The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and has been reviewed and edited by our team for accuracy and clarity.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Hello, a warning before we begin: this series contains sensitive content including violence, drugs, and sexual language. We recommend discretion.
Roosevelt Avenue. The main artery of the Jackson Heights neighborhood, in Queens. It’s a nearly straight, long avenue lined with low buildings, no more than two stories tall.
Above it run the elevated subway tracks. With their rattling and roar of steel, the trains on the 7 line set the pace of life taking place below, on the street.
Roosevelt is a living inventory of immigrant life in Queens. Walking it is like getting lost in Quito, Caracas, Mexico City, Tegucigalpa, and Bogotá, all at once.
You have the clothing stores — «good, cute, and cheap»; the hair salons and shoe shops; the law offices: immigration lawyers, workers’ comp attorneys, tax preparers; and the international wire transfer banks and pawnshops. There are the street vendors: the ones selling weed, the ones selling corn arepas, encebollados, and birria.
And there are the more fragile traces of migrant life: small paper notices, taped to lampposts and fluttering in the wind: «woman shares room,» «rooms for rent, kids OK,» «woman looking for a responsible lady to share room rent.»
But when night falls, Roosevelt changes. The businesses close. Families head home. Restaurant lights dim, they become bars and clubs. The pulse of the music competes with the pulse of the train.
And the people who spent the day at home, resting, come out.
[Ale]: Well, I got all dressed up, you know? We were going to go dancing, have some fun.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: This is Ale, a Mexican trans woman. One night in May 2023, she went out to party on Roosevelt with her friend Jacqui.
[Jacqui]: «Get cute,» I told her, «because it’s Saturday and we’re going out so my friends can meet you.»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Ale had just arrived in New York, and that night she wanted to celebrate.
[Ale]: We went into a club, we were there for a while dancing and drinking.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: They spent the night at True Colors, one of the most well-known bars on Roosevelt. They were there until four or five in the morning. They left and, dawn was already beginning to break, when on the corner by the club, a man approached them. And he went straight for Ale.
[Jacqui]: He starts pulling her away and she tells me, «baby,» she says, «the man wants to be with me.» I said, «OK, girl.»
[Ale]: Well mostly, it’s just that, I wasn’t working. I was just hanging out. I mean, I was really just there to have fun — working wasn’t my plan for the night.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Ale and Jacqui are sex workers. We’ve changed their names to protect their identities. And even though Ale wasn’t in the mood that night, what did it matter to spend a quick moment with a client who was offering her money?
[Ale]: It seemed easy enough to say yes. And so we ended up right there, in a corner.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: They stepped a few meters away into an alley. And the man began to touch Ale. And when he realized that Ale had a penis…
[Ale]: He got upset. I imagine that’s what happened, because that’s when he started insulting me, saying things, cursing me out.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The man demanded his money back: «My money, my money.» That’s about all she could understand.
[Ale]: I got scared. I was going to take out what he had offered me.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: But the man grabbed her bag. Ale ran back to Jacqui.
[Jacqui]: She comes running. «Baby, the man took my bag.» I said, «no, pull it back,» I said, «and get over here.»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The struggle continued.
[Jacqui]: But when I saw the guy yanking her bag, I saw him pull out a gun, and I scream at the girl, I said, «the man has a gun,» I said, «he’s going to kill us.»
[Ale]: And then I tried to pull my bag back and that’s when he shot me.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The shot hit Ale in the groin. Then the man fired again. He aimed at Ale’s stomach but missed. That second bullet nearly hit Jacqui and someone else who was nearby.
[Jacqui]: The second shot went right past me, by my ear — I heard it and it blew my hair back, pow.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Meanwhile, Ale was already on the ground, bleeding.
[Ale]: I just saw it like it was a dream — everything went red. I was really starting to see everything blurry, you know?
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Lying on the sidewalk of Roosevelt, Ale’s dreams were beginning to slip away. All because she had come looking for refuge in New York.
From Central Series and Radio Ambulante Studios, this is Las Reinas de Queens. I’m Rula Ávila Muñoz.
Episode 6. Three Queens, Two Shots.
So, this is the story of two bullets that wove together the lives of three women: Jacqui, Jessica, and Ale.
Let’s start with Jacqui.
