new york city new york state and we are agency that is committed to really making sure that we are century and developing good leadership of transports throughout new york city and that's so i have been involved in activism in new york city for over twenty years now first starting in the ninety's addressing discriminatory policies of transports specifically trans women in the shelter system started because i saw the connection between putting these type when you talk about you driving infection away and you talk about homelessness and talk about the high unemployment rate i saw a connection between that and policies and h when there are no policies that are from us and that protect those it creates this disparity that we're seen not only in new york city but globally one of the major reasons why i was passionate starting out with our second annual community coat drive where we service over fifty community members and that was a really great way of recording space with community members and touching on issues that are impacting our navigate what's the minimum amount of trauma and it starts with like really educating them bringing in professionals who are licensed have experience and background and  we also want to make sure that we are engaging with our academic community and that we are able to compensate for them to do trauma informed care workshops so  things that i feel is really important about new york transgender add to see group is that we are not just a new york city focus advocacy group but we are also an agency that has chapters in a process of being created in other parts need in a lot of our rural areas just really want folks to understand why we understand how systems are not broken but we want to make sure that we're creating new systems that are  mission of the national black leadership commission on aids also known as in black up is the educate mobilize and empower black leaders to meet the challenge of fi hiv aids and other health disparities in their local communities on today's program we have the opportunity to speak with the founder of the new york transgender advocacy group this network of trance men and women and allies work to advocate for the needs of the transgender community across the country and here in new york state and human rights advocate speaking on trance community issues related to discriminatory shelter policies discriminatory pharmaceutical actions and specifically here in the united states a vocal advocate for passing of the gender expression non discrimination act known as genda harris the founder of a new young trance gender advocacy group which is an organization intent on creating new opportunities for persons of the trance community so pierre thank you so much for joining me today having and i know that there are just a few statistics that i'd like to highlight because as we were preparing for the show show i was pretty much taken back by them and cover also to six that killed that the average life expectancy for a black transgender woman is thirty five years it's absolutely an hour two thousand and fourteen report from the williams institute states that there are over fifteen thousand transgender individuals serving on active duty in the united states military and there are over one hundred thirty four thousand three hundred transgender veterans and according to this data thirty two percent were assigned male at birth and five point five percent were born females and i think that focus on the military is certainly important because of what the forty fifth polls with respect to transgender person another report analysis this year by the williams institute also found seventy eight percent of transgender respondents who had endured physical or sexual violence at school had attempted suicide are young people attempting suicide and injustice at every turn survey states that twenty five percent of transgender recipients reported losing a job because they did not conform to gender norms and a staggering ninety percent said that they face some form of transgender based discrimination and lastly right here in new york city according to the new york city department of health and mental hygiene from twenty twelve to twenty sixteen two hundred and thirty six transgender people were diagnosed with a child be in new york city and fifty six percent were black or latino people men who have sex with men and of course heterosexual black women are almost sixty six percent and so all of the new infections among all women i don't really care welcome thank you and thank you to us you've grown now you have a program that you started and a great deal of work continues to focus on the transgender community so we really want to spend some time just to get some highlights or some for an organization such as ny tag led by transform to really start being the folks to really address how these part these policies are impacting us or the lack of policies that would be able to give us recourse under the law so gender is another important legislation that we need to make sure that we are continuing to build coalitions around and so that's something i'm going to be pushing with the state coalition over the next year especially since this is a midterm election year you know so the data speaks to why there's a need for translate agencies specific specifically led by black trans women  one the life expectancy of black trans women is thirty five years of age thirty five thirty five well what is the if that the average age is that a person begins to train so it varies it depends you know for black and latino trance women we tend to transition much earlier sixteen seventeen and that is one of the main reasons why there is a higher  not accepted so i had to i was put in foster care because of that reason and so for example if the average case a seventeen you live in as a chance in one would be a life expectancy of eighteen years with the life expectancy being thirty five years in terms of life so if one came out or began to openly leave that's a transgender woman at the age of eighteen i'm sorry seventeen seventeen that  cultivate relationships with our elected officials but with faith based leaders getting them involved in like creating affirming spaces for trans youth you know it's going to be very essential making sure that we are  making sure the school you know we do have a policy called back dignity for all students right this is an anti bullying law so we want to make sure that isn't forced and that there's ongoing cultural sensitivity when it comes to the needs of the trance youth of more mental health and really really stressing wellness and getting trans women of color to really give them the tools they need to navigate where they're not triggered by missed gendering they're not you'll find is a lot of black and latino trends folks isolate not just women but men folks as well we do have a substantial transmission identified population and so what you find happening is what i have found happening is there is a shutdown a belief that the system is not for them and so they isolate and that is not good because we want to make sure that our community members have access to the to the same things that sister folks have access and we have to address that we need to make sure that new york city as well as new york state is doing a better job of educating their hospital staff because it still happens within hospitals rehabs there's a lot of trance folks because of the various health health drivers out there they are denied access to rehab and so talk a little about transgender population and special again black women and agency because we all know so i always like to start out talking about generational trauma our shows up in our communities and so one of the things that folks have to understand is