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Episode 1: TaylorTaylor is a trans woman incarcerated in Texas who learned when she was a teenager that she would be spending the rest of her life in prison. She shares the story of her trial, her coming-out journey, and her mission to spread wisdom and positivity to the people on her unit. Our first-ever episode is also a celebration of the decade-long friendship between Taylor and our host, Casper Cendre.
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INTRO
00:00 Conductor Trig: You are now boarding Teleway 411, departing from the realm of brick and barbed wire. Next stop, inside the minds and lives locked away behind bars. Beware of the shifting airwaves as they may cause turbulence. Please stand clear of the evolving doors.
00:21 Casper: Dispatching from the Telegraph and Broadway terminal in Oakland, we transport the stories of queer artists in prison throughout the United States. Our conversations with people navigating the justice system work to shed light on the reality of life inside. My name is Casper and I am the co-founder and host of Teleway 411, a podcast produced by A.B.O. Comix.
The Teleway was invented because of the archaic routes required to navigate the prison system. The restrictions put in place require creative detours to reach our contributors inside. Communication is halted at the discretion of the prison, and can leave our passengers feeling stranded. However, by using the Teleway to defy space and time, we’re able to come together and traverse the lives that have been stalled indefinitely, while also giving them a push to move them forward.
Today, our passenger is Taylor, someone I’ve had the pleasure of calling a friend for over the past decade, as well as one of the reasons A.B.O. Comix exists today. Over the years, I’ve watched Taylor evolve into the confident young woman she is now. We discuss the stress of her trial, how A.B.O. has impacted her, and navigating life inside a men’s prison as a trans woman. We first wanted to know what Taylor’s life was like prior to her conviction.
00:21 Casper: Dispatching from the Telegraph and Broadway terminal in Oakland, we transport the stories of queer artists in prison throughout the United States. Our conversations with people navigating the justice system work to shed light on the reality of life inside. My name is Casper and I am the co-founder and host of Teleway 411, a podcast produced by A.B.O. Comix.
The Teleway was invented because of the archaic routes required to navigate the prison system. The restrictions put in place require creative detours to reach our contributors inside. Communication is halted at the discretion of the prison, and can leave our passengers feeling stranded. However, by using the Teleway to defy space and time, we’re able to come together and traverse the lives that have been stalled indefinitely, while also giving them a push to move them forward.
Today, our passenger is Taylor, someone I’ve had the pleasure of calling a friend for over the past decade, as well as one of the reasons A.B.O. Comix exists today. Over the years, I’ve watched Taylor evolve into the confident young woman she is now. We discuss the stress of her trial, how A.B.O. has impacted her, and navigating life inside a men’s prison as a trans woman. We first wanted to know what Taylor’s life was like prior to her conviction.
CHILDHOOD/IDENTITY
01:36 Taylor: For the most part? I think I had a traditional upbringing. I know my life growing up was better than most because both my parents were able to work when they wanted to work. My mom during my early youth did not work just to take care of me. I was raised in an upper middle-class neighborhood. I had no siblings.
So looking from the facts, my childhood was great. I will admit, now that my parents, they did the best they knew how in terms of raising me. I ended up being a not-so-normal child. So I can't expect them to have done it differently, but I know that they tried. Growing up, I spent a lot of time alone. Only child, by myself, did not really know how to interact.
I was super shy. If I had a close friend, I never had more than one. I would just spend most of my time alone. I was that kid who’d sit in the back of the class. I knew the answers to questions, but I was too shy to put my hand up. And this lasted all the way into high school. Later on in my teen years, I found drugs.
And used the drugs to combat my anxiety, which made things different. I can't say that it made them better, because while I was more comfortable, I went in a bad direction. But looking back at my childhood, I feel blessed. Many people in here, they tell me about their lives. And I realized that I had a great childhood.
I was never abused. I was never neglected. I had everything I needed. I feel blessed for that. My parents were both country. My dad was a redneck. My mom grew up on a farm. They didn't know how to raise a transgender child and I didn't know how to be transgender, but we all did the best we could. It didn't end up the best that it could have.
But looking back, we did the best we could.
3:34 Casper: I think maybe that's why we have so much in common and why we get along so well is because despite that we grew up in different places and have different experiences, we have so much in common. And I didn't go into drugs as my coping mechanism, but I definitely had alternative forms of addiction. Mostly tech, I would say I was addicted to technology and the internet because I was able to use it to form my own reality. And I think that might be similar with the route you took with drug addiction.
4:08 Taylor: I would agree. We were never taught how to deal with this identity. We were never taught how to deal with these gender issues. My youth, I didn't even know transgender existed. The only person I ever saw transgender was on Jerry Springer.
So, I thought something was wrong with me. I thought everything I tried to do as a guy, somehow, it wasn't enough. And I needed to try harder. Looking back, I realized that my sense of discomfort in my identity, my sense of lack of self-esteem, I was living a life that was false.
I was trying to be someone that wasn't me and that I never could be, no matter how hard I would try to be that person. That’s why my parents, they did the best they could, but they didn't understand either. Just like, I didn't understand.
I didn't want to talk to people. I just wanted to isolate myself in every way, the same way you could isolate yourself with technology, you could, you could avoid reality with anything, because if we did not avoid reality, we didn't know how to deal with it.
5:16 Casper: Like you said, I had only ever seen transgender people on things like Jerry Springer. And when I looked at shows like that, and they're so sensationalized and dramatized that I didn't identify with that at all.
Not having any sort of representation for trans people in a positive light made me feel like an alien, made me feel like there was no space for me in the world. I'm grateful now that this next generation of young kids at least have some positive representation.
5:47 Taylor: I agree. The next generation that I’m seeing, I view it as so beautiful that they’re getting the chance for them to live who they really are so early in their lives.
5:57 Casper: Yeah. Could you tell me a little bit about what happened, as much as you feel comfortable, prior to your conviction and coming to prison, a little bit about your circumstances?
6:09 Taylor: There's almost two phases. There is the pre-drug phase where I would isolate myself. I did not have any friends. Eventually I found drugs. I could use drugs to evade transgender issues, my sexuality issues, all of the issues that made me different from what I was told to be. And in addition to just evading them, I will admit I liked getting high.
So I went from a little bit of drugs to a lot of drugs, very quickly. I went from smoking marijuana to, within a year, I have a needle in my arm. I'm chasing every drug I could get. I realized now, I was just unhappy. I was trying to find that happiness in any way I could, the fact that all through my childhood, through my high school years, all the way up until I got locked up, I was an unhappy angry person because I didn't know what was wrong.
I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was. And because I was angry with myself, I would lash out at other people. I didn't know how to be a good friend. I didn't know how to be a good child. I could manipulate and appear to be exactly what my parents wanted, which made it easier for me. But even then, I'm just practicing to be someone I wasn't. This ended up continuing even to the years when I came to prison, mimicking others, pretending to be something I'm not, looking at how others are living and trying to copy that because I don't know it myself.
7:37 Casper: I completely understand where you were coming from and that, and just trying to deal with the pain and the confusion and amplified by teenage hormones. It must've been so hard for you.
So when you were in the midst of this sort of escapism with drugs, what was your mindset like? Were you still going to classes? Did you have a relationship with your parents? What did you do with your time?
8:05 Taylor: Again, I was blessed because I didn't really need to work in any of my classes. I went from gifted and talented classes to advanced placement type programs and going from them back to regular classes, I could just not have to do anything. I would sit there and do the least amount of work because I was just depressed. I would end up passing all my classes. Up until I ended up dropping out, I had decent grades.
When I dropped out, I immediately got a GED. In terms of my future and how I saw myself and what I wanted to do with my life, I didn't have an answer. I had lots of daydreams. I had lots of hopes that I could have done this or done that, but nothing concrete, stable enough, for me to really work towards.
8:56 Casper: What were some of your dreams and your aspirations?
8:59 Taylor: A dream that was given to me was to join the military. My grandfather was in the military.
My father wanted to be, but was not able to for medical reasons. So I was raised to join the military. I was raised to be alpha-male tough guy. That was never me. I used to like things that were artistic, but those things, I can't say that they were pushed away, but they weren't approved of.
Because I had such self-esteem issues, I would always look for approval from my parents, from my dad, and that led me in directions I didn't want to go. Had I not dealt with it, I have no idea where my life would have gone.
I was semi close to my parents. My mom did the best she could. She was depressed at times. She later left my father. She ended up getting her life together. She's extremely successful now. A good, productive, positive life. At the time of my childhood, she wasn't at that point yet.
My father, he was intelligent. He was smart. He was able to make a lot of money, but he was an alcoholic. He had all of these personal demons that he was not dealing with. He was just drinking every night to evade. I'm not sure I learned the pattern of addiction from him or the addiction of something that came by my bloodline.
But very quickly from as soon as I started to use, I was addicted. My dad drank. I used drugs. I became a younger version of him in many senses, but I was never the boy he'd wanted. I was never the son that was going to grow up and do masculine things. But I tried to be, because I didn't know of any other options.
10:45 Casper: So do you feel like he approved of who you were growing into as a person and as much effort as you were putting into to try and please him and go, for lack of a better word, alpha boy route? Do you feel like you were getting any of the approval from him that you were seeking or did it just feel more like you were seeking it and trying very hard, but you weren't getting it?
11:10 Taylor: I was getting it, but not to the point that I was seeking it. My dad, he was not that talkative. And many times I would just, I would constantly look at him. That's all I wanted was him to nod his head, “Yes.” That I was doing something good, like he approved. I would do this for sports. So I used to have to play basketball.
