No Justice No Pride

December 11, 2019

No Justice No Pride is the activist movement everyone has been waiting for. What began as queer housing for at-risk trans women of color, has slowly cultivated into so much more.

The group No Justice, No Pride is a revolutionary collective of predominantly trans activists from DC—the team itself has been fighting for pride straight to the source in Washington since 2017. Through all the discrimination and hate, these women remain strong and resilient, unapologetically thriving in their own right.

In light of a recent new documentary film highlighting the trials and tribulations these inidviduals often experience, office spoke with Emmelia Talarico, a lead organizer with NJNP, who identifies as a trans woman of color herself, to learn more about what real LGBTQ activism really looks like.

Interview by Brandon Jean
Photos courtesy of Eaton Workshop

Watch the video and check out the full video below.

For those who don’t know, who and what is No Justice No Pride?

We're a collective of mostly trans activists from DC, mostly protesting the inequality in the modern-day LGBT movement. Most notably around the disenfranchisement from black and brown communities. Our first big action was the capital pride protest in 2017. We blockaded capitol pride three times over there insistence on including money hungry corporations and the police, weapon manufacturers and sponsors.

How and when did the No Justice No Pride collective start?

Well, a bunch of us have been involved in different social movements over the past couple of years here in DC. Some of us were involved in Disrupt20 which are the protests around Trump's inauguration. We saw that there was a lot of energy that year and we wanted to do something around LGBT stuff and around pride month. We didn't know what that was but then we saw that we were involved in a bunch of protests around the chief of the MPD. We were involved in a bunch of protests around his confirmation hearing. A lot of people who are trans and queer came and testified. We saw that the council took the voices of those who were more established, white, cis gay and lesbian organizations more seriously. So we wanted to start having a more active presence with more radical politics, and politics that are based within the trans community. So we started going after different franchisements like pride for example and we've later expanded out.

Within the film you talk about housing for trans women. Has housing always been an issue for NJNP?

Housing has definitely always been an issue. It’s a big issue within the trans community. We had started doing support around housing in 2018. A lot of our trans friends who previously had their situations somewhat figured out because they had access to Backpage or Craigslist. They had access to be able to make money if they needed too. For a lot of folks that came to an abrupt end in March 2018. So we ended up stepping up to make sure folks have housing by housing them directly. We got forced out of our first house and ended up just going all in and just getting a bigger house and continuing it, which later evolved into the NJNP collective, which is what a lot of the film is about. The film was kinda wrapped up towards the end of the summer when we were about to lose the last place, but since then we’ve expanded and got two new places and we’re working on the third.

With that being said, do you ever plan to spread and grow the organization beyond DC and possibly set up several safe spaces?

Well, we’re trying to toolkit it. I feel like people who are from different areas are gonna know what is best, and the best way that we can support that is to share our own experiences with them and help get them set up. We are planning on making a tool kit so people can recreate it in different cities.

That's amazing, what exactly would the tool kit consist of and how can one retrieve it?

It will mostly be how to get around different things, what are some of the different laws around renting, how to crowdfund rent for people, and stuff like that. We’re not really sure how we would release it just yet but it's something we’ve been working on for a minute.

It’s obvious that people are biased in their ways and opinions, but have you noticed any changes in how people view the trans community in your area from when the police first started harassing you?

Since we moved, I will say it’s been a lot more peaceful, but I think the other thing is instead of having a lot of people in one house we have it split up so it's been relatively a lot quieter at both places. I think going towards getting multiple places was a good idea.

On an average night how many women usually stay with you at the NJNP homes?

On an average night, I would say it is around 17 women as of this past month, but we had upwards to 40 people. There are folks that also stay with us that will usually stay in a different shelter because the shelter might have a curfew or some sort of restriction where they can't stay out at night.

We can't be out there fighting all the time. We also need to curate community spaces where people can enjoy themselves and also pick up different skills that they might have always wanted to do but never had a person who can show them.

Can you tell us about your process when coming up with events?

Yes and no. So the dyke march had asked us if we wanted to participate. We also have a steering committee and then we also kinda just have more of a loosely-affiliated spokes council of people who stay in the houses who often organize stuff with us more directly. Within NJNP, we have a couple of folks who are really active such as myself and Tiara who you saw in the film, who’s planning the ball. There’s also Kim, Bianca, Jessica, and Tracy. I don't know if you saw any of the banner drops we did but Tracy was the other climber. So we mostly operate around consensus and whoever is committed to doing the work at the time.

In your film, you also mention that you try to host events that aren’t always rallies or protests, what other events do y’all put together in order to bring the community together?

