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Amplified Voices
Amplified Voices is a podcast that lifts the voices of people and families impacted by the criminal legal system. Hosts Jason and Amber speak with real people in real communities to help them step into the power of their lived experience. Together, they explore shared humanity and real solutions for positive change.
Amplified Voices
C. Dreams - What We Accept for Others, We Must Accept for Ourselves - Season 4 Episode 5
On this episode of Amplified Voices, Amber and Jason speak with C, a woman who has lived through the unimaginable - losing her mother at a young age, getting thrust into the foster system, and grappling with overdiagnosis and overmedication, displacement, and disconnection. We learn about her journey, from her challenging upbringing to her involvement in the sex trade and her initial encounters with the criminal legal system as a young, transgender woman.
C talks about the labels society imposes, and the struggles of being over-stigmatized within an oppressive system. We listen to C's experiences in a men's prison facility, the threats she faced, as well as her fight for proper healthcare. Strikingly, C shares about obtaining academic success amidst this turbulence- reminding us of the strength of the human spirit, and the power of belief and investment.
Finally, we dive into the world of policy sentencing, its implications on individuals like C, and the immense courage it takes to stand against the system. This episode is more than a story; it's a call to thought, a plea for understanding, and a catalyst for change.
She has written for Filter Magazine, Shadowproof, the Appeal, Yes! Magazine and maintains an active presence on Twitter.
Everyone has a voice, a story to tell. Some are marginalized and muted. What if there were a way to amplify those stories, to have conversations with real people in real communities, a way to help them step into the power of their lived experience? Welcome to Amplified Voices, a podcast lifting the experiences of people and families impacted by the criminal legal system. Together, we can create positive change for everyone.
Jason:Hello and welcome to another episode of Amplified Voices. I'm your host, Jason, here with my co-host, Amber. Hello, Amber.
Amber:Good morning Jason.
Jason:And today, Amber, we have a guest. Her name is C. Hello, C.
C:Hi there y'all, how y'all doing.
Jason:Doing great. So we're going to ask you the same question that we've been asking all our guests, and that is could you tell us a little bit about your life before you entered the criminal legal system and what brought you into it?
C:Wow. So my life before the criminal justice system was actually one that was really fraught with trauma and just a really trying life. From a very young age I watched my mother get murdered as a child about age six.
Jason:Oh wow, when did you grow up?
C:I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I was raised in and around Maryland.
Jason:OK, Six. So what happened?
C:My mother was in a relationship and she was murdered by him in 1996. My mom was the type of woman that was kind of a back sheep of her family and she was kind of just trying to forge her own path. Yeah, so when my mom died I went into the foster care system and I spent pretty much the entirety of my youth in therapeutic environments or one type of institutional setting or a foster home. I've been into a bunch of them.
Jason:Were you an only child.
C:I actually have a half sister, but we were not raised together. We don't actually have never met in person since we were very small children.
Jason:Wow, so six years old, your mother's murdered, which, at six years old, you can't even process that the permanent concept of death is challenging, and then you're in this foster system. That must have been horrible.
C:It was extremely terrible. It was really tough. I didn't have any type of sense of identity or connectivity there was. Most children grow up in homes that are able to provide, hopefully, structure, a sense of identity and continuity with what has come before and what you were going to contribute to not just the legacy of your family, but what you're going to do with your life in society. I never had any of that. There was always. My whole life was an experience of disconnection and dislocation. So when I hear people talk about buzzwords like marginalization or disenfranchisement, I'm like that's me, that's my picture.
Amber:Right, I'm so sorry. That was sort of the beginning, and when you think about what that looked like for you in terms of a journey, did you find that there were little rays of light here and there with people that you encountered? Or tell us a little bit about what that looked like?
C:I guess that there was. But the really sad thing about my childhood is I was on and this is not, this is pretty common knowledge the foster care system and those who are in clinical psychiatry and child psychiatry what not. They tend to overdiagnose these children that often have traumatic backgrounds. So large swaths of my childhood and even my younger portion of adolescence are very opaque to me. They're really unrecollectable because I was so heavily medicated. They diagnosed me with all of this stuff when what I was I was a kid that had seen their mother be murdered and I had experienced sexual abuse and physical abuse and things like that. So it wasn't that I had all of these developmental or psychological axes, it was that I needed a safe place to try to bounce back from something that no child should ever have to go through.
Amber:Exactly, you were a normal child having normal reactions to very traumatic situations.
Jason:And you never had that safe place is what you're saying.
C:No, I never have, not once in my life. The crazy thing about it is the amount of time that I have spent in institutional settings actually has drastically been greater than the amount of time that I've spent out of institutional settings. My life has, truly it's been shaped by one aspect of the system or another. I've never, I've never, known that.
Jason:So how do you get from six years old and then entering this foster system, to where you are now? What comes next?
C:OK. So I guess from about that age until about 15 was a very unstable period for me. I jumped around a lot, I was in a lot of different homes, I went to a bunch of different schools and one of the things that breaks my heart when I look back is I graduated from high school year early, but it was a sympathy graduation and I graduated with a 1.54 GPA, which means that I was. I look back and I feel really terrible for the person that I was and I feel really bad for kids that are in similar positions, because I always loved school and I always learned to learn. I loved learning but I found myself struggling for any type of stability whatsoever.