I played football. I ended up running track. I'm athletic. So those things weren't hard, but had I had the choice, I would not have done them. For the most part, I think he approved, but looking back, I can't say what he approved of and who he approved of was even a real person. I learned early on to just be who my parents wanted me to be, appear the way they wanted me to appear to avoid conflict, to make them happy and to just get away with it, get away from them.
I can go to my room. I can be by myself. I can get on the computer. I can play video games. I was more comfortable by myself than I was with any of them.
12:09 Casper: That makes a lot of sense to me too, because I went down the exact same route. Pushing people out of my life for fear of what they would think or how they would judge me, ended up making me so much more depressed as a teenager.
And I realize that now, I didn't at the time, of course.
12:27 Taylor: It instills a sense of shame and a sense of guilt because we're not doing what we believe we’re supposed to do. In a different society, expectations would never have been placed on us.
The damage it does to our mental health is real, it's lasting. I still have damage, my self esteem hasn't bounced back. It’s still my biggest problem.
All those are wounds from our childhood, wounds from growing up that don't go away. In order to be functional, productive adults, we have to learn to deal with these things.
And I can't say they’re anyone's fault. Just how things ended up. Due to the nature of society at that time, due to who our parents were and how they were raised. It’s no one's fault, it does damage to transgender people like you and me being raised in an environment that is not accepting of us.
13:20 Casper: And it's hard to fault anybody for just being ignorant of the subject. Like we mentioned earlier, neither of us grew up knowing anything about transgender people or having any sort of positive representations for people and for our parents' generation, that didn't exist in any capacity.
And even though they did the best they could with the information that they had, it still left a couple wounds that are very hard to reconcile. And now that we're both in our thirties and we're doing so much work on self-growth and understanding ourselves and who we are and who we want to be, it takes a lot of time and energy to try and heal those wounds.
But I'm so appreciative again for having you in my life. We went through this together. We both went through our transitions together, you in prison and me on the outside.
14:09 Taylor: At the same time, without us even speaking about it to each other, we were able to be the support system that we needed.
14:16 Casper: Yeah, yeah absolutely. I'm so grateful that we had each other in each other's lives during that time. And I feel like we're both so much better for it. We still have a long way to go, but we're both in better places now I think, than we were when we met.
So looking from the facts, my childhood was great. I will admit, now that my parents, they did the best they knew how in terms of raising me. I ended up being a not-so-normal child. So I can't expect them to have done it differently, but I know that they tried. Growing up, I spent a lot of time alone. Only child, by myself, did not really know how to interact.
I was super shy. If I had a close friend, I never had more than one. I would just spend most of my time alone. I was that kid who’d sit in the back of the class. I knew the answers to questions, but I was too shy to put my hand up. And this lasted all the way into high school. Later on in my teen years, I found drugs.
And used the drugs to combat my anxiety, which made things different. I can't say that it made them better, because while I was more comfortable, I went in a bad direction. But looking back at my childhood, I feel blessed. Many people in here, they tell me about their lives. And I realized that I had a great childhood.
I was never abused. I was never neglected. I had everything I needed. I feel blessed for that. My parents were both country. My dad was a redneck. My mom grew up on a farm. They didn't know how to raise a transgender child and I didn't know how to be transgender, but we all did the best we could. It didn't end up the best that it could have.
But looking back, we did the best we could.
3:34 Casper: I think maybe that's why we have so much in common and why we get along so well is because despite that we grew up in different places and have different experiences, we have so much in common. And I didn't go into drugs as my coping mechanism, but I definitely had alternative forms of addiction. Mostly tech, I would say I was addicted to technology and the internet because I was able to use it to form my own reality. And I think that might be similar with the route you took with drug addiction.
4:08 Taylor: I would agree. We were never taught how to deal with this identity. We were never taught how to deal with these gender issues. My youth, I didn't even know transgender existed. The only person I ever saw transgender was on Jerry Springer.
So, I thought something was wrong with me. I thought everything I tried to do as a guy, somehow, it wasn't enough. And I needed to try harder. Looking back, I realized that my sense of discomfort in my identity, my sense of lack of self-esteem, I was living a life that was false.
I was trying to be someone that wasn't me and that I never could be, no matter how hard I would try to be that person. That’s why my parents, they did the best they could, but they didn't understand either. Just like, I didn't understand.
I didn't want to talk to people. I just wanted to isolate myself in every way, the same way you could isolate yourself with technology, you could, you could avoid reality with anything, because if we did not avoid reality, we didn't know how to deal with it.
5:16 Casper: Like you said, I had only ever seen transgender people on things like Jerry Springer. And when I looked at shows like that, and they're so sensationalized and dramatized that I didn't identify with that at all.
Not having any sort of representation for trans people in a positive light made me feel like an alien, made me feel like there was no space for me in the world. I'm grateful now that this next generation of young kids at least have some positive representation.
5:47 Taylor: I agree. The next generation that I’m seeing, I view it as so beautiful that they’re getting the chance for them to live who they really are so early in their lives.
5:57 Casper: Yeah. Could you tell me a little bit about what happened, as much as you feel comfortable, prior to your conviction and coming to prison, a little bit about your circumstances?
6:09 Taylor: There's almost two phases. There is the pre-drug phase where I would isolate myself. I did not have any friends. Eventually I found drugs. I could use drugs to evade transgender issues, my sexuality issues, all of the issues that made me different from what I was told to be. And in addition to just evading them, I will admit I liked getting high.
So I went from a little bit of drugs to a lot of drugs, very quickly. I went from smoking marijuana to, within a year, I have a needle in my arm. I'm chasing every drug I could get. I realized now, I was just unhappy. I was trying to find that happiness in any way I could, the fact that all through my childhood, through my high school years, all the way up until I got locked up, I was an unhappy angry person because I didn't know what was wrong.
I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was. And because I was angry with myself, I would lash out at other people. I didn't know how to be a good friend. I didn't know how to be a good child. I could manipulate and appear to be exactly what my parents wanted, which made it easier for me. But even then, I'm just practicing to be someone I wasn't. This ended up continuing even to the years when I came to prison, mimicking others, pretending to be something I'm not, looking at how others are living and trying to copy that because I don't know it myself.
7:37 Casper: I completely understand where you were coming from and that, and just trying to deal with the pain and the confusion and amplified by teenage hormones. It must've been so hard for you.
So when you were in the midst of this sort of escapism with drugs, what was your mindset like? Were you still going to classes? Did you have a relationship with your parents? What did you do with your time?
8:05 Taylor: Again, I was blessed because I didn't really need to work in any of my classes. I went from gifted and talented classes to advanced placement type programs and going from them back to regular classes, I could just not have to do anything. I would sit there and do the least amount of work because I was just depressed. I would end up passing all my classes. Up until I ended up dropping out, I had decent grades.
When I dropped out, I immediately got a GED. In terms of my future and how I saw myself and what I wanted to do with my life, I didn't have an answer. I had lots of daydreams. I had lots of hopes that I could have done this or done that, but nothing concrete, stable enough, for me to really work towards.
8:56 Casper: What were some of your dreams and your aspirations?
8:59 Taylor: A dream that was given to me was to join the military. My grandfather was in the military.
My father wanted to be, but was not able to for medical reasons. So I was raised to join the military. I was raised to be alpha-male tough guy. That was never me. I used to like things that were artistic, but those things, I can't say that they were pushed away, but they weren't approved of.
Because I had such self-esteem issues, I would always look for approval from my parents, from my dad, and that led me in directions I didn't want to go. Had I not dealt with it, I have no idea where my life would have gone.
I was semi close to my parents. My mom did the best she could. She was depressed at times. She later left my father. She ended up getting her life together. She's extremely successful now. A good, productive, positive life. At the time of my childhood, she wasn't at that point yet.
My father, he was intelligent. He was smart. He was able to make a lot of money, but he was an alcoholic. He had all of these personal demons that he was not dealing with. He was just drinking every night to evade. I'm not sure I learned the pattern of addiction from him or the addiction of something that came by my bloodline.
But very quickly from as soon as I started to use, I was addicted. My dad drank. I used drugs. I became a younger version of him in many senses, but I was never the boy he'd wanted. I was never the son that was going to grow up and do masculine things. But I tried to be, because I didn't know of any other options.
10:45 Casper: So do you feel like he approved of who you were growing into as a person and as much effort as you were putting into to try and please him and go, for lack of a better word, alpha boy route? Do you feel like you were getting any of the approval from him that you were seeking or did it just feel more like you were seeking it and trying very hard, but you weren't getting it?
11:10 Taylor: I was getting it, but not to the point that I was seeking it. My dad, he was not that talkative. And many times I would just, I would constantly look at him. That's all I wanted was him to nod his head, “Yes.” That I was doing something good, like he approved. I would do this for sports. So I used to have to play basketball.
I played football. I ended up running track. I'm athletic. So those things weren't hard, but had I had the choice, I would not have done them. For the most part, I think he approved, but looking back, I can't say what he approved of and who he approved of was even a real person. I learned early on to just be who my parents wanted me to be, appear the way they wanted me to appear to avoid conflict, to make them happy and to just get away with it, get away from them.
I can go to my room. I can be by myself. I can get on the computer. I can play video games. I was more comfortable by myself than I was with any of them.
12:09 Casper: That makes a lot of sense to me too, because I went down the exact same route. Pushing people out of my life for fear of what they would think or how they would judge me, ended up making me so much more depressed as a teenager.
And I realize that now, I didn't at the time, of course.
12:27 Taylor: It instills a sense of shame and a sense of guilt because we're not doing what we believe we’re supposed to do. In a different society, expectations would never have been placed on us.
The damage it does to our mental health is real, it's lasting. I still have damage, my self esteem hasn't bounced back. It’s still my biggest problem.
All those are wounds from our childhood, wounds from growing up that don't go away. In order to be functional, productive adults, we have to learn to deal with these things.