[Jacqui]: I’m Mexican, 100% from Guerrero, from Acapulco, actually — from the coast. I want to be the first trans female barber in the whole world, known internationally. If it’s possible to go beyond planets, that’s my dream.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Jacqui was successful in Acapulco. She had her barbershop, and a fruit shop too. But in 2021 she left for Tijuana, the border, to cross into the United States and apply for asylum.
[Jacqui]: I was fleeing mainly from the attacks by criminal organizations that run extortion rackets. Drug traffickers who, just because they see you cutting the hair of a rival cartel member, will come after you to kill you for that alone.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Jacqui was afraid. And that’s exactly why she couldn’t wait months at the border while her asylum claim was processed, the way most applicants have to. She needed to cross now. In Tijuana she went to a shelter for LGBTQ+ people, and they told her that if she was in that much of a hurry, the fastest way across was to run — through the lanes where the cars pass. And that the best time was Sunday nights at midnight, during the border guards’ shift change.
And so Sunday came. Jacqui did her makeup, put on jeans and a t-shirt. And as midnight struck she walked up toward the line. She pretended she’d stepped out of a car to grab a last-minute burrito before crossing into the United States. That’s what she told one of the guards:
[Jacqui]: «No, I’m so hungry, papi.» «Oh, well, burritos are right over there.» «Oh, thank you, papi.» «Oh, no…» But my heart was going boom boom boom.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She made it to the burrito stand. She was about twenty meters from the border. And when she saw the border guards get distracted…
[Jacqui]: Two, three. I take off running. Ta, ta, ta.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She takes off running to the other side of the line.
[Jacqui]: And when I saw I’d crossed that checkpoint I said, «well, I’m going to run just a little bit more,» I said, «just in case, I’m not quite there yet,» right? And once I crossed, I raised my hands.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She raised her hands and let drop the only thing she had brought with her, a folder with all the evidence she needed to apply for asylum in the United States: photos of physical attacks against her, extortion messages, psychiatric evaluations. A few seconds after crossing, the border agents caught up to her.
[Jacqui]: They handcuffed me. I said, «no, well, it’s all right there,» I said, «I’m here to ask for help.» I could barely breathe from all the running. And then they brought me an oxygen tank, a wheelchair…
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The protocol was set in motion for Jacqui to apply for asylum. They took nail, hair, and saliva samples. They photographed her and took her fingerprints. And they asked her for an address in the United States — a requirement for applying for asylum. Jacqui gave them the information from a friend of hers who lived in the Bronx.
At that moment, everything felt unreal. Just a few years earlier she had been in prison, accused of assaulting a client while doing sex work. She’d spent 8 years locked up. And there, in her cell, she had often had a dream that now, flying toward New York, was coming true:
[Jacqui]: I always saw New York on TV. And one day there was a story about Jenni Rivera and Jennifer López — how they started out, how they made it, the Diva de la Banda, the queen of the Bronx. I was with my boyfriend because I had a boyfriend there. We were lying down and I said, «look, one day I’m going to be in New York too.» And I said, «I’m going to be the queen of Queens» — the queen of Queens, right?
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: When Jacqui arrived in New York, her friend connected her with a lawyer and with a clinic called Betances Health Center.
There she received psychological support and HIV treatment. Jacqui is HIV-positive. And they also found her a place to sleep at a shelter for trans people. New York was truly a refuge. There, Jacqui was finding all the help she had never received in Mexico. And perhaps for the first time, she could think about her future without being afraid. She had big plans. First she wanted to sharpen her skills as a barber.
[Jacqui]: I consider myself an expert with scissors, with a straight razor, don’t even get me started, because in prison I started doing lines all by hand with a razor and nothing else, because inside there are no clippers, there’s nothing.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She dreamed of competing in the barber competitions held across the United States. And she also wanted to prove people wrong.
[Jacqui]: Like killing stereotypes: one, age — that there are mature people out there with real experience, quality, and passion. And the other: she’s a trans woman, and you’re not going to find her on a street corner or an escort page; you’re going to see her on barber pages, you’re going to see her in lifestyle pages.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: But all these dreams came at a cost, especially in a city as expensive as New York. And even though Jacqui did have access to many services for trans people, she didn’t speak English. And very soon she discovered that transphobia existed in that city too.
[Jacqui]: So you go to ask for work and the moment they see you, even if the sign says «now hiring»: «oh no, the job isn’t available anymore.» Or, «call that number.»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Not long after arriving at the trans shelter, Jacqui had barely $5 to her name. And she said to a friend she’d made there:
[Jacqui]: They say there’s a place called Roosevelt.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Roosevelt Avenue.
