Meet the Cast:
Eve Ensler, award-winning author of The Vagina Monologues, is touring 20 North American cities from October 2005-April 2006 with her newest play The Good Body. Following engagements include Broadway in NYC, at ACT in San Francisco, and in a workshop production at Seattle Repertory...
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UPDATE: Since directing and performing in the VDay LA production, Calpernia joined a well-known Hollywood academy and continues to study her passion, acting. Now in the final stages of Casting Pearls, the Deep Stealth short comedic film about being a trans actress, she can also be...
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UPDATE: Recently, Leslie relocated from Houston, Texas to her hometown near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to be closer to her family. Her relationships with them continue to flourish. Leslie and her father are moving forward in their relationship as well, trying to heal from past...
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Lynn grew up in White Plains, NY in the 40's and 50's. Although born and raised as a boy, she felt deeply drawn to become a girl from an early age. Lynn began acting out her dreams when she went off to college at 17. She took on a secret life outside school - finding hormones and finding boyfriends...
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UPDATE: As I reflect on the events that lead to the release of this ground breaking film, I am both excited about the possibilities and cautioned by the society I live in. I like my life and enjoy the freedoms of being both out and proud with the privileges of privacy and all it brings. If I were overly moved by everything I see in culture directed toward Transwomen or people who express gender in varying ways, I might be moved to hide and cling to assimilation. But I am reminded that none of these have created the course and timber for my life. Neither culture, society, political climates or scriptural interpretations have created me in its image and set a tone for my life. NO! It was a loving and gifting Creator that made me out of its own love to show that love and difference to the world. With this thought in mind, fears dissipate while I stand humbled by this great life created for me. Currently I have a new job that pays the bills but am in the process of fulfilling my life's work, the establishment of a national Transgender empowerment organization - Transcend Empowerment Institute. This development is my dream and has been a vision for so long. Finally I feel strong enough to move forward to make it happen. We work to develop content, learning tools, workshops etc. that is developed from a position of strength and empowerment for Transgender persons, their allies and service providers. I aim to share with Transpeople how great and wonderful it is to be a Transperson. We are not gender confused, diseased burdened sex addicts who are the freaks of the world, but we have a rich heritage and culture that has contributed to human development since there was dirt on planet Earth. Its happening slowly and consciously just the way Spirit has it to.
On a personal level my mother and family are doing just fine and we look forward to witnessing how this film can lead others to create family that affirms and validates their existence. LuLu (Mom) says "hi". Being a daughter to my mother is still a challenging facet of my life. The realization that she needs me but is not dependant on me still haunts my life. In some ways it keeps me from moving deeper into my own personal and professional greatness. But I work on it everyday and enjoy that beautiful old girl, she is truly my heart. For someone seeing the film and witnessing how we are with each other, it's real. She sees me just as you saw, I am just her daughter, nothing special. I love that. Some facets of my life have me depicted as the advocate or the spiritual healer or just a down home sistah. But to my mother, I am just Valerie (no caps on the v). I don't like to clean, love to travel and bugs the hell outta her about how she should live her life. (big laughs) But that's my girl, she is my heart and without her I couldn't breath. I hope all of you who see this film ingest that love and use it for yourselves to move you toward receiving the love from the mother figures in your own lives no matter what gender they present in. In closing, this life could be so much better, I would love to be thin as hell, flawless like Halle Berry, educated with a PhD, wealthy with a fine ass man to call my own. But all in all, this is a great life, heck, a wonderful life. When I look around and see the absence of self-love people have or the love missing from external energies it makes me think "Yeah, I'll take this life and keep on pushin."
BIO: "From the age of four I always knew I was different from others around me. This difference was the nucleus of all discrimination and violence I have faced in my life. Yet in the end, I won. I became powerful, joyous, celebrated and profound. This is my life. It's an open book meant to liberate. Understand and see yourself in this life."
Valerie Spencer describes herself as "being a woman from birth but discovering that just a bit later." She grew up in South Central Los Angeles with her mother. With the love of her dynamic mother she was able to overcome the toughness of being different. Yet there was abuse, deep and painful. "My father never did love me. There seemed to be a reason for his anger towards me. Now I know. I thought it was because I acted more like the girls than boys. This was only part of the story. It was because I WAS a girl and not the son he needed to validate himself."
Valerie did attend school like other youth. However, she grew to rely mainly on the power of intuition and spirituality to instruct her on how to live and be in this society. "Seventeen was the year I found a name for these feelings and this deep knowing of myself. The name was Transsexual. But soon not even this label or box could define me. I discovered I was a woman. A woman with no need to be categorized or labeled. I refused to be hated and misunderstood and murdered and thrown aside like waste. If this be my journey, then for the liberation of my people, Trans people everywhere, I will."
