Remembering The Stroll
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Location: New York, NY | New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West
Event Details:
Using archival footage and interviews, the award-winning documentary The Stroll centers the perspective of trans sex workers in the history of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District in the 1990-2000s. The documentary—which premieres on HBO and Max on June 21—evokes a time when trans New Yorkers were not legally protected from discrimination in the workplace, housing, or public services. Many trans women turned to sex work in order to survive and relied on each other to build a fiercely protective community that persisted in the face of police surveillance, violence, and gentrification.
The American LGBTQ+ Museum and New-York Historical’s Center for Women’s History invites you to a conversation, featuring clips from the film, with co-director Kristen Lovell and interviewees Christy Brown, Egyptt LaBeija, Brenda Valentin, and Jeremiah Moss, moderated by producer Matt Wolf. Please join us after the program for a light reception with the panelists in celebration of the film’s premiere on HBO and Max.
Kristen Lovell has been an advocate for the trans community for over 20 years. As an actress, she appeared in Random Acts of Flyness and she was a co-producer of the award-winning 2019 film The Garden Left Behind. The Stroll is her directorial debut.
Christy Brown started safe sex outreach with Greenwich Youth Council at age 17, worked with an Advocacy Through Art program and a needle exchange program in Manhattan, and now works for FreedomCare.
Egyptt LaBeija is the overall godmother of the House of laBeija. She is an international entertainer, model and the assistant manager at a store called Zambo Aroma in the Bronx. She has multiple titles in the pageant system.
Griffin Hansbury, pen name Jeremiah Moss, is an award-winning psychoanalyst and the first to publish as openly transgender. Under his pen name, he is the author of Vanishing New York and Feral City.
Brenda Valentin writes, “The path I previously blazed does not depict my future, like any diva I had to walk through the dark to find the light.”
Matt Wolf is a documentary filmmaker and producer of The Stroll. Some of his feature films include Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, Teenage, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, and Spaceship Earth.
Presented By: New-York Historical Society, in partnership with American LGBTQ+ Museum
