In this first‑person monologue, Eves (also spelled Yves), a queer Black activist, musician, model, and heavily tattooed individual, shares a deeply personal narrative that weaves together identity, trauma, and ongoing community work. Eves describes their body as a living memorial, with each tattoo representing people and experiences that shaped them. They reflect on the complexities of Pride, expressing anger and grief over the continual violence against trans people and questioning what is truly being celebrated. The speaker recounