♪ Black pearl,
precious little girl
♪ You've been in the
background much too long
♪ Black pearl,
precious little girl
♪ Come into the sunshine
where you belong
- Black pearl, black girl,
hiding behind the
body of a little boy.
You knew you were
different from the start.
Deep in your heart, you
would always stand apart
from those who were normal,
whatever that is.
(soft rock music)
So the first time I heard
poetry was in first grade
growing up in Chicago.
Gwendolyn Brooks came
to our classroom.
I just remember her telling us,
"All of you guys
can write poetry."
I don't think I actually
wrote my first poem
until I was 14 when
I read this poem
by Don L. Lee, who is now
known as Haki Madhubuti.
And it was a poem called
I Want to Thank You for
My Beautiful Black Woman.
And that poem
touched me so deeply,
and I thought to myself,
I want to write poetry.
(bright music)
Being engaged in poetry
and having people respond
positively to my work,
that entree started to help
me become more out in public.
- [Man] So what else
has been going on?
- [Andrea] Man, I did a TED
talk a couple of weeks ago.
- [Man] Really?
- [Andrea] Yes.
- Andrea does so many different
things with her art forms.
She's working on
plays, performances,
her poetry, her chat
books, the visual art,
the collages.
She's had quite a career.
She's really a community icon.
I can't wait to see it.
- [Andrea] Yeah I know, me, too.
- [Wing] I mean,
you do a lot of,
you do a lot of speaking.
You travel around, right?
- [Andrea] I do.
- Andrea is a pioneer, not
just as a transgender artist,
but in a lot of different forms.
And I know that she's
always experimenting
with what she's doing.
And now being part of
an oral history project.
- I have the distinct
honor and pleasure
to have been named
the oral historian
for the Transgender
Oral History Project.
Wow, I'm almost to
interview number 100.
So June, why don't you
just introduce yourself.
- My name is June Remus.
I am female, post
operative transexual.
I've had the surgery.
I was born male.
- Okay.
- And I'm from Des Moines, Iowa.
- From Des Moines, Iowa.
- Yeah, just a
little country girl.
- It's a three-year project
in which we are planning
to interview up to
200 individuals about
transgender and gender
nonconforming people
throughout the upper Midwest.
- I had already
been, let me see,
New York, California, Colorado.
- Mmm-hmm.
- To check on who's doing
what and what the surgery was
and what the results were.
- Sure.
- And I found that the
doctor that was here
was doing all the
corrective work.
So I'm going to do it.
Called my mother and told
her I was going to do it,
as she hung up on me.
(laughs)
She hung up on me.
She slammed that phone
down so bad I think
she broke that phone.
- Wow.
The goal and the purpose
of the project is to really
provide context,
provide awareness,
to change the cultural
narrative around
the transgender community
by listening and sharing
the stories of
transgender people.
- And the day before I had
my surgery, the phone rang.
I was getting ready to
go to the hospital then,
and it was my mother.
And she said, "Are you still
going through with it?"
And I said yeah.
She said, "Okay,
come and get me."
I said, come and get you?
You live in Des Moines.
I'm not driving all
the way down there.
She said, "No, I'm here
at the bus station.
"Come and get me."
- Really?
- "I can't let my child go
through this without me."
- Wow.
- And from that day
she never, ever uttered
my male name again.
- It's really interesting
talking to some of
the older participants
in the project.
Comparing and contrasting
them to some of
the younger participants
and pushing the notions
of what gender is.
There's just so much creativity
that I'm being inspired by,
from hearing these stories
and being able to collect
and document these stories
from these incredible
human beings that
are sort of pushed
to the margins of our society.
Thank you, dear.
- Okay.
- Oh.
I actually do a
oral history project
at the University of Minnesota,
and I'm always looking
for interesting people
to sit down and talk to.
- It's a lot of fun.
You should do it.
- I would love to.
- The Transgender Equity
Summit is a collaboration
of the city of Minneapolis
and the Minneapolis
Institute of Arts this year.
What we do is bring members
of the transgender community
together with other policymakers
and community leaders
to talk about what are
the issues that are
impacting the
transgender community.
As transgender and gender
nonconforming people,
we create our own
path, our own destiny.
Our bodies are
literally a work of art,
and I think you guys
should give yourselves
a big round of applause.
(audience applause)
I think the function of art
in community and society
is to inspire people to
become more interested
and more engaged in
the issues of our time.
A deepened understanding
of race and culture
requires the following,
and then some more.
If it's in an artistic form,
it has a broader ability to
connect to the human soul
in ways that a protest
slogan or a march
or a sit-in just
doesn't possess,
and that's the power
of art in activism.
Tell them to strategize
about that tomorrow.
But when we say tomorrow,
we really mean today.
(audience applause)