A friend introduced her to Unity Fellowship Church in Los Angeles where she learned in detail she was just fine in God's eyes. "Unity was a starting point for me. I was the first TransWoman to be fully active in ministry there. They loved me till I could love myself and articulate why I was a creation of God living itself as and through me."
Often Valerie is asked how she became an insightful communicator of Spirituality and Trans issues. Her reply is simple yet profound. "The Black Christian church dazzled me with great orators, ritual, and celebration of THEIR beliefs. Yet they oppress with those beliefs. I took their ways and used them to better my own people but included unconditional love and embrace. Simply put, I turned the tables."
Today at 37, Valerie lives in Los Angeles surrounded by a community of family, some not connected by blood. This includes brothers, sisters, a God son, nieces and nephews. "I have issues like any other woman. I am unmarried; single (damn) with no prospects and not making all the money I want. But when I look things over, I think I'll keep the life I have."
The year 2003 marked a decade that Valerie Spencer has worked in the arena of HIV service delivery, specifically representing Transgender persons. Over that time she has worked with health departments, universities, community groups, conferences and community-based organizations around the country. The directive she gives herself is simple, to make the complex comprehensive. She believes Trans issues to be very diverse, often moving far beyond HIV disease into areas more commonly ignored by mainstream society: sexism, gender phobia, poverty, and marginalization as a whole. "Even the effects of slavery have a profound affect on the entanglement of Transgender persons in this society."
Yet Valerie has made the forward development of Transpeople and comprehensive dialogue her movement. She works daily as a harm reduction specialist at CorrectHELP (HIV Education and law Project), providing HIV prevention services in the Los Angeles County jail among gay, bisexual and transgender inmates. Her latest work includes developing Transcend Empowerment Institute, an organization which addresses the social, cultural and spiritual well-being of Transpeople on a holistic basis.
Noted author of Los Angeles County's first curriculum addressing Transgenderism from a people of color perspective, she has also developed other TG specific training and seminar materials. Valerie Spencer considers herself a forward thinker who strives to develop language which speaks the truth of Transpersons yet does so in an empowering manner for both the community and the learner.
She has also recently dipped into artistic endeavors by co-staring in the 2004 V-Day production of, The Vagina Monologues. V-Day is an annual day to recognize and counter violence against women around the world. This year the Vagina Monologues featured an all TransWomen cast of who's who in Transgenderism. "I was the only SISTA in the play but that ain't my fault. I know there to be many talented TransWomen of color in this country. My ego is not quite that big."
Valerie has just co-developed and co-facilitated the Transgender Leadership Academy: A collaborative effort of the Los Angeles Transgender Youth Consortium and The FTM Alliance. "This was a ground breaking effort to build our leaders. In the past, Transgender leadership came into being by way of osmosis. This was a chance to take all of the information that we as leaders have gained, share it in a constructive manner and shape our mavericks of the future." This training academy will change the landscape of representation within the Transgender community.
Valerie Spencer is an intuitive gift of our time who has devoted herself to the mission of uplifting Trans people. "We are special, gifted and courageous people who have been caught by the diversions of labeling, self- hate and misunderstanding. But there is hope and this hope will move us to the greatness of who we really are!"
On a personal level my mother and family are doing just fine and we look forward to witnessing how this film can lead others to create family that affirms and validates their existence. LuLu (Mom) says "hi". Being a daughter to my mother is still a challenging facet of my life. The realization that she needs me but is not dependant on me still haunts my life. In some ways it keeps me from moving deeper into my own personal and professional greatness. But I work on it everyday and enjoy that beautiful old girl, she is truly my heart. For someone seeing the film and witnessing how we are with each other, it's real. She sees me just as you saw, I am just her daughter, nothing special. I love that. Some facets of my life have me depicted as the advocate or the spiritual healer or just a down home sistah. But to my mother, I am just Valerie (no caps on the v). I don't like to clean, love to travel and bugs the hell outta her about how she should live her life. (big laughs) But that's my girl, she is my heart and without her I couldn't breath. I hope all of you who see this film ingest that love and use it for yourselves to move you toward receiving the love from the mother figures in your own lives no matter what gender they present in. In closing, this life could be so much better, I would love to be thin as hell, flawless like Halle Berry, educated with a PhD, wealthy with a fine ass man to call my own. But all in all, this is a great life, heck, a wonderful life. When I look around and see the absence of self-love people have or the love missing from external energies it makes me think "Yeah, I'll take this life and keep on pushin."
BIO: "From the age of four I always knew I was different from others around me. This difference was the nucleus of all discrimination and violence I have faced in my life. Yet in the end, I won. I became powerful, joyous, celebrated and profound. This is my life. It's an open book meant to liberate. Understand and see yourself in this life."