[Jacqui]: Let’s go check it out. And she said, «okay, let’s go.» And we went with those $5 to stand there. And that’s how we started. That night we made enough to eat. The next day we went back, and we just kept going to work.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: To do sex work. And even though Jacqui had been doing it since she was 14 in Mexico, going back to the street and putting up with all kinds of clients…
[Jacqui]: Do you think one feels like doing that? Do you think I enjoy it?
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: It’s never easy.
[Jacqui]: We, we trans women. I’m going to speak specifically about us. We lack affection. We lack empathy, and we lack people’s trust. That’s why the first thing we turn to is prostitution.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Jacqui knew sex work was illegal in New York. But she didn’t care.
[Jacqui]: My hunger was illegal too. I have to make money to feed myself.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: With that hunger, Jacqui stood on Roosevelt over the following weeks. Well dressed, made up, a forced smile on her face.
[Jacqui]: Because we’re tired of showing people our sad face. We’re tired of showing people that, that, that… That exhaustion. Prostitution isn’t what people make it out to be. Prostitution is the living hell you go through. How many of my friends have ended up dead in the middle of a street, in a hotel — dismembered, strangled? How many has this happened to inside a car? How many are in prison? It’s your word against a system that is also against you. The justice system, the police system. All of it is against you because you’re a prostitute.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The months went by. And Jacqui managed to settle down in New York. With each client, she could make between $150 and $200 dollars. She moved into an apartment. Then she found work at a barbershop.
And one day she got a call from the shelter where she had stayed in Tijuana. They asked if she could lend her New York address to other trans asylum seekers who were HIV-positive. And Jacqui said yes. She felt the obligation to help.
The girls started arriving from Tijuana. Some of them stayed with Jacqui. And they started calling her «mother.»
[Jacqui]: Because I gave them a roof, I gave them food, I gave them a place to sleep. I gave them all of that.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And among them was Ale, a friend of Jacqui’s. Years earlier, they had crossed paths as sex workers in Mexico City.
To celebrate her arrival in New York, they went out one night to Roosevelt. And that’s where Ale was shot. In the chaos that followed — Ale on the ground, bleeding, bystanders gathering, screaming — Jacqui started recording with her phone.
[Bystander]: They just shot at us.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: In the video, there’s a police officer, trying to make sense of what happened.
[Bystander]: It just grazed me, but her — they got her…
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And then Jacqui calls an ambulance.
[Jacqui]: Hey, ambulance…
[Officer]: It’s on the way…
[Jacqui]: I lost it. I mean, she lived at my place, can you imagine? I lost it and started screaming at everyone: please, someone help me call an ambulance, the police. While a guy helped me revive her, because I could see Ale was bleeding a lot.
[Officer]: Can you back up?
[Jacqui]: No, she’s my friend, she stays in my home.
[Officer]: Ok, the ambulance is right here.
[Jacqui]: I went into shock, shock, shock. Because we came fleeing from over there and then to get here to live the same thing…
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: In an instant, so many things she’d lived through in Mexico came flooding back: when she was kidnapped in Acapulco, when they pointed a machine gun at her.
[Jacqui]: They’re here for you. Easy, baby.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The ambulance arrived and they took Ale.
[Jacqui]: She went to the hospital, I wanted to get in the patrol car. They wouldn’t let me, they pushed me away. I said, «where are they taking her?» «I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know…»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: So Jacqui did the only thing she could: she started asking for help on social media and called every trans organization she’d come across since arriving in New York.
And like that, not knowing what had happened to Ale, she went home.
[Jacqui]: I felt guilty about everything.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She couldn’t stop thinking: one, what she would tell Ale’s family.
[Jacqui]: Two, why did I take her out? Because she got shot. Three, why couldn’t I have taken her somewhere else?
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She tried to sleep.
[Jacqui]: When I came out of my shock, it was around eight in the morning, nine in the morning, and Jessica called me.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And she — Jessica — had found Ale.
We’ll take a break and be right back.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: We’re back on Las Reinas de Queens.
Alright, two shots fired on Roosevelt Avenue, and three trans women bound together by that moment. We’ve already met the first one, Jacqui. Now it’s her turn:
[Jessica Guamán]: Well, my name is Jessica Guamán, I’m from Ecuador.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Jessica belongs to an indigenous community in southern Ecuador: the Cañari.
