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My name is Angelina and this is my authentic life. This weekend has been
an amazing, amazing weekend and I just want to thank God for this opportunity to be here today.
How I live my life today, you know,
I put one foot in front of the other, you know,
my life's full of surprises. By the grace of God I have a job today, I have
an apartment, I have a car, I have a boyfriend, you know, my life is really, really good,
to be an ex-sex worker, now i have a job, I work in the transgender community, you know,
I help trans girls who are homeless, and who are dealing with substance abuse
which is very important, you know, most trans girls that I know are either
doing sex work, or using drugs,
and that's something that we have to do as a community, to help other trans girls,
because there is if there is a future for us, especially for us transgender girls,
you know,
so I just want to say that we should empower ourselves by coming to
summits like this, you know,
this weekend was an amazing, amazing opportunity for myself
So that's how I live my authentic life today, by just being of service to people,
by being of service to God, and to just help our... to become the best we can, family of sisters.
Uh... just recently, you know, a couple of months ago, I was so fearful of my
family accepting me, I left my country when I was 18, looking for that freedom, you know,
and throughout - I'm 37 years old - eighteen years of my life, I was hiding in the
dark, because I was afraid of my family being accepting...
the acceptance of my family, thank God, a couple of months ago..
I flew to Surinam, and I saw my mom for the first time in 37 years, and she was so
accepting, you know, and I was so, for many years, I was so fearful
very, very, very fearful
but you know, I got the courage from God, and as a result of that, I went
and I saw my mom; and now I have an amazing relationship with my family, you know,
if there is something that I would want to change, is just for us to reach out
to our families, because regardless, family is family, and they're going to love us.
Maybe at the beginning they mightn't, but, you know, at the end they're always going to love us,
that's something that I would like to change.
By being there for my transgender sisters, by learning, by educating myself
This particular weekend, you know, I was ignorant of a lot of things, and
as a result of coming this weekend, I learned so much. Now I can go back to my
community and share what I've learned, you know, that's one of the ways
that I'm going to contribute
to the Transgender Law Center, so "Yey, me", "Yey the Summit," and "Yey the Transgender Law Center"
Yey... hooray!