Angelica Ross says that she's all about helping her trans sisters and brothers "up their game."
Speaking at a July 20 workshop at Center on Halsted, where she introduced community members to the concepts behind her new organization, TransTech, Ross said, "It's expensive to live the life that we live. It's not about judging, it's about improving your game."
Ross, who until June ran the employment program at Chicago House's TransLife Center, hopes TransTech can help them do just that. The organization will try to train and educate trans people in tech-oriented skills such as coding and graphic design, and channel those skills into their own businesses.
Members of the trans community face especially difficult financial and vocational odds. Many, like Ross, have faced discrimination and hostility at their jobs, provided they are lucky enough to find employment in the first place. Precious Davis, who introduced Ross at the workshop, said that trans individuals are four times more likely than the general public to be subsiding on an annual income of less than $10,000, which is significantly lower than the federal poverty line.
But Ross thinks that technology has the potential to help trans folks avoid falling into the traps of poverty. She is currently hunting for funders for TransTech, which follows business models she said are frequently employed by beauty school students.
The main ingredient participants will have to bring to the table, Ross added, is determination. "These skills are all things that can be learned."
The key concepts powering TechTalk are empowerment, education and employment, according to Ross, who told Windy City Times, "I see programs that teach skills but not empowerment, programs that don't ask folks, 'Do you know that there is a system? Do you know that there is privilege? Do you know that there is power?'"
The feeling of being without one's own power or agency is one Ross has worked hard to overcome for many years. A native of Racine, Wisconsin, before her transition, she entered the Navy, where a group of her fellow officers held her out of a window to coax her into saying whether she was gay or not. She late received an "uncharacterized" discharge. "It wasn't an honorable discharge or a dishonorable discharge—it's just kind of like I wasn't there," she told her workshop audience.
She became estranged from her family shortly after she made the decision to transition. "I promised myself I would never live my life for someone else," Ross said.
She had difficulty keeping jobs, losing both a waitressing position, after a fight with a co-worker, and a job at a make-up counter when fellow employees were uncomfortable about sharing a bathroom with her. She realized that her brightest prospects for affording medical care she would need for her transition would be through sex work. "I never thought I would find myself in the adult industry, but I found myself there."
Ross became involved with an adult website based out of Hollywood, Florida. The stint as a model didn't last long, however; the website's owner frequently asked Ross to do technical work on the site and she soon found she had a flair for computer work.
She began teaching herself computer skills using tutorials she found online, and she and her then-partner were able to parlay her knowledge into their own adult site, but the relationship and the business dissolved. She eventually ended up working at an Apple Store, then went to work doing coding for Apple from her home in Wisconsin.
Being able to work from home, on a computer, was beneficial, Ross said. "In days I was feeling not so confident because there was a forest growing on my chin, I could still log on and work."
That independence from a traditional workplace is an important aspect of the TransTech model. "The whole basis is people can access [the work] from wherever they are."
Ross said she has no regrets about the adult work and looks on it as a stop along the path to her real calling. "Going through that process was a process in understanding my own value. I had to say to myself, 'These are my circumstances now, but I am worth more than this.' No decision a trans person makes is easy."
Indeed, she sees TransTech as having the potential to help benefit trans persons who might find themselves in situations similar to hers: "One of my hopes is that TransTech can develop harm reduction strategies around sex work, so maybe they can run a website and just do webcam work, instead of having to go out on the street."
Ross' main goal now is talking to individuals and organizations willing to help bring TransTech to fruition. "I need to find people with the means to donate—when the White House calls and invites you [to the LGBT Innovators Summit on July 7], you go, but I had to front the money for that ticket," she said. "I have to watch what I spend and cut corners, but I've been there before."
She knows that she's fortunate to have a diverse enough skill set that she won't go hungry, and hopes TransTech can help other trans folks reach that same place: "Laverne Cox said at the Creating Change Conference that trans women need to be shown love in public spaces—we need someone to say, 'I am here because I love you.'"
