Nestled in the East Lake community of Birmingham, Alabama, TAKE (Transgender, Advocates, Knowledgeable, Empowering) provides a space where trans women of color can find safety, support, and sisterhood. Robin Wilson's photo essay provides a glimpse into the lives of some of the women in this community.
by Robin Wilson
Toi Washington describes herself as a “grown woman,” but is adamant about not giving her age. She is also adamant that she never had any doubts about her gender identity. She told me she began living as a female in eighth grade and began hormone therapy at age 16. To better represent the transgender community, Washington speaks extensively about her work and her journey as a trans woman. She also performs in pageants to polish her presentation skills. Her poise came through as we conversed.
We spoke about the politics and marginalization of trans women and the need for progress in medical care and how TAKE (Transgender, Advocates, Knowledgeable, Empowering) is working to meet the needs of Birmingham’s transgender women of color.
Toi T. Washington is TAKE’s director of programs and a dynamic speaker and advocate for transgender women of color.
At the time of my visit to TAKE, this refuge was set in an old brick storefront with only a pair of ink-jet printed signs taped in the window to indicate anything of value might be inside. The easily-overlooked building was sandwiched between a vacant storefront for Mickey’s Pillows & More, and a building where a neighborhood resident was selling fresh fruits and vegetables to neighbors with limited access to fresh produce.
The glass front door was covered with blue poster paper and rusty burglar bars. I stepped through it, entering a mostly pink room full of folding tables and flimsy plastic chairs. The first person I met was Daroneshia Duncan-Boyd, the founder and executive director of TAKE. This striking woman founded TAKE as a resource center for her ladies and herself. Born and raised in Birmingham, she knew from experience what her community lacked and needed. TAKE provides street outreach, life coaching, education assistance, crisis intervention, mentorship, job assistance, and other essential needs.
The former location of the TAKE office in the East Lake neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama. TAKE provides street outreach, life coaching, education assistance, crisis intervention, mentorship, job assistance, and other essential needs. TAKE’s current office (not pictured) is in the same neighborhood about a block away.
Duncan-Boyd is the self-proclaimed “Mama Bear” of the agency. When I walked in, she sat at a small particle board desk, working diligently on her laptop and shuffling through a stack of papers, all while talking on the phone. She was trying to locate ESL resources for a trans-Latinx woman who wanted to improve her job skills.
I couldn’t hear all of the conversation. Duncan-Boyd got up from her desk in frustration, began to pace, and said, “What do you mean there are no resources? Without a job she has no chance of success!”
While she was comfortable speaking for trans women of color as a group, she wanted me to have the opportunity to have in-depth conversations with the support group, so that each woman could tell her own story. Soon, I was led back to meet some of the women at TAKE. All of them were quick to talk about their lives, their hopes, and their dreams.
Sy’Mia Moore says she was kicked out of the house at the age of 15.
Starneshia Looney, is soft-spoken. Her teenage attire immediately struck me as contradictory to her chronological age of 30 — a hard 30. I understood a bit more when she described how she came out — or was yanked out — as transgender at 13 when her mom, a pastor, caught her dressing as a woman.
After being thrown out of her home at 13, Looney said she lived with first one friend and then another while trying to continue school, but she was never able to finish. Perhaps she dresses now for the teen years she never got to enjoy. She said her mother has since “come around,” but declined to elaborate on their ongoing relationship.
Kristy Gardner, 35, moved here from Mobile, Alabama, to begin hormone therapy. Her sense of humor led her to share quickly that she has not yet mastered the art of the hot flash, a common side effect of estrogen. As a child, Gardner couldn’t wait for Mardi Gras, so she could sneak into a dance line beside her sister and perform with the parade. She later tried out for the team, as a girl, and won a spot. Many of her peers didn’t know she was trans until she revealed her identity at prom.
Gardner said her mother was also a pastor and was completely intolerant of her daughter’s identity, yet Gardner told me her personal faith continues to be of utmost importance to her. Before attending a new church, she said she interviews pastors to make certain they accept her for who she is. Gardner noted that she wears her life’s pain and troubles as a crown — as armor. “Hurt becomes fashion for me,” she said.
Starneshia Looney says she was thrown out of her home at age 13 (left). Unlike many of the women at TAKE, Mahogany Toney (right) says that her nuclear family was supportive of her trans identity.
