Statement Of Separation from No Justice No Pride

After collaborating with NJNP for a couple of years, I am separating from NJNP due to the abuse, trauma, and harm caused by Emmelia Ruiz-Talarco. This statement details some of this abuse and harm and why I am leaving.

Harm should never be the result of “good intentions,” especially if that harm is a pattern of abuse. Abuse comes in many forms, from separation from family, isolation, manipulation, coercion, rationalizing, to physical, emotional, mental, or financial abuse. It is also abusive when abusers position themselves as “saviors” to situations they created, and when abusers claim they are the “real victim.” Physically harming people isn’t cool, withholding pay isn’t cool, and it’s not cool to interfere with delicate family relationships.

I stepped away from direct work with NJNP due to harm received from Emmelia Ruiz-Talarico beginning in May 2019 to February of 2021. I no longer live in the No Justice No Pride houses but have offered to work with the Board of Directors (which Em is trying to dissolve) to still be of assistance to the Black and brown Transgender and gender non conforming and non-binary members dependent on them for housing, as this came to a head during the push to buy the house I was managing.

I was warned by many in movement spaces about Emmelia’s behaviour, but I felt I could handle it. I was wrong. I was victimized early on when Emmelia called the Executive Director of HIPS to reprimand me for asking NJNP to join a few coalitions I was a part of. I was astounded that a white transgender Latina woman who runs a housing program for Black and brown transgender women would reach out to my supervisor (the executive director whom is a CIS white female) and threaten my livelihood, instead of talking to me about the issue. That was White Privilege in its purest form. I didn’t speak to them for a few months after that incident. But being the forgiving person I am and knowing we worked together closely on the sex work decriminalization movement, I tried to work things out with her. I regret that decision.

A few months later in July/August 2019, I was approached to move in with the No Justice No Pride team into their housing system as they were expanding beyond the one home they had. I’ve been trying to leave them and just offer my support since the first month living with them as it was challenging from the start. But I also wanted to stay with NJNP to help support the members and check Emmelia’s behavior, which many of the members wanted me to do. I found myself having to check Emmelia often, as she was often the center of drama, trauma, harm, and assault to house members. I took to mentoring the girls and also looked for a way to bring about the change NJNP needs without causing any issues, since Em would often threaten people with being kicked out of the house, receiving no pay, or physical or verbal abuse if things were not her way.

A community accountability process was launched in early 2021 to try to address Em’s behavior and provide support to survivors of her abuse. It is no surprise that a community accountability process was launched. It was inevitable due to the pattern of behaviour and the trauma Em was causing many within No Justice No Pride and the greater activist and organizer community in Washington DC. It goes without saying Emmelia has a reputation for not being able to work with people who seem to work well with everyone else, and she often targets Black trans and queer people with verbal lashings and abuse. However, because of her gatekeeping, so many people have been forced to rely on her for housing, and many have been fearful to make a coordinated stand against her abuse for fear of retaliation in the form of forced homelessness.

In February 2021, Emmelia launched a fundraiser to purchase one of the houses NJNP is renting after we found out the owner was selling it. I was taken aback by the language Emmelia used in the fundraiser, as it centered me and gave the perception that I would be buying the house for myself when it was actually just me using my financial power to make the purchase on the behalf of NJNP so they could continue housing the people dependent on them. During the negotiation process to buy the house is where things went terribly wrong and pushed me past the point of no return. Being told literally what to do by Emmelia as if I wasn’t capable of reasoning out the issue dealing with negotiating a house purchase when the owner put very specific requests into the counter offer, plus being scolded and told I was making it all about me when I never approved the language put in the fundraiser that centered me.

