Imagine If...YOU Create Your Value
[Applause]
imagine
if we lived in a world where everyone
knows their value
seriously i want you to imagine our
society learning to recognize
that black trans lives matter
that folks living with disabilities are
more valuable
than we have ever created space for them
to be
and that immigrants have always been the
key ingredient
that gives america the flavor it so
desperately needs
but often leaves out unfortunately we
live
in a capitalistic society that uses
very deliberate marketing strategies to
make you
feel less valuable than others who seem
to have something that you don’t
charles baudelaire famously posed that
the greatest trick of the devil
was convincing the world he didn’t exist
but i would argue the greatest trick
was convincing people they have no value
and getting an entire society
to dehumanize and devalue each other
it’s heartbreaking for me to hear about
a parent
who would harm or worse yet kill their
own child for being different
or to hear about the suicide rates
especially
amongst lgbtq plus youth it bothers me
so much
because i’m a survivor of a suicide
attempt
i was only 15 years old and had already
received messages
loud and clear from my church and from
my own family
that my life was not worth living
but oh how wrong they were and what a
grave mistake
i would have made if i had succeeded at
taking my own life
i wouldn’t be here today talking to you
right now
the ripple effect that is my life would
not have traveled around the world
and touched as many people as i know
that it has
and this is where i am adamant about the
fact
that i’m not special well that’s not
true
i am pretty special but so are you
the only difference is how prepared you
might be to take on life’s
challenges and how how you process some
of the very inevitable pain
because hurt people hurt people but a
healed person can have the ability
to heal an entire community
so that’s what i did i had to heal
myself first
before i could truly be of any use to
anybody else
so one day as i was sitting in front of
my altar chanting
and crying because i had just received
news that my mother’s health was failing
and that she could possibly fall into a
coma
and i remember my first thought being i
could care less
if she lives or dies that thought alone
made me cry even more
i resented my mother for breaking my
heart
i mean it was her and at her request
that i attempted
suicide in the first place you kill
yourself
or i’ll kill myself was the ultimatum
she gave me
fortunately i found a practice a
spiritual practice in buddhism
that helped me find the compassion and
patience for a woman who had not shown
the same to me
truth be told we were both in need of
healing
so i packed up my life in los angeles
and i moved back in with my parents
in racine wisconsin to help take care of
my mom
and at that time i was able to transfer
my job from working at the apple store
to working for the apple store online
and from home
i worked the late night ship and during
the day i drove my mom to her doctor’s
appointments
i picked up her prescription medications
i helped run errands and sometimes
i even helped cook although i’ll fully
admit
i’m never going to be anyone’s julia
child
i’m telling you it was not easy some
days we ended up in
full-on warfare between me and my
parents conversations and
arguments spanning from their
disappointment in me being a trans woman
to the fact that i never finished
college like my brother who was the
psychiatrist a military officer an
fbi agent yeah a pair of overachievers
my brother and i are it just took me a
little longer
to get here i had to take a few more
detours and i learned that detours
might seem inconvenient but nonetheless
they’re actually in a very important
part of the journey
in 2011 i thought i had lost out on the
opportunity to go after my dream of
becoming an actor
because i had packed up everything to
move back home and take care of my mom
what i didn’t know is that life was
giving me an experience
that i could tap into years later
when i was acting out candy ferocity’s
final conversations
with her parents in the fx hit series
pose
but first i was going to have to go
through a lot
i was going to have to struggle a lot i
moved
a lot but it was maya angelou’s words
that gave
me comfort when she said that each of us
has the right and the responsibility to
assess the road
which lies ahead and those over which we
have traveled
and if the future road looms ominous or
unpromising
and the roads back on inviting then we
need to gather our resolve
and carrying only the necessary baggage
step
off that road into another direction and
if the new choice is
also unpalatable without embarrassment
we must be ready to change that as well
so i eventually realized that my
seemingly unstable life was preparing me
to be able to pick up and go wherever
and whenever
life was asking me to i had to build a
life condition to be able to withstand
and overcome the challenges
i learned that buddhahood meant not only
being able to be unswayed by
difficulties or hardships but being able
to use them
as fuel for purifying and strengthening
one’s own life
we buddhists call it turning pain into
medicine
soon after my mom recovered and was able
to return to work herself
and i heard about a job opportunity in
chicago to develop a job
program specifically for black and brown
trans people
i came highly recommended by several