C:So at a very young age I started kind of getting high and I found myself involved in the sex trade at 14. I was running away and I was kind of surviving on my own. I just wanted to be away from these people. I wanted to get away from all of the sexual abuse and physical abuse that I had experienced between my childhood up until that point and there was kind of a desire to autonomize my sexuality. I grew up with a very transactionally related life and I realized that there was going to be a kind of commerce or exchange for these things. I wanted to control them and I wanted them on my own terms. But I also had a dream that I would turn enough tricks to get money where I could go, move somewhere and start over. Nobody would know me and I have a clean start.
Jason:And it's interesting you use the word control, because I was thinking that, as you were talking, that you had no control over your environment or what you were living during those years. So for you to feel that you had some sort of control of what was happening to you and your own life and doing things on your terms must have been very valuable to you at that point.
C:It was. I really wanted to get away. I had this idea that I was going to. I knew that I was never going to ever find perfect parents. I felt like it was too late. So in my mind I had this fantasy that I would tell myself that I would get enough money that I would be able to move away and start over, and I would meet this incredible guy and all my problems would be fixed. And he would, you know, does that kind of story.
Amber:So you had. You had a lot of dreams that everyone has. You were looking for a life that made you happy and autonomy over your body, your surroundings. Like this is what like every human person wants. Would you, would you agree with that?
C:Yeah, 1000%, absolutely. I wanted to feel like I was important and I wanted to feel like I had a place and I wanted to feel safe. Most importantly. I think that anybody that knows me and my personal life will tell you that, like my kind of catchphrase is when, like I talk about my plans for the futures of the free assets security, stability, safety.
Jason:So did you ever get there?
C:I'm still working on it.
Jason:Still on the journey. Still working on it All right, so then what happens?
C:So, at about 17 years old, I'm working at a job at Towson Mall in Towson, maryland. I'm in this independent living program where you have to either work full time or work part time. You have to be doing something, go to school, work, whatever. So I meet these two girls, one from Louisville, kentucky, one from Panama City of each Florida, and they tell me about this great job they have. They get to travel with the warm weather and they sell magazines and music and they get to meet people and it sounds awesome to a 17-year-old that has really never been anywhere and these young women are in many ways what I want to be.
C:So, like a 17-year-old who's very impulsive, I go back to my little independent living program and I pack up a duffel bag and, without knowing these people, I go jump in a big white van and I go on the road for several months and during this whole time you know it is a legitimate business and they are selling magazines and it is mostly like college-age kids, but it's also like it's kind of like a sex trade on wheels is what it is. Almost everybody is hooking up and posting Craigslist ads and using MySpace and Facebook. This is at that juncture where there's a transfer going on from old social media platforms to the newer ones, and I already was familiar with that. So I was like, come on, let's do it. But after a few months it got found out that I wasn't 18. And so the person that owned that business he was like well, I can't keep you here because you're an underage runaway from your state.
C:I told him my story. He's like but I'll send you wherever you want. Because I told him I was like, if I go back, they're going to end up hospitalizing me again, because that's what they would do when you would run away They'd hospitalize you. So I had made a friend on the sales slash prostitution team who lived in Ellenwood, georgia, and she had gotten fired and she was like if you ever find yourself wanting for a fresh start, you can come on down to Georgia with me. So that's what I ended up doing. I was literally on the Greyhound bus. I was like, hey, girl, how are you Remember that time? You told me I could come see you in Georgia.
Jason:Well, I'm on the way.
C:So I found myself down here and it was culture shock. It was the first time I ever had experienced colorism number one. But within a few months I was kind of doing my own thing and fast forward. Like a year later I caught my first charges and I got charged with pimping and pandering and sexual exploitation of a minor.
Amber:Wow. So I just sort of heard a couple of things that I wanted to ask some clarifying questions about. So you referred to experiencing color as number one. Can you explain, for people who may not know what that means, what you mean by that?
C:Yes. So colorism is the idea that inside of the black community there is kind of racism or discrimination from darker skin people to lighter skin people or from lighter skin people to darker skin people. I'm Afro Latina, so in a lot of ways I have really curly hair, but in a lot of ways I'm very, very light skin. I'm what they call white passing sometimes and I had never experienced colorism up north. I had never been teased for the way I talk. I had never heard people tell me to stop talking white or stop trying to act sediti is what they call it. I had never been told. I had never experienced that before and I had. I believe I had read about it. I believe I'd heard about it, but I never realized it was a real phenomenon that came down south and it is definitely real.
Amber:Okay, and so you talk about. You found yourself out of one situation and you traveled to go to another situation and at this point you're still 17 years old. Is that right?
C:Yeah. So when I left Maryland I had just graduated a handful of months before. When I got to Georgia, it would have been probably August or September, so I would have still been 17. I would have been almost 18.
Amber:Right, and so, again, it sounds like what you were looking for was were those S's that you talked about before? You're looking for that stability you? Know you've been kicked out of one thing that you know, that you thought may have been sort of your path out, and then you're finding yourself in an entirely new place, experiencing all sorts of different new phenomenon, one of which you just shared, and so that's where the criminal legal system then comes in. Tell us a little bit about what was that experience you mentioned? You know being charged.
C:Yeah.
Amber:What? What was that like? So did you find yourself immediately incarcerated? Was there a period of, you know, being out on bail or staying in on bail, because it doesn't sound like you had a lot of support for somebody to come bail you out or anything like that? Let's, let's walk through and unpack that.
Jason:And as you're answering that, one thing that's hitting me is you know you've had you had all this trauma leading up to that. Did this just feel like one more traumatic event or was it different at this point, when you start getting charged for?
