Nyla Foster is done with violence on trans women: Safety isn’t a luxury, it’s a right

Editor’s Note: This interview is part of the second season of Voices of Kansas City, a project created in collaboration with KKFI Community Radio to highlight the experiences of Kansas Citians making an impact on the community. Hear the interviews at 6 p.m. Wednesdays on KKFI 90.1 FM, or at KKFI.org. Do you know someone who should be featured in a future season of Voices of Kansas City? Tell us about them using this form.

Nyla Foster grew up in a time where safe spaces were few for trans women in the Kansas City urban core, and in a lot of places across the country. Foster knows fellow trans women of color who were victims to acts of violence and she has said publicly, more than once, that safety should not be a luxury for members of her community. So she’s out to see that change is made.

Foster told The Star she had not expected to become a spokesperson for trans rights and their safety. But, in a way, Foster has been outspoken ever since she was a freshman in high school and showed up to Spirit Week at her Kansas City magnet school, proudly presenting, permanently as Nyla. She was reprimanded by the school for being herself.

These days Foster, executive director for the Trans Women of Color Collective in Kansas City, has joined the ranks of many activists around the country who are fighting against ignorance and injustice still vexing people who are transgender. She hopes to be an example for the next generation of trans persons needing to know they are not in this alone. Her journey and story are compelling and powerful. That’s why The Star asked Foster, a grassroots activist, to share her story in this season of Voices of Kansas City.

The Star invited Foster to join us in the studios of KKFI radio where she recently spoke to J.M. Banks, The Star’s culture and identity reporter. That interview, with minor editing for space and clarity, is published here in a question and answer format to share Foster’s authentic voice.

Meet Nyla Foster

The Star: So why don’t you start off by telling us a little bit about your childhood and when you start to feel drawn towards activism?

Foster: So I am a Kansas Citian through and through. I was born at KU Hospital. My childhood was amazing. I am an only child, raised by a single mother who I’m really, really close with. She was very, very positive and very inspirational in my upbringing.

She allowed me to express myself, especially in the arts, in academics and writing. I would say that my fondest memories of my childhood are in the West Point Plaza area, Loose Park, and I went to a magnet school called Troost Writing and Communications Academy. So writing has really always been really, really, really strong in my upbringing and it’s kind of the reason why I’m a writer now.

So the Trans Women of Color Collective, how did that group get put together and what are some things you guys do in the community?

So the Trans Women of Color Collective, our acronym is TWOCC, pronounced T-WOC. So we started in September of 2013 in response to the murder of Islan Nettles. She was a Black trans woman in her early twenties in Harlem, New York. She was headed to look at her new apartment and, you know, use her new keys.

She was catcalled by a group of men and unfortunately she was attacked and she was murdered right there, and beat on the scene and they were right outside of a police station and she was not alone. So this sparked a group of women in New York to come together to create spaces of healing and to create spaces of protection and to create action around what happened to Islan.

From there, we went to D.C. Now we’re in the Midwest and we are definitely doing work towards leadership, also doing work to advocate for trans communities. We’re trying to pull our community out of that need for just support. We’re more than just needy women or a needy community. We are definitely leaders. We can lead our own movements, in fact, we must lead our own movements.

That’s what we’re doing. We lead our movements, whether they’re art advocacy, media and also business. So currently we’re doing projects that are building up leaderships within the community and really working collaboratively with other leaders in Kansas City to come up with solutions that are actually going to touch, and actually involve, and engage the communities that are affected by them.

I first heard about you and your name came across my desk from a press release that you had sent out about the recent death of Amber Minor and the healing space that your organization was holding in regards to that recent killing. What do you think people need to know most about the rampant violence taking place against trans women of color?

That these are your sisters, these are your aunts, these are your friends, these are your your colleagues, these are your teachers. We are, we’re just humans. Amber is unfortunately, she’s not the first Black trans woman to be murdered in Kansas City. I feel this is the epicenter of trans violence at times. Also, it wasn’t just a gun bullet, an act of violence that killed Amber or that is killing Black trans women.

