“Orange Is the New Black” Episode 412 Review: “The Animals”

From the polarizing U.S. presidential election to the exit of Britain from the European Union based ostensibly on xenophobic ideas about immigration, the racial tension of this season of Orange is the New Black almost perfectly mirrors real life. Episode 12 is a focal point as it contains what many consider the season’s heartbreaking climax and a scene touted as the series’ Black Lives Matter moment.

It starts with a flashback to CO Bayley’s reckless teenage years, giving us a glimpse of the white male privilege he has benefitted from his entire life. He trespasses on private property with a few of his friends while smoking weed and engaging in some quality underage drinking. After being arrested and sitting in jail for what seemed like two seconds, he’s released alongside his friend despite admitting to to the weed intake. No doubt if he were a person of color, that would’ve been the “gotcha” moment.

We can glean a lot about Bayley from the flashback. He’s shown as timid, shy and beholden to authority — traits that he holds on to in adulthood. They lead him to inform Caputo of the fighting incident between Suzanne and Maureen that Officer Humphrey incited, but the plan backfires. Piscatella swiftly cuts Caputo down to size when he tries to suspend Humphrey, making for an awkward showcase of toxic masculinity and power imbalance in front of the other guards. (But we’re used to that, amirite?)

The only good thing to come out of the fight between Suzanne and Maureen is the coalition building between the different racial factions within the prison. The Black women, Dominicanas and white supremacists band together and plan a peaceful protest against the guards. (Could you imagine the power if all the disparate marginalized groups in our country came together to push against state violence?)

Throughout the episode, we also see Sophia coping with all of the changes that have occurred in her absence. It’s touching to see Gloria reach out and care for her. In one of the few moments we get of Sophia this season, Gloria styles her hair and soothes her. As a trans woman, I’m always particularly interested in the moments when OITNB lays off the abrasive transmisogyny and shows how cis women can be better allies.

We also see Pennsatuckey openly discuss with Big Boo how she’s forgiven Donuts for raping her. Their friendship seems back on the right track and we see some redemption for Pennastuckey victim status. Her character is given the chance to express that she forgave him of her own accord and no other reason.

The gravy of the episode happens when Piscatella causes a scene by pushing Red on the ground, and the plans for the protest began. One-by-one the inmates stand on their tables, like Blanca and Piper did previously, which starts an all-out shuffle. Piscatella instructs the guards to pull down the inmates causing Suzanne to respond frantically. Poussey jumps in to try and get the guards off of her, and Bayley pins her to the ground where she is killed by asphyxiation.

Poussey’s death directly references the death of Eric Garner after New York City Police Department Officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in a chokehold in which he couldn’t breathe. This was the climax of a season that really went into the depth of social and systemic racism almost with no regard for its fans of color. This episode, like much of this season, falls flat on it’s face, largely because there are no Black writers on the show. In fact, out of 16 writers, only two are of color, Latino and Asian respectively. We’ve seen numerous problematic things said by all types of characters on racism and anti-Blackness. Poussey’s death underscores the tone-deafness of the writers on race. Yes, having actresses of color is great, but we’re barely hitting the mark on representation if their words are coming from a white lens.

I understand the mindset behind staying true to life, considering we still see law enforcement getting off scot-free after killing Black folks, but in a show that leverages several inmates murdering a prison guard without consequences and an hours-long prison inmate escape, we should at least be able to see some justice in fantasy. There was so much emphasis placed on humanizing and empathizing with Bayley’s plight in life, which ended up being a disservice to our relationship with Poussey. She deserved better.

For queer fans, it was an especially brutal way to kill off a character that had meant so much to us. Far before Ruby Rose, Poussey was one of the show’s most beloved crushes. She also existed amongst a family of characters who actually identify as a part of the LGBTQ community — and not just pawns in a the situationally queer prison trope. Those who followed her past of having a girlfriend with a homophobic parent, her inrequited crush on Taystee, and the season where she finally had a love interest (albeit one who held super privileged and problematic ideas about race), Poussey’s storyline was one of the most authentic.

For as long as OITNB continues and beyond, Poussey will be a standout character and fans will long for the what-ifs. You may have been thinking the episode’s title referred to the inmates, but it’s pretty obvious who the true animals are. With one more episode in this heart-wrenching season, we are all still gasping for air and dreaming of justice.

