A trans woman of color overcomes obstacles despite the odds

On Saturday Oct. 10, the fifth annual Philly Trans* March will take place in Thomas Paine Plaza, steps away from City Hall.

Occurring on the Saturday before OutFest, the annual march's growth is reflective of the increased civil rights movement and visibility of the Philadelphia trans community.

With the recent brutal murder of Kiesha Jenkins, a 22-year-old trans woman who was beaten and shot in Logan earlier this week, the march comes at an extremely important time. Jenkins is the 20th transgender woman of color to be killed this year in America, a number representative of an epidemic of violence against this marginalized community.

But organizers of this weekend's event do not want to just highlight the struggles the transgender community still experiences, but also highlight the incredible progress they have made in recent years.

Naiymah Sanchez is one of those organizers.

Even as a child, Sanchez was always examining her surroundings. "I always had questions for my sisters like, 'When will my breasts grow?' " she told me when we sat down at the Trans-Health Information Project in Kensington. "Taking baths, I would laugh, 'Yours is in and mine is out. What happened? Did I sneeze too hard?' "

As a transgender child growing up in the Bronx, Sanchez was respected for being different. "My siblings would catch themselves saying 'she' or 'my little sister' because I was feminine. My dad wouldn't care because he is Cuban, and, you know, in that culture someone like me is looked at like a goddess. He more so honored for me than disowned me."

But things differed for her mother. "My mother is Puerto Rican, and there is the Catholic that comes with that. There is no agreeance because she associates gender identity and sexuality."

Sanchez remembers a defining moment for her family one Halloween. "My mom asked me what I wanted to be. At the time, Lil' Kim was the fab thing so I wanted to be Lil' Kim. I wanted the blue wig and the mink coat. We went to the thrift store in Harlem and we found everything and she did me up in the makeup."

"The problem was the next day I had the whole outfit in my backpack. So after breakfast, they took me to the first class. I went to the bathroom and I changed. I came back to the room, and the teacher was like, 'Oh shucks. We got an issue.' "

From there, her family looked for treatment options from doctors. "I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder -- I was diagnosed with everything under the sun. I couldn't enjoy my childhood because I was so high on medicine. The therapists were trying to make me feel like there was something wrong with me when there wasn't."

When Sanchez was 15, her family moved from New York to North Philadelphia. She had heard about the Attic Youth Center, a center for LGBTQ or questioning youth. "When I got there, there were drag queens, trans-identified kids who weren't able to dress the way they wanted to. Only at the Attic could they put a scarf on their head to make it look like their hair was long or wrap a jacket around their waist to make it look like a dress. But I still didn't fit in. So at 16 or 17, I started hanging out on 13th Street. I was curious. I started meeting trans women there who had already transitioned."

One of those women was Deja Alvarez.

Alvarez remembers meeting Sanchez for the first time. "When I met Naiymah, she was a kid. I knew the moment I saw her she was a woman. I knew it was coming. When I saw her show up on the scene as Naiymah, I saw the excitement. I saw how excited she was to finally be herself."

Because of the lack of health-care resources available at that time and insurance restrictions against such treatment, Sanchez began buying hormones from other women transitioning on the corners of 13^th Street.

"In order for me to get the $30 for the hormone injections, because I was 17 and didn't have a job, I had to get into sex work. I didn't have to, but I chose to because I needed to pay for the hormones."

After she visibly began to transition, her mother kicked her out. She found refuge in a safe haven at 19^th and South Streets, a shared room-housing complex where young trans women lived together.

After being arrested three times for solicitation, and then losing her uncle to AIDS, Sanchez had an "Oh my God" moment.

"My father told me, 'I don't care what you do. As long as you stay protected and get educated and do something with your life.' That was always in my head. I always wanted to be in the medical field. Help and heal. I just always wanted to help and heal individuals. After being locked up for the third time, I said, 'I can't live this life being out here on the strip'."

Soon after that decision, Sanchez was robbed in an altercation and served six years county parole for defending herself. She took the 18 months behind bars fighting the case and parole thereafter as an opportunity for self-discovery and growth.

Today, Sanchez is helping and healing her community just like she wanted to. She has a stoic presence. With a quiet and shy demeanor, Sanchez is a force to be reckoned with. As coordinator of the Trans-Health Information Project, a program based at GALAEI, she serves the community on a daily basis.

The Trans-Health Information Project offers their clients the "unique opportunity to receive peer-support from another trans* identified person and can assist individuals with issues relating to gender identity, gender expression, and sexuality including, but not limited to HIV prevention and linkage to care."

"Individuals don't become HIV-positive because they want to become positive," Sanchez explains. "They become positive because it is the end result of issues they had growing up or through their teenage years. Through no judgment, we focus on why we do the things we do. If you choose to engage in the sex work industry, we want to encourage you to be safe at it, get involved with PrEP, taking medications if you are positive, using condoms all the time. Make smarter decisions."

"We try to tackle the main issues on why we make what they call 'wrong decisions' and get them to see a better side of living. I really don't push anyone away from engaging in sex work. We all have to make a living some kind of way. I just want individuals to make better choices with 'the life.' "

Sanchez tries her best to focus away from the negative aspects of being trans, such as health insurance not covering hormone costs and obstacles in the workplace.

"We like to look at the glass has half empty. But the glass is half full. It's not all empty. There is still something in there to drink. There are some people out there who don't have anything to drink. Their glass is actually empty. And guess what. They always look at the brighter side of things."

When relaying a story of a homeless man who bought lunch for another person when given a $20 bill, she begins to cry. The walls Sanchez has built abruptly come down. She remembers a quote her grandmother told her, a woman who battled breast cancer multiple times: "Never put off tomorrow what you can do today."

Deja Alvarez now works with Sanchez at TIP. Of Saturday's march: "I am looking forward to seeing more allies. Instead of it just being our community, I am looking forward to seeing the L, the G, and the B out in support of the T. I think we will also see more members of the transgender community out ready to stand up for themselves."

Standing up for herself is something Sanchez remembers. "I realized being trans does not mean I have to be a sex worker. Being trans does not mean I have to be diagnosed with HIV or AIDS. I can be a successful person in society."

"If I wasn't transgender, would I be here today?" she asks. "Or would I have been on the corner selling drugs and gotten killed? A lot of people look at it as being a curse. I choose to look at being trans as a blessing."