And I can't say they’re anyone's fault. Just how things ended up. Due to the nature of society at that time, due to who our parents were and how they were raised. It’s no one's fault, it does damage to transgender people like you and me being raised in an environment that is not accepting of us.
13:20 Casper: And it's hard to fault anybody for just being ignorant of the subject. Like we mentioned earlier, neither of us grew up knowing anything about transgender people or having any sort of positive representations for people and for our parents' generation, that didn't exist in any capacity.
And even though they did the best they could with the information that they had, it still left a couple wounds that are very hard to reconcile. And now that we're both in our thirties and we're doing so much work on self-growth and understanding ourselves and who we are and who we want to be, it takes a lot of time and energy to try and heal those wounds.
But I'm so appreciative again for having you in my life. We went through this together. We both went through our transitions together, you in prison and me on the outside.
14:09 Taylor: At the same time, without us even speaking about it to each other, we were able to be the support system that we needed.
14:16 Casper: Yeah, yeah absolutely. I'm so grateful that we had each other in each other's lives during that time. And I feel like we're both so much better for it. We still have a long way to go, but we're both in better places now I think, than we were when we met.
TRIAL
14:32 Casper: Do you want to talk a little bit about what your trial was like and what you experienced during that time?
14:39 Taylor: One word: terrible. I didn't know how to deal with it. It did not go how I expected. I had zero experience with anything like that. I can't even remember how long it is. Right now, looking back, it’s a lot of that, but it was like at least a week long, the entire time I remember just staring at the desk.
I wasn't able to hear what was being said because everything that was being said, it was either not true or it hurt. I didn't know how to deal with it. I remember the bailiff at times, he kept giving me a signal to put my head up, to look up. I wouldn't realize I'm just staring down.
And in addition to that, the county jail had put me on some serious psych meds. I don't remember what they were and I was kinda zombified the entire trial. But even in spite of the meds, the trial was terrible. The DA who was trying to get me convicted was not even in reality talking about me.
He would talk about a few facts, but then he would just go off on all these spiels about how terrible I was, comparing me to a vulture and a thief and I was psychopathic. And they kept saying so much that was not in line with reality that I just did not know how to deal with something like that.
It felt like I was on a TV show with the super bad character and the really good DA. I did something wrong. I did something terribly wrong. I took someone's life. There's no way to take that back. I can't even pretend like I'm the victim in the trial because I deserve to be convicted.
But the nature of the trial and how it was presented to the jurors, they didn't present me. They just presented the worst image that they could make up from the facts that they got from the case. One of the last things the DA told the jury was, “Pretend that parole does not exist. Give this person the amount of time that you would like them to do before you see them out with your family again.”
I was an 18 year old kid, but they gave me an 80 year sentence, basically meaning they never wanted to see me out there with their family again.
I did not know how to deal with that.
I had lots of issues from growing up, many things related to how I grew up and then many more related to the choices I had made. One of the turning points in my life. When they gave me that sentence, I stopped caring. It was like, I'm an 18 year old. It's hard to see in my future anyway.
And they give me such a huge prison sentence. I can't even really comprehend it.
From that point, I go, 18 years old, to a men's prison, and I have to deal with all the hazing and the violence and the potential rapings. And the potential murders. Even when in county jail, people had been scaring me with these stories that this could happen, or that could happen. In my head, I’m blowing things up way out of proportion of what they really are.
I don't know how to describe it. Any word other than terrible.
17:43 Casper: It's so beyond my capacity to even try and put myself in your shoes at that time being a teenager who has gone through so much stuff with your identity and trying to figure out where your place was in the world and delving into any form of escapism to try and deal with that pain and then making a huge mistake in your life.
Then being reamed by the prosecution, the district attorney, being villainized and turned into a monster caricature of yourself and witnessing all of that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were also awaiting trial in jail for a year at that point, right?
18:27 Taylor: At least a year, yes. I got locked up when I was 17 years old. I spent, if not a year, it was very close to it, but I believe it was a year, most likely over. A lot of that period in my life, my brain had like, kind of repressed in a way because those were really painful years. My early prison years. Even the years in my childhood before the crime, before any of this criminal stuff happened, those were really painful years.
I went from one painful experience to another. It took me a long time to learn to deal with it, to learn to understand, even longer to learn to start healing. But again, I want to point out that I deserved to be on trial. I deserved to get convicted. I took someone's life. So I won't pretend in any way like I am the victim. I deserved this. I might not deserve this sentence, but that was not for me to say. A jury of my peers gave me this sentence. If that's justice, I don't know. It's something that I've had to live with.
19:30 Casper: I think it's very worth examining what we feel is justice in this sort of case. We have developed this jury system and this trial process over the course of hundreds of years of human history and evolution. Just because it is the best that we have gotten to at this point doesn't mean that it is always fair and correct and right. And a person can make a horrible, horrible mistake in their life and they can do something like take the life of another person.
But something that we grapple with a lot in this work is, does that take away a person's humanity? Does that turn a person into a monster who is unworthy of any sort of compassion or kindness again in their entire life? Should they not have any chance at redemption? Of course my answer to that is no.
And I know that many people have different ideas of what justice should look like, but for me, you have been such an instrumental person in my life over the last decade. You're one of my best friends. I love you so dearly.
20:39 Taylor: I love you too.
20:41 Casper: Well, I hope someday, we can welcome you out of those walls because I know that you don't have ill intent against other people. You are a great person in my eyes, and I know you have so much support and so much to offer the world. I don't think it's justice that you should spend the rest of your life behind bars.
21:00 Taylor: I do appreciate you saying all of that and not just saying it. I do appreciate you meaning all of that about me. Maybe at one point laws could change. Things could change. I don't get my hopes up because I do not want my hopes dashed.
Since I've become an adult, I've realized I can go different directions in my life, and I want to go a positive direction. I still have many issues that I deal with, but they're not issues of violence against people. They're not issues that create victims. They're almost all completely issues I deal with within myself.
I want to be a better person. I want to do positive things. If I passed away for people to be able to say at my funeral, “Wow. That person really did something. Wow. They did this. They helped me.” To leave a mark on society. Right now, I try what I can in here, I try to help people in the ways that I can in here, but my options are limited.
But again, that's due to my own actions.
22:03 Casper: You have brought so much positivity to not just my life, but I know to the people around you. Your friends that I've spoken with inside and your partners and stuff have so much love for you. And you've brought so much light and joy to their world, and you've made so much positive change.
Like, we took on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice together and we got policy changed inside Texas prisons, which is mind-blowing to me. Do you want to talk a little bit about that time we petitioned the government to have policy changed for transgender prisoners?
14:39 Taylor: One word: terrible. I didn't know how to deal with it. It did not go how I expected. I had zero experience with anything like that. I can't even remember how long it is. Right now, looking back, it’s a lot of that, but it was like at least a week long, the entire time I remember just staring at the desk.
I wasn't able to hear what was being said because everything that was being said, it was either not true or it hurt. I didn't know how to deal with it. I remember the bailiff at times, he kept giving me a signal to put my head up, to look up. I wouldn't realize I'm just staring down.
And in addition to that, the county jail had put me on some serious psych meds. I don't remember what they were and I was kinda zombified the entire trial. But even in spite of the meds, the trial was terrible. The DA who was trying to get me convicted was not even in reality talking about me.
He would talk about a few facts, but then he would just go off on all these spiels about how terrible I was, comparing me to a vulture and a thief and I was psychopathic. And they kept saying so much that was not in line with reality that I just did not know how to deal with something like that.
It felt like I was on a TV show with the super bad character and the really good DA. I did something wrong. I did something terribly wrong. I took someone's life. There's no way to take that back. I can't even pretend like I'm the victim in the trial because I deserve to be convicted.
But the nature of the trial and how it was presented to the jurors, they didn't present me. They just presented the worst image that they could make up from the facts that they got from the case. One of the last things the DA told the jury was, “Pretend that parole does not exist. Give this person the amount of time that you would like them to do before you see them out with your family again.”
I was an 18 year old kid, but they gave me an 80 year sentence, basically meaning they never wanted to see me out there with their family again.
I did not know how to deal with that.
I had lots of issues from growing up, many things related to how I grew up and then many more related to the choices I had made. One of the turning points in my life. When they gave me that sentence, I stopped caring. It was like, I'm an 18 year old. It's hard to see in my future anyway.
And they give me such a huge prison sentence. I can't even really comprehend it.
From that point, I go, 18 years old, to a men's prison, and I have to deal with all the hazing and the violence and the potential rapings. And the potential murders. Even when in county jail, people had been scaring me with these stories that this could happen, or that could happen. In my head, I’m blowing things up way out of proportion of what they really are.
I don't know how to describe it. Any word other than terrible.
17:43 Casper: It's so beyond my capacity to even try and put myself in your shoes at that time being a teenager who has gone through so much stuff with your identity and trying to figure out where your place was in the world and delving into any form of escapism to try and deal with that pain and then making a huge mistake in your life.
Then being reamed by the prosecution, the district attorney, being villainized and turned into a monster caricature of yourself and witnessing all of that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you were also awaiting trial in jail for a year at that point, right?
18:27 Taylor: At least a year, yes. I got locked up when I was 17 years old. I spent, if not a year, it was very close to it, but I believe it was a year, most likely over. A lot of that period in my life, my brain had like, kind of repressed in a way because those were really painful years. My early prison years. Even the years in my childhood before the crime, before any of this criminal stuff happened, those were really painful years.
I went from one painful experience to another. It took me a long time to learn to deal with it, to learn to understand, even longer to learn to start healing. But again, I want to point out that I deserved to be on trial. I deserved to get convicted. I took someone's life. So I won't pretend in any way like I am the victim. I deserved this. I might not deserve this sentence, but that was not for me to say. A jury of my peers gave me this sentence. If that's justice, I don't know. It's something that I've had to live with.