It’s also a system thing. So us as Kansas Citians, if we have leverage and access to resources and opportunities for not just Black trans women, not just trans women, but anyone who is pushed to the margins of society where they might find themselves murdered on Christmas Eve. You know, it’s a reason why someone is placed in a position to be murdered on Christmas Eve.

You should be with your family. You shouldn’t be out doing things that are probably not the most safe to survive.

With that said, you brought up an interesting point about taking control of the narrative. Is there a historical context where the struggle has been orated by other groups?

I would say it is always interesting to find that the narratives of Black queer folks are always commodified by folks who don’t look like us, or folks who stand next to us. Folks who may not be Black, but may be of color, still might be queer but they may be white, so they might be adjacent to our experience.

They find it really interesting and cool to document it and write stories about it and in an uplifted way that isn’t the most authentic. And I think now at this time, it’s really important for us to stand up. Do interviews like this and truly put ourselves out there and let folks know that we’re here and we’re capable.

We are the experts of our own life experiences and, you know, we can also present those as well.

When did you start to feel more comfortable in your own skin and embrace your own identity?

I would say around middle school, being an academic, an artist, I was always introverted. I always looked at my studies, looked at my writing, went to reading. I would have never thought I was an activist or someone speaking. So I was able to step into myself by finding community. I transitioned at a very early age. You know, I transitioned at age 15. I went to a high school during Spirit week where it was a day that the boys could dress like girls and the girls can dress like boys.

I chose that day to present permanently as Nyla. I didn’t look like a fool like most of the other children looked. It was very comical, a very campy look, so young men walking around with beards and wigs on. That was not the case for me. I’ve never had a beard in my life. But let’s just say my presentation, they said caused a disruption to the learning environment and I was expelled from the school.

So that pushed me towards connecting with the community at a very early age. When I say the community, I mean the trans community. They were there as mentors. But during my high school years, this literally happened in ninth grade, so freshman, I’m 15 years old, just transitioned, and I’m an honor student making all A’s.

I’ve always made good grades throughout, you know, my schooling. But to be, you know, expelled from that due to being trans was super duper harmful. In a way, they pushed me. It pushed me to an environment, although I did have the love and the support of my community.

No, around 14 is when I was able to like truly stand up for myself through writing, through my physical appearance, through walking in my identity.

When you finally did decide to show up and boldly express this is who I am, what were the reactions from those around you?

The school, like literally, they all followed me around. They were catcalling me, because, again, that is a common theme when attractive women, Black, trans, doesn’t matter. Catcalling is the thing. So I really was catcalled, followed around the school. Mind you I wasn’t the only one. But let’s just say I looked really good and it was a problem.

Had I looked like a buffoon or if I looked like a person that wasn’t serious or if I looked silly, it would have been OK. But being the fact that I took it seriously, I actually looked like something, they said it was a disruption to the learning environment. Except I was just going to class.

Would you say that was your first taste of discrimination?

Yes. In a institutionalized space, I would say yes. That would be my first taste of that.

As someone so young going through that, how did you kind of compute in your head that this institution that was supposed to be bringing you up academically and ensuring your academic excellence was shunning you because you wanted to be who you were?

I felt that, you know, this wasn’t the school for me. My school was my community. My school probably was on the streets. I fortunately knew that I was smart, so I knew that I would be able to still excel academically. For instance, that four years that I was supposed to be in high school, was four years of . . . I was a wild teenager.

But I was stepping into who I was. Fortunately, in 2007, I was able to take the GED test and pass without really studying. But that comes from being a strong academic. But what if I didn’t have that? Like everyone’s not equipped to do that. What if there was a language barrier? What if there was a disability, you know?

With schools now definitely being a lot more accepting, how do you feel that progress has translated to other institutions that have to serve young kids going through these experiences?

I think now it’s definitely safer. There’s technology, there is terminology to assist with that. Back when I was in school, the word transgender wasn’t even in common use. LGBTQ, again, was not in common use. That wasn’t something that was an acronym that you heard in academia when you were studying gender studies or something.

But now it’s commonly used. People know the LGBTQ acronym or the alphabet people, as they would say, like, they know that. But back then we didn’t have that language. So folks have, how can you advocate for something if you can’t describe it? So back then we didn’t have the language to support. Now there is language to support. There’s organizations to support, there’s leaders to support, and yeah, we have a little more capacity now than what we had back then.