[Jessica Guamán]: Who are very Catholic. Obviously they were never going to accept me there.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She arrived in New York in 1995, at 14 years old. And soon she was already going to the bars on Roosevelt.
[Jessica Guamán]: When I walked into the club, I I said, «oh, there are so many people. So many gay guys kissing each other. Lesbians. So many beautiful trans girls.» I’d look at them and think, «ah, I want to be like her.»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: That’s when she began her transition.
[Jessica Guamán]: It was a beautiful experience, I can say that, because you really think, «oh my god, I’m taking hormones, my nipples are growing. My skin is changing. It feels different. My hair grows faster.» And all the changes you notice every day… I’m more feminine.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She went through the process slowly, to avoid criticism from her family and also out of caution. She didn’t want to draw too much attention at work. Until she decided to get breast implants. It was around 2002. Jessica was a waitress at a restaurant in Central Park. She knew she was good at her job, so when the time came to get the implants, she didn’t think anyone would have a problem with it.
[Jessica Guamán]: I thought they were going to accept me, you know? Because it didn’t make me less, or my breasts weren’t getting in the way, and I also don’t think it changed anything, me working there as a trans woman, right? Because I was still going to work, because I’ve always done that, right?
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And yes, the owner told her she was a good waitress…
[Jessica Guamán]: But that I couldn’t work like that. Obviously, he was transphobic. So, well, he told me I was fired. And obviously, since I didn’t know my rights or any of that, I just said, «okay.» For six months I didn’t work. I already had my breast implants. Then a friend tells me, «you know what? Let’s go look for a job.» I applied to a lot of places. I had experience working in the kitchen and everything. But they never hired me, obviously, because I was now a trans woman. Nobody wanted to take me on. They always said they were going to call and they never called.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And that discrimination, and the lack of money, pushed her into sex work.
[Jessica Guamán]: I was inexperienced. Sometimes, for example, I didn’t know how to do the job. And at the end of the day, feeling dirty, or feeling like you had to do things you didn’t want to do — out of obligation or necessity — yeah, it’s really hard.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She started walking Roosevelt Avenue, like other Latin trans sex workers. Jessica remembers that back then, around 2007, she knew about 20 or 30 of them.
[Jessica Guamán]: There were very few of us Ecuadorians. We were really only about four. Most of the trans population was from Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Many of them had also run into transphobia when they arrived in the city, and that had pushed them onto the streets of Jackson Heights. But those streets were already occupied by women who had come much earlier: the Puerto Ricans.
[Jessica Guamán]: A lot of the Puerto Rican women would always tell us we didn’t have papers. I mean, back then, for example, they were the ones who treated us badly.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: They mocked their appearances. Jessica says the Puerto Rican women did have papers. Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. So they would call immigration to have the newcomers deported.
[Jessica Guamán]: We were the undocumented ones. We were the ones who weren’t supposed to be there. So there was always an attack. There were always fights among us.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: But these territorial conflicts were nothing compared to the harassment from the police.
[Jessica Guamán]: The police never left us alone. The moment you were arrested, they already knew your legal name. They would shine flashlights, spotlights on us. «You know what? Alberto, Luis, Juan, go home.» Or they would humiliate us in the street.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The history between the Latin trans sex worker community and the NYPD, the New York City Police Department, is full of episodes of abuse. From calling the women by their deadnames — that is, their birth names — to detaining them, beating them, and sexually abusing them.
In such a hostile environment, Jessica and her friends looked out for each other in different ways. First, none of them would undercut the others.
[Jessica Guamán]: We had a rule that we all charge the same rate. So, for example, no one could charge less.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And when it came to the police, the first rule was to keep moving. Back then there was a law in New York aimed specifically at sex workers that prohibited them from standing still.
[Jessica Guamán]: Because if we stood on a corner, we obviously knew we were going to get hassled. So I think all of us — all of us — knew we had to keep moving.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Moving through the street with their eyes wide open in case there was a patrol car. And to communicate with each other…
[Jessica Guamán]: [Whistle]
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: They would whistle to each other.
[Jessica Guamán]: For example, we already knew that if someone whistled three times, there was a problem. And if it was just once, we had to leave. So obviously everyone would pass it along, right? And we’d all go. «No, the police are here. Let’s go.»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: When a client approached, they couldn’t let their guard down either, because it could always be an undercover cop. So they’d size the person up carefully: their clothes, their eyes, their words. And one of the first things they’d do was try to touch the client, for the simple reason that an officer couldn’t allow himself to be touched while on duty.