We do the ball—Tiara kinda just goes all-in on balls when she has the time and capacity to plan them. We try to make sure there is always an event around pride. If we’re doing an action around pride or around that time of the year we always try to make sure that there is also a kind of space that is demilitarized, that has no police, that's conflict-free so people can just chill. I also think Tiara is trying to plan another ball for sometime in the spring.

We know Tiara is really into dance, have y’all ever thought about hosting dance workshops through NJNP for queer and trans youth?

We did an action camp last year where Tiara had six different dance class sessions. We do kinda see that as really valuable. We can't be out there fighting all the time, we also need to curate community spaces where people can enjoy themselves and also pick up different skills that they might have always wanted to do but never had a person that can show them.

Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where we stop referencing trans women as trans and just as women?

I think in a lot of ways we do. I do personally. A lot of times I do say trans women because I'm trying to make a political statement towards the experiences of trans women. I see a lot of people, that when they do say women, they are automatically thinking of trans women. I don't know if we’re necessarily at that time where that is just assumed. I'm in the activist community so I kinda live in a bit of a bubble, so when people are in my circle they are definitely referring to trans women.

Who has inspired you to get into the activism work you currently do know?

So many, I have been incredibly inspired by the work of the black panther party. I’m incredibly inspired by being able to create this movement where you can have the resilience over the things that are harming your community and that the same time you can be doing mutual aid and supporting community members and use that as a mechanism to help build capacity to help make a movement even bigger. I think that's truly inspiring. They're huge idols of mine. Fred Hampton, Huey Newton. Of course, I'm also big fans of Sylvia and Marsha P. Johnson, these are also people that have really inspired me a lot.

How has having to experience life on the streets changed your overall perspective of activism through NJNP?

I dropped out of high school so when I first got involved in activism I didn't know what half these different terms meant and that took a long time to just understand. I feel like in a lot of ways it kind of makes me feel more rooted in my politics and my principals. It definitely helps me see a lot of different intersections and class issues.

What are your current goals and aspirations for NJNP?

Well, right now we're still trying to get a third house because we have a lot of folks in one place that we’re trying to get to another place, and then also some of the people who were at the older house haven’t really had a place to go in a minute. Longer-term I really want to try to figure out how to get some sort of property and have that be longer-term because renting is just throwing away a lot of money. Other than the housing stuff we’re still doing a lot of work around decriminalization now. We’ve been apart of this coalition to decriminalize sex work for the past two and a half years. We’re also hopefully going to be working with the Marsha P. Johnson Institute with decrim now that might be the next thing we work around. We definitely will still be trying to call out some of the bigger mainstream establishments within the LGBT movement who are still supporting the enemies that are trying to kill us. I think we’re also gonna start taking a different direction going after some of these rescue groups that have been mobilizing against Decrim now.

What’s life like for you outside of No Justice No Pride?

I end up doing a lot of support work, I'm also a sex worker, I like to ride bikes. I also DJ and make music. I find myself working a lot.

How can people help the trans community?

Give trans individuals money.

What scares you the most?

Landlords. Nothing will make me completely freeze up and not be able to do anything for hours.

Culture

Alain Levitt’s Time Capsule of Early Aughts NYC (2000-2005)

Amanda Lepore, Alain Levitt

Beyond the exhibition, Alain’s book of the same name, available May 1st, acts as a time capsule, a snapshot of what he and his friends were getting into back then — figuring their lives out, meeting people, making memories and now, reminiscing on what was. Today, walking through Dimes Square where his and his wife’s restaurant, Bacaro, has become a premiere meeting hub for the neighborhood's youth, Alain recognizes that while “it’s such a different world,” youth is still the same.

“Young people are young people, man. It’s different being older and not really understanding what’s going on. I don’t fully feel like I’m part of it in the same way… but I love it and it seems the same, but one thing I see is it’s more colorful, it’s animated, and everything seems kind of to an extreme that I really love.”

When Bacaro first opened in 2007, there was no Dimes Square. He likens the emergence of the neighborhood to “the beginning of Williamsburg when that kind of popped off and all of a sudden, if you went down Bedford, it was just young people everywhere and everybody was dressing outrageous.” Back then, congregating in Bedford symbolized a communal rejection of Manhattan. What Levitt witnesses in Dimes, a neighborhood that’s become a bit polarizing amongst New Yorkers, is “more or less the same thing” — though the object of its rejection seems yet to be defined.