Graduation to Womanhood: Navigating Trans Identity at a Southern College

The South has a knack for making you feel othered if you’re even the slightest bit different. If you’re not white, the right kind of Christian, conservative, straight, cisgender — you’ll be made a target. I learned all of this long before I reached the end of my senior year of high school, which is why I wasn’t particularly thrilled to attend my alma mater, the University of Georgia. In fact, I wasn’t thrilled at all to know that I was essentially signing a contract to stay in the South for at least four more years. I’d spent all my life in Georgia and I was itching to be somewhere where the air was less thick with conservatism and a history (and current status) of intolerance.

But I’m adaptable. I quickly learned that college is a transformative process regardless of location. It’s all about finding yourself, discovering your hopes and aspirations and reaching the deeper areas of your mind. Some people come out of the experience with a degree, others with incredible stories, and others simply with a better understanding of their body’s tolerance for alcohol. But some, like me, left with a newfound understanding and sense of purpose; I matriculated as a timid, confused boy and departed as a woman standing in her truth.

College was like most of my life — full of dichotomies. My experiences (in all their eclectic glory) were yearning to come together like a woven tapestry, creating an intricate semblance of understanding and identity. I needed a stark contrast to the double life I lived throughout high school, playing the well-mannered and virtuous “straight” boy at home and the flamboyant, queer prince (think Jack, from Will & Grace) at school.

Due to lack of education and awareness of transgender issues and internalized mislabeling from peers, I came out as gay at 14. I knew this was the right choice despite a lack of community and anticipated support from parents that were Southern, black and Catholic. Don’t get me wrong, they loved me — but like most parents they weren’t completely equipped to handle having a queer child. But I had no choice but to be authentically me because queerness (and my high femininity) adorned me like a badge. I was mocked and ridiculed for it long before I even knew what “it” was — or at least what I thought it was.

DISCOVERING MY IDENTITY

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
― Audre Lorde

Once I made it to UGA, I wasn’t met by some caravan of queers or any reassurance of my journey. It took time to wade through the campus’ hegemonic culture that I was, in many ways, the complete antithesis of. I was a budding queer, black, feminist, trans woman, so it was powerful for me to embrace myself in an atmosphere that fostered and encouraged adherence to a white, cisheteronormative ideal. Greek life and southern football culture consumed the campus’ resources and energy, and it was always apparent that Confederate, quasi-Antebellum ideals marked the mandates, words and ideologies of the powers-at-be. They weren’t going to give me a portrait with my face on it; I was going to have to bogart my way into the frame.

I struggled early on. Being both black and queer, I had to make a choice on whether I’d delve into the “black” scene (which, in hindsight, lacked a racial justice flair, given the pre-Ferguson era) or, for once, gain entry into a group of queer people on similar journeys of figuring themselves out. The thing was — I knew there was no way in hell that I’d retreat into the closet and relive my early high school days, so I really ended up having no choice.

You’d think joining the campus LGBTQ group was an immediate fit. However, I initially eschewed the small pocket of the LGBTQ community that I encountered — finding it clique-ish and insular. Despite my desire to fully embrace myself, I found it difficult to juggle the blazing desire to be out and visible with a chance to — for once — define myself socially on my own terms (I.e. be known as more than the gay kid.) But maybe I could do both?

I quickly learned that self-discovery is a universal calling. Queer millennials are setting the tone and holding society accountable in a way generations before never had the opportunity to. We are emitting a burning necessity and urgency about our journeys. And there is a unique synergy I found in the experiences of gender nonconforming individuals, queer people, women and people of color. We all play a role in shaping each other. Whether by choice or out of desperation, I had a knack for compartmentalizing my identities and these groups helped me resist it.

In time, I uncovered a community of mentors, students and other groups that embraced who I was becoming and provided opportunities for me to define just what that was. But soon, I found that something was missing. I felt comfortable standing on the front lines as a gay kid, but my questions about my gender identity started to consume me — almost organically. So I found an outlet.