Your crusade, starting in the early 2010s, what are some things within the struggle you have seen that have progressed. And what are some things that you still see we have a long way to go on?

I would say people actually know and they are more in tune and aware of the trans experience. I think there still is a sensationalism behind that. Just for some reason, people still go crazy about the concept of a man going from a woman and women going from a man, and people being intersex. And it’s like, okay, we know trans comes in several different colors. But, this is more so about the human experience, like folks needing access to health care, access to education, access to opportunity and access to, you know, being able to create families and have agency over your body parts.

Like, there are so many different things that make up our experience and I feel that folks should know that. There’s a lot of intersection with what a trans person is going through versus a person that’s not trans, what they’re going through. We’re still people.

Are there any other misconceptions you think the public have about these struggles happening currently in the activism that you and your organization’s involved with?

I believe the misconceptions I hear a lot is the individual and unique experiences that we, the trans community, is facing. Folks often quantify it or reduce it to something else that they can understand, And I want folks to understand, like, no, this is unique. This is exactly what this is. We can’t compare this to racism or colorism or all these different things because Black trans people exist.

You can’t compare to race because trans people are so racialized. So I understand that you need to need to compare something and apply it to your own life experience to understand it. But in that, don’t reduce it to something just so you can comprehend it.

What are some ways that the community can kind of even out the things that get to the forefront in the struggle?

I would say probably reach out and look towards leaders, organizations and personalities that aren’t most like yours. I think it’s really easy for folks to go with people who sound like them, people who look like them. Challenge yourself. Challenge this diverse, inclusion and equity thing that everyone’s doing, like do that. Show up and talk to the person that isn’t the closest to you in proximity.

They’re probably the ones that need your help the most because they’re on the edge and you don’t want to talk to them. I think a lot of times, even within my community, you’ll find the articulate girls hanging with the articulate girls, and the ghetto girls are just kind of left on the side, you know, wanting resources.

Then you have folks hoarding resources and dangling them and, you know, want the spotlight and want to be a leader when really and truly we should be building up leaders. A lot of us are getting up there in age anyway. So it’s time to build up the youth.

What’s something that you wish you knew when you were younger going through that experience and something that you usually tell members of the younger community who are experiencing that currently?

That your work is not your worth. I think a lot of times I attributed my appearance, you know, my “passibility,” my academic success, my home, my relationships. Like, that is not who I am, you know, this is what I do. So I would say to my younger self, you know, outside of being trans, what do you really want?

Who do you really want to be around? Yeah, you want to be a girl right now, or you’re going to be a girl. But what kind of girl?

What are you going to do? Because, yes. OK, you transitioned and what’s next? You want to be a girl? What kind of girl do you want to be? I think a lot of times the kids get caught up on the the look, the hair, the implants, the big boobs, the big butt the tattoo. I call it being appealing to the male gaze.

You know, I would tell my younger self, like, hey, why are you trying to do everything to impress a man? What do you want? Because they don’t stick around like that anyway.

With gender identity being such a hot button issue in today’s society, how do you feel that we as a united people can come to some sort of middle ground or understanding that’s going to be cohesive for everyone?

I’ve always said that it starts with, ’ hey, let’s talk.’ Misunderstandings can be worked out and worked through. And I think it starts with creating a loving environment in the home and teaching that in the home. It starts from the home and that is and still there. It crosses over into church, it crosses over into school, it crosses over into adulthood.

And even if that isn’t accessible or that isn’t happening, but being able to lean into learning how to love folks and learning what different love looks like. And I think that’s the core of all of this; just having a better understanding, an ear for it and a lens for it. And I think a lot of times, you know, that’s just not happening.

In the Black community, historically, relations with the LGBTQIA plus community have been strained, to say the least. What are some ways you think we as a people are going to be able to get over that kind of rough patch we have?

I would say, again, humanizing the whole thing. I think a lot of times the Black community will tolerate queer identities, under certain circumstances. For instance, Black queer cosmetologists and makeup artists. That’s OK. Or when a Black church queen directs a choir really well.

