Sean Drakes

Por­trait and in­ter­view by Sean Drakes

On a post­card-per­fect Au­gust day in New York, the foun­tain un­der the land­mark Uni­sphere in Queens is a pop­u­lar play­ground for kids on scoot­ers and young lovers chill­ing in the foun­tain's mist. A few yards away, the Emi­ly Baum­gaert­ner–Pulitzer Cen­ter in­side the Queens Mu­se­um is al­so crowd­ed. Ac­tivist and au­thor Do­minique Jack­son, seat­ed two rows in front of me, is as­sem­bling her thoughts of the first screen­ing of My Truth, My Sto­ry.

She ap­pears in the doc­u­men­tary film se­ries pro­duced by The Caribbean Equal­i­ty Project. In the film she re­counts be­ing mo­lest­ed by a lo­cal priest in To­ba­go when she was a boy, break­ing the si­lence with her fam­i­ly around her sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, and claim­ing the pow­er to not al­low oth­ers to gov­ern her life as a trans­gen­der woman.

Born Do­minique Breb­n­er, Ms Jack­son, al­so known as Tyra Al­lure Ross, is a 40-year-old en­ter­tain­er and mod­el based in the Bronx, but orig­i­nal­ly from Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go. She mi­grat­ed to New York in 1990 and re­cent­ly self-pub­lished the hur­dles, hurts, rev­e­la­tions and tri­als of her jour­ney in an au­to­bi­og­ra­phy ti­tled The Trans­sex­u­al From To­ba­go (Re­vised). "In T&T I was at­tempt­ing to ob­tain an ed­u­ca­tion and make my fam­i­ly proud while fight­ing off pe­dophiles–a bat­tle I lost." She adds, "I ac­cept­ed my truth in 1994."

Ms Jack­son's dai­ly re­al­i­ty is a long shot from what Olympian Bruce Jen­ner re­veals for re­al­i­ty TV as Cait­lyn Jen­ner. We asked Ms Jack­son to speak on find­ing her pur­pose:

Q: Why did you de­cide to au­thor a book?

A: I de­cid­ed to au­thor a book once I re­alised my sto­ry was not ex­clu­sive to me. I want­ed Caribbean peo­ple to know that we must face our trau­mas and not be ashamed be­cause of the things oth­ers have done to us.

Share the mes­sage that is the essence of your book?

My mes­sage is that we are hu­man, all of us–bot­tom line!

What is­sues do you lend your voice to?

I lend my voice to youth ad­vo­ca­cy, trans ad­vo­ca­cy, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and hu­man rights.

Does Cait­lyn Jen­ner com­ple­ment or dis­tract from the agen­da you rep­re­sent?

Cait­lyn com­ple­ments my agen­da. I see hu­man, not these seg­re­gat­ing con­structs we have put in­to place. Cait­lyn com­ing out to the world is brave and em­pow­er­ing. Like most LGBT West In­di­ans, she lived not on­ly in si­lence but in pain un­able to be her­self. She knew there would be ridicule, but she still made that stance.

At what age did you re­alise you did not feel like oth­er boys and when did you ful­ly iden­ti­fy as a trans­gen­der woman?

I was about five years old, but it was not un­til I un­der­stood that my life was mine to live that I iden­ti­fied as a trans­gen­der woman, even though I al­ready lived as a woman. You know, it was that I iden­ti­fied as a woman. I just ac­cept­ed my truth. I stud­ied bi­ol­o­gy, I knew my ex­is­tence was ba­si­cal­ly sci­en­tif­ic, not some re­bel­lion against God or the cor­rupt­ed church.

What chap­ter of your life was the most chal­leng­ing?

Ac­cept­ing my­self was most chal­leng­ing. We live in a dy­nam­ic where we be­lieve we are no more than what oth­ers feel com­fort­able ac­cept­ing or un­der­stand­ing.

Has your fam­i­ly em­braced your iden­ti­ty?

Trans youth dis­missed by their fam­i­ly is an ex­treme­ly tough is­sue. The love, the warmth, the light in the eyes of those that say they love you is em­pow­er­ing. When that light goes dead you shouldn't die with it, one should fight even hard­er to ex­ist. You are more than oth­er peo­ple's be­liefs of you.

What do you of­fer to Caribbean par­ents who wres­tle with the is­sue of their child ques­tion­ing their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion?

Par­ents that strug­gle with their chil­dren's sex­u­al iden­ti­ty are self­ish and prob­a­bly use bib­li­cal quotes to hide em­bar­rass­ment, prej­u­dice and dis­ap­point­ment. The in­ti­mate ac­tiv­i­ty of con­sent­ing adults does not have any cor­re­la­tion to their abil­i­ty to as­sist in the progress of hu­man­i­ty.

Do you en­cour­age ther­a­py or oth­er coun­selling for any­one ques­tion­ing their sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion?

I will al­ways ad­vo­cate for ther­a­py. It's time we speak to pro­fes­sion­als. Ther­a­py is es­sen­tial in the tran­si­tion process es­pe­cial­ly with the ha­tred that ex­ists in our com­mu­ni­ties.

What is one in­sen­si­tive habit of peo­ple that you wish would be dis­con­tin­ued?

Peo­ple tend to ad­dress from a place of priv­i­lege and au­thor­i­ty when it comes to [deal­ing with] those mar­gin­alised and op­pressed. If I tell you my name and you ask me for my re­al name you will meet the beast.

To keep your­self safe and whole in New York City re­quires 60 per cent of what and 40 per cent of what?

To keep my­self safe in NYC re­quires 60 per cent self-val­ue/worth and 40 per cent sym­pa­thy for ig­no­rance.

Does it mat­ter whether the next gen­er­a­tion at­tempts to dis­man­tle nar­row stereo­types and per­cep­tions the gen­er­al pub­lic may have of trans­gen­der peo­ple?

Dis­man­tling stereo­types is para­mount to progress and young and old should at­tempt to play a part.

What is the dis­cus­sion you are most im­pas­sioned about mo­ti­vat­ing through your aware­ness work?

I am im­pas­sioned to mo­ti­vate amend­ments to an­ti-LGBT laws through­out the Caribbean. I would like jus­tice for all that suf­fer in si­lence from mo­lesta­tion and rape, [and] hav­ing to see their tor­men­tors live so-called up­stand­ing lives while de­stroy­ing the ex­is­tence and men­tal sta­bil­i­ty of their vic­tims. I want Por­tia [Simp­son-Miller], the Ja­maican what­ev­er she is, to pros­e­cute the peo­ple in­volved in the bru­tal mur­ders of Ja­maican cit­i­zens of LGBT iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Stop talk­ing about LGBT folk flaunt­ing their sex­u­al­i­ty when it's just who they are.

Has Cait Jen­ner ex­ces­sive­ly glam­or­ised the trans­gen­der lifestyle?

Lol. Cait­lyn has not re­al­ly glam­or­ised this, we were al­ways glam­orous. How­ev­er, it is the shock of this 'su­per-mas­cu­line' hero em­brac­ing her fem­i­nin­i­ty that brings the at­ten­tion.

What is your favourite pas­time and what do you miss do­ing in T&T?

I miss my peo­ple! I miss Car­ni­val! When sex­u­al­i­ty is not on the ta­ble there is a beau­ty that Trin­bag­o­ni­ans pos­sess that speaks vol­umes to my heart.

What shall de­fine your lega­cy?

My re­silience, per­se­ver­ance and strength.