Collected Item: “Erin Waters Oral History, 2022/10/20”
Title
Erin Waters
Who conducted the interview? List all names, separated by comma.
Kit Heintzman
Who was interviewed? List all names, separated by commas.
Erin Waters
Email Address(es) for all interviewers. Separated by comma.
kheintzman@gmail.com
Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your oral history. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?
#activism, #activist, #advocacy, #billionaires, #Black, #capitalism, #fatphobia, #Indigenous, #Medicaid, #medicalization, #medicalracism, #memes, #nonprofit, #Oregon, #Portland, #queer, #race, #racism, #sexwork, #trans, #transphobia, #Tuskegee, #vaccination, #whiteness, #whitesupremacy
What is the format of your recording?
Audio
In what ZIP code is the primary residence of the interviewee? (enter 5-digit ZIP code; for example, 00544 or 94305)? In what city/town/village does the interviewee live? In what country does the interviewee live? All comma-separated.
Portland Oregon
What is the gender of the interviewee? Be sure to allow interviewees to self-identify their gender in the pre-interview or interview. *Do not assign a gender identity to interviewees.*
Woman/She-Her
What is the age of the interviewee?
35 to 44
How does the interviewee describe their race or ethnicity? Be sure to allow interviewees to self-identify their race/ethnicity in the pre-interview or interview. *Do not assign a racial or ethnic identity to interviewees.*
Black (African-American)
Describe the oral history.
Some of the things we discussed include:
Outliving the life expectancy for Black trans women.
Having worked in corporate non-profits; currently working at a smaller non-profit.
Being at the Meaningful Care conference in Portland Oregon in March; attendants getting messages to go home.
Living with roommates at the beginning of the pandemic; different safety standards; moving into a rural tiny house with a partner.
Pods and pod mapping.
The medicalization of trans people; wait times to see a trans competent medical provider.
Helping trans service-users navigate the health care system pre- and mid- pandemic; gender affirming surgery cut off.
Knowing that those who are consistently disproportionately overrepresented with disabilities and lower life expectancies will be hit hardest by the pandemic.
Generational trauma from medical violence; Tuskegee wasn’t that long ago; Black women’s maternal mortality.
Medical racism; environmental racism.
Negative medical experiences; relying on one’s communities for healthcare.
Affirming the experiences of those with medical aversion while advocating for vaccination.
Advocating for marginalized workers.
Medical literacy as a privilege; knowing how to self advocate as a privilege; medical bureaucracy.
Directing vaccines to vulnerable populations; vulnerability defined by structure and prejudice; seeing vulnerable populations through the positionalities most likely to suffer from medical prejudice: Black trans women.
When healthcare services try to help “the most people” the system supports white people.
For profit healthcare.
Focus groups bringing in marginalized people and only implementing the cheapest policies/those with best optics.
Actuarial tables are death panels.
Oregon’s Medicaid.
Teaching doctors about trans issues during medical visits.
Emergency rooms costs on the infrastructure in contrast to preventative and equitable medical care for trans people.
Whiteness and laser hair removal surgery.
Not everyone can take the chance that they’ll get COVID.
The inappropriateness of messaging around associations between monkeypox and gay men.
The social/cultural imperative that Black men make themselves small and unthreatening.
Advocacy means going into a room and having no idea if you’ll be able to change anyone’s mind.
Flattening various lived experiences into the term BIPOC.
Implicit and explicit biases.
Health is knowing yourself even when other systems tell you that you are sick; racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism are sicknesses, not their targets.
The difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe.
Knowing that there are whole parts of cities and states where Black people can’t go and be safe.
The threat of one’s very existence scaring others so much they might be murdered.
Trans people as the boogie men in legislative policy.
Reform vs revolution; by any means necessary, by every means available // by every means necessary = by any means available.
American exceptionalism and individualism.
Therapy losing stigma; still inaccessible.
Maintaining rigorous COVID safety precautions after others believe the pandemic is over.
People are still dying of COVID.
Other cultural references: Restrictive Covenant, Hurricane Katrina, spoon theory, The Negro Motorist Green Book, the Spanish Flu, Martin Luther King Jr.