You know, those type of identities, like when, when they’re, when they’re beneficial. When you’re styling Cardi B and doing Beyonce’s hair and being a choreographer. And when you’re in the arts, you know, we’re okay. But I think, you know, what about when you put the wigs down and one, two, three, those people are still people? But you don’t want to deal with them. After they done combed your hair, made you pretty and taught you how to dance and stuff, you done with them?

So I would say stop using folks and see people for who they are.

One of the most interesting facets to learn was that the pride movement itself was propelled by Black lesbians of color and trans women of color, why do you think that has been kind of taken out of the memory?

Well, because I would say Black trans women, women and Black and brown trans women and also Black and brown, and even white lesbians, were always the ones doing the work. They were, they were doing what women naturally do. They were taking care of folks. They were cooking meals. They were being moms. They were nurses.

They were doing all these things for white gay men who were at the forefront of that movement. They were doing all the work. They weren’t the image of the movement. They weren’t even the focus. It was really and truly white gay queers who wanted to dance to the village people. I’m joking, I’m joking.

But they (trans women and lesbians) didn’t have the opportunity to, to actually be more in the forefront.

So when we think about the movement historically, they’re just erased. When they are the ones. They’re the reason why every summer we have a pride. So I think it’s really important to remember like, hey, remember the chicks who were helping, you know.

What’s your favorite part of being an activist within the respective field you’re in?

I would say learning from my community and just hearing different stories and seeing people grow.

They’ve seen me grow. They’ve actually been contributing to my growth. So that’s one of my favorite parts of this work. And seeing people actually heal while doing this work. It can be very taxing. It can be draining. So to see people have healthy ways of doing it is actually inspiring to me as well.

And with that being said, what’s the most difficult part of your position?

Death. Trans death. and every Black trans woman who’s been murdered in Kansas City since 2009 is somebody who I knew, somebody who’s been in my car, someone who’s been in my house, somebody who’s hair I’ve done, someone who I’ve cooked a pot of spaghetti for or something. These are my sisters. These are my aunts. These are my mentors who I’m burying.

What do you think the relations with the community is headed for the future here in Kansas City?

I think there’s a lot of gentrification going on. So folks will, you know, be dusting themselves off and polishing themselves to go with the trend. Hopefully some authentic work will come up out of that. But I do see that this focus, there’s going to be a lot of awareness, there’s going to be a lot of new movement and I’m excited for that.

But I’m a little wary. Is this just a response to folks wanting to be more inclusive or is this real?

Do you ever get afraid that the inclusion that is going on right now is just bandwagon fever and may dissipate with time?

Yeah, I feel it’s trending, but it’s gonna go out of style and what’s going to be next? Because I remember it was gay marriage and then once that was over. It was trans bathrooms and trans sports and trans health care. And so I wonder what’s next.

Does the collective have any programs or events that are coming up?

Yes. So we are definitely shooting our first documentary. It’s going to be a follow-up to a video project that we did called “Shifting the Narrative.” It’s going to go from how we started. It’s going to check in with Islan Nettle’s family and touching on our story and the collective in our own individual journeys of being in the collective and what we’re doing next.

Also, we’ll be doing some movement work around the legislation and in response to that in Missouri. And create and build up leadership and awareness around those issues, those bills, and work to actually support folks as we go through that time. And we’ll also be doing a retreat event for trans members of the community.

How has Nyla Foster shifted the perspective in her more than a decade of work?

Well, you know, I learned to not get as angry. Stay off social media. Don’t be in the comment section arguing back and forth about the trans experience. Take some time to relax. Drinking water, self-care, wellness. You know, I’ve been doing this work, and for every activist as soon as you first start doing this work it’s like a hyper activity and hyper sensitivity. I’m just not that much anymore. I’m a little more resilient.

And do you guys do any kind of partnerships with other community organizations?

Yes, we’re open for partnership and collaboration. And while we are a trans woman collective, we work with all identities: white, Black, trans, not trans, blue, Black, brown, yellow. Does not matter.

And how can people get in contact with your organization and get involved?

Sure, sure. Our website is www.twocc.org. We’re also on Instagram at twocc_org .