Perhaps it’s more of an acceptance — of indulgence, of being part of something, of embracing the past, keeping alive this idealized perception of NYC.

left to right - Ryan McGinley, Dan Colen, Kenji Ukigaya, Dash Snow

When Alain moved out here in the ‘90s, his older sister Danielle gave him a camera. At that time, he didn’t consider himself a photographer. He was just a younger brother emulating his older sister, who was shooting street photography and fashion parties for the Post. Alain recalls “showing up to Max Fish and being gently made fun of for his oversized paparazzi rig.” For his second job, Alain was working as a bar-back at The Cock and The Fat Cock (now known as The Hole), giving him “a front row seat to a wild NY that was quickly being choked out by Mayor Giuliani.”

On one of his first nights, he was assigned to the back room at The Cock, where patrons would do whatever drunk people do in the dark. As a kid “brand new to New York” flashing a light on people, he realized that suddenly, his life was completely different. And it was exciting. “I made more money than I could have ever imagined. I was working minimum wage jobs coming from LA, at movie theaters and all this other shit. In NY, I was able to live off two days a week which gave me room to do everything.”

Eventually, Alain started shooting for Nylon, PAPER, V Magazine, and other publications on his days off. Though they didn’t fully feel like a part of that world, he and his friends (skaters, graffiti artists, ravers, the trifecta of '90s subcultures) disrupted the fabric of the fashion scene. Reminiscing on some of those moments, he tells us, “Our group would show up at the fashion parties and make our presence known, even though they probably didn’t think we belonged there, that maybe we hadn’t earned it yet.”

left to right - Ryan McGinley, Chloë Sevigny

Then, Alain found his community on the Lower East Side, “Alife by day, Max Fish at night,” and “after starting a bi-weekly party, with Spencer Sweeny, at The Hole, planted his seed in the downtown scene.” The world that Levitt found himself navigating in his early years in New York City wasn’t new, it was itself a continuation of the pseudo-renaissance that emerged downtown in the ‘60s and again in the '70s and again in the subsequent decades. “It’s almost like a 10-year cycle and one good thing about New York is that it lets you be young a little longer. We were coming out here thinking about the CBGB’s era.”

And when looking through Alain’s photos, while humming with an inherent sense of nostalgia, it feels as if these images could’ve been taken yesterday. Skateboarding, bands playing one-off shows in dingy music venues, gallery openings that pour out onto the block, it’s all still here, just slightly different. While the internet has made us more connected, and distractions more frequent, much of what was, still is. And for Alain, there’s an innate resilience to this culture of “youth”, a culture somehow driven by a shared dysfunction. “Living in New York is so hard, rents are high, the weather is hard. It can be amazing but you have to put up with all this other bullshit to get the best out of it. You have to be willing to suffer. The people that I knew and the people that I connected to and was around — there was always a certain amount of fucked-up-ness we all shared.”

The people that I knew and the people that I connected to and was around — there was always a certain amount of fucked-up-ness we all shared.

left to right, Dash Snow, Kunle Martins (Earsnot)

Whether seeking self-discovery in New York City, escaping a toxic family, or generally curious to explore the city’s burgeoning underbelly, people here find their own, often forming surrogate families along the way. Levitt’s book, and the photographs on display at WHAAM! exemplify that family isn’t always clean-cut and you might bond with a person you’d least expect to: on the train, at a bar, laying on the grass at Seward Park, skating at Tompkins, or having a plate of squid ink pasta at Bacaro before heading to Le Dive for some overpriced house wine.

In the most ordinary moments, the greatest ideas and connections can spring to life and this was true even then. “I imagine creativity drives a lot of this,” Levitt says. “There’s a thread that we saw and maybe even idealized New York City to be.” It’s a thread that this generation hasn’t seemed to let go of: “I feel like my book shows our moment of coming into ourselves and now the kids today are doing it themselves. In 20 years, there’ll be a record of their time that the next group of kids will be looking at. It might not be the same, but the roots are.”

From Tim Barber, a former photo editor at Vice who edited the book, to Jesse Pearson, former EIC at Vice, Su Barber (Tim’s sister), Mike Piscitelli from Fucking Awesome and skateboarder Jason Dill, everyone involved in the book “from the editors down to the publisher was there in our circle, and pretty much all in the book too.” To Alain, everyone in the book was of equal significance, whether celebrity Chloe Sevigny or Marc Razo of Max Fish, who Alain recognizes as “a loving, wonderful person who’s been in the downtown scene forever.”