C:Well, it was different, but it was. It was. It was definitely super traumatic. So I should preface and say that before the pimping and pandering charges occurred, there was a few months beforehand, there was another charge that occurred into CAB County from where I and a person who I was providing sexual services to. They tried to take the money back from me and I fought them and we ended up fighting in the parking lot and I had hit them with a pole and I had actually gotten charged and I told the police. I showed them text messages and everything. They actually tried to charge me with attempted armed robbery or trying to take my own money back from the guy who was trying to take it from me again. So that happened. I went to jail for that and I did. I did get bonded out eventually but I sat for several months and a friend of mine pulled a favor with their mom to get me bonded out.
C:So you fast forward like a year later and I'm living at that time in Douglas County, georgia, and the house that I live in is like the house of ultimate ill repute, which I actually believe is how my public defender at the time characterized it, but I lived not that far outside of Atlanta and I was kind of getting well known in the Atlanta club scene because I was an entertainer. I would entertain up gay bars and I was at parties a lot and I was just kind of building a name and that social and cultural demographic, really trying to. I at that time I was trying to. I was trying to be mainstream as what I called it like I was trying to transition into like a public figure of some sort. I was trying to monetize my presence in the community. So everybody that was kind of a part of my post inner circle, we were all just living our lives. A lot of us were just in franchise or didn't have good family backgrounds or maybe had parents that didn't accept us and most of us were getting high and a lot of us were having like sugar daddies are turning tricks to get by.
C:So when they arrested me I did not think that what I was doing was wrong. Like I understood that there were laws against it, but to me it was more of kind of like how the law says Malam, prohibit them versus Malam and say like this was something that somebody was trying to tell me was wrong. But it wasn't wrong for me to do these things and it was going to help me survive or get ahead. So in that context there, when I was arrested and I was sitting in this jail and I realized that there was nobody that was going to be able to come along and save me, because the news was making me out to be like I was, we know, the killer, pimp or something like that. You know, and it was.
C:It was really extremely frightening, it was extremely embarrassing to and it was heartbreaking because I knew that I wasn't the best person in the world, but I wasn't the type of person they were trying to make me be on the news and like, one thing about it is they're a business, so the more scandalous they can make it sound. So, even though I was, by this time when these charges were going on the news, I was about 19. So instead of saying you know that I was 19 and my victim was 17, they would say, oh, atlanta, drag queen, pimps, children. They knew how to make it more sensational and that was crushing. That was, I felt very I want to take my life. Honestly, it was terrible.
Amber:I'm really sorry to hear how those things are characterized, and one of the things that we highlight and we've talked to a lot of different individuals on the podcast is sort of the role that media plays in sensationalizing a lot of different things.
Amber:So, on one hand, you know there is accountability that happens, and individuals who have, you know, done things that they're not proud of in their life are absolutely happy to take accountability for wrongdoing that they've done. But there's no nuance in the conversations that you can make. Exactly as you said, it's that whole idea of you know how many clicks can we get? How salacious can we make the story? So you know, while the story could have or should have been a young person trying to survive after a lifetime of trauma, it's dragged. Queen is pimping children and sort of this idea that you know at 19, you're like fully formed, your impulsivity is gone, all of those things. That's another conversation that you know we really need to be having in our country about like what we mean when we're talking about criminalization and identities and all of that. So I really appreciate you sharing all of that.
Jason:At any point, when you were in the whole foster care system, did anybody say to you you know, how do we, how do we help you, how do we help you heal? From you know watching your mother being murdered? From you know, from all that you've been through, did anybody just say, hey, come over here, we just need to give you a hug and give you some warmth and comfort. Did that ever happen for you?
C:At one point I did have one or two decent social workers, so I don't want to demonize them, but it's important to understand that when we are answering questions like you just asked me, you have to understand that these people are part of a bureaucracy and they work inside of that system, and the larger system itself is worth being vilified, even if that person is over all, though, my experience as a youth that was in the foster care system was that this was pretty much your own lot.
C:You know, whenever I exhibited what I guess you would call delinquent or or just poor behavior as a youth, I was given more medication or I was moved to different facilities that were like disciplinary facilities. That is not the approach and the way the system is set up. Now, as law professor and advocate, dr Daniel Hatcher from University of Baltimore Law School can tell you, the system is set up to be predatory on children. They're more concerned with providing the lowest level of care they can and then applying for title 4D and title 4E funds from you. I found out later on that my survivors benefits from my mother's death were subsumed by the state.
Jason:And so I say all this to say that I feel like the state took many, many things from me and, in return, provided me almost nothing and the goal was basically to break you and to make you just, you know, just to conform to societal norms, without giving you any safety net or any of the tools that would help you get there.
C:So yeah, and when I started talking about being a woman, that is when they started medicating me more.
Jason:How about? So? How old were you when I started?
C:I started the idea without the knowledge of the terms and the scientific part of the phenomena began to coalesce around 10 or 11. But I became very like. I advocated very strenuously on my own behalf. By the time I was like 13 or 14, which seems to be on point for most teenagers. You know, with anything, that's when they got complicated.
Jason:Yes, what year was it the first time you were incarcerated?
C:In the county jail. It would have been when I had that first charge for the. What would come to the armed robbery. That would have been like 2008 because, yes, it would have been like 2008 because the charges. So I was arrested in 2010 for my pimp and tandoor charges. That means I would have been I'm sorry, no, my crime commit date is 2010, so I would have been 19 years old, but they didn't take me in custody until like March of the next year, so I would have been 20 years old when I went into custody.
