine clothing or presents in a masculine way, you could be discriminated against for one of those ridiculous bathroom bills as well. 

TORI COOPER:

If it's a win for trans people, then it's going to be a win for non-trans people, also. Young people are going to be at the forefront because as terminology continues to transition, and I'm purposely using that word a lot, it becomes normalized, and not just about somebody's body parts. As leadership continues to transition, and younger folks, they're the ones creating this new terminology. 

TORI COOPER:

They are seeing things that many of us don't have the forethought to see, or the foresight to see; they're already seeing what some of the next challenges are going to be. Some of us could have never imagined Sarah McBride and Mauree Turner elected into Congress. Some of us never could have imagined that for ourselves because some of us are still suffering from PTSD 

TORI COOPER:

about being turned down because the letter on ID is different than the person who's standing there. We're still dealing with that trauma. So, it's going to be younger, it's going to be queerer, because as a binary trans woman who also identifies as heteroflexible, I also had to come to understand that even me, 

TORI COOPER:

if I tell people that gender and sexuality are two different notions, I had to also understand that about our community as well, younger people come in on it. "I am a person who doesn't use pronouns and I'm attracted to these, these, and these people." Well, damn! It never dawned on me that there could be that many options. So, younger people already are expressing that, and they're living that out and they're pushing it. 

TORI COOPER:

Leadership is going to take a younger role. What I hope and pray does not happen is that they forget what folks like myself, and certainly many, many folks who had been before me and before our generation of activists and advocates, that they will take into consideration the plight that many of them did. Because when I was younger, all we wanted to do was just survive. That's all we want to do, we wanted to live and survive. For most of us, it wasn't about standing up to legislation. 

TORI COOPER:

It was just about, 'well, child, I need a husband and I need a job and we'll be fine.' We won't ruffle any feathers. Even though my neighbors know, they don't care, nobody's going to bother us. With greater visibility comes a greater responsibility, and young folks, I think even much more than many of us of my age and before me, understand what that responsibility looks like.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

That's really powerful. This idea of a responsibility, like, with more power you have, the more access you have, the more responsibility of bringing other folks with you and also changing that narrative.

TORI COOPER:

Yes, yes, yes, yes. All part of the journey.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I love that. Now, I have the final closing questions, but I do want to make sure that I ask you if there's anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to talk about.

TORI COOPER:

Yes. We haven't talked about trans deaths. The truth is we could talk about it for the next three days and it wouldn't be long enough. You mentioned Monica Roberts, I'd like to, actually, today on my social media, this morning, she was my last official person, for Black history month, to recognize. For many years, and I had a little bit to this early, also, 

TORI COOPER:

Black people, and more specifically Black trans women, we have known for years that Black trans women were being murdered, have been killed. One is a legal term, one it's not. We've known for years. We've known that police and families have mis-gendered folks and have not done a responsible job of reporting hate crimes and enforcing hate crimes. Monica Roberts is one of those people who, for many years, officially with the start of the TransGriot, 

TORI COOPER:

and then as far back as 2003, when she, on a national level, was talking about the deaths of Black trans women, has always been a voice for that, so there's a lot of work. She's also one of the few people ... I prefer not to talk, but I can talk. She was one of those people who I respect and looked up to so much. Whenever I was in her presence, I had a hard time putting a sentence together.

TORI COOPER:

But the greater work there is that we have to change thoughts that Black women's lives are dispensable. Go ahead and ask your last question.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Honestly, Monica Roberts' work in framing it as being a crisis, we hear a lot of organizations talk about Black trans women now, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I mentioned that I was like, do y'all even know who Monica Roberts is? I don't think you do. Actually, you mentioned Black History Month, I work for the community justice action fund, which is an entity gun violence organization, Monica Roberts being, maybe, like the second feature I did, I had right in the beginning. We wouldn't know about the systemic murders of Black and Brown trans women were it not for Monica Roberts. Literally, we wouldn't know about it because they were happening locally. They were being mis-gendered, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

like you said, so folks didn't even know who they were, and that they were trans. Actually, not only that, but like her work talking about domestic violence against trans women

TORI COOPER:

In the community, we've always been talking about it in our communities, but nobody was paying any attention to us. Monica is really, I believe, the person who elevated the conversation and took it out of our communities and took it mainstream. She'll always be acknowledged for that. 

TORI COOPER:

We have to thank her for that. Now, I think, really in her honor, and in the legacy of so many other folks, we have to make sure that we're doing something to change these numbers. Again, people kill because they think they can get away with it.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

And the person won't be missed.

TORI COOPER:

Yes.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

The next question I have is a little bit of a different tone. It's, hopefully, something happy.

[Crosstalk]. I'm sorry, what?

TORI COOPER:

Are we talking about sex?

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

You want to talk about sex?

TORI COOPER:

[Inaudible]. I love talking about sex.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yeah. Sorry I haven't asked you enough about sex.

TORI COOPER:

It's weird. The heavier that I've gotten over the years, the more sexual my conversations have become, but please ask your question.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Yeah, well, my question is, actually, I've really enjoyed hearing about who you were as a kid, so I'm really curious about if you could tell your 15 year old self anything, what would it be?