19:30 Casper: I think it's very worth examining what we feel is justice in this sort of case. We have developed this jury system and this trial process over the course of hundreds of years of human history and evolution. Just because it is the best that we have gotten to at this point doesn't mean that it is always fair and correct and right. And a person can make a horrible, horrible mistake in their life and they can do something like take the life of another person.
But something that we grapple with a lot in this work is, does that take away a person's humanity? Does that turn a person into a monster who is unworthy of any sort of compassion or kindness again in their entire life? Should they not have any chance at redemption? Of course my answer to that is no.
And I know that many people have different ideas of what justice should look like, but for me, you have been such an instrumental person in my life over the last decade. You're one of my best friends. I love you so dearly.
20:39 Taylor: I love you too.
20:41 Casper: Well, I hope someday, we can welcome you out of those walls because I know that you don't have ill intent against other people. You are a great person in my eyes, and I know you have so much support and so much to offer the world. I don't think it's justice that you should spend the rest of your life behind bars.
21:00 Taylor: I do appreciate you saying all of that and not just saying it. I do appreciate you meaning all of that about me. Maybe at one point laws could change. Things could change. I don't get my hopes up because I do not want my hopes dashed.
Since I've become an adult, I've realized I can go different directions in my life, and I want to go a positive direction. I still have many issues that I deal with, but they're not issues of violence against people. They're not issues that create victims. They're almost all completely issues I deal with within myself.
I want to be a better person. I want to do positive things. If I passed away for people to be able to say at my funeral, “Wow. That person really did something. Wow. They did this. They helped me.” To leave a mark on society. Right now, I try what I can in here, I try to help people in the ways that I can in here, but my options are limited.
But again, that's due to my own actions.
22:03 Casper: You have brought so much positivity to not just my life, but I know to the people around you. Your friends that I've spoken with inside and your partners and stuff have so much love for you. And you've brought so much light and joy to their world, and you've made so much positive change.
Like, we took on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice together and we got policy changed inside Texas prisons, which is mind-blowing to me. Do you want to talk a little bit about that time we petitioned the government to have policy changed for transgender prisoners?
POLICY INSIDE
22:38 Taylor: I have to say now I'm going to talk about a unit called Allred Unit at TDCJ. But I've heard recently about that unit, are that it has changed. When I was there, it was tough. It was very tough if you were gay or transgender. The name is the Allred Unit. Many people joke that it's the All Redneck Unit.
It's 15 miles away from the border in Oklahoma. And the culture on that unit with the officers is very anti-inmate. Instead of working with inmates, they would almost intentionally cause conflict with inmates. I was sent to this unit and put on [safe]keeping. After I came out transgender and due to problems I had in my youth that I was put in here for what was meant to be protection, a safer place.
On this unit, the problem that me and you had, I got in a little bit of trouble. I was put on a more restricted area. Every time I left the area, they would strip-search me. They would strip-search everyone, but this was not a private strip-search. They were strip-searching us in front of a hundred other people, two other sections.
They used to joke that it was called the “meat show.” People would come to the windows just to watch us get naked. This was really, really hard for me. I wasn't used to this. I wasn't used to having predators send me little letters to my house, telling me their opinion of how I look naked, all the things they want to do with me. That was very tough to deal with.
And that was the only way I could eat. If I want to leave to get a meal, I must get strip-searched in front of everyone. If I want to go to medical, I must get strip-searched. If I wanted to go to visit, see my family, I must get strip-searched in front of everyone. There was a period that the anxiety was getting so bad that I almost stopped eating. I was not going to medical. I was going for the minimal amount of chow hall food.
I was doing everything in my power not to have to deal with the “meat show.” And we started petitions. We started complaints against TDCJ specifically against this issue. And after thousands of people signed on to our petition, policy was changed. The warden talked to me specifically and told me that there were only two units in all of TDCJ, which at that time had close to 100 units, strip-search people at my custody level. He decided, due to the complaints, to change where they just pat-search us, or they would just feel us for contraband, which eliminated the “meat show.” It eliminated the repeated trauma to get naked in front of people.
I only was able to do that because of Casper. By myself, from within the system, I would have had no power to change anything, because most of the time we're ignored in here. We have a paperwork system that we can complain, but we're complaining to the same system that we're saying is wrong.
It's almost impossible to get change. But Casper was able to make complaints out there in the free world, was able to start a petition at change.com. Casper was able to help me. That's not the only time. Casper has helped me multiple times all throughout my life when I needed it. I'll turn to Casper, I'll turn to A.B.O, when I need help. And I know that I might not have anyone else in my life, I know they'll help me. I know that I'm not alone.
26:12 Casper: Oh my God, Taylor, I'm on the verge of tears here. I can't imagine what you go through on a daily basis and being on the other side and just hearing it in your voice and in your words. It's hard for me, it was so hard for me to know what the right thing to do is, and how to help and how to be there for you. And I can't even begin to put myself in your shoes and think about what you have had to go through in there.
And I remember even when I came to visit, when we met in person through glass and their stupid little phone system I could barely hear you on.
I remember you had to get up because I was shoving sodas at you and I kept and kept giving you root beer and whatever. You had to use the restroom and you had to go through the guard area and you had to get strip-searched just to go to the restroom, despite the fact that there was no possible conceivable way I could have passed contraband to you or anything, cause we were through bullet proof glass.
27:08 Taylor: TDC has lots of policy which in theory would make sense, but in actuality doesn't. In actuality, so much policy here stands in the way of people hoping to change themselves. It's so much policy makes things harder than it needs to be for no other reason than somebody wrote it down on a piece of paper and those are the rules. People refuse to change the rules.
27:34 Casper: It's also so hard because at some point 1 person within the system will take advantage of it and TDCJ will catch wind. And then all the rules will change for everybody. Everybody is punished because of one case. They just keep adding rule on top of rule on top of rule. It's impossible to know all of them and to comply with all of them. It just traumatizes you all. I've heard so many horror stories from people within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice of just trauma and abuse that they endured that's supposedly, to keep you all safe. It's so backwards.
And I hope that we can start making positive changes for the better.
It's 15 miles away from the border in Oklahoma. And the culture on that unit with the officers is very anti-inmate. Instead of working with inmates, they would almost intentionally cause conflict with inmates. I was sent to this unit and put on [safe]keeping. After I came out transgender and due to problems I had in my youth that I was put in here for what was meant to be protection, a safer place.
On this unit, the problem that me and you had, I got in a little bit of trouble. I was put on a more restricted area. Every time I left the area, they would strip-search me. They would strip-search everyone, but this was not a private strip-search. They were strip-searching us in front of a hundred other people, two other sections.
They used to joke that it was called the “meat show.” People would come to the windows just to watch us get naked. This was really, really hard for me. I wasn't used to this. I wasn't used to having predators send me little letters to my house, telling me their opinion of how I look naked, all the things they want to do with me. That was very tough to deal with.
And that was the only way I could eat. If I want to leave to get a meal, I must get strip-searched in front of everyone. If I want to go to medical, I must get strip-searched. If I wanted to go to visit, see my family, I must get strip-searched in front of everyone. There was a period that the anxiety was getting so bad that I almost stopped eating. I was not going to medical. I was going for the minimal amount of chow hall food.
I was doing everything in my power not to have to deal with the “meat show.” And we started petitions. We started complaints against TDCJ specifically against this issue. And after thousands of people signed on to our petition, policy was changed. The warden talked to me specifically and told me that there were only two units in all of TDCJ, which at that time had close to 100 units, strip-search people at my custody level. He decided, due to the complaints, to change where they just pat-search us, or they would just feel us for contraband, which eliminated the “meat show.” It eliminated the repeated trauma to get naked in front of people.
I only was able to do that because of Casper. By myself, from within the system, I would have had no power to change anything, because most of the time we're ignored in here. We have a paperwork system that we can complain, but we're complaining to the same system that we're saying is wrong.
It's almost impossible to get change. But Casper was able to make complaints out there in the free world, was able to start a petition at change.com. Casper was able to help me. That's not the only time. Casper has helped me multiple times all throughout my life when I needed it. I'll turn to Casper, I'll turn to A.B.O, when I need help. And I know that I might not have anyone else in my life, I know they'll help me. I know that I'm not alone.
26:12 Casper: Oh my God, Taylor, I'm on the verge of tears here. I can't imagine what you go through on a daily basis and being on the other side and just hearing it in your voice and in your words. It's hard for me, it was so hard for me to know what the right thing to do is, and how to help and how to be there for you. And I can't even begin to put myself in your shoes and think about what you have had to go through in there.
And I remember even when I came to visit, when we met in person through glass and their stupid little phone system I could barely hear you on.
I remember you had to get up because I was shoving sodas at you and I kept and kept giving you root beer and whatever. You had to use the restroom and you had to go through the guard area and you had to get strip-searched just to go to the restroom, despite the fact that there was no possible conceivable way I could have passed contraband to you or anything, cause we were through bullet proof glass.
27:08 Taylor: TDC has lots of policy which in theory would make sense, but in actuality doesn't. In actuality, so much policy here stands in the way of people hoping to change themselves. It's so much policy makes things harder than it needs to be for no other reason than somebody wrote it down on a piece of paper and those are the rules. People refuse to change the rules.
27:34 Casper: It's also so hard because at some point 1 person within the system will take advantage of it and TDCJ will catch wind. And then all the rules will change for everybody. Everybody is punished because of one case. They just keep adding rule on top of rule on top of rule. It's impossible to know all of them and to comply with all of them. It just traumatizes you all. I've heard so many horror stories from people within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice of just trauma and abuse that they endured that's supposedly, to keep you all safe. It's so backwards.