Valerie Spencer describes herself as "being a woman from birth but discovering that just a bit later." She grew up in South Central Los Angeles with her mother. With the love of her dynamic mother she was able to overcome the toughness of being different. Yet there was abuse, deep and painful. "My father never did love me. There seemed to be a reason for his anger towards me. Now I know. I thought it was because I acted more like the girls than boys. This was only part of the story. It was because I WAS a girl and not the son he needed to validate himself."
Valerie did attend school like other youth. However, she grew to rely mainly on the power of intuition and spirituality to instruct her on how to live and be in this society. "Seventeen was the year I found a name for these feelings and this deep knowing of myself. The name was Transsexual. But soon not even this label or box could define me. I discovered I was a woman. A woman with no need to be categorized or labeled. I refused to be hated and misunderstood and murdered and thrown aside like waste. If this be my journey, then for the liberation of my people, Trans people everywhere, I will."
A friend introduced her to Unity Fellowship Church in Los Angeles where she learned in detail she was just fine in God's eyes. "Unity was a starting point for me. I was the first TransWoman to be fully active in ministry there. They loved me till I could love myself and articulate why I was a creation of God living itself as and through me."
Often Valerie is asked how she became an insightful communicator of Spirituality and Trans issues. Her reply is simple yet profound. "The Black Christian church dazzled me with great orators, ritual, and celebration of THEIR beliefs. Yet they oppress with those beliefs. I took their ways and used them to better my own people but included unconditional love and embrace. Simply put, I turned the tables."
Today at 37, Valerie lives in Los Angeles surrounded by a community of family, some not connected by blood. This includes brothers, sisters, a God son, nieces and nephews. "I have issues like any other woman. I am unmarried; single (damn) with no prospects and not making all the money I want. But when I look things over, I think I'll keep the life I have."
The year 2003 marked a decade that Valerie Spencer has worked in the arena of HIV service delivery, specifically representing Transgender persons. Over that time she has worked with health departments, universities, community groups, conferences and community-based organizations around the country. The directive she gives herself is simple, to make the complex comprehensive. She believes Trans issues to be very diverse, often moving far beyond HIV disease into areas more commonly ignored by mainstream society: sexism, gender phobia, poverty, and marginalization as a whole. "Even the effects of slavery have a profound affect on the entanglement of Transgender persons in this society."
Yet Valerie has made the forward development of Transpeople and comprehensive dialogue her movement. She works daily as a harm reduction specialist at CorrectHELP (HIV Education and law Project), providing HIV prevention services in the Los Angeles County jail among gay, bisexual and transgender inmates. Her latest work includes developing Transcend Empowerment Institute, an organization which addresses the social, cultural and spiritual well-being of Transpeople on a holistic basis.
Noted author of Los Angeles County's first curriculum addressing Transgenderism from a people of color perspective, she has also developed other TG specific training and seminar materials. Valerie Spencer considers herself a forward thinker who strives to develop language which speaks the truth of Transpersons yet does so in an empowering manner for both the community and the learner.
She has also recently dipped into artistic endeavors by co-staring in the 2004 V-Day production of, The Vagina Monologues. V-Day is an annual day to recognize and counter violence against women around the world. This year the Vagina Monologues featured an all TransWomen cast of who's who in Transgenderism. "I was the only SISTA in the play but that ain't my fault. I know there to be many talented TransWomen of color in this country. My ego is not quite that big."
Valerie has just co-developed and co-facilitated the Transgender Leadership Academy: A collaborative effort of the Los Angeles Transgender Youth Consortium and The FTM Alliance. "This was a ground breaking effort to build our leaders. In the past, Transgender leadership came into being by way of osmosis. This was a chance to take all of the information that we as leaders have gained, share it in a constructive manner and shape our mavericks of the future." This training academy will change the landscape of representation within the Transgender community.
Valerie Spencer is an intuitive gift of our time who has devoted herself to the mission of uplifting Trans people. "We are special, gifted and courageous people who have been caught by the diversions of labeling, self- hate and misunderstanding. But there is hope and this hope will move us to the greatness of who we really are!"
UPDATE: Since producing and performing in the Vday LA production, Andrea has turned her energies toward writing and directing with the upcoming short film Casting Pearls, soon to be expanded into a feature-length script. As transition consultant and voice coach for the award-winning...
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Josh Aronson has been directing and producing films for many years. Starting in commercials he directed over 500 spots and MTV rock videos. Aronson started working in television in 1996 directing pilots and specials for Nickelodeon. He directed the opening 16 episodes of the reality show Outward...
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Ariel Orr Jordan's diverse career includes writing & directing over 25 TV docudramas including: When the Lions Weeps and The Chocolate Strike for Israeli TV, The Bubble Garden for the BBC, and Words Apart, a four-film series that captures the lost world of shamanic...
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