Host: Brandon Grant
Brandon: [00:00:02] Hey, everyone. Welcome to All Together Now Fridays with The Moth. I'm your host for this week, Brandon Grant, The Moth's director of marketing.
For the LGBTQIA community, the month of June usually signifies the beginning of the Pride season. The community would be gearing up for big parades, parties and gatherings with friends and chosen family. But as we all know, things this year are much different.
Across the country, Pride celebrations are canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But what's interesting is we're seeing LGBTQIA people taking to the streets following the senseless murders of countless Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement and white supremacists. Similar to what we've seen with Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQIA liberation movement started with an uprising on Christopher Street in New York City. Led by trans women like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, in 1969, they were fighting for fair treatment by the police, queer rights and the freedom to live without fear.
When we were putting this episode together, it was important to us to acknowledge the intersections of being Black and LGBTQIA in America, and how so often those left out of the Black Lives Matter conversation are Black trans people like Tony McDade and Layleen Polanco, Nina Pop and many others who were killed by acts of violence. Black Trans Lives Matter. We say their names and honor the stories of these Americans.
For this Pride episode, we bring you a story from Chelsea Shorte. Chelsea identifies as gender non-conforming, and their story touches on the obstacles of moving through a binary world. They told this story at a DC StorySLAM, where the theme of the night was Instincts. Here's Chelsea, live at The Moth.
[applause]
Chelsea: [00:01:58] Hi, everybody. [chuckles] I often joke that my real father is the Dos Equis spokesman and the most interesting man in the world. I know you could tell from the bun, the man bun that I'm wearing. [audience chuckles] It's not because my father was not in my life. He was, of course. It's just that my father never really accepted me as a young queer kid, like a young masculine kid. So, whenever I would ask, like, "Dad, hey, can I get one of those pocket knives you got my brothers?" My dad would be like, "Mm. No," right? Or, "Hey, dad, that flag football looks really fun. Can I try it? I see my brothers are doing it," and "No," right? So, I thought, oh, the Dos Equis guy, he can teach me everything I need to know about being masculine, right? [audience laughter]
I just get the hair, get the clothes, just be the best dancer. Try to learn languages. Know a few phrases in each. Just be as interesting as you can and then you'll have it. You'll be the perfect stereotype of masculinity. You'll be charming. You'll always have something smart and fun to say. Perfect. But that's not it, right? My dad did a great job of raising me right. He gave me so much. He definitely sat me down and gave me all the talks I needed with my mom about, "Yes, being a Black woman, you have to be twice as good to get half as much." When I started my journey as a young adult, I thought, all right, I got it. I'll do it all.
One night I was coming back from a stand-up show in Arlington, and I was driving home on Rock Creek Parkway to my apartment in the city. I was driving along. And if you know Rock Creek, it's dark. There aren't that many streetlights. It's like one lane, some spots. I was driving along, and whoop-whoop, police lights show up in my rearview mirror. I got immediately really nervous, because this was actually the week after Philando Castile was murdered and the week after Alton Sterling was murdered. And it hit me all at once that this was the first time I was being pulled over, appearing as masculine as I'd been.
And just because I got that feeling that this guy had been following me for a while. Because if he was following me for the reason I thought he was, I had done that [chuckles] several miles ago. Okay. [audience chuckle] So, why is he pulling me over now? Something's wrong. Something's wrong. The place where he pulled me over made me nervous too, because yes, everybody was nervous, especially with interactions with cops, Black people interactions with cops at the time. And the place where he pulled me over in Rock Creek Park, there was no space for cars to safely pass in. There was no overhead light. I know that when a police officer is feeling uncomfortable, the likeliness of me getting injured goes up. So, I was super nervous.
I realized my dad did not prepare me for this. How could he have known that I would be in this situation when he thought that I was always going to be his little girl? So, I did everything I overheard my father tell my brothers to do. All right. Get your wallet out, put it on your thigh, put your hands on the wheels, don't move, turn off the music, turn off the car. Came up to my window, he was like, "Hey, what you doing? Blah, blah, blah." He asked me for my ID, my registration. This is something that sickens me to this day. He reads my license and he clearly wasn't paying very much attention to it, because he says, "Okay, Mr. Shorte, I'll be right back." I pitched my voice up and I said, "Oh, no, it's Miss. It's Miss Shorts," dressed completely like this.