And I hope that we can start making positive changes for the better.
*BREAK*
28:25 Conductor Trig: *doors opening*
28:33 Conductor Jo: Imagine yourself here: a prisoner coming up on the 20th year anniversary of your sentencing. You have been abandoned by your friends and family and have no connection to the outside world. Suddenly, a donation appears in your commissary where you have never been able to visit. You taste ice cream for the first time in decades. This is the reality for many of our contributors. Your donation can help provide a meal, basic hygiene, art supplies and other essential items. Become a patron at patreon.com/abocomix, or head over to abocomix.com for more ways to donate. That's a b o c o m i x. Thank you for supporting our cause.
29:20 Conductor Trig: *doors closing*
28:33 Conductor Jo: Imagine yourself here: a prisoner coming up on the 20th year anniversary of your sentencing. You have been abandoned by your friends and family and have no connection to the outside world. Suddenly, a donation appears in your commissary where you have never been able to visit. You taste ice cream for the first time in decades. This is the reality for many of our contributors. Your donation can help provide a meal, basic hygiene, art supplies and other essential items. Become a patron at patreon.com/abocomix, or head over to abocomix.com for more ways to donate. That's a b o c o m i x. Thank you for supporting our cause.
29:20 Conductor Trig: *doors closing*
NO ONE'S BITCH
29:27 Casper: Could you talk a little bit about what it was like for you after your conviction and when you first came to prison, transitioning from jail to prison, what your experience was like, and then your story of being checked in?
29:42 Taylor: The whole time at county jail, I heard all the stories of what prison was going to be like. Then after my conviction, I get sent to a unit and it turns out that the unit I'm sent to is in the top five most violent units in the system. I was put on a wing of nothing but people with big time, 50 years or above. Everything was run by gangs. People who had gotten locked up on that unit in the nineties, which were very violent years on this unit, who had not gotten their 10 years yet. And they were speaking for all the gangs. They ran the gang, the unit was still at its most predatory. Everyone who comes in, if you don't want to pay protection, you have to fight.
You had to fight. Just, and this was like ritualized fighting. This is like hazing, but more so. In hazing, that's something you just go through. This was grown men trying to break you mentally and physically so you become their property.
Whenever I got there, 18 year old kid, I told them I'm not going to pay anything. I'm not going to be anyone's bitch. I'm not going those routes. So I had to fight. It was pretty quick, within a day or two. I ended up having to go in someone's house, fight one person. At this time I couldn't fight. I thought I could. But when it's a grown man punching you in the face, as hard as he can, I realized, I don't know how to fight. But I fought him for a minute. Then they switched. I fought someone else for a minute. Then a quick break. I fought that same person for another minute.
After all of this, my eyes were almost swollen shut, my body could barely function. I was beat up. I was lying on the ground because I thought I only had to go through three rounds with these guys. The world is spinning and another one kicks me on my leg, tells me, “Alright, get up, another round.” I get back up, try and put my hands up because I know I have to do this. I have to fight. This is my only option.
And they start the round. It turns out that it was just a test. They wanted to see if I would get up off the floor. That was me when I was checked in. Beyond that, anytime someone would want to fight, you have to fight them. That's the rules. If you don't fight them or you run away, you become a bitch and you do that one time, it will follow you through the rest of your prison sentence.
I would look at all these people and all these grown men, I'd look at the toughest ones, the guys I wanted to be like. So I would start to emulate them. That unit at that time was very racial. There were the Blacks, Hispanics, whites. I went with the whites. This was 2005. There were only six white guys who are not paying protection. At least 40 who were paying protection. And this is not paying protection by choice. They are forced with extortion, but due to good genetics and having to play sports my whole life, I was physically capable of fighting. I didn't know what I was doing.
Lucky for me, I was able to make it through the brunt of it. So anytime somebody wanted to fight, I had to fight. Any time someone new came, they would send me. I would have to go fight them. That was the life, that was the culture. It was alien to me when I got there. But over time it became the lifestyle, it was all I knew. I didn't know how to get away from it. It was very anti-gay, anti-trans. On the Beto Unit where I was at, the trans girls were treated worse than the child molesters. They were property. They were getting raped or pimped out. As soon as I saw the girls on the unit, mentally I realized, “Oh shit, that's me.”
And it terrified me so bad that I put up the walls in my brain. I tried so hard for years to not transition. Maybe if I try hard enough to be a guy, it would feel normal and it would be right.
33:49 Casper: Thank you so much for sharing that. I know it's gotta be difficult to relive all of this. But I appreciate so much you sharing your story.
33:57 Taylor: No problem. All those years on Beto is the reason I am the person I am right now. In the end, I think made me a better person. That might be hard for you to understand, but it made me more confident. I can walk around now confident because I've been through so much that I know it's extremely unlikely I'm going to go through anything like that here. And I made it through this.
34:20 Casper: No, that makes a lot of sense to me. You've survived so much stuff that, I would imagine it now feels like the little things are much easier to get through. Can you talk a little bit about what it was like the first few years for you?
29:42 Taylor: The whole time at county jail, I heard all the stories of what prison was going to be like. Then after my conviction, I get sent to a unit and it turns out that the unit I'm sent to is in the top five most violent units in the system. I was put on a wing of nothing but people with big time, 50 years or above. Everything was run by gangs. People who had gotten locked up on that unit in the nineties, which were very violent years on this unit, who had not gotten their 10 years yet. And they were speaking for all the gangs. They ran the gang, the unit was still at its most predatory. Everyone who comes in, if you don't want to pay protection, you have to fight.
You had to fight. Just, and this was like ritualized fighting. This is like hazing, but more so. In hazing, that's something you just go through. This was grown men trying to break you mentally and physically so you become their property.
Whenever I got there, 18 year old kid, I told them I'm not going to pay anything. I'm not going to be anyone's bitch. I'm not going those routes. So I had to fight. It was pretty quick, within a day or two. I ended up having to go in someone's house, fight one person. At this time I couldn't fight. I thought I could. But when it's a grown man punching you in the face, as hard as he can, I realized, I don't know how to fight. But I fought him for a minute. Then they switched. I fought someone else for a minute. Then a quick break. I fought that same person for another minute.
After all of this, my eyes were almost swollen shut, my body could barely function. I was beat up. I was lying on the ground because I thought I only had to go through three rounds with these guys. The world is spinning and another one kicks me on my leg, tells me, “Alright, get up, another round.” I get back up, try and put my hands up because I know I have to do this. I have to fight. This is my only option.
And they start the round. It turns out that it was just a test. They wanted to see if I would get up off the floor. That was me when I was checked in. Beyond that, anytime someone would want to fight, you have to fight them. That's the rules. If you don't fight them or you run away, you become a bitch and you do that one time, it will follow you through the rest of your prison sentence.
I would look at all these people and all these grown men, I'd look at the toughest ones, the guys I wanted to be like. So I would start to emulate them. That unit at that time was very racial. There were the Blacks, Hispanics, whites. I went with the whites. This was 2005. There were only six white guys who are not paying protection. At least 40 who were paying protection. And this is not paying protection by choice. They are forced with extortion, but due to good genetics and having to play sports my whole life, I was physically capable of fighting. I didn't know what I was doing.
Lucky for me, I was able to make it through the brunt of it. So anytime somebody wanted to fight, I had to fight. Any time someone new came, they would send me. I would have to go fight them. That was the life, that was the culture. It was alien to me when I got there. But over time it became the lifestyle, it was all I knew. I didn't know how to get away from it. It was very anti-gay, anti-trans. On the Beto Unit where I was at, the trans girls were treated worse than the child molesters. They were property. They were getting raped or pimped out. As soon as I saw the girls on the unit, mentally I realized, “Oh shit, that's me.”
And it terrified me so bad that I put up the walls in my brain. I tried so hard for years to not transition. Maybe if I try hard enough to be a guy, it would feel normal and it would be right.
33:49 Casper: Thank you so much for sharing that. I know it's gotta be difficult to relive all of this. But I appreciate so much you sharing your story.
33:57 Taylor: No problem. All those years on Beto is the reason I am the person I am right now. In the end, I think made me a better person. That might be hard for you to understand, but it made me more confident. I can walk around now confident because I've been through so much that I know it's extremely unlikely I'm going to go through anything like that here. And I made it through this.
34:20 Casper: No, that makes a lot of sense to me. You've survived so much stuff that, I would imagine it now feels like the little things are much easier to get through. Can you talk a little bit about what it was like the first few years for you?
FIRST YEARS IN PRISON
34:36 Taylor: My first few years, I was just learning the nature of this place because it was so abnormal to me. There's a saying in here that people really don't understand everything that's going on until after about five years, because there's so many things going on beyond the surface, that aren't just readily apparent because it's a world, it's a small city. It's not necessarily a healthy city or a safe city, but like it's a small city.
Those early years, my anxiety was absolutely through the roof. I can't remember having any true friends. I learned the coping mechanism of exercise. I would exercise fanatically. I would exercise to the point that it's doing more damage to my body than it is benefit. I made it through all the hazing, but in my head constantly, 24 hours a day, was the worry of what if, what if all the negative situations?
What could happen. I'm seeing bad things happen to people. People getting seriously hurt. They're getting stabbed, they're getting jumped on. They're getting raped and while that stuff's not happening to me, mentally I put myself in that position because if it were happening to me, I would have no power to stop it. My early years in, it was just coping, learning to deal with this, learning to stay out of the way, not to draw attention to myself. Watching other people make mistakes and trying to learn from their mistakes so that I never needed to.