Drag performance became one of those playgrounds of resistance for me, as well as a playground for my gender identity (by literally placing it center stage). I initially struggled with embracing my femininity out of fear that it would brand me as invaluable and undesirable, but once I befriended others who used drag as a means to express themselves, I wanted to do the same. Channeling Rihanna’s edgy fierceness or Beyoncé’s demure, modern sexuality proved just what I needed, but it wasn’t the sole force that would bolster my gender experience.

From there I was able to begin the process of discarding my internalized femmephobia in the midst of academia. I was also fortunate to come into my womanhood in the midst of academia. Women’s studies classes equipped me with mantras and manifestos to combat that hate I internalized from the world about my queerness, femininity, blackness and womanhood. Discovering the nuance of race, gender, sex and sexuality allowed me to articulate who I was on the identity map (if that even exists). I found the terminology to understand how all of these systems are connected and what it means when they coincide. I also gained the ability to look beyond my identities and respect others — an invaluable lesson that continues to elude so many, including other queer folk and self-proclaimed feminists.

Just as I was starting to hone in on the validity of my existence, my father died. It was sudden; no lingering bouts with cancer or degenerative diseases. No, he had a stroke at 57 and it rocked my world and my family’s. Seeing my mother exclaim, “I never thought it would be this way,” will forever be etched in my memory.

It changed everything. Others contemplated the idea of me taking some time of school with a hardship withdrawal and my family worried about me, by far being the youngest child at 19, being affected by the situation. But I forged through the semester, delving into my studies and keeping to myself. I quit drag, worried about besmirching my father’s legacy. It was all too much and I just didn’t want to deal with grieving and feeling guilty. So I tucked my gender issues under my cerebellum and trudged forward.

OWNING MY IDENTITY

“It is revolutionary for any trans person to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist.” – Laverne Cox

Losing my father became a pivotal turning point in my approach to life and my search for self-definition. His death, though immensely painful, also represented a death of expectations. In many ways he represented the last major shackle on my gender identity. My father loved me, no doubt. He admired my intellect, the way I thought about the world — and ironically — my stubborn penchant for being myself. He didn’t love the fact that I was gay nor do I imagine he would have instantly welcomed the fact that I was really trans. Fully owning my queerness and femininity would have been incredibly difficult to do while he was living.

After the dark tinge that painted my outlook slowly dissolved and I was able to experience any ounce of optimism, my gender thoughts came back. This time I wouldn’t stop piecing myself together. So I started to embrace my love for makeup — even out of drag — and I performed more than I ever had before. I dyed my hair bright red, pierced my ears — both things my parents wouldn’t have been a fan of — and I held my head high. I honed in on that self-expression that so many had tried to stamp out of me. I learned that we are told that yearning for the validation of others is a fruitless, misguided cause (and it usually is) — but when others see you for who you truly are and respect it, you are forever changed.

My friends and community embraced these parts of me that I was always told were undesirable through tips at my shows or words of encouragement. I’d always had the family I needed, but I finally found the village would raise me up to the next level.

With such empowered feelings, I dove head first into social activism and aligned myself with the outreach and resource efforts of my college’s LGBTQ Resource Center and LGBTQ group. It was there that I learned that in spite of my identities I could and should be outspoken and dedicated to liberating others while simultaneously liberating myself.

I worked with other students, faculty and organizations who found it necessary to educate the masses through discussion panels, instill pride and solidarity through events and meetings, as well as provide space for others. Through these coalitions I found that it’s important to build collective and personal power with empathy always at the helm.

At one point as a student leader, I discussed expanding the non-discrimination policy directly to the then President at an open forum and he equated sexual orientation with gender identity. Even after the affirmative from the Student Government Association and other student leaders, the President let the resolution sit on his desk for ever. (The policy was finally changed after I and many of my peers who initially worked on the effort had graduated.)

Even though widespread changes on campus happened gradually, my own personal growth did not. I started experimenting more deeply with my identity — reading up on gender variance and ultimately, deciding I must be genderqueer. Trans just seemed to extreme at the time (not knowing that it fell under that umbrella anyway.) For me it was a stepping stone and a means to shield myself for what I anticipated to be a backlash against my fully-realized womanhood. I remember chanting, “I just don’t want to be trans,” because I was fearful of self-definition and all of its consequences.