I mean, he should have been confused. [audience chuckle] But the thing that makes me sick about it, is that my instinct was to hide my gender for survival. And even now, looking back at that time, it strikes me how tough it is to be a Black person, to be a queer Black person in this world. That's always changing, that's changed so much since I came out, since I was a kid, to how we respond to queer people, to being trans. There's so much about survival here that's instinct and luck, and that I tried to hide my gender, hide it in Black femininity, which didn't save Sandra Bland. Why? Why did I come up with that solution? It's just, I guess it came from fear.
The next day I posted on Facebook about what had happened to me. And I had the most amazing reaction. Everybody that said something loving and compassionate. They were all Black men who had been through a similar experience and were welcoming me into this twisted brotherhood. It was like masculinity come full circle. Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Brandon: [00:07:35] That was Chelsea Shorte. Chelsea is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor based in Washington D.C.
I wanted to follow up with Chelsea to talk to them about their story and how they reflect on it now, in light of recent events. Here's Chelsea.
Chelsea: [00:07:53] I don't view my experience differently, because unfortunately, I knew that this wouldn't stop. I knew that the summer of my experience, when Philando Castile was taken from us, I knew that he would not be the last. So, I was unfortunately steel-hearted and ready to experience further loss. So, no, I can't say that reflecting on it has changed. It's just as significant as the immediate minutes, and hours, and days, and weeks and years after. I don't know if that's being a realist or being a pessimist, but it helps me survive.
Brandon: [00:08:51] We also talked about how Pride will be different moving forward.
Chelsea: [00:08:55] The last few years have been trying for our community to celebrate Pride. This one where we're processing loss and separation and only a few years ago when we were processing the loss from Pulse. So, I'd like to see a Pride that grows with the recent social initiatives or social movements. It becomes more intersectional, of course, but that it's sustained longer than just this month.
Brandon: [00:09:32] As we finished our conversation, I asked Chelsea, what they hoped people gain from listening to their story.
Chelsea: [00:09:41] Part of me hopes that my story haunts you, that it carves out its own little place in your heart, so you can't forget it, and that it sometimes sneaks up on you when you're making a decision that could be more loving. When you're faced with the opportunity to choose a more loving or less loving path, my story reverberates in your ear. I hope you think of Black trans people in all the ways you haven't before and consider us more when you're building your communities, when you're building your boardrooms, when you're building your plans for the future. I hope it helps people find the motivation to defund the police. I hope when you say Black Lives Matter, I hope you think of my life, because the story has stayed with you.
Brandon: [00:10:42] That was Chelsea Shorte. To learn more about Chelsea, head to the Extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org/extras.
All Together Now Fridays with The Moth is dedicated to helping you foster a dialogue between your loved ones. We hope you'll use these prompts as a springboard to talk about the difficult issues our country is facing. Thinking about Chelsea's story, here are some questions that might help you dig deeper. When was a time you felt the need to change who you are to fit in? Would you make that same choice again?
When we talk about intersectionality, we're talking about the ways that our identities interact with each other. For example, I identify as A and B, so my experience of being A is different than someone who identifies as A and C. Thinking about that, what forms of intersectionality do you live with?
You can also find these prompts in the Extras for this episode on our website, themoth.org/extras. As an organization, we want to acknowledge that we lack stories from Black and Brown LGBTQ folks, especially Black trans women. We're working to change that, because we want to hear from you. You can pitch us your story right on our website, themoth.org. Until next time from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.
Julia: [00:12:07] Brandon Grant is a proud Jamaican-American queer man, devout Harlemite and director of marketing for The Moth. But he counts his favorite title as being an uncle to Kai and Quest.
Brandon: [00:12:20] The Moth podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.