Mahogany Toney is 22 and blonde. She told stories of playtime with her sisters, using bed sheets to make “pageant” dresses. While her mom and sisters were supportive of her trans identity, she said she was often rejected and bullied by other family members and schoolmates. Toney told me that her mother had a substance abuse disorder, which contributed to a lot of family challenges.
Toney said she made the decision to live her gender identity at 18 and was the only out transgender person at her college. Unfortunately, her mother died when she was only 19, and she said she missed her mom greatly. Toney was free with her opinions and believed some of the other women were jealous of her because she didn’t have some of the same childhood struggles as they did, or maybe it was because she could “pass” easier than some of the others.
My first visit to TAKE coincided with “group” night, and I appreciated the warm welcome to stay while some of the ladies participated in group therapy led by Lee Gaston, a professional counselor who regularly volunteers his time and is referred to by the group as “Dr. Lee.” Even though the words on the whiteboard over his left shoulder say, “Put the Phones Down,” Lee patiently competed with electronics. When the phones finally went down, he opened with a “feelings check.” Each participant expressed some version of feeling good and “very blessed.” Lee shared with me that he learns as much from the women as he hopes they learn from him.
I looked around, taking in the pink wall and the large wall painted in pastels of the transgender flag. The interior decoration that drew my attention, however, was the prominently displayed whiteboard full of rules. “NO Sidebar. * Please don’t discuss boifriends, pieces, tricks, Johns, husbands, or clients, etc … ”
On the same wall was a bumper sticker picturing cartoon condoms with receptacle tips and what was, perhaps, the most succinct wisdom of the day: “SAVE LIVES CONDOMIZE.”
Dena Sawyer (in the photo above the title) spoke so softly, I had to lean in close to hear her voice. Sawyer grew up with no support from her drug-addicted mother until she escaped that life to enter a situation that she didn’t realize would put her life in even more danger. At 14, she said she moved in with a 44-year-old man and supported herself by doing sex work at nightclubs. She said she was convicted of crimes due to her work, was sent to prison, and now has a sex offender status.
To my left, I saw a flutter of activity and was almost grateful to be distracted from the intensity of Sawyer’s narrative. What I saw was sisterhood in action. Raven Wesley was appalled to realize she had not put on her eyelashes before coming to the center, and Sy’Mia Moore rushed to the rescue with eyelash glue, the forgotten adornment, patience, and a steady hand.
Sy’Mia Moore helps Raven Wesley with her eyelash extensions.
Wesley, at 41, was the oldest woman at the nonprofit that night. Wesley said she grew up as an effeminate boy in a house with six uncles who did not accept that she, the first-born grandchild in the family, didn’t meet their standards of manliness. To make her “man up,” she said they provided a graphic sex education, brought home prostitutes, and had sex in front of her when she was just a child. She said she came out as trans at 16 while in high school and names her grandmother as her greatest support.
Moore is 26 and assertive. After she pushed her way in front to introduce herself, she saw I hadn’t spelled her name correctly. Rather than wait on me to get it right, she simply stepped close, took my pen from my hand, and wrote it for me. Moore spoke of mixed family support when she came out as trans at 15. Her brothers were always protective of her, before and after she came out, and her dad was OK with her identity. Her mother, on the other hand, was not supportive. Moore said her mother gathered Moore’s makeup and girl clothes and built a bonfire with the lot. When the fire died down and her wrath had seemingly subsided, Moore said her mother put her only daughter out on the streets at 15 years of age and didn’t “come around” until after Moore’s father died.
From what I could tell, the ladies seemed to be very close, warm, and bonded. The women of TAKE were becoming what many of them had longed for the most: family. And a family that loved looking pretty, too. Washington told me that greater media interest in trans women is both a positive and a negative. While she admits that it is great to have more exposure, she is concerned that the less glamorous and most marginalized trans women will be forgotten.
Epilogue:
These photos and interviews are from a visit to TAKE in January 2019. Ages are reflective of when the women were interviewed. Since then, TAKE moved its operations to a more spacious building, Washington became director of programs, and it opened Gloria’s Safe Haven, a home of love and protection for trans women of color in Birmingham.
Robin Wilson lives and works in Birmingham, Alabama, sharing studio space with her spouse, four hilarious dogs, two insanely fat cats, and one giant, squawking bird. View more of her work on Instagram @robinshoots1.