The early years were stress. The best way I can put it now is they were stress. I never really got comfortable in here until five, six, seven years in because all the early years, worried about everything that could happen to me. Not to say that I'm not right now. I'm fully aware of everything that can happen to me right now in here, but it's a normal worry, not the worry that it was for 18, 19, 20 year old suburban kid, surrounded by murderers and rapists. That was terrifying. I didn't know how to deal with it. I would just look at other people and copy how they live. I wasn't necessarily being myself. I wasn't being authentic, but I was being alive. I was being as safe as I could be.
37:01 Casper: So those first 5, 6, 7 years of high stress, I imagine that took its toll on your physical health and your mental health. Was there a point that you felt like you started becoming more comfortable with your surroundings and weren't constantly living in a state of fear or does that still exist today?
37:24 Taylor: I do remember when it started to happen. I knew on the inside, I was dealing with my gender stuff, my sexuality stuff, but I tried to keep it locked away. I had this anxiety that other people could see it. Other people were judging me about it. Other people are going to hurt me because of it.
Someone got sent to the unit. He got sent there for college, but it was another white guy. He made it through the hazing and then we found out that he was gay. He's the one that showed me that it's possible to break the mold in here, to act different and to be okay. He ended up being my best friend for years.
I was in a relationship with him for five years and six days. He was the one who showed me that I don't need to look towards all the tough guys, the traditional prison looking guy. He showed me that I could be more me. I can be that and be safe. Cause I watched him be safe. He went through his issues, but none of the terrible things happened to him.
And that let me get more comfortable. In those years, I was not out as transgender. I was playing with my sexuality because I didn't know exactly what I was, what I wanted to do. I was experimenting. It's bad that I had to do that in my mid early twenties instead of out there, out in the free world, but that's just how it worked out.
Even during those years, I stayed an exercise fanatic. I trained in martial arts. I used to keep a knife on me at all times because I knew the lifestyle I was living at that point, I was a target. Not only a target to the rapists and the gang members, but a target to my own homeboys. You cannot be gay and be what I was. I was not in one of the Aryan gangs. I was not in any of that, but I was with the white guys and in that culture, that's not acceptable at all, but I was doing it anyway. So that was even more stress. It was constant being uncomfortable, but it was all I knew. I learned to live in that environment. Eventually I got in college, I got good jobs within the prison.
I developed a reputation. Everyone knew me. I was there so long that I grew up on the unit. Everyone knew me. I acted good enough. I had a good reputation. I was a somebody, but the entire time I knew every bit of that was fake. Every person I called a friend, when he called me a friend back, he did not even know me.
He did not know the true me. He just knew the image I put on because I thought I needed to. It was not until I got sent to a different unit that I finally left all that behind. I kept it on that unit because I didn't know how to do anything else. And honestly, I was scared to try anything else. I was scared of everything that could happen.
All the what if. When I got sent to another unit, it was my opportunity. I don't know these people. I don't know what's going on. I'm already in good shape. I know how to fight. Let me deal with me now. Let me try and finally deal with my own issues. I left all the nutso gang lifestyle even though it really wasn't gang.
Everything was so racially organized, that the whites took care of the whites, but I left all that behind. There was a sense of freedom that I'd never felt before. I was adopting a new stress that now I'm living a new life that I have no idea how to live.
Those early years, my anxiety was absolutely through the roof. I can't remember having any true friends. I learned the coping mechanism of exercise. I would exercise fanatically. I would exercise to the point that it's doing more damage to my body than it is benefit. I made it through all the hazing, but in my head constantly, 24 hours a day, was the worry of what if, what if all the negative situations?
What could happen. I'm seeing bad things happen to people. People getting seriously hurt. They're getting stabbed, they're getting jumped on. They're getting raped and while that stuff's not happening to me, mentally I put myself in that position because if it were happening to me, I would have no power to stop it. My early years in, it was just coping, learning to deal with this, learning to stay out of the way, not to draw attention to myself. Watching other people make mistakes and trying to learn from their mistakes so that I never needed to.
The early years were stress. The best way I can put it now is they were stress. I never really got comfortable in here until five, six, seven years in because all the early years, worried about everything that could happen to me. Not to say that I'm not right now. I'm fully aware of everything that can happen to me right now in here, but it's a normal worry, not the worry that it was for 18, 19, 20 year old suburban kid, surrounded by murderers and rapists. That was terrifying. I didn't know how to deal with it. I would just look at other people and copy how they live. I wasn't necessarily being myself. I wasn't being authentic, but I was being alive. I was being as safe as I could be.
37:01 Casper: So those first 5, 6, 7 years of high stress, I imagine that took its toll on your physical health and your mental health. Was there a point that you felt like you started becoming more comfortable with your surroundings and weren't constantly living in a state of fear or does that still exist today?
37:24 Taylor: I do remember when it started to happen. I knew on the inside, I was dealing with my gender stuff, my sexuality stuff, but I tried to keep it locked away. I had this anxiety that other people could see it. Other people were judging me about it. Other people are going to hurt me because of it.
Someone got sent to the unit. He got sent there for college, but it was another white guy. He made it through the hazing and then we found out that he was gay. He's the one that showed me that it's possible to break the mold in here, to act different and to be okay. He ended up being my best friend for years.
I was in a relationship with him for five years and six days. He was the one who showed me that I don't need to look towards all the tough guys, the traditional prison looking guy. He showed me that I could be more me. I can be that and be safe. Cause I watched him be safe. He went through his issues, but none of the terrible things happened to him.
And that let me get more comfortable. In those years, I was not out as transgender. I was playing with my sexuality because I didn't know exactly what I was, what I wanted to do. I was experimenting. It's bad that I had to do that in my mid early twenties instead of out there, out in the free world, but that's just how it worked out.
Even during those years, I stayed an exercise fanatic. I trained in martial arts. I used to keep a knife on me at all times because I knew the lifestyle I was living at that point, I was a target. Not only a target to the rapists and the gang members, but a target to my own homeboys. You cannot be gay and be what I was. I was not in one of the Aryan gangs. I was not in any of that, but I was with the white guys and in that culture, that's not acceptable at all, but I was doing it anyway. So that was even more stress. It was constant being uncomfortable, but it was all I knew. I learned to live in that environment. Eventually I got in college, I got good jobs within the prison.
I developed a reputation. Everyone knew me. I was there so long that I grew up on the unit. Everyone knew me. I acted good enough. I had a good reputation. I was a somebody, but the entire time I knew every bit of that was fake. Every person I called a friend, when he called me a friend back, he did not even know me.
He did not know the true me. He just knew the image I put on because I thought I needed to. It was not until I got sent to a different unit that I finally left all that behind. I kept it on that unit because I didn't know how to do anything else. And honestly, I was scared to try anything else. I was scared of everything that could happen.
All the what if. When I got sent to another unit, it was my opportunity. I don't know these people. I don't know what's going on. I'm already in good shape. I know how to fight. Let me deal with me now. Let me try and finally deal with my own issues. I left all the nutso gang lifestyle even though it really wasn't gang.
Everything was so racially organized, that the whites took care of the whites, but I left all that behind. There was a sense of freedom that I'd never felt before. I was adopting a new stress that now I'm living a new life that I have no idea how to live.
FREEDOM
40:59 Casper: Your story is so intense. Around the time you started coming to terms with your sexuality and your gender identity and exploring that a whole lot more and wanting to get out of the culture that you had found yourself in for safety reasons, what was the process like for you getting moved to a different unit and starting to explore the feminine side of yourself?
41:22 Taylor: I didn't want to fight. I wanted to be relaxed, I wanted to be stable and have a life. I wouldn't call myself homosexual right now, but due to the gender that I was projecting at that time, I was living a homosexual life. Homosexuality was not accepted by the people I was around.
I did have to fight. I would get my status and reputation. And then not long after that, some new people would come in. I'd have to fight again. Then wait a little while, some new people. I got tired of it. And I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore. That was not who I was.
I just needed to get off that unit. I needed to get away. And you're the one who helped me with that, again, it comes to Casper. Due to all the early hazing, all of the stuff I went through in the beginning, I still made it. I had a reputation, but I still went through some really rough stuff early in. Casper helped bring that to attention of the system.
I was not going to say it. I was terrified. I had too much pride to say that. Reputation is too important in here for me to be willing to say that. So I just bit my tongue for a long time. Casper got me off of that unit but I made a mistake. Because that was the only unit I knew, I assumed all of TDCJ units, they had the same culture.
I assumed they're all just as violent. They were just as homophobic, just as transphobic. So when I was sent to another unit, I decided to live my life different, but I was going to live that life with the assumption that I was in serious danger. That I was a target. In actuality, I can see back now, I probably would have been alright on that unit, but due to my fear, due to my worries, Casper helped me get into safekeeping, which is the safest place for transgender community. People in TDCJ who do not want to have to fight. Cause not everyone here is built for fighting. Not everyone here grew up in that lifestyle and wants to be a soldier and wants to be a badass. There are softer, friendly, nice people in here who will get preyed on if they were left out in general population. Because I could make it in general population, I probably do not need to be in safekeeping, but for my mental health to have healed the way it did, for me to be comfortable, safekeeping was the only place that would have let me do that. That has let me do that.
43:52 Casper: I'm so grateful for the opportunity to get to learn about the system firsthand from you and to be a part of hopefully making things a tiny bit better. And it's been such an experience watching this from one side and then hearing it all through your words and all that you've lived through. I feel very fortunate for this experience to know you and to watch you grow and blossom into the amazing person that you are.
What was it like for you first starting the process of transitioning and getting on hormones and contemplating medical decisions and stuff for your transition?
44:32 Taylor: When I got approved for safekeeping, I was sent to Allred Unit. Allred Unit is hard for the officers. It's hard from the administration, what they can do to us. But in terms of on the section, on the pod, the environment of people, I was accepted.