Another rule: if they were arrested, the best thing was not to resist, because in court that could be used against them.
Jessica worked like this for nearly five years. At first on the street, and over time from home. She advertised in newspapers and on websites: «sexy trans girl, new in the neighborhood.» It was more comfortable and safer than going out.
And so, one night in 2010, a client called. He wanted to see her.
[Jessica Guamán]: So I was already waiting. He came, came in. He didn’t let himself be touched. And then over the radio he said, «it’s on the third floor.» At first I thought he was a robber, right? So then when seven police officers walked in, I thought, «oh!»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: It all happened in seconds. One of them threw her to the ground.
[Jessica Guamán]: He pushed my head into the floor four times. So, of course, my lip got split open.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: They handcuffed her hands and feet and took her to jail, to the men’s section.
[Jessica Guamán]: Well, imagine. I had my implants, my long hair. And a row of cots, in one big room…
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She spent four days cut off from the world, thinking she could be deported at any moment. Meanwhile, her family couldn’t find her. They were searching under her name, Jessica, but in jail she was registered under her deadname. Until they finally found her. And her partner managed to pay her bail, around $700.
[Jessica Guamán]: Then the trial began. With terrible charges against me. Obviously that I had attacked them, that I had broken their phone, that I had resisted arrest.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Something that, let’s remember, Jessica and the other women knew they should never do. The trial lasted six months. With help from an organization called Make The Road, which provides legal support to migrants, Jessica managed to be acquitted of almost all the charges, including prostitution. She was only sentenced for «disorderly conduct,» and had to complete 72 hours of community service.
But, in turn, she decided to sue the city of New York and the officers who arrested her.
[Jessica Guamán]: I sued them for the violence I experienced. Then they started trying to mediate, asking if I wanted money. I said no. «I don’t want money,» I said, «because nothing — nothing makes up,» I said, «for the suffering I went through.»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: There was a second trial. In the courtroom were Jessica and all the officers who had detained her that night, including the one who threw her to the ground and beat her. The judge began to examine the NYPD’s claims that Jessica had attacked them.
[Jessica Guamán]: «Ok, she attacked you. Were you hurt? Bring me the medical record. Where is it?» «Well. I didn’t go to the hospital.» «Ok. Leave the room.»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: He questioned them one by one. It was clear there was no evidence against Jessica.
[Jessica Guamán]: And that’s it, that’s how I was acquitted of everything.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: But after going through two lengthy trials, Jessica was exhausted.
[Jessica Guamán]: That’s when my life changes, when I start to see the reality of what we live through, we trans women; how hard it was for all sex workers to endure the police’s persecution.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Jessica left sex work and turned her life toward her community. Around 2009 she began volunteering for Make The Road, the organization that had supported her through the trials. Then in 2012 she started working at Betances Health Center, the clinic that supports trans people with HIV. And in 2018 Jessica founded Hope TGNC Latinx, an organization that helps newly arrived Latin trans people in New York.
[Jessica Guamán]: We have brought… We have helped many sisters who were in Texas, in Arizona, living on the streets.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And she has connected them with various services and supported them in legally changing their names and continuing their transition processes.
All of this has led many of those people to call her mother, and a family has formed around her. Jessica has a WhatsApp group chat with more than 350 trans people in New York. And it was in that chat that, one early morning in 2023, a piece of news began to circulate: a trans girl had been shot on Roosevelt. Ale.
[Jessica Guamán]: It was very hard, because a lot of the girls saw it. They were all calling me: «what happened, Jessica?»
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Speculation about why Ale had been shot spread quickly.
[Jessica Guamán]: Was it because she was feisty, or what could she have been doing..
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Jessica started calling the hospitals near Roosevelt. But she didn’t have Ale’s legal name. She decided the best thing would be to go to each one in person and ask if there was a trans girl there with gunshot wounds. First she went to Elmhurst Hospital, the closest one to her home and just a couple of blocks from where Ale was attacked. She walked into the emergency room and said she was a worker from Betances Health Center.