Amber:Right, and so I heard you say something that I think is really, really important, and that was the idea of villainizing systems, while there are people who are working within systems who really honestly feel that they are making a difference and doing the right thing. Because I think we see that in a lot of different systems. We see that in the criminal legal system, we see that in the child welfare system, and then the other thing that really sort of triggered for me when you were talking was this idea of so many transitions. So how can you be provided care, right, any sort of sustained and effective care when you're encountering so many transitions? And my experience I started my career working with abused and neglected children in a nonprofit and what I saw was these transitions are so detrimental, and not only that, like things don't go with you Right, like you say that you have access to records and this and that, but it's so fragmented that the only advocate that you have is yourself, because you have all the information. Is that? Does that feel right?
C:Absolutely 1000%. And what I would add to that is actually the system is so pernicious and they're so determined to cover up any wrongdoing on their part that years Okay. So during my criminal prosecution process, my public defender was able to get some records from my state foster care system to show that I wasn't abused child and my mother did, and that I was involved in prostitution from a young age. She got some of those records but they didn't answer most of her records request, despite the fact they were my records. Years later, when I was incarcerated, I would actually request and I would offer to tender the money for production and shipping for my own records. And I got a letter back from their attorney, which I wrote him an angry letter in response like well, hold on, when I was a child that made you were supposed to be my attorney, you're supposed to be protecting my interest. But I actually got a letter from their attorney saying that I would have to go seek a court order for my own records and since then I've spoken to in another community who said that was that was not the correct route.
C:They make it very difficult for you to be able to hold them responsible and they make it very difficult for you to be able to just look back, like from where I am now, the type of perspective and kind of emotional and intellectual heights that I've gained since my childhood. I am ready to, and I want to be able to examine my past and to have things laid bare, because I need to have some type of connectivity and a large portion of my childhood was stolen from me, so Is it fair to say that when you were nineteen years old and engaging in sex work and you were with a seventeen year old, that you yourself were not operating at an adult level?
C:One thousand percent, and that's something that I told the judge is like, even though and now I say that I was wrong because she was seventeen.
C:But at that time I, even if I would have known that she was seventeen which I did not, even if I would have I wouldn't have thought that what I was doing was was Because look what I was doing from thirteen, fourteen years old to me, we were two people that had similar stories, were trans, because we're both trans girls. She had a not understanding, great conservative and abusive mother, came from kind of a Not low economic but low middle economic kind of situation, and we just had a lot in common. So it to me, this was somebody that we had common themes running through our stories and we were sisters and kind of this enterprise, and we were getting high out of our mind and having a good time to you know. So, yeah, no, I definitely was a child and I wish that the system, I wish that the system had the honesty and the desire to actually treat problems rather than symptoms, because then maybe, instead of getting a thirty year sentence, maybe I would have gotten, you know, something more reasonable.
Amber:And also had the tools to be in a different place and space, and all of that in the first place, right, yeah, one thousand.
C:Yes.
Jason:I mean, yeah, the system created you the way you are and then took no responsibility and instead of saying, hey, things went really off the rails here we need to help you. We need to help you live a healthy life and be who you are and help you realize who you are, and all of that, they just say, no, we're going to lock you up, we have to put you away because and then they start. Then they start with all the names you know, like you said in the media, and they're calling you a predator and they're calling you a groomer now and there, all those types of things, when you're a person who's living your life the way you know how and just trying to survive. I mean it's not even like I'm trying to get ahead, you're just trying to survive.
C:I would stress that's actually like one thousand percent correct, because the reality is and that's why I wanted to come on this podcast with you and Amber so badly is because I, when I pay attention to the political rhetoric that's going on right now, I really see strands that run back, like it seems like this kind of anti trans slash, groomer sentiment has popped up only within the past few years. But I really and I know that's a little bit egocentric kind of, but I really see strands running back even to the time period of my Prosecution because, you know, I didn't have a press secretary and the media was at my plea hearing. I've never seen a public defender put together a PowerPoint presentation to defend a client at a plea hearing. I've never seen that. So my public defender, she really did fight for me and she, you know they weren't interested in the fact that this was kind of in many ways, a co victim hood, in the sense that we were both victims of our circumstances in our past and just the desperation of the moment, you know.
C:So I really see that there is a desire to To vilify and to villainize people who are gender nonconforming or who are queer, or who are of a certain racial background etc. And I can't help but to feel like I can't help but to feel like my case is handled the way it was handled because I was trans and because this other person who was a little bit younger than me Was being trans, because they even tried to say in the case that I helped this person to be trans. But you can't help somebody to feel I've never helped a guy who's not interested in to translate into, like you can't make somebody be something they're not. I don't believe that.
Jason:Right, and so when you were incarcerated, were you put, you were in a, in a men's facility.
C:Yes, I was incarcerated with men and when I first got locked up it was it was really bad, because if you were extremely feminine looking, if you looked very passable which I hate that phrase because it sounds like gatekeeper but they would actually segregate you'd be on 24 seven lockdown, which we now know is, of course, akin to torture. So we fought to be able to integrate into the population, but that is, of course, presented its own problems because the prison system lacks both the integrity and the infrastructure to actually make sure that they keep Other of you know, other incarcerated people safe. So when you have this particularly vulnerable segment, it's not good right.
Jason:So did you feel, where did you feel the least safe? From other folks who were incarcerated, or from the, from the officers and the system itself, I mean? Or it was just everywhere.