Almost everyone there, if they weren't gay or trans or something, if they had experimented with the lifestyle, they were not judgmental. There were gay people everywhere. There were girls, trans girls everywhere. And I never experienced that before. The more I talked to the girls, the more I read books by transgender authors, I had this pride, I had this shell that I built up from all the years in general population.
But at night I would go home and read this stuff and think about these talks and just cry. Cry and cry. Tears of joy and tears of sadness. I hated that I was in that position, that I didn't have the freedom to be able to transition out with the world, like in the books talked about. But at least I was getting the opportunity. As scary as it was, I had the opportunity and there was one trans girl there. I sent her a letter, just me and her, a private note telling her, “This is how I feel. This is who I think I really am.” I had to talk to someone, I'd never told anyone. I had made hints to the guy I was with for five years, he was very much not accepting.
He wanted a husband. And so I bottled it up. It was the first time I'd ever just expressed it. She wrote me back full of support, full of ideas, full of nothing but positivity, letting me know that she would be there to help me. That was new to me. I'm not used to people in prison helping me, not without them trying to get something out of it.
Allred safekeeping was just so positive for my mental health. In terms of individuals, the inmates, the life we live due to how the officers treat us might be hard, but the way everyone will look out for each other and help each other. Safekeeping really helped me with that. I first came out to another trans girl on the section. She was supportive. From that point on, it was just little things. I had so much pride and so much fear, but I would do little things in the day room. Until I realized I can do all of these steps. It's all in my head, no one is stopping me from being who I am but myself.
And it wasn't easy from that point, but I lost a big barrier. I was able to go through a medical system here, and due to some lawsuits they had previously, they opened up a gender clinic, which made it easy for the trans girls to get hormones. I was able to get on hormones. The old lifestyle, the old person I was, I let it go.
I didn't try to be anything. There were girls around who seemed over the top, overly flamboyant, who seemed fake. I was fake before. I was fake trying to act like a guy, trying to act tough. So I told myself the entire time: "I will not be fake again." I want to look in the mirror and be authentic, step by step. I can't say I came out as much as I was able to show me. At this point now I don't try and walk a certain way. I don't try and talk a certain way. I don't try and present myself in any way. I let out what comes natural. This is who I am and I'm accepted, completely, as transgender. It's not easy. I'm not gonna lie. I still have my problems. But that's growing up in the culture I did. Growing up as a kid and then growing up in the violent years where I was put on safekeeping. I just worry that I judge myself when I shouldn't, and these are things that I am working to grow from, but I can say right now I am happier at this point in my life than I ever have been, at any other point when I was locked up and I'm happier right now than I was when I was in the world.
I'm finally being the me that I've never been able to be. And with that, once I was able to start caring for myself and loving for myself, it allowed me to do other things with my life.
I'm able to help other people more. I'm able to have more of an effect on everyone around me, the community in here, than I did when I was just quiet and insecure. I always wanted to help people. But now that I'm who I am, I can do that. All the barriers are gone. The walls are down.
49:11 Casper: I'm so proud of you, Taylor. You have made so much progress and you're incredible for sharing your story with other people. And you're going to leave behind an amazing legacy.
41:22 Taylor: I didn't want to fight. I wanted to be relaxed, I wanted to be stable and have a life. I wouldn't call myself homosexual right now, but due to the gender that I was projecting at that time, I was living a homosexual life. Homosexuality was not accepted by the people I was around.
I did have to fight. I would get my status and reputation. And then not long after that, some new people would come in. I'd have to fight again. Then wait a little while, some new people. I got tired of it. And I decided that I didn't want to do that anymore. That was not who I was.
I just needed to get off that unit. I needed to get away. And you're the one who helped me with that, again, it comes to Casper. Due to all the early hazing, all of the stuff I went through in the beginning, I still made it. I had a reputation, but I still went through some really rough stuff early in. Casper helped bring that to attention of the system.
I was not going to say it. I was terrified. I had too much pride to say that. Reputation is too important in here for me to be willing to say that. So I just bit my tongue for a long time. Casper got me off of that unit but I made a mistake. Because that was the only unit I knew, I assumed all of TDCJ units, they had the same culture.
I assumed they're all just as violent. They were just as homophobic, just as transphobic. So when I was sent to another unit, I decided to live my life different, but I was going to live that life with the assumption that I was in serious danger. That I was a target. In actuality, I can see back now, I probably would have been alright on that unit, but due to my fear, due to my worries, Casper helped me get into safekeeping, which is the safest place for transgender community. People in TDCJ who do not want to have to fight. Cause not everyone here is built for fighting. Not everyone here grew up in that lifestyle and wants to be a soldier and wants to be a badass. There are softer, friendly, nice people in here who will get preyed on if they were left out in general population. Because I could make it in general population, I probably do not need to be in safekeeping, but for my mental health to have healed the way it did, for me to be comfortable, safekeeping was the only place that would have let me do that. That has let me do that.
43:52 Casper: I'm so grateful for the opportunity to get to learn about the system firsthand from you and to be a part of hopefully making things a tiny bit better. And it's been such an experience watching this from one side and then hearing it all through your words and all that you've lived through. I feel very fortunate for this experience to know you and to watch you grow and blossom into the amazing person that you are.
What was it like for you first starting the process of transitioning and getting on hormones and contemplating medical decisions and stuff for your transition?
44:32 Taylor: When I got approved for safekeeping, I was sent to Allred Unit. Allred Unit is hard for the officers. It's hard from the administration, what they can do to us. But in terms of on the section, on the pod, the environment of people, I was accepted.
Almost everyone there, if they weren't gay or trans or something, if they had experimented with the lifestyle, they were not judgmental. There were gay people everywhere. There were girls, trans girls everywhere. And I never experienced that before. The more I talked to the girls, the more I read books by transgender authors, I had this pride, I had this shell that I built up from all the years in general population.
But at night I would go home and read this stuff and think about these talks and just cry. Cry and cry. Tears of joy and tears of sadness. I hated that I was in that position, that I didn't have the freedom to be able to transition out with the world, like in the books talked about. But at least I was getting the opportunity. As scary as it was, I had the opportunity and there was one trans girl there. I sent her a letter, just me and her, a private note telling her, “This is how I feel. This is who I think I really am.” I had to talk to someone, I'd never told anyone. I had made hints to the guy I was with for five years, he was very much not accepting.
He wanted a husband. And so I bottled it up. It was the first time I'd ever just expressed it. She wrote me back full of support, full of ideas, full of nothing but positivity, letting me know that she would be there to help me. That was new to me. I'm not used to people in prison helping me, not without them trying to get something out of it.
Allred safekeeping was just so positive for my mental health. In terms of individuals, the inmates, the life we live due to how the officers treat us might be hard, but the way everyone will look out for each other and help each other. Safekeeping really helped me with that. I first came out to another trans girl on the section. She was supportive. From that point on, it was just little things. I had so much pride and so much fear, but I would do little things in the day room. Until I realized I can do all of these steps. It's all in my head, no one is stopping me from being who I am but myself.
And it wasn't easy from that point, but I lost a big barrier. I was able to go through a medical system here, and due to some lawsuits they had previously, they opened up a gender clinic, which made it easy for the trans girls to get hormones. I was able to get on hormones. The old lifestyle, the old person I was, I let it go.
I didn't try to be anything. There were girls around who seemed over the top, overly flamboyant, who seemed fake. I was fake before. I was fake trying to act like a guy, trying to act tough. So I told myself the entire time: "I will not be fake again." I want to look in the mirror and be authentic, step by step. I can't say I came out as much as I was able to show me. At this point now I don't try and walk a certain way. I don't try and talk a certain way. I don't try and present myself in any way. I let out what comes natural. This is who I am and I'm accepted, completely, as transgender. It's not easy. I'm not gonna lie. I still have my problems. But that's growing up in the culture I did. Growing up as a kid and then growing up in the violent years where I was put on safekeeping. I just worry that I judge myself when I shouldn't, and these are things that I am working to grow from, but I can say right now I am happier at this point in my life than I ever have been, at any other point when I was locked up and I'm happier right now than I was when I was in the world.
I'm finally being the me that I've never been able to be. And with that, once I was able to start caring for myself and loving for myself, it allowed me to do other things with my life.
I'm able to help other people more. I'm able to have more of an effect on everyone around me, the community in here, than I did when I was just quiet and insecure. I always wanted to help people. But now that I'm who I am, I can do that. All the barriers are gone. The walls are down.
49:11 Casper: I'm so proud of you, Taylor. You have made so much progress and you're incredible for sharing your story with other people. And you're going to leave behind an amazing legacy.
REFLECTING
49:22 Casper: So we're coming up on our 10 year friendship anniversary. I think we started writing to each other in 2012. That's when I sent you my very first letter. I found your pen pal listing on this website for prisoners. And I remember at the time I was in my first or second year of college. I was looking for some pen pals to write with.
And I came across that website. I saw your listing. And at the time you were pretty much the only other person on that website who was listed as LGBT or queer. And I took a chance and was like, I don't know how this is going to work out, but we'll see. And I started writing and I wrote you a couple page letter. I anxiously awaited your return.
And now it's been almost 10 years, I think June of next year will be our 10 year anniversary. So I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what it was like for you when you received my first letter, what your thoughts were and maybe your feelings about our friendship?
50:24 Taylor: Well, when I received your very first letter, I was getting a lot of mail from that same site.
I can't remember if I was going through something, but I can't remember what it was because I was not writing anyone back. The reason that we started writing was that you wrote me a second letter. Think your first letter had a photo. Your second letter, it showed me that you were serious in writing with me.