[Jessica Guamán]: I said, «I’m from Betances. We have a patient who was shot this morning and I need information.» So they started checking and said that yes, there was a gunshot victim, and asked me, «what was her name?» I didn’t know her first or last name. Then, when they let me through, I could see it was a trans girl.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: It was Ale. She was lying down, conscious, with a look of deep pain on her face. But when she saw Jessica, she smiled.
After the break, her story.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Hello again. I think it’s time we really get to know Ale. She told us her story in scattered fragments, across several interviews over the course of a few months.
[Ale]: I’m a girl from Guerrero. From Tijuana they helped me cross over here…
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The first time we met her was at Betances Health Center, the community clinic where Jessica works. She helped her get health insurance to cover the emergency room costs. And at Betances she received full medical and psychological support in the days following the attack.
A few weeks had passed. Ale still looked fragile. She told us almost right away that she had already been a sex worker back in Mexico.
[Ale]: Because they don’t offer us any other kind of work. They don’t let us be free.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: But from the start she made two things clear. First:
[Ale]: Honestly, prostitution, for me, is not something shameful. On the contrary, it fills me with… We are strong women, because not just anyone can face that world.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: And second:
[Ale]: I really love painting. I’ve been painting since I was little.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Ale arrived in the United States seeking asylum. First she went to Atlanta, in the state of Georgia, because a niece of hers lived there — also trans.
[Ale]: But in Atlanta there are really no opportunities for us. All the girls I met there told me the laws there are very transphobic.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: As if that weren’t enough, five months after Ale arrived in Atlanta, a piece of news shook the city’s trans community: two sex workers had been murdered. Around that time, a lawyer told her she’d be better off applying for asylum in New York, a sanctuary city. And so she did.
She arrived in New York, stayed with Jacqui… And just days later, she was attacked on Roosevelt Avenue. It was the worst possible welcome.
But even so, the first time we saw her she didn’t seem to want to leave.
[Ale]: Honestly, it’s wonderful. I don’t know — being here. It’s like another life, another world. And with everything they’ve given me, the support they’ve shown me, I really have felt very loved.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: We saw Ale a second time, a month after the attack. She told us more about her life in Guerrero. She comes from an indigenous family. She had 10 siblings. And even though they were poor, Ale remembers being happy.
[Ale]: I used to draw in the dirt because back then there was no money for a notebook or anything like that.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She drew the sea, ships, birds… Sometimes her mother would hit her and tell her to act like a man. But Ale never hid who she was.
[Ale]: I never hid inside a shell. In that sense I was always brave, because even though they hit me and all of that, I didn’t care. I kept on being myself. Until one day I just couldn’t take it anymore.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: She fled her hometown at 13. She ended up in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, where she cleaned bathrooms at a cantina, and then moved to Mexico City. That’s where she met Jacqui, doing sex work. Sometimes she’d go back to her hometown but she could never last long there. And that wandering life brought her all the way to New York.
[Ale]: It’s a lot of transition, honestly. Right now it’s really hard, going from one place to another and not having — like, not being settled… I feel kind of lost right now, I don’t know. Hopefully, I don’t know, maybe my life will take root somewhere, right? Like my shoes will finally stop walking, because honestly I’m tired too.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The third time we saw her was three months after the attack. Sometimes the fear would wash over her — that the man who attacked her would find her again and kill her. With Jessica’s help, she was receiving psychological treatment.
[Ale]: I really do need it quite a bit, because I have been feeling a little off in my head. I don’t know. I’ve been a little sad. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I feel like screaming. And honestly, sometimes now… Like, I was scared to go out on the street much, even during the day. I don’t know. I kind of want to shut myself in here, stay locked away. I have honestly thought about going back to my country, right? That too. And at the same time, no. But that’s where I am right now — at a kind of crossroads. Whatever has to happen will happen. I mean, it doesn’t worry me as much anymore — whether I go or stay. I don’t know. I really just don’t care anymore.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: But despite everything, she knew that in New York she had found a community that had given her legal, medical, and psychological support…
[Ale]: In my country there’s no help like that. None of it. And here, well, there are various groups where you can meet up, talk about your things… Where you can find something like sisterhood.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Our last interview was five months after the attack.
[Ale]: Winter is coming now, it’s getting really cold. You have to pull out the warmest coats, or buy them, because you know how it is…
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Ale had moved to the Bronx and sounded much better. She opened up more with us. She had gone back to doing sex work on the street.