C:It was, I would say it was everywhere. It's like having various different threats presented to you. There's still a threat. They're still not great, you know. It's just they're coming from different sources. But overall, if you ask me to choose who I was treated the worst by staff or prisoners it would be a terrible toss up like I'm not sure who would win that. Over time, though, I kind of managed to win over a lot of my fellow prisoners in my state. I built up a really good name because I had one litigation and I was able to help some people with cases and stuff like that. So that kind of bought me some what you call it street creed Right system.
Amber:But yeah, so I want to, I want to sort of unpack a couple of things. So do you feel like you you had really talked about sort of this idea of people are just sort of more realizing words more prevalent, this language around grooming, and you know the trans population and the LGBTQ population, but that you saw that in your own case? Do you think that there is more brazenness around that in the current times? Again, you know people who have been following this for a while and living this. You know this is their life. Obviously. Have you know, seen this since the beginning of time, right?
Jason:like if.
Amber:But it does seem that in the political sphere Right, that if somebody disagrees with somebody, they start utilizing that sort of language to weaponize against an opponent, really even if the situation has nothing to do with gender identity.
C:I completely agree. So, yeah, I see it all the way back to cases like my own and other cases of trans people who have followed, which I'd like to point out that the number of people charged or convicted who are trans with charges like my own, is statistically in substantial. But I followed the cases of biological women who had similar backgrounds to mine, such as Tiffany Simpson from Georgia and Lisette de Luna from Texas. These women had backgrounds as sex workers from very young ages, most of the time held in that field against their wheel, which at one point I went through with my case. The person who was charged as my codifference would actually beat the shit out of us if we didn't keep doing what we were supposed to do, you know. So I followed their cases and I can't help but to see some very stark, striking similarities. And then I noticed that even even the unfavorable press coverage was nowhere near as scathing and as capricious as what was in my case, and I cannot help but to feel that there is both a positive and a negative aspect of that. It's positive aspect because it's like there's this idea that trans people are inherently bad and morally egregious and therefore they do this thing. It's monstrous where, as women do it, then it was just something that they were doing because of circumstances, but then it's also kind of a backhand compliment because it's the idea that it's permissible for women because it's women. You know what I'm saying? Like there's a lot of people that are conservative men. They feel like they feel like trans women have surrendered something precious by giving up their kind of male dominion in the patriarchy. So it's kind of an insult in a way as well there. So there's a lot of components to the kind of collective or societal psychology that I am not qualified to address at all.
C:What I will say is this is, like it's very evident, and the quickest way to find out I always say the quickest way to find out what somebody's politics are is just to kind of throw out a little bait out there about the trans issue, because I guarantee you very quickly, if they're conservative, something to do with. They love to put the children in front, which is so crazy. Because I'm like I'm sitting here and I'm looking at the conviction rates and I'm looking at the data and I'm like all of these right wing conservative, I'm scratching my head. All these right wing conservative types are getting grossly disproportionate conviction rates over here, for the same thing that they're accusing these people over here, just because these people all they want to do is they want children to grow up in a world where they understand that there are different types of people and it's okay to treat everybody okay, you know right? So I that kind of blows my mind a little bit, and if I didn't know any better, I would think that they, the conservative side, had a monopoly and they just didn't. You know, they're worried about it being shaken up.
C:I think that it's really crazy that we live in a world that our first go to is to call people groomers or to say that you know, everything they're doing is just to attack. I would never, ever, ever, harm a child. That doesn't matter. What matters is the fact that these people they want to. The first thing they're going to say is that it's about the children, about the children, about the children. But it's not about that. They're using what they know is kind of a rallying point.
C:Yes to fear, monger people into thinking that these people who just want to exist just want to exist, they want to have protections, they want to. You know, and in my heart like, yes, I would like to let kids be kids, like you know. Maybe an ideal world kids could learn about that in high school, during college. But the problem is, is you have these people who? They will indoctrinate their kids, so when their kids grow up, their kids are not decent people, they're raging bastards. So at that point it's too late to give them a high school or a college course that says, hey, you can treat all people okay, like, you don't have to like them, you don't have to agree with them, but you should have some type of, you know, emotional reciprocity of a first step.
Amber:There should be space for everyone, absolutely.
Jason:Yeah, you don't have to understand it If somebody tells you this is who I am. That's enough, that's it. You don't have to understand it.
Amber:So I want to, I want to explore you mentioned sort of a disproportionate sentencing. Let's talk a little bit about you know what that process looked like, sort of the components that were used in this in sentencing, because you're exactly right and that we see in you know the criminal legal system that gender identity and gender non conforming people are disproportionately seen as dangerous or bad and sentenced accordingly. So can you speak a little bit about that?
C:Yeah, I I call it policy sentencing and what I'm so. I've written about this and I've talked about it before on other platforms. Policy sentencing is when a judge and a prosecutor these people have political views, that when they sentence this person who's gender non conforming or queer, trans, what have you they're sending them to the extreme possible and they're trying to stack up related charges that allow them to allow them to run consecutive sentences or multiple long sentences together. The reason why is they're not just punishing that trans or queer or gay person for the current criminal conduct that they're before that court for. They're also trying to remove the likelihood of that person returning to the political, into this assault, the social realm. And so I call it policy sentencing, because the whole point is to remove people like this for as long as possible from engagement and interaction with society at large. When you do that, you essentially, from the mind of these people, dispose of a problem. Hopefully they die off, but, more importantly, their politics and their sentiment and their visibility is decreased.
