You see why I’m scared and nervous? It’s a massive undertaking. It feels like a tightrope. I'm scared, but I’m also cautiously optimistic, because I think in this conversation we’re all having about the strike and the future of entertainment - the future of movies and shows are in our hands. We have the means to make professional and quality movies. In fact, our team is composed of a Sundance fellow and an Emmy award winning cinematographer. Our creative team and crew are more than capable (no matter how many times we’ve been told our team is “too green”, there’s a real bias against Atlanta artists but that’s for another diatribe).

The humanity of 48,000 Georgians are at the whim of the majority. 8,500 trans youth between the ages of 13 to 17 have had their access to life-saving, gender affirming care cut off. And the chilling fear as always is when do they stop? What is their endgame. Except, in recent CPAC speeches - their endgame is quite apparent.

Because it is about access and equity. Who are the other queer, trans, and nonbinary artists that will receive these grants? And I don't know who they’ve chosen; I’m sure they’ll announce soon, and I’m really hoping to see at least two queer, trans, or nonbinary artists of col

Sometimes I think what has happened to my life - in the best possible way. But there’s always that one thought that has to be kept at bay, a dangerous thought to entertain - what if I had just been born in the right body. The body that matched my own personal reflection. Dangerous, because once one travels down the road of what-ifs and shoulds and could-have-beens, then one sets oneself up for unhappiness. Accepting, sometimes radically, where one is at in life is the most potent antidote for traveling down those roads. Accepting what is, instead of what could have been.

Yesterday I attended the premiere of WABE Studio’s latest project, “Atlanta on Film,” a series featuring Atlanta filmmakers curated by both Out on Film and Morehouse Film Festival.

And I feel like I really have no words.

I … feel the presence of the work I’ve put into the past three years. In 2019, Brandon and I declared at the top of the year we were going to make the Duchess happen. And we set out. We set out and brought together a cast, and crew, and planned, and planned some more, and raised funds to pay cast and crew, and edited and … then 2020. The pandemic. Our festival plan out the window.

As y’all may or may not know, I’ve been brought on as a producer on a short script written by Celeste Banks called Black Girls and Fairytales. If you know me you know this is my jam. This is where I live. I mean, I made myself into a duchess.

I felt vulnerable and volatile, and that’s never a good mix as a performer, because I do believe that everyone is responsible for how one responds to a situation. And I was in this weird space of not being able to communicate what I needed, and that made me feel so many ways but I felt unsure of myself and how I would respond. Vulnerable and volatile.

But the extended family that is America, that I grew up and experienced on that base in the middle of the Mojave Desert, where we chased and trapped lizards and kept them in giant plastic water tubs for the allotted two or three days before we had to release them - I feel like in 2016 I found out how that extended family felt about people like me. People who were different.

Yesterday was … magical.

Yesterday, at 3 PM, at Red Light Cafe, I took the stage with 7 other brilliant women. So incredibly talented. From such a diverse array of backgrounds.

Yesterday was magical because we got up and were the 2nd of a Nationwide monologue reading, which began Friday night in Washington DC at the Arena theater. My Body, No Choice.

I stay busy, not intentionally to not process my own feelings but that is an unfortunate side effect of “doing.” And I do the initial processing. The triage. After bandaged, and sufficiently stabilized, I send them to the emotions specialists (I know I’m not the only one who imagines the mind as this department of departments.) It’s just often there’s a backlog.

Years ago now (feels weird to say this) but years ago in therapy, right before I began the process for The Duchess short film, I remember commenting to my therapist that I could afford either The Duchess or bottom surgery. He asked why and … basically I only had enough credit for one. And then he asked why I couldn't do both at the same time and - look. Trans people don’t make a lot of money. Black indie filmmakers don’t make a lot of money. Black trans queer people don’t make a lot of money. Black trans queer filmmakers don’t make a lot of money.

You ever feel like the universe is talking to you, trying to tell you something but you have no idea what that message could possibly be? Here are the facts - Sept 2019 we filmed the duchess. Sept 2020, we held a virtual staged reading for the waltz, unlike anything I’d ever seen or been a part of. Sept 2021 I became a sundance fellow. And Sept 2022, I was signed to Alexander White Agency, no audition, talent recognizant.