[Ale]: During the day I have to rest. I have to rest a lot before going out, get myself mentally ready, but also be strong; kind of clear my head. Sometimes I have a little tequila, right? To work up the courage and head out. To get to it.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: But beyond the work on the street, Ale was also returning to her true passion: painting. She told us Jessica had invited her to make a piece for a group exhibition, in commemoration of the trans community members who had died from HIV-related complications.
She showed us the painting. It was small. On a beach full of palm trees stood a figure, without a mouth. She told us it represented her earlier life, in Acapulco. And her brother, who died from HIV.
At the end of the interview we asked her how she imagined her future now. And she told Diego, our reporter:
[Ale]: Well, I’ll tell you: with lots of children. With lots of children, married to a lumberjack. But no, no. Let’s try again… Okay, my future, I imagine it… Being a great artist, having lots of art exhibitions, having a separate job. If it’s possible, being in a loving relationship. Having a permanent home, not wandering back and forth. And having good health, more than anything.
[Diego]: Dear Jessica, we’re here with music in the background today on a very important day. What day is it, what are we doing today? What’s happening?
[Jessica]: Well, today, December 1st, is International Day Against HIV/AIDS, and also…
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: In December 2023, Diego attended the group exhibition we mentioned earlier. There he found Jessica, wearing a light blue sequined dress. And he asked her about Ale’s painting.
[Diego]: You’ve been there from day one. What have you seen? What has she told you? And is it a real process, seeing her painting exhibited here today in front of everyone?
[Jessica]: It absolutely is. It really is something so big, right? Because when we immigrate, we start from scratch. And I’m truly happy that she is part of us, and that now she’s also showing her painting here at our event.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Then Diego found Ale, and finally she looked radiant.
[Ale]: Everyone has art in them. Everyone knows how to make art. You just have to pull it out from your heart, and that the eyes… You can see it with your eyes and paint it with your hands, and that’s all.
[Diego]: You’ve been living in New York for a while now. It’s been a strange experience: ups and downs, changes. How has it been, and now seeing your art exhibited here?
[Ale]: Well, living in New York for me has honestly been up one moment, down the next. Everything that’s happened to me feels like a movie. I feel like the main character of my own film, because I’ve really lived it so fast in the time I’ve been here. Good things have happened to me. Really good things. Bad things too. But here we are, alive, and that’s what matters.
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: The attack Ale suffered on Roosevelt was an extreme case of the dangers trans sex workers face in Queens: robberies, beatings, assaults, and territorial conflicts. These are the things that can most often happen to them during their working hours. All while others debate the future of that work from desks, homes, and podiums.
On the next episode…
[Monserrate]: No one should think that the only work they can do is sex work.
[Protesters]: We’re not intruders. We are trans women and we are furious!
[Liaam]: But the problem isn’t the sex workers. The problem is the inequality that exists in a city that tells you, «yes, we are here to protect all New Yorkers.» But, what about us? Are sex workers not part of that plan? Or are we simply the problem you’re trying to eradicate? Do you forget that we also have rights?
[Rula Ávila Muñoz]: Las Reinas de Queens is a podcast from Central, the series channel of Radio Ambulante Studios, and is part of the My Cultura podcast network on iHeart Radio.
This series was produced by Diego Senior and Pablo Argüelles, with additional production and reporting by Nikol Pizarro, Joana Toro, and Andrés Sanín.
The editors were Daniel Alarcón, Silvia Viñas, and myself.
Fact-checking by Bruno Scelza and Nikol Pizarro.
María Linares handled sound design and mixing, as well as the original music.
The graphics and art direction for the series are by Diego Corzo.
Product development for Las Reinas de Queens was led by Natalia Ramírez. Digital production by Ana María Betancourt and Óscar Luna.
Business development and strategic partnerships were led by Camilo Jiménez Santofimio. And Julián Santos and Eric Spiegelman provided legal support.
Las Reinas de Queens is an original idea by Diego Senior, Joana Toro, and Andrés Sanín.
Executive producers are Diego Senior, and from Radio Ambulante Studios, Carolina Guerrero, our CEO.
At iHeart, the executive producers are Arlene Santana and Leo Gomez.
Part of the funding for this project was provided by the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, as part of its «Spreading Love Through the Media» initiative, with support from the John Templeton Foundation.
You can follow us on social media as centralseriesRA and subscribe to our newsletter at centralpodcast.audio.
I’m Rula Ávila Muñoz. Thank you for listening.