Living with certainty, integrity and power set a solid foundation for my social transition. It reassured others when I operated with deliberate certainty. I learned that often the marginalized have to combat the hijacking and dismissal of their narratives and it takes well-calculated articulation from the self to do that.

When I fully realized that living in fear of myself and the world was incompatible with happiness and a worthwhile livelihood is when I decided to confront the world with my full self. I ran through the idea of coming out for a few months, but in time I decided authenticity was the antidote. The week just before National Coming Out Day 2012, I decided to use that as my opportunity to be brazen about myself and my identity. I composed a note that I shared on Facebook with the hope that my declaration would accurately depict my historically misconceived identity.

Almost immediately I experienced overwhelming love and support from people I’d met at many different points of my past. It invigorated me and gave me the freedom and validation to sprint towards my transition goals fervently and unabashedly. I was able to marry my trans identity with the rest of my life. It’s as if I had just discovered a new color and now had this entirely new dimension to my life. I was able to paint a holistic portrait of what I wanted the rest of my life to look like. Our lives — in their entirety — are masterpieces and every milestone or instance of self-discovery infiltrates a blank space on the canvas. Using this perspective, I was able to work towards a life where embracing my identity was a necessity.

But deciding to transition was no easy feat. I had to deal with so many questions from within and from the people around me. Not only was I reassuring myself that I was making the right decision, but I had to do the same with my mother, sister and brother. Overwhelmingly, my mother and sister were positive about it, but my brother had his own issues with it. There’s something about a family member of the same assigned gender transitioning that tends to affect people more deeply. Often people make trans people’s decisions about themselves, when really they have much less to do with others than with the person.

Then there was getting through therapy so that I could gain permission to be myself and obtain hormones. The idea that someone acts as a gatekeeper for your identity and future is infuriating, but those are the hoops we must go through at this stage. Though I wasn’t decades into my life like many of my trans elders — I had lived at least two decades in a perceived gender. So there were many elements of my past I did have to “tie up.” I was worried about my mother in my hometown of Augusta and how she would juggle church friends, neighbors and community members who knew me before.

There was also the whole issue of my name change and getting records changed in the Student Records office so my transcript would reflect my true identity and preparing for jobs while still feeling so much social anxiety and awkwardness. Then there was the battle of having that new name used in classes. I felt like some sort of alien — some genderless creature that people couldn’t quite make out. Being called a man out in public also didn’t help. I figured at that point that I’d always be a target on some level and found that asserting your true identity is costly — financially, emotionally, and psychologically.

USING MY IDENTITY TO INSPIRE

“As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson

My final semester involved a great deal of anxiety about what my post-collegiate life would be like. I was worried about the loss of most of my access to this built-in community. I wondered how I was going to solely motivate myself to do better and be better. I was also worried about what navigating life outside of my bubble was going to be like in “the real world.”

It proved difficult at points, especially just out of college when I started working in an environment where being stealth was a necessity for survival. However, I knew I was strong and that even if things became difficult I had a history of finding what I needed, whether it was community or resources. I had developed the audacity to do more than just exist, but to be happy while I was doing it.

Looking back I’m astonished at my sheer will to endure. In many ways I had a great deal of support and access, but finding myself had its difficulty like everything else. In many ways, my transition has served as a litmus test for others to discover and experiment with their identities. As demanding and frightening as it is at points, I’ve always believed that authenticity in the self begets authenticity in others. Having possibility models is important because they often provide a mirror for ourselves and a vision of what life’s possibilities are when we embrace ourselves.

Many of my possibility models have existed from afar. People like Janet Mock, Laverne Cox and people from my more immediate community. Embracing that I’ve been that and continue to be that for others has taken work, but it has helped me realize my power. I always knew I had so much to say and to stand for, but I just wasn’t equipped to do just that.

My goal is to continue the work of being steadfast and resolute in who I am. I want to inspire. I want to speak. I want to liberate myself and others.

Pay Us Some Mind: On the “Tragic” Humanity of Black Trans Women

When I was coming to terms with my gender identity in 2012, my initial understanding of the transgender experience was rudimentary at best. At issue were the run-of-the-mill things like obtaining hormones, finding clothing that worked with my rapidly changing body and figuring out which name would suit me perfectly.

