This year has been fiscally challenging for me due to sooooo many exploitive community practices, low paying job opportunities and the recession hitting hard. After a week of no’s and closing doors, I was feeling pretty defeated all week. I woke up today feeling a lil better because last night I got to interview the amazing Isis King for Marsha’s Plate Podcast. She was so sweet, open, and just inspiring. I cant wait till ya’ll hear it. She was reflecting on her show getting cancelled and being underpaid for almost all of the 15 years she has been in the limelight. She was acknowledging the truth of that reality while recognizing the moment & people who DID respect her talent. She was trying to hold on to that instead of being bitter, giving up on your dreams, and derailing her purpose. That spoke to me.
Anyway, I get up and there’s a knock on the door. “Ooooo A Package!” says the brain of an impulsive online shopper trained like a dog in a Pavlov experiment to respond to the thud of a box dropped by some buff armed parcel carrier. I open the door just to get a glimpse of his bubbly cakes walking away. “Thank you” I throw at him. “You’re Welcome” he turns and throws back with a flirty smile. We flirt often since I get packages often. It feels good. In the way that only a 20 something complimenting you as a 40 something can. Auntie loves to know that she still go it. I look down and there is this huge white box. I pick it up and bring it in. Immediately started opening it. I can never wait to open a package. I have to open it up and try it on immediately to see how it fits. That feeling of a well fitting garment is just like no other. Instant confidence booster and just make your day better even if I don’t have anywhere to go in it. In this box wasn’t a garment. It was big heavy long black ….*salivates*…excuse me… obelisk that reads “Scripps Howard Awards” with my name on it: Diamond Stylz.
Its was my award from the Scripps Howard Foundation for my work with with Insider Inc: Death In The Family A passion project that uncovers some much needed truths about trans homicides in the U.S. and their outcomes all wrapped up in a comprehensive database. Our work not only educated but lead to some indictments and the reopening of cold cases. I was proud to be on the team. As a non conventional journalist, it is so affirming to win such an award. I often have to balance my real-world activism with the professional customs of journalism. There is also a theory of how I want to be politically in relationship to my community, but the praxis of that theory can clash with the customs of the field. Objectivity can only take you so far before it becomes the crux of your integrity and obligation to your community. So to be acknowledge by some journalistic peers with this award(and a nice check to contribute to my survival), the content of THIS package fits well.
In October, I had the privilege of giving a keynote at the Southern Grandeur Gala in my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana. I hadn’t been back home since my mother passed away in late 2020. So I was excited to visit but not so excited to be cold. Houston’s weather has spoiled me because its usually beautiful and warm if you ignore the occassional hurricanes or flood…or the time Greg Abbott and them tried to kill us with these ghetto azz grid that couldnt handle the infamous Great Texas Freeze of Febuary 2021. Imagine no power for a week and 2 days at 25 degrees with NO HEAT while grieving ya mother’s death. I survive on canned goods & Bath and Body Work candles(thanks to years of working there as a store manager) and community support. Other than that Houston weather is usually amazing.
Nevertheless I flew into Indianapolis with jackets and fall fashion ready. The Southern Grandeur Gala is a yearly fundraiser thrown by Trans Solutions Research and Resource Center where they bring some of the nation’s top drag entertainers and give out awards to community leaders all around the country. I was surprised with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
This comes at a special time because its almost the 25 years anniversary of me winning my 1999 First Amendment lawsuit against Indianapolis Public school. I tell the story on my Youtube channel in a video called Pisces Season in my Love Beneath series. That event marked the beginning of my formal activism and life long fire to fight for my dignity and stand up to bullies & shady policies. The bully at that time was my principal Jaqueline Greenwood.
She made it her mission to force me to go to prom in a tuxedo and then later to wear a black graduation gown “like the rest of the boys” at graduation. After taunting me like a child from any of my elementary schools, she claimed that I was going to embarrass myself and lose if I took them to court. I actually won and embarrassed her. This was just the beginning of her embarrassments because after years of being the darling of the Indianapolis Public School System, she was named in a lawsuit and her contract discontinued because her nepo baby son became a teacher that got convicted of sexually assaulting high schoolers and she allegedly knew about it and still promoted and protected him. So correct me if I’m wrong but sounds like she should have been more concerned about raising her boys so they wouldn’t be lifting up young girls’ dresses instead of worrying about me wearing mine to the prom. Anyway this was a wonderful award to recieve from my hometown after so long. It feel amazing to be recognized by the city that raised you.
I have also had the amazing privilege in being in the first documentary endeavor of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture called gOD-Talk. The featured length film explores the lives of seven Black Millennials—Atheist, Buddhist, Christians, Muslim, Ifa, and Spiritualist—and the challenges and discoveries with faith and spirituality. gOD-Talk is the culmination project of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture Center for the Study of African American Religious Life, in association with the Pew Research Center, five-year study of Black Millennials. Teddy Reeves and Kim Moir came to record me a few years ago and I had such a great experience with them. We premiered the film at the end of October, and I was able to fly to DC and watch the film with a live audience and chat with them after with the most of the cast and crew. It was a spectacular experience. Here is the record of that discussion
This year during Trans Empowerment Week (remember we got the Mayor Sylvester Turner to proclamate it and make it official), I was inducted to an amazing sisterhood of Houston trans women as the 2023 Woman of the Year by Mahogany Project and Save Our Sister United lead by Verniss McFarland and Atlantis Narcisse. To be acknowledge by my Houston family means so much to me. I came here homeless with $57 with no support. My boyfriend at the time was a down low man hiding me from his family so I couldn’t stay with him. The Star of Hope shelter wouldn’t let me stay there because I wasn’t cisgender and I was a liability to them. The LGBT shelter, Covington House, wouldn’t let me stay there because I wasn’t HIV positive and that was the demographic that they helped. There were no other options. So none of the resources made available through tax payer dollar to wayward people in need of housing was accessible to me. I met a 19 year old trans sexworker by the name of Braelyn “Honey” Chavez(RIP) in a BlackPlanet chatroom and she told me I could stay with her in exchange for a Mexico connection to silicone. She let me hustle & sleep on her coach for a month in her 1 bedroom apartment with 2 other people. This was the help I needed to get on my feet and make Houston my home.
The community here is strong and open so I fit right in. They have shown me love from day 1. In my life, I became a girl in Indianapolis, but I became a woman here in Houston.
So while I am still not where I want to be financially, I am walking in my purpose and being acknowledge for my work by my community. As I go into the next year I hope to get Marsha’s Plate Podcast underwriting or sponsor by some amazing org or person with aligning values….(become a patron if you want to support) I also hope to continue to do the work that I am proud and passionate about and get paid equitable for it. See ya next year.
) I’m currently working on a chapter about community love and I wanted to share some thoughts. 
) These imperfect strategies we create do not produce a different world free of exploitation, where our community integrates through shared hope and care. Rather, the effect of these survival strategies is that it keep laboring activists infighting, distracted, and alive so that the real oppressor can avoid having an accountability to solve the real issue like pay us a living wage, making affordable housing accessible and abolished the carceral state. 
Diamond Stylz 