that folks don't and to only go out washing say most folks do not go out intentionally to society it starts with making sure that there are opportunities that we're all of forty now you started talking somewhat about your own experiences and if you don't mind to go back to that in terms of how you grew up especially in the church related environment and how that and how you more or less move forward and are can offer some recommendations to specially younger myself in foster care to the fact that i was my father did not find it acceptable to have a child that was very feminine and one of six children so i find myself into foster care finding myself pretty much given opportunities to travel and then coming back once i graduated from high school i was you went back to beaumont texas i went back to beaumont texas and i found that that was not quite where i belonged so i was seeking community and how were you doing so i was seventeen when i graduated from high school and then from there i went to get a job corps which is located in san marcos texas from there certificate as a nurse nurse assistant moved to atlanta with my partner from there we moved to new york city where i found it very hard especially in the ninety's to find a job even though i did have qualifications that said that i was qualified and so what i found was a new york city that had no protections for transfer so it was a very lovely time but a very scary time to be trans and new york city finding myself in a shelter system where they had the right to deny you access to a bit if you look too feminine so that happened to me a lot of community members for a long time i found this organization called positive health project which is still in existence today and they were one of the first try and organizations that really cater to trans women of color that i was able to do in my first mobilizations i told them about the discrimination i faced in the shelter system and they did a phones up where the next day i feel like just it was a change because the shelter realized like i had a community that supported me and backed me up and so that really made me realize like wow i need to get more involved and mobilize my community and understanding how policies that we have policies that we can start working on and like we can like just mobilize and and go to coalition we can be we can really have our concerns met and so over just like since the ninety's i say two thousand and two is when we have our for law that protected trans identity in new york city and i really feel that since then we've been seeing a lot of progress we still have a long way to go but there's a lot of progress has been made but clearly you've been in the forefront and a pot of all of those see people speaking on these issues and it's specially people in public life and they don't talk to persons who are from that those experiences whether it's racially sexual orientation or all the factors that might define a person i've seen to help them understand why it is so critical to have the laws passed and policies that support the that the needs of the population and especially black and latino trans women we really need to make sure that we are making a committed effort to get involved and learn about policies because our these policies are going to impact us and so i be i am a true believer chris having a vision for our community to where we don't need permission from allies to say this is what we want to have agency over our lives so whether we're talking about reproductive justice are going to school we have a right to have a say so and how policies are going to affect us and i think yes i spoke earlier about the need for the beloved community to come together and that of course such is up on all of the many different people institutions and so forth within a community so what would you say in terms of how the conversations need to change so that we can bring the community together and make starts with having intentional conversations you know making sure that the concerns of both communities are being addressed you know because if we are to truly dismantle patriarchal white supremacy we have to come and not let these minor differences keep us like divided and like oh well you you have no clue of what i go through as a sister black woman when we have a lot of the same issues you know and  talk about how we can do a better job working together you know one of my favorite quotes from the new testament is and to the eunuchs i give names greater than sons and daughters and that speaks to there's a place for tran folks in the faith based community and i think that you know those discusses again are incredibly important i think i saw somewhere there's a schedule coming up where they're going to be more of those discussions yes and i would agree with you to the extent that we can bring people together i remember president barack obama on one of his world aids day presentation he said all he must be on deck yeah so that spoke for me it spoke to everybody who is concerned want to be concerned need to be concerned especially in the black community we cannot isolate and say ok we're not concerned about all that because black people or transgender people absolutely you know i was that folks know i'm black identified before i mean anything so i live with my black identity before leaving my trans so it hurts me a lot of times when i'm in black spaces and i'm not received as a community member who happens to be a transit experience you know and so really making sure that we continue having dialogue to talk about like we are part of the saying family you know i think is and we're one body with many parts and so just really making sure that no one is left behind in these conversations we're having and of all the girls i want to just ask you to speak a little bit more because this is something that we experience and certainly i mean black and we're very pleased to have a partnership with nih tag in terms of doing our work how is it that we have not been able to make more progress especially with the number of trans can we do now here in new york city let's start new york city right now that has been that disconnect that has always been like a foreigner and my flash you know we need to make sure that we're investing like how we can minimize the motors and violence that we're seeing is invest in trans communities here in new york city making sure that we're talking about creating job opportunities you know we're talking about making sure they have mental health because a lot of these things and things come from the fact that they do not have a connection to like organizations that can help build their skill set  before we close let everyone know how they can reach your organization because obviously there's a wealth of information in the work that you've been doing that needs to be known so you just help out people know how they can reach us to come in and do some type of training medical provider training do any type of workshops around financial literacy we do it all so that's one of our main purpose is really to make sure that folks have the cultural sense sensitive to training that they need to better serve trans folks in new york city well actually want to thank you again for coming back three years later since twenty fifteen and i want to thank you for joining me today and you can learn more neighborhood network brings these programs to you and your family to better inform you the viewer about the important topics that impacts your health and well being so please let your family friends and neighbors you know about this program and again i am see virginia feels and i thank you for joining us and hope you until in the next time fall in black as hell action t v ri here on men had no neighborhood network