The idea of how my life would operate in the broader society was an elusive concept. Figures like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox were well on their way to mainstream success, but the media landscape wasn’t teeming with transgender fascination like it is currently, and piecing together a map for my future seemed nearly impossible. Initial support came a peppering of online articles, anecdotes and transition how-to guides, but they overwhelmingly focused on trans women who were considerably older and white.

As a young black trans girl, I found that most of the information that contained even a sliver of nuance were statistics. And from there I realized that the narrative for girls like us is often deeper and darker. I learned that as a transgender person of color, I am six times more likely to experience physical violence from the police than my white, cisgender queer counterparts. I learned that while 72 percent of anti-LGBTQ homicides occur to trans women, 67 percent fall on the shoulders of trans women of color. And in nearly every study from HIV infection rates to socio-economic marginalization, in general, trans women of color are disproportionately affected.

When I was forced to stop looking at my identities as if they exist in a vacuum, I realized that being a black trans woman is a major risk and accepting myself would be just the first battle with a society obsessed with compartmentalization.

The Media’s Nuance Problem

When Leelah Alcorn’s suicide went viral at the tail-end of December 2014, it seemed like there would be some major shift in the transgender narrative. I saw the world stop and consider a trans person’s death on a more meaningful level.

I thought the world would take the severity of our experiences more seriously even if it meant that some of the nuance of that severity might be lost. The nuance that explains that we also experience so much marginalization and that trans women of color, particularly black trans women bear the brunt of the violence and discrimination.

Clockwise from left: Lamia Beard, Yazmin Vash Payne, Penny Proud and Ty Underwood

After a couple months into 2015, the media and society are back to their old means of understanding. We’ve already witnessed the murders of six trans women of color (including four black trans women) — Lamia Beard, Ty Underwood, Yazmin Vash Payne, Taja Gabrielle DeJesus, Penny Proud and Kristina Gomez Reinwald — and two more people who, based on reports, were gender non-conforming — L. Edwards and B. Golec. In Toronto, Somali-Canadian trans woman Sumaya Dalmara was found dead but police haven’t ruled her death a homicide. Their names have been discussed in articles and mentioned in newscasts, but largely mainstream media continues to reduce their deaths to numbers on a list.

This limited media presence revolves around paying tribute to lives that should’ve been respected long before they were lost through lackluster overtures about needing to respect and value trans lives. There continues to be no deeper consideration for the full lives of these slain individuals. They never fully delve into the “why” of their deaths.

There is much that can be said about the disparity between media coverage for young, white trans suicides and the brutal murders of the trans women of color. Are they not respectably queer enough to be hashtag worthy? Are their names not important enough in their respective racial communities to paint across banners? Perhaps they don’t fall in line with the perfect soundbite for your movement, but they should.

It is of the utmost importance to recognize the Leelah Alcorns and the Zander Mahaffeys and the Mike Browns and the Trayvon Martins, but we can’t shut down the conversation there and ignore the fact that there are numerous individuals like Islan Nettles and Nizah Morris being targeted as well.

Old Wounds in the Queer Community

If trans activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were to board a time machine and be transported to today, they would be proud of the strides we’ve made but balk at the idea that the queer community has fully embraced the trans unit of our acronym. Many of the same issues they faced before the Stonewall Riots have still not been rectified.

Both warned the influencers of the then Gay Liberation movement to be wary of bogarting the efforts from the trans and gender non-conforming individuals who led the initial resistance. Though Johnson and Rivera were adamant about liberation for all, we can’t ignore the roles their racial and class identities played in the immediate attempt to erase them from history.

When acknowledging that black trans women are routinely targeted for more strident discrimination, often the conversation is shut down in an #alllivesmatter attempt to push for solidarity. But true solidarity does not denounce diversity and individual voices. True solidarity actively engages them.

Yes, the LGBTQ community as a whole is fighting for many of the same goals, but structural racism, capitalism and respectability exist in every rank of the LGBTQ rights movement and cisnormativity continue to be upheld despite it plaguing us all. That means after 45 years of trying to catch up with the LGB movement, the trans community and black trans women are still catching their breath and wait for their reprieve.