TORI COOPER:

15? Oh my goodness. Okay, what would I tell my 15 year old self? One of the things I would tell him, girl, he ain't in love with you,

TORI COOPER:

number one. I remember him specifically, very, very vividly. It was the first love of my life at 15, and that was a relationship that lasted throughout my entire high ... Even when I dated girls, I was still crazy about this guy. He ain't in love with you, number one.

TORI COOPER:

Then I would also tell my 15 year old self, there are going to be a lot of chapters in your story, and a lot of chapters in your life's book. Some of them will be more difficult to read and to live through than others, but the book is going to be so great. It's going to be a wonderful journey. Allow yourself to feel it.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I'm really excited for this book. You said you're writing it.

TORI COOPER:

I started writing it years ago.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I love that. The last question is why do you think it's important to share your story and what do you think is the value of an organization like OUTWORDS that seeks to collect stories?

TORI COOPER:

I think it's important. Great closing question. I think it's important for everybody to share their stories because there are some folks whose voices are elevated much more than others, and I'm one of those people who sits in that position of privilege. People listen to me because I have a deeper voice or they just think I'm smarter, whatever. 

TORI COOPER:

I said greater visibility brings greater responsibility, and it's true. People need to hear those voices and people need to hear all kinds of voices. Most pictures are not black and white, the ones that catch our eyes the most are the ones that have a lot of color in them. By every people, who feel comfortable and safe doing so, who share their stories, we're getting more color added to this beautiful tapestry that we call life.

TORI COOPER:

 It's important to understand that in the pursuit of lifelong learning, we need to continually hear more and to learn more and to be open for more experiences. Going into the second part of your question, it is so important that you all are doing this really, really valuable work to provide an audience and to provide a safe and nurturing environment that is safe for people to feel comfortable sharing their stories 

TORI COOPER:

in a way that is productive, that is not harmful and then helps to move the conversation along.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

[Inaudible] talking to you. It's like, I have a lot of follow-up questions. I've been mindful of the clock. I'm just like, Oh, there's so much more I want to hear. I followed you on Twitter,

[inaudible]. But I've really been 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

moved by how often you talk about responsibility, sharing the space, privilege, I just don't hear that often, hardly ever. I would say, for me, what has been the most frustrating has been navigating spaces in which I am assigned color as a person of color, and people have been very frustrated or confused as to how often I say, 'I am not going to be your voice of color.

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

 I cannot speak for everybody who is somewhat melanated to some capacity.' It's so important that in the space that I am able to occupy, that I constantly talk about who is not here, and also, why you're listening to me. I think that your insistence on doing that, I think is incredibly powerful. Perhaps, directly or indirectly, 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

I can imagine that it's influenced the spaces that you have been in and challenged them, basically in that, just because I'm here, these issues aren't over. That's something that I think is, unfortunately, rather rare. I wanted to just acknowledge that because I don't think I've met somebody who is as consistent at doing that. I think especially because in white spaces, they don't expect you to. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

They don't expect you to talk about your privilege, rather they're expecting you to talk about their privilege. I think it kind of puts this idea of privilege on its head, that it's not just the whiteness, it's not just the wealth, but rather that we all have some level, it's a spectrum, really, of privilege. I think that the passion that you have at talking about, precisely that, I think is contagious. 

ANDREA PINO-SILVA:

Anyway, I just wanted to acknowledge that. Because I honestly can't think of a time in my life in which I've met somebody who has brought it up as much as you have, precisely to debunk this idea of power and privilege and how it's not a linear thing.

TORI COOPER:

In full disclosure, this is a shameless plug, I do this expensive, for folks to write checks, presentation that I called, 

TORI COOPER:

leveraging your tokenism. This is not just for people of color, it's also for white people. I generally do it in small audiences for a lot of money, but it is proving to be absolutely phenomenal and groundbreaking because the first of anything is always tokenized. The first time a woman is pregnant and needs maternity leave, 

TORI COOPER:

there's a level of tokenism that goes around it. You have to create corporate structures to see how this is going to work, both now and forevermore. The first time you get a person whose native tongue is not English, they have systems that are created around that. The first time you have a person who seems to be black, folks have to create a new dynamic around that.

TORI COOPER:

Sometimes you have to change your

[inaudible] conversations around that. Leveraging your tokenism is understanding that there's tokenism involved with being the first of anything. If you don't believe me, look at how many more articles were written in the first two weeks after the election about Kamala Harris versus president Biden, and how her race was the leading thing, and not that she was this prosecutor, 

TORI COOPER:

even then, she was a first. There is power in that, but only when that power is vetted out equitably. We all have a role to play. Because you're the first, it should never mean that you're the last. You got to bring somebody else along. You have to. I see Andrew, so that means we've gone over time.

ANDREW LUSH:

It's just been such a joy to listen in. I don't mean to stop you, but are you all ready?

TORI COOPER:

Sure. It's going to be edited down anyway. I'm sure.