See also:
https://www.blacklilyconsulting.com/
https://www.blackbeyondthebinarycollective.org/about-us
https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2021/06/14/pride-profile-erin-waters-kaiser-permanente.html
http://www.glapn.org/671914ErinWaters.html
https://seramount.com/person/erin-waters/
https://www.basicrights.org/about/our-board/
https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2021R1/Downloads/PublicTestimonyDocument/4599
https://katu.com/news/local/dozens-gather-to-honor-black-transgender-lives-at-revolution-hall-vigil
https://giveguide.org/nonprofits/black-beyond-the-binary-collective
https://www.multco.us/multnomah-county/news/board-commissioners-proclaims-june-pride-month-presents-kathleen-saadat-award
Outliving the life expectancy for Black trans women.
Having worked in corporate non-profits; currently working at a smaller non-profit.
Being at the Meaningful Care conference in Portland Oregon in March; attendants getting messages to go home.
Living with roommates at the beginning of the pandemic; different safety standards; moving into a rural tiny house with a partner.
Pods and pod mapping.
The medicalization of trans people; wait times to see a trans competent medical provider.
Helping trans service-users navigate the health care system pre- and mid- pandemic; gender affirming surgery cut off.
Knowing that those who are consistently disproportionately overrepresented with disabilities and lower life expectancies will be hit hardest by the pandemic.
Generational trauma from medical violence; Tuskegee wasn’t that long ago; Black women’s maternal mortality.
Medical racism; environmental racism.
Negative medical experiences; relying on one’s communities for healthcare.
Affirming the experiences of those with medical aversion while advocating for vaccination.
Advocating for marginalized workers.
Medical literacy as a privilege; knowing how to self advocate as a privilege; medical bureaucracy.
Directing vaccines to vulnerable populations; vulnerability defined by structure and prejudice; seeing vulnerable populations through the positionalities most likely to suffer from medical prejudice: Black trans women.
When healthcare services try to help “the most people” the system supports white people.
For profit healthcare.
Focus groups bringing in marginalized people and only implementing the cheapest policies/those with best optics.
Actuarial tables are death panels.
Oregon’s Medicaid.
Teaching doctors about trans issues during medical visits.
Emergency rooms costs on the infrastructure in contrast to preventative and equitable medical care for trans people.
Whiteness and laser hair removal surgery.
Not everyone can take the chance that they’ll get COVID.
The inappropriateness of messaging around associations between monkeypox and gay men.
The social/cultural imperative that Black men make themselves small and unthreatening.
Advocacy means going into a room and having no idea if you’ll be able to change anyone’s mind.
Flattening various lived experiences into the term BIPOC.
Implicit and explicit biases.
Health is knowing yourself even when other systems tell you that you are sick; racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism are sicknesses, not their targets.
The difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe.
Knowing that there are whole parts of cities and states where Black people can’t go and be safe.
The threat of one’s very existence scaring others so much they might be murdered.
Trans people as the boogie men in legislative policy.
Reform vs revolution; by any means necessary, by every means available // by every means necessary = by any means available.
American exceptionalism and individualism.
Therapy losing stigma; still inaccessible.
Maintaining rigorous COVID safety precautions after others believe the pandemic is over.
People are still dying of COVID.
Other cultural references: Restrictive Covenant, Hurricane Katrina, spoon theory, The Negro Motorist Green Book, the Spanish Flu, Martin Luther King Jr.
See also:
https://www.blacklilyconsulting.com/
https://www.blackbeyondthebinarycollective.org/about-us
https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2021/06/14/pride-profile-erin-waters-kaiser-permanente.html
http://www.glapn.org/671914ErinWaters.html
https://seramount.com/person/erin-waters/
https://www.basicrights.org/about/our-board/
https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2021R1/Downloads/PublicTestimonyDocument/4599
https://katu.com/news/local/dozens-gather-to-honor-black-transgender-lives-at-revolution-hall-vigil
https://giveguide.org/nonprofits/black-beyond-the-binary-collective
https://www.multco.us/multnomah-county/news/board-commissioners-proclaims-june-pride-month-presents-kathleen-saadat-award
On what date did you record this oral history?
2022-10-20T18:19