people in the community
but unfortunately i wasn’t a licensed
clinical psychologist
or a social worker nor did i have a
bachelor’s degree
which was what they preferred but it was
my experience
that if i could get the interview i
could get the job
and i did while staying with my parents
in racine wisconsin i would get up at 6
00 a.m every day
and i would drive an hour and a half
each way sometimes even longer depending
on traffic
most times i was the first one in the
office
and even though it wasn’t my
responsibility i would make sure
to put on a pot of coffee so that it was
ready whenever my co-workers arrived
i would then sit down at my desk and
start to prepare
for the work i would be doing with my
clients that day
it was hard work but it was rewarding i
was able to provide career coaching for
cis and trans people who were coming out
of incarceration
or recently diagnosed with hiv
struggling with homelessness or drug
addiction
i mean none of these were easy cases
and the nonprofit that i worked for they
just got used to sort of ushering folks
into this
safety and sanitation certification
program
so that they can work in some kitchen
somewhere
but it was my job to help them discover
the value already there in their lived
and work experiences
and identify any and all transferable
skills
i even help some sex workers recognize
they have better customer service skills
than my cable company most importantly
i didn’t underestimate them i tried my
best
to think outside the box and use
technology to serve my community
but i ran into so much resistance from
my superiors
who often worked against me storming
into my office
unplugging my computer from my desk
because it wasn’t a
a company issue computer or watching me
struggle
to carry supplies while they sipped
their coffees in protest
because they didn’t initially approve of
my programs and methods
but when my methods proved to be
successful
of course they took credit for it as if
they’d been supportive all along
i had urged them to let me teach
computer skills everything from mavis
beacon type and child the basics
to using gmail to graphic design and
coding
but they told me that teaching these
types of computer classes
would be over the heads of the people we
served
that gave me the motivation i needed to
quit
and that’s when i founded transtax
social enterprises
i was told by the ceo at the time of
that company that
i needed to understand that they didn’t
get into this work for the love of the
trans community
they did so because they recognized the
services they were offering
weren’t accessible to trans people
so when i quit i told them that i would
be starting my own organization
and that i would be doing so for the
love of the trans community
i wanted to show trans people but also
prove to myself that we are worth
far more than the scraps that are handed
to us
i was tired of people underestimating me
and the communities i come from so i
told them
keep that 34 000 salary and i set out to
show
that i was worth 10 times that
now of course my parents were
disappointed yet again that i was
quitting
a perfectly good job with benefits
but as my mother auntie bestie bevvy
smith says
who walks away from a job that pays well
a bona fide good thing
i’ll tell you who someone looking for a
great
thing an inspiring thing
a creative thing a feeling of
freedom a new dream
and i had the audacity to think that a
black
trans woman’s dreams mattered too
i had a vision that i’m determined
to bring into fruition one where trans
people
are able to put down their armor and
return to their field of dreams
a few years later that same company now
under new leadership
asked me to come back and be a speaker
at their annual fundraiser
now had cover 19 not cancel
all my in-person speaking engagements
they would have paid me
almost what my salary used to be for
one hour of my time now
that is something i can only attribute
to me finally recognizing my value
it took almost 10 years to get my mother
to finally see me
and prepare her for the moment in 2019
when we would stand together in our
truth on
tv on the oprah winfrey network where
she
bravely admitted to the world that she
asked me to commit suicide
she shared how she hated that because of
what her religion had taught her
that she had missed out on so much in my
life
it was so important for those women to
see how my mother had gone from point a
to point b she admitted that
candy’s mother own pose reminded her of
how she used to be
but that she was grateful that she was
able to learn
and do better before it was too late
it’s definitely not perfect but as i
said on that stage my mother and i
now have a happy healthy healed
relationship my mom
eventually saw that her child is a gift
to her and to this world
as all children are especially
queer and trans kids
so i want us all to imagine
a world in which we teach every person
that they have intrinsic value that
regardless of how they
do in traditional school settings that
life has its own curriculum in store for
all of us that can be curated and
customized
with respect to your own inherent skills
when you realize that there is no
comparison to you you find less of a
desire to compete
with others where competition is not
warranted
when we’re able to recognize our own
intrinsic value
then we’re able to see the value in
other people
no matter what their gender sexual
orientation
or abilities are yeah
imagine that
you