“Some of those people have definitely become legendary, which is awesome,” says Levitt. “But with them, it’s like me, I felt special to be there. I wanted to be with these people and we all had all of these lofty ideas of ourselves that were shattered over time. I think it’s good to break through those delusions of grandeur and get a real sense of what the world is. But at that moment, it was pure. We all thought we were special.” And maybe we still do.

NYC 2000-2005 is on view April 18 - May 25, 2024 at WHAAM! at 15 Elizabeth St # 113, New York, NY 10013.

Culture

At Planned Parenthood's Annual Gala, Megan Thee Stallion Shines Bright

April 18, 2024

Under one of the first truly warm evenings of New York’s spring season, guests, organizational supporters, and a grab-bag of celebrities (who saw Molly Ringwald?) gathered at Cipriani’s South Street outpost to ring in another year of action and advocacy.

In a regressive landscape that has recently seen the rollback of the right to protest in three states, as well as the upholding of arcane abortion legislation in Arizona, Planned Parenthood’s call to action is eerily more apt than ever.

At an interactive exhibit during the cocktail hour, Judy Chicago’s interactive work, produced in partnership with DMINTI, invited guests to share their voices during an urgent time in the fight for free bodies. Participants in the videos will become a permanent piece of the historic artwork as it travels worldwide on tour.

By Sam Falb
Photography by Nikki Burnett

After guests settled into their seats, the night’s honorees Patricia Arquette and Megan Thee Stallion lauded the organization’s work and the manifold ways it has affected their lives for the better. Overcome with emotion, Megan accepted the Catalyst for Change Award, in recognition of her choice to advocate for bodily freedom and sexual liberation through her platform, and inimitable tracks like Plan B.

“Planned Parenthood has been a leader while abortion rights are under attack. Y’all are the true heroes,” Megan shared in her acceptance speech. “I’ve always known that I have a bigger purpose than just being a musician, and to speak up when people need our help.”

The second of its kind, the gala celebrates the work of the organization while honoring particularly devoted advocates, hosting an auction to raise funds for annual operating costs, and rounding out with an afterparty featuring host Patia of Patia’s Fantasy World, and DJs including Boston Chery and river moon.

“They’ve been there for me and a lot of my friends, especially when I first came to this country and needed healthcare,” Moon said. When the lights went down and guests trickled out onto the street, the event’s urgent appeal was in clear and energizing focus, primed for a productive year ahead.

Culture

“This is the most cracked-out shit I’ve ever been to”: Inside Harmony Korine's EDGLRD Party at Elsewhere

April 17, 2024

When do Travis Scott fanboys hang out with BDSM gear-wearing leather heads? At Harmony Korine’s Tuesday night party at Elsewhere, where EDGLRD, Korine’s multimedia design collective, screened their latest film, AGGRO DR1FT. It’s an acid-bath wet dream of luxury cars, gore, and strippers in chain mail — a Miami take on the classic Korine narrative. The film says it best: “There is magic in this brutality. I am mesmerized by it. Right in front of my eyes, we are turning into animals.” With the film’s minute-long beheading scene and a confused Travis Scott asking, “Julius Caesar wrote the Bible?” we were primed to party with that same “magic brutality.”

Between the bored strippers, fashion fanatics, and the guy in the booth with AraabMuzik conspicuously rubbing his nose, not an ass was left unshaken. Everyone wanted to be “the belle of the EDGLRD ball” — evident through the girls trying to be the next Korine muse, fancying him a sort of new-age Warhol. Amidst airborne dollar bills and monster masks, all were pleasantly surprised when Korine’s DJ set had that same animalistic feel as AGGRO DR1FT. A guest's sprained ankle serves as a testament to the fact that Korine’s DJing goes as hard as his filmmaking.

By Izzy Capulong
Photography by Liv Solomon

We got some input from partygoers — some anonymous, some less so.

Anonymous — The film was like a three-hour-long trailer for GTA 6.

Anonymous 2 — We’ll call tonight, “Harmony Korine’s goon cave.”

Aidan — I came here kind of old-new to New York, and I haven’t lived here in eight years, but I’m here again and this is the most cracked-out shit I’ve ever been to.

office — In a good way or a bad way?

Aidan — Always good.

Claire — It’s a rare evening that you find yourself the perfect amount of drunk to be in the space that you’re in, but I happened to experience that tonight, so for me, it’s pure Nirvana. But they stopped playing "All Star" mid-song. That was upsetting. But at one point in the evening, a rogue, brave woman got herself on stage and took her titties out.

Girl with her tits out — This is the future of cinema.

Tyler — The last time I partied at Elsewhere was 2018. Harmony Korine brought New York back.