Undoubtedly, we’ve made great strides in terms of visibility and awareness of trans issues. We’ve ushered in a trans renaissance in the media. More people are confronting our identity than ever before, but on the ground, life for the average transgender woman of color continues to be bleak.

Old Wounds in the Black Community

Similarly, the Black community has long ignored the issues of gender and sexuality. Many queer people of color have had their identities swept under the rug or been ousted from history books Bayard Rustin-style. Since the Civil Rights Movement, black women and black queer people have been pushed to the margins in an attempt to fight for what is deemed the greater mission: racial equality. But racial equality without nuance is centered on heterosexual black men.

Photo credit: Lauren Soleil-Downer

We see this in the #BlackLivesMatters movement which was started by three queer black women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi — not only in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin, but in response to the anti-blackness that affects all black lives. It has been stripped down of all contextual meaning.

The recent death of Ty Underwood attests to this mindset. The 24 year old was allegedly murdered by jilted love interest Carlton Ray Champion, Jr., a black man. In tried and true, transmisogynistic fashion, many in the black community on social media upheld that she must have been deceptive about her trans identity — as if that validates her death and despite the fact that there is text message evidence that proves otherwise.

Blaming trans women for having the audacity to desire love is a petty and disgusting act of self-righteousness. The atmosphere fostered through shaming trans individuals and those who love and affirm them makes it incredibly difficult to exist authentically. And, as we’ve seen with Underwood’s case, even when that status is worn on our sleeves, we are dismissed as not being authentic enough.

The Remedy

Living at the intersection of racial and gender minorities means that all of these identities are constantly working together. The queer and trans community can’t continue to strip us of our racial oppression, just like the black community can’t solely blame our deaths on our gender identities. We’re targeted for both. Identities aren’t like clothing; you can’t just put us in the trench coat you identify with, completely ignoring the even more complex underlying context.

My heart breaks any time I hear about a trans death, period. But when it’s another black trans sister dying, I cycle through feeling helpless, hopeless and numb. I see not just another death, but another voice lost. I think of these women and what they could’ve become if they were able to define their lives for themselves. If they weren’t eliminated in their prime and their humanity wasn’t permanently wiped away.

We have tangible proof that under the right conditions we can be New York Times bestselling authors, A-list actresses on major network television productions, tech guru entrepreneurs and more. But, let’s be clear, we shouldn’t have to be all of those things to be respected and valued.

via sutterstock

So often society at-large commandeers the message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s dream of racial and class equality or Harvey Milk’s view of a world where gay and lesbian individuals are less encumbered by the restrictions that society has placed on them, but we must dig deeper. We have to continue to shift our idea of what that end goal is. Now that the transgender community finally has a name and a face and stories that are burgeoning in literature and in cinema, we must critically consider what those narratives look like outside of fiction written by someone else.

In a truly evolved world, black trans women would be seen as more than the cisheteronormative scripts that society has grown accustomed to, we would no longer be targeted by transmisogynoir, proper healthcare and access to knowledgeable and affirming healthcare professionals would be a right, not a privilege, and the world at-large would be a safe space because restrooms and classrooms would no longer be political battlegrounds. We would also be able to keep our default institutions — origin families and churches — and they would work in tandem with our found institutions — drag families, GSAs and organizations. We would be able to choose our educational environments with more attention to our actual realities than presumptions on our upbringing and the configurations of our bodies. We wouldn’t have enough fingers on our hands to name off trans media figures and living beyond their 20s would be the norm, not an anomaly. Ultimately, our safety and livelihood would be centered and not relegated to the margins.

The road to that world requires more of our society and those around us. We deserve more than mentions on social media and impromptu vigils. We need help. We need allies. We need our queer family to bolster us on their shoulders. We need our black family to regard us and respect us. We need cisgender women to advocate for us.

We aren’t the vessels of flesh that you continuously try to define for us. We aren’t the insults, the wrong pronouns and the slurs you hurl towards us. We aren’t our forgotten and spit-on legacy and our minced and parsed humanities. We aren’t our “inevitable” deaths. We deserve our blackness, our queerness and our womanhood. We deserve respect, love and our lives. Every black trans woman deserves more than her obituary.