Amber:Wow, I mean like that, that really gives a lot to think about, and I don't know that I've ever heard it sort of like characterizing that way, and I just felt that didn't.
Amber:I really like I felt that to my core because I think that we see it all the time as it was, but it's not like it's to exactly as it relates to race, as it relates to outspoken disability advocates, as it relates to all sorts of people who are, you know, saying I'm here, I have the right to exist just like you, and you know I should be treated in an equitable manner.
Jason:So I really appreciate you explaining that and I would love to have you know access to you know, something that you've written that we could sort of throw in the podcast notes if it's out there, because I would love to have our viewer or our listeners to share how that is to it as well, and it brings up some, some questions for me, like you went from being you know as yourself, as you described not a great student, right and that doing well in school, and to someone who is writing and and has some education, and so I would say you know, tell us a little bit of my doctorate.
Jason:Yeah, so tell us like exciting so tell us how you go from that to you know. With all the obstacles that thrown at you, how do you end up being a doctor?
C:God definitely, but for non religious people, just getting tired of my own excuses and having really incredible friends and networking with people that believed in me and believed in my vision that I have, for what I want to do for the rest of my life and what I want to contribute to the this, this world. But you know, I haven't achieved the three s's yet for myself in their final form, to use a Dragon Ball Z phrase there. But but, yeah so. But prison has actually presented me, scarily enough, the most stability that I've ever had over the last few years. I've been pretty much stuck in the same places for long term, but so, yeah, when I was younger I was bouncing around a lot and I didn't have any type of really good support system and I was hurting and I was just being a troublesome kid. So now for like the last eight years I've been able to kind of sit still, for the most part I've transferred.
C:You know I did some facility transfers or whatever, but while I was incarcerated I was able to get a large bulk of my academic work done. I had friends like Castalia Medrano, who is the editor, deputy editor of the magazine, sessi Blanchard, who is a well known harm reduction drug policy. Journalist Lyra Foster, who is an incredible transgender rights advocate and attorney, out of Atlanta, georgia. Dr Benjamin voice, from Colorado, who is a communications PhD and educator. These people, they became my tribe and they, they helped me. They really invested in me. So I got my double bachelor's from Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary in historical and theological studies and I got a master's from Amherst Theological Seminary in theological and historical studies and I just graduated with my doctorate from them in theological and historical studies. And because I'm an overachiever, I went back to Blackstone Career Institute and got certified as a paralegal.
Jason:All right, so so we need to. We need to stop for a second.
Amber:We need to keep up with us. It's like so amazing.
Jason:We need to stop. We need to absorb what you just told us. We need people who are listening to absorb what you just said, remembering the earlier part of this conversation, where you came from to where you are right now.
C:I can't believe it. I have imposter syndrome. I can't believe it.
Jason:It is remarkable, it is outstanding, and if nobody has said they're proud of you, we're saying it right now and anybody who's listening to you says we are so happy for you to be at that point in your life and you should be so proud of yourself for what you've done and celebrate and and take it in.
Amber:I have to say see, I was tear something you just said like, just so you know you're going over, like these people that came alongside you. I'm sorry, I like I'm tearing up myself. Yeah, but I heard you just say is these people invested in me?
C:Yeah, like nobody ever had in my whole life, and I got them one after one. They came into my life. That's been like a eight year window and they've been my tribe.
Amber:I'm grateful for them and so what I want our listeners to really think about and understand is when you take the time to invest in someone else and see someone right, that matters. That makes all the difference. So if, if nobody learns anything from listening to you and your amazing story and seeing you for the amazing person that you are, if they can take that nugget away, that will be something. So thank you so much for sharing all of that. I really appreciate y'all.
Amber:I mean, I'm really excited to hear because it seems like you're doing like a lot of really amazing work. You're doing some writing. You've clearly done a lot as far as education is concerned. When you think about mentoring and mentors you've had Talk a little bit about like what that looks like and because we know that, like, mentors are important.
C:Yeah. So I think what you just said a moment ago is like 100% spot on. You know what a mentor essentially is somebody that sees, even if you can't see it. They see past all the mark, they see the potential, they see that faint glimmer of what is most assuredly is gold. So for me that has been invaluable.
C:I've had people that have really put their time and their energy into me and have coached me to stop being self-destructive and stop being self-sabotaging, but also to and my friend, she always gets on to me right now about it because, like I said a minute ago, I have imposter syndrome but to really just realize that you get to ultimately decide the rules of engagement for your life, you know. That's not to say that there are not handicaps or limitations or parameters that you cannot go beyond, but you ultimately do get to set the parameters, you know, for the rules, engagement for your life. Mentoring for me has looked like people that were willing to listen to the kind of emotional situation of what I was going through with coming into prison and being in prison and the challenges that were present, not just being an incarcerated person, but being an incarcerated person who, for all intensive purposes, sticks out like a neon thumb in a men's facility.
C:So that was a big part of it having reliable people that I could emotionally deposit in. And while you know ideally a relationship should be equilibrious, I will say that, like my friends, my mentors have been incredible people because I'm not able to return to them the same accessibility to deposit their stresses and their heartaches and their worries and their human incidences into me, and I fully plan to make up for all of that.
Amber:Everybody knows that they have free hugs forever you know, maybe cry yeah so yeah, I just want to ask you, since, since you mentioned sort of the struggles of incarceration in a space that is not necessarily created or has the infrastructure for you, can you, if and it's okay if you, you know, don't want to talk about it can you talk a little bit about accessing health care within a system?
C:yeah. So, generally speaking, health care is abysmal. But so I actually started a lawsuit in 2013 that I settled June 2nd 2015. I was the first person who was incarcerated in Georgia who was trans to win a legal litigation battle against the Georgia Department of Corrections to get access to female replacement hormone therapy. A year later, the very well-known Ashley Diamond, who is a civil rights advocate and transgender advocate. She would blow up and get a lot of attention for that, which I'm not mad about. Who knows for her. She did great work and I appreciate it, but I I was always a little hurt that nobody ever acknowledged that in the open letter that they sent to the GDC, it listed my case. My case was the legal presidents that allowed them to go fight the next step of the battles.
C:But we've we've collectively about four of us. We spent years litigating and there are still a few people who are in the system and that is very difficult place to be in, but they are advancing the next stages of essentially fighting policies that are commensurate to the anti-trans policies out in the free, non-incarcerated world. Sure, that's very important to understand is that prison is a microcosm, kind of a reflection, in a way, of the outside world. It has its own economy, it has its own rules of etiquette, it has its own pecking system and, of course, it has its own social justice issues. And so when we were talking earlier, in the larger framework of anti-trans rhetoric that exists definitely inside of this nation's prison system. So in Georgia there is still an ongoing battle to advance access to medical care for trans people. But overall I wish that more prisoners would collect device to try to bring a bigger suit, because the entire medical system needs to be revamped.
C:The provision of care needs to be revamped. I recently found this out in one of my journalistic investigations. Last year the governor gave the contract for GDC medical care to a private company called Well Path that had to change its name from correct care solutions because it has such a bad reputation of being ex-hying in its care. But while I cannot prove that they were a donor to the governor's campaign, we do think that it's odd that they won out of other companies that have cleaner records and who have actually done more business in the state of Georgia. But what's really interesting is they actually got to kick out a provision of the care they had to provide. They just completely rejected. They said no, we're not paying for HIV care. So the thousands of prisoners who are incarcerated in Georgia who need access to literally life-maintaining HIV care at any given time? The state could essentially say that they don't have to pay for it because they have a medical contractor, but the medical contractor has been permitted to say that they won't provide coverage for it. So it's messed up right.
Amber:So I do want to just call attention to, first of all, you know, thank you for being willing, because you know there's a huge risk to being like a plaintiff in a suit, right so I just want to like, understate that like that's a bit of an understatement.
Amber:So the courage that it took to say no, this is not acceptable and I'm gonna, you know, be part of changing it is amazing. I want to mention because we are in in Connecticut we actually have a situation here in our state where there is a pending case with the ACLU of Connecticut. Who is fighting for a client to receive gender affirming care within DOC. It's been going on for such a long time and what is so astounding is we have a we have, you know, elected officials in our state, including our attorney general, who is very pro LGBTQ, you know, goes to events and rallies and speaks on the issues, and all of this yet is fiercely and still defending, based on very anti trans arguments, denying this person care within the DOC. So your comments around it's sort of like prison being a microcosm.
Amber:One of the things when we talk about these cases is people try to make them cases about trans rights, which they are, but these are human rights. These are human rights. People try to make it about it's a prison case. It's not a prison case. It's not a trans rights case. It's a human rights case. It doesn't matter whether you're in the community, whether you're it. You know, behind the walls, people should have access to health care, and so thank you for really explaining and walking us through that you're welcome.
C:I think that it was the case of Turner versus safely.
C:The Supreme Court said that prison bars do not keep prisoners from the protections of the Constitution, and what we need to remember when we're talking about those who are incarcerated is that the same.
C:And the reality is it can happen to anybody, can happen to our loved ones, that can happen to ourselves.
C:The reality is what we're willing to allow to happen to another person is what we're ultimately saying we're willing to allow to happen to ourselves if our circumstances were different and the policies that we stand by or we acquiesce to, by our failure to object, those actually say a lot more about who we are as an individual, as a culture and as a nation than anything else does.
C:You might think that you define yourself or sum yourself up by what you wear, what you drive or who you voted for, or that you recycle. Those things matter. They are components, but in reality, the structures that we shape this, policies that we stand by, that dictate the societal structure. That speaks volumes. And so, when it comes to the prison issues, those are particularly important because it reflects upon the people that, if anything, most need us to be our. They need us to be our most merciful, most compassionate and most reasonable selves. The fact that they they may or may not have committed a wrong in the past should not remove them from the realm of human rights and the access to important things like medical care.
Amber:I wish people could see me, because I'm like raising the roof, like you know, like whatever you call it, you know every emoji there is, I'm throwing it out there.
Jason:I just picture a amber. I just picture somebody right now like on their treadmill listening to the podcast, as, like we've, we've covered everything so far, from yeah raised to early trauma, to incarceration, to turning things around and getting an education, to health care in the prisons. Every oh my god, you know your story, see, is is more modern culture all wrapped in one right. So I mean it's the hit touches on every major issue. Amber, what were you gonna say?
Amber:so I think that you know we are coming sort of to the end of our our conversation and we want to make sure that if there is some component of your story that you feel is like super important and we haven't covered yet, that you feel is like really important to sort of get out into the world, want to just give you an opportunity to have some space to just say more.