When I told Em that I felt it was abusive and I was not happy about being disrespected, my opinion was disregarded and I was laughed at. During a mediation, Em claimed that the conflict was the result of ‘Lack of Communication’ and that she hadn’t read the counter offer I presented until later; then, she blamed me and said she was tired of me and was ready for me to go back in November 2020 when I tried to leave. If this is true, why would Em launch a massive campaign centering me without my consent in February 2021 (a campaign I repeatedly asked them to stop so donations would not come to me and instead start a new one with the goal being TransCity that would go to the fiscal sponsor)? Then, she would say that she loves me and respects me. If this is true, why would she treat me like this? She didn’t even have the decency to work on how to answer the public about the funds raised and where the money was going.

Furthermore, when NJNP community members and house members passed, Em wouldn’t even let me know. This is with the exception of Nona Moselle whom also recently passed. However, Em has recently cursed at Nona’s family and friends.

That folks is the epitome of abusive and racist behavior. I was left holding the bag, the bad guy, the media hounding me about the fundraiser and the house purchase and not a soul from NJNP communicating with me. No I didn’t want to move but I was tired of the emotional abuse, the coercion, and being manipulated. No one from HIPS has ever treated me that way, and I refuse to be used and disrespected anymore.

I moved out of the house on March 5th 2021, and I requested $4000 out of the funds raised for the purchase of the house so I could move into a place of my own. Their Board of Directors (whom Emmelia manipulates as well, she is rather controlling) decided on a 12% separation payment which Em agreed to (if no one is guilty of harm, why such a hefty separation offering?). But before that happened, I was harmed two more times by Emmelia. First, after I quit due to this mistreatment, Em demanded that I return to the house to deal with the intrusive landlord, paid me (despite me asking not to be paid due to me quitting). Second, she pressured me about the funds raised not being transferred from my bank to NJNP’s fiscal sponsor, which took nearly 3 weeks to make happen when I made myself as available as reasonably possible since I was and still am homeless. Em knows that I was the one who advocated for the transfer of funds to happen sooner than later during the mediation process, which grew into a community accountability process because of the harm caused during that process. Plus, Em has also been causing harm to people close to me who have been liaising between us.

I am not here to bash the organization in and of itself as it is a valued resource for the transgender/gnc/non binary community. However, I am here to acknowledge that the way Emmelia has positioned herself within the organization, it would fail without her because she is the gatekeeper to everything related to running No Justice No Pride. Add in the dogged determination to not relinquish control or to pass the torch to someone better suited to run the organization, she extends that abusive behavior through a saviour complex of creating scenarios that make Black people dependent on them feel like Em is the only person capable of leading them out of it.

Many folks in the community know what’s been going on with this situation for years and have waited a long time to address this in the right way due to the fact that so many lives are affected by what possible fallout may come. As the eldest Black transgender woman, community leader, and mentor within that organization, I demand that Em step aside because this is not new behaviour, but a pattern repeated many times with several members of NJNP and other activists and organizers within movement spaces. And it’s no surprise the folks they have been abusive to are Black and Brown transgender women, femme, queer and gender non conforming folks. And get this, their white counterparts know too. Why hasn’t this already come to a head? Potential harm to those dependent on NJNP for housing and employment.

Long story short, Emmelia has to go now. There is a Black transgender woman ready to step in and structure and run things for NJNP as they should be, something I have been working on while I sat quietly waiting on the process of mediation and community accountability to play out. Em should not be allowed a position of power over Black and Brown LGBTQ+ folks employment nor housing any longer. I have no problem with Em residing in the houses, but Em cannot and should not be left in a position of power over BLACK LIVES.

The greater community has been working together in silence to put in place means to be supportive but that depends on you supporting them and us too. Multiple peoples housing are in question, and so is future funding, and those funds raised to purchase the house. A properly structured organization would spread the load instead of one person towing the whole org. That has to change because of the power dynamic built into it. The control. The manipulation. Change is available and now is the time for it to happen. I am here to publicly make it known that they have to step aside so NJNP can move forward, repair the harm done and create the safe space people can heal and grow in.

By all means, please continue donating to No Justice No Pride, but also donate to Collective Action For Safe Spaces, Black Lives Matter DC, DecrimNow, HIPS and even me, as we will be doing direct assistance to community members who have been harmed.