I wrote you back after the second letter. Since that point, you have been the only consistent person in my life, other than my family. Everyone else, every other friend I've had has gone and lived their life whichever way they were, but you have been a huge part of my life and have helped me greatly in so many ways.
51:10 Casper: That's very sweet. And you've been such a huge part of my life over the past 10 years too, you've helped me grow into a completely different person. And maybe, that's mutual. We're both extremely different people now. We're not even the same gender anymore. So we've been through kind of a roller coaster together and getting to know you these past, oh shit, this past decade. It's just been amazing. You're one of my longest term friends. One of the people I've kept in contact with for the very longest of my entire life. And it's been such a pleasure getting to know you and to have you in my life. And I'm very grateful for that.
51:49 Taylor: With you just the consistency has been really important to me because friends come and go. At any time, I might get sent to another unit or my friends might get sent to another unit. Multiple times in here I've been in relationships and the person I'm in love with has gotten moved to another unit, or I've gotten moved to another unit.
So everyone in here, we know to keep our feelings a little bit at bay. We can't fully trust, we can't fully expect anything from someone because we never know what the future will entail, but you have stayed consistently my friend and consistently helped me. You haven't changed in your nature of who you are in any of these years.
And I came across that website. I saw your listing. And at the time you were pretty much the only other person on that website who was listed as LGBT or queer. And I took a chance and was like, I don't know how this is going to work out, but we'll see. And I started writing and I wrote you a couple page letter. I anxiously awaited your return.
And now it's been almost 10 years, I think June of next year will be our 10 year anniversary. So I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about what it was like for you when you received my first letter, what your thoughts were and maybe your feelings about our friendship?
50:24 Taylor: Well, when I received your very first letter, I was getting a lot of mail from that same site.
I can't remember if I was going through something, but I can't remember what it was because I was not writing anyone back. The reason that we started writing was that you wrote me a second letter. Think your first letter had a photo. Your second letter, it showed me that you were serious in writing with me.
I wrote you back after the second letter. Since that point, you have been the only consistent person in my life, other than my family. Everyone else, every other friend I've had has gone and lived their life whichever way they were, but you have been a huge part of my life and have helped me greatly in so many ways.
51:10 Casper: That's very sweet. And you've been such a huge part of my life over the past 10 years too, you've helped me grow into a completely different person. And maybe, that's mutual. We're both extremely different people now. We're not even the same gender anymore. So we've been through kind of a roller coaster together and getting to know you these past, oh shit, this past decade. It's just been amazing. You're one of my longest term friends. One of the people I've kept in contact with for the very longest of my entire life. And it's been such a pleasure getting to know you and to have you in my life. And I'm very grateful for that.
51:49 Taylor: With you just the consistency has been really important to me because friends come and go. At any time, I might get sent to another unit or my friends might get sent to another unit. Multiple times in here I've been in relationships and the person I'm in love with has gotten moved to another unit, or I've gotten moved to another unit.
So everyone in here, we know to keep our feelings a little bit at bay. We can't fully trust, we can't fully expect anything from someone because we never know what the future will entail, but you have stayed consistently my friend and consistently helped me. You haven't changed in your nature of who you are in any of these years.
TAKE AWAY: PEOPLE CAN CHANGE
52:35 Casper: That means a lot to me to hear. What do you want the world to know about you and to take away from this conversation?
52:44 Taylor: If there's anything I would like people to know that individuals can change. I was the angry, unhappy kid. I did drugs. There was nothing positive about how I lived. I took the life of someone I cared about because I didn't care about myself, but I would like the world to take away from this that people can change. I am not who I was. If I were let out of prison, I would try and help the world. This is not me asking to get out. This is not me trying to manipulate the system, manipulate public opinion and try and get anything from this. I'm just letting you to me, Taylor to Casper, that I have the potential to help people.
I have the potential for positivity. I have the potential for so much that I do what I can in this community in here, but is it justice for me to spend my entire life in prison? If they can take away anything that would really be it, that just change can happen. Not everyone will change. Some people come in here and end up worse, but there are a lot of people, I see them around me every day, they're not who they were. Their crimes don't identify them as people. They personally hate what they did and they want to change.
And it's their own inner motivation to be a different person. Not what the prison does. Not what anything else in here does because the environment can’t change us. The environment can restrict us from things, but it can't change us. The change comes from the inside and there are many people in here who have made that change, but we're still in here and we're going to stay in here, but just know that there's a whole world inside of these prisons that no one ever sees. There are good people inside of these walls that everyone’s completely ignorant of because we're prisoners, we're felons, we're locked away.
54:37 Casper: Thank you, Taylor, it's been amazing getting to talk to you and to hear your story again. I'm so excited to be able to share it with other people. Is there any final words you might want to express or leave us with?
54:50 Taylor: I would like to thank you. I would not be where I'm at in life if it was not for you. I would most likely still be that scared, angry kid on that violent unit, living that life that I thought I had to, if it were not for you. You, Casper, are the one who showed me that I have someone out there who will accept me and who will help me. Through you and through A.B.O., well it's helped change my life. I want to say thank you.
55:18 Casper: You're very welcome. And thank you as well. You've absolutely changed my life for the better. You've taught me so much. You've been there for me through the ups and downs of everything in my life for the past decade. And I'm a much better person for having known you. I appreciate that. And I thank you too.
55:35 Taylor: I'm glad to have had the opportunity.
52:44 Taylor: If there's anything I would like people to know that individuals can change. I was the angry, unhappy kid. I did drugs. There was nothing positive about how I lived. I took the life of someone I cared about because I didn't care about myself, but I would like the world to take away from this that people can change. I am not who I was. If I were let out of prison, I would try and help the world. This is not me asking to get out. This is not me trying to manipulate the system, manipulate public opinion and try and get anything from this. I'm just letting you to me, Taylor to Casper, that I have the potential to help people.
I have the potential for positivity. I have the potential for so much that I do what I can in this community in here, but is it justice for me to spend my entire life in prison? If they can take away anything that would really be it, that just change can happen. Not everyone will change. Some people come in here and end up worse, but there are a lot of people, I see them around me every day, they're not who they were. Their crimes don't identify them as people. They personally hate what they did and they want to change.
And it's their own inner motivation to be a different person. Not what the prison does. Not what anything else in here does because the environment can’t change us. The environment can restrict us from things, but it can't change us. The change comes from the inside and there are many people in here who have made that change, but we're still in here and we're going to stay in here, but just know that there's a whole world inside of these prisons that no one ever sees. There are good people inside of these walls that everyone’s completely ignorant of because we're prisoners, we're felons, we're locked away.
54:37 Casper: Thank you, Taylor, it's been amazing getting to talk to you and to hear your story again. I'm so excited to be able to share it with other people. Is there any final words you might want to express or leave us with?
54:50 Taylor: I would like to thank you. I would not be where I'm at in life if it was not for you. I would most likely still be that scared, angry kid on that violent unit, living that life that I thought I had to, if it were not for you. You, Casper, are the one who showed me that I have someone out there who will accept me and who will help me. Through you and through A.B.O., well it's helped change my life. I want to say thank you.
55:18 Casper: You're very welcome. And thank you as well. You've absolutely changed my life for the better. You've taught me so much. You've been there for me through the ups and downs of everything in my life for the past decade. And I'm a much better person for having known you. I appreciate that. And I thank you too.
55:35 Taylor: I'm glad to have had the opportunity.
OUTRO
55:42 Casper: I’ve had the privilege of countless conversations with Taylor over the years. This one was especially meaningful to me as I've had the chance to reflect on our shared history. Before I knew Taylor, I had only a surface level understanding of the prison system, but meeting her gave me a deeper knowledge of the realities of life inside. Because of A.B.O. Comix, I now have a way to pay forward all I have learned from the incredible people living behind bars. I hope Taylor’s story helps shift some perspectives on the people we have discarded and hidden away from society. Our goal is to give our passengers a fare-free platform to share their stories, regardless of the fee they’re forced to pay for their past.
Thank you to everyone who made this podcast possible. Shoutout to the Bay Area’s finest tattoo artist and my wife, Brett Baumgart, for their eternal support and assistance with every endeavor we pursue. Special thanks to our Teleway Conductors, Trig, L.A., Ollie, Caroline, Nic, Emma, Aryn, and Jo for their countless hours spent ensuring that we can provide a voice for those that have been silenced. Our Patreon supporters help keep the Teleway fueled and running smoothly. Thank you to: Riley, Skyler, Gina and Franklin. If you would like your name read in a future episode, become one of our subscribers at patreon.com/abocomix. To find out how you can contribute to our cause, visit abocomix.com. That’s a-b-o-c-o-m-i-x.com.
Next stop, Krysta Morningstarr in Teague, Texas. Thanks for riding Teleway 411. Please remain seated as the Teleway proceeds forward in T-minus 3, 2, 1.
*Teleway startup*
Thank you to everyone who made this podcast possible. Shoutout to the Bay Area’s finest tattoo artist and my wife, Brett Baumgart, for their eternal support and assistance with every endeavor we pursue. Special thanks to our Teleway Conductors, Trig, L.A., Ollie, Caroline, Nic, Emma, Aryn, and Jo for their countless hours spent ensuring that we can provide a voice for those that have been silenced. Our Patreon supporters help keep the Teleway fueled and running smoothly. Thank you to: Riley, Skyler, Gina and Franklin. If you would like your name read in a future episode, become one of our subscribers at patreon.com/abocomix. To find out how you can contribute to our cause, visit abocomix.com. That’s a-b-o-c-o-m-i-x.com.
Next stop, Krysta Morningstarr in Teague, Texas. Thanks for riding Teleway 411. Please remain seated as the Teleway proceeds forward in T-minus 3, 2, 1.
*Teleway startup*