C:I know we kind of talked on it a little bit, but I have never really had a chance to really to really address it. You know, and some of the stories that I've published, sharing my experiences, I, you know you, they always say you don't read the comments, but I can't help it right, and I've noticed that and of course there's some minds you can never change. But I told myself that every opportunity I get I would kind of drive this home and it's that Whenever we hear a new fact or we hear a new argument, we're always willing, even if it resonates with us. We always create this little smidgen of doubt, we always leave this little room for doubt so that we can be hopefully corrected or that we can modify our view to be the most accurate. And I would say that when it comes to the stories of people who have backgrounds like mine or similar backgrounds, or maybe have a sex conviction or any type of conviction, I would encourage people to create a little doubt, create a little doubt to realize that what was reported to you or what you heard or your predispositions may not be giving the most accurate or more spare kind of accounting of the situation.
C:Because one of the things that I find myself raging against every day and it sucks because I know I can't really change it is the reality that there's going to always be some people that feel like I'm a predator or that I, you know, did this terrible thing and I can't do anything about that. But I do wish that, maybe over time, with my story and with, you know, just encouraging people to think, stop seeing people as so one dimensional, that they're just this one moment, this one transaction, because there's a lot more to it. There's a lot more to it and we really need to give people grace, to come back from their worst moments as a human being. Okay, Absolutely.
Jason:For sure.
Amber:I love that and I think that you are highlighting once again sort of this idea of the polarization and the exceptionalism and the salaciousness with which media and not just media there are. You know, policymakers and media and people who have platforms and power, assigned this exceptionalism to anything having to do with sexual offenses, violent offenses, certain types of people, and it's our responsibility, when we're talking about being responsible members of society right to create those questions in our head to see the humanity.
Jason:One thing I thought that was interesting a little bit different is that when you showed up on Twitter, you went from like zero followers to thousands like overnight. I don't know exactly what happened, but it seems like you touched a nerve. I mean, what are your thoughts on Twitter at this moment?
C:First of all, I would like to say that I love Twitter. I think I have a problem like. I need an intervention from my spirit animal.
Amber:Mine too, me too.
C:I have a problem.
C:But Elon Musk, the sooner he gets out the picture, I feel like my marriage with Twitter can get over its rocky part.
C:You know, but I recently told my friend I was like I don't even need a man, I have Twitter.
C:But so yeah.
C:So I think that what it is is I do have a very unique story and I think that it allows a lot of people who have been on the fence or maybe who are just of a mindset that can be persuadable.
C:It allows me to kind of wedge in and create space for them to mentally operate differently, like, see, not first of all, I don't want to say that any sex vendor is bad, period, but I do try to get them to see like there are shades to people's stories and I think that the way that I have covered the experience of people who are incarcerated and I've provided, you know, amplified narratives to go on, amplified voices about these people's experiences, and I'm just trying to get them to understand that if you want to hold the government responsible in this area, then why not in this area? I think that all of those things kind of. But it's also, I think, that my content on Twitter's, like you, get a little bit of comedy, like I had one tweet that went viral about like shout out to all the straight guys who follow me because they think I'm kind of hot and then they realize I'm trans you know I got posted a little funny stuff like that and that gets me followers.
C:You know, one day I might post theology and history and the next day I'll post something about sex workers rights and criminal justice. So I think it's a little bit of everything. But also I think that I really make the effort to connect with my followers. I don't see them as my followers, I see them as my community. I think that we're co-educating each other about issues that potentially have, I hope, the capacity and power to be changed and therefore making more fair, more just, more community centered society. And that's ultimately what my work is about. Every component about it is really just about getting people to see that what happens to another person, it does have relation to us. It all relates back. So I would like to think that all of those things that kind of contributed to it, but I couldn't give you an exact recipe. I don't know.
Amber:Love, love, love, all of that. So I think that we're we're coming down to the end of the podcast. So it, jason, if you have anything to say before I ask my famous last question go ahead, ask your last question, then I'll have a couple of comments at the end.
Amber:Okay, so, see, I always ask this question at the end of the podcast, because part of what we're doing here is creating space for people to tell their stories and also providing content to people who may find themselves in similar situations, because what we know and what we have felt in our own journeys is you can feel very isolated and alone. So if you had the opportunity to give one piece of advice to someone who was following a similar journey or in a similar situation as yours, what would that be.
C:That's tough. I guess the one piece would be don't wait for your circumstances to get better. Don't wait for life to get good. Right now it's as good as it's going to be in this moment. It's the only moment you have. Maximize it. Make it count, no matter where you are. Find ways to grow beyond the pains of your circumstances. Find ways to thrive, because nobody is going to give you the high roads. You have to build it yourself.
Amber:That's amazing. I love that so much, Jason.
Jason:Last thoughts I just want to say thank you so much for joining us today and we finally got to speak. We've been trying to set this up for a while and just once again to say your story, from where you've come from to where you've gone, is just beyond remarkable. I hope that things just get better and better from here on out, because I think you deserve good things in your life. Thank you so much.
C:Thank both of you very much for what you guys are doing. Thank you.
Amber:Thank you, C. We really appreciate you coming on the podcast today and we really look forward to opportunities to reconnect and maybe collaborate on some things, Because I know that the only way there is for all of us at this point is up right.
C:I love it, let's do it.
Jason:Alright, until next time, Amber.
Amber:We'll see you next time, music.
Exit:You've been listening to Amplified Voices, a podcast listening to the experiences of people and families impacted by the criminal legal system. For more information, episodes and podcast notes, visit amplifiedvoicesshow Music.
