The black panther of the fashion jungleand human rights activist, Naomi Campbell, recently released a special episode of her YouTube series, No Filter With Naomi.
According to the supermodel, the episode was inspired by pictures she saw at the Brooklyn Museum of theBlack Trans Lives Matterprotest. “As we continue conversations about racial equality, we must not forget to fight for the trans community! Please join me with my guests: Indya Moore, Chase,” Campbell said.
The Three Groundbreaking Guests
Before we dive into the deep and meaningful conversation the passionate and compassionate quartet had, here is some background info on the Campbell’s guests. Indya Adrianna Moore istransgender and non-binaryactor and model, most known for playing the role of Angel Evangelista in the FX television series Pose. Moore is a human rights activist and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019 by Time magazine.
Chase Strangio is a staff attorney with theAmerican Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) and transgender rights activist.
And last but not least, Tori Cooper is the new Director of Community Engagement atHuman Rights Campaign(HRC)–the organization that is “uniting the world to stand against tyranny.”
Conversations About LGBTQ+ Community Empowerment
When telling Campbell about coping with and taking action in the current situation, related to racism and sexism issues, Moore said: “In the beginning of the uprising, I went to a protest in Chicago. I protested, and tried my best to not be visible as much as possible, just because I didn’t want too much centric attention around me being at a protest, as opposed to being a point of uprising. I didn’t want to be a distraction. But I did go and I was injured. [...] I was hit by a police officer with a button. [...].” This confession by Moore made Campbell devastated about yet another act of police brutality.
Strangio, who won the biggest LGBTQ+ legal case in history (the conservative-majority Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ+ people are protected in the workplaceand public spaces by federal anti-discrimination laws), told his story as a white person who was lucky to have access to resources and wanted to disrupt systems of power and make the change. “When I understood myself as a queer person and then as a trans person, I’d though about how the law can be a meaningful intervention and disruption in the systems of white supremacy that were so harmful to Black trans people in particular,” Strangio said.
Finally, when Cooper joined the conversation, the themes and topics of LGBTQI+ community empowerment continued. “Everything that we do [at HRC] is really about empowering transgender and non-bionary folks to just move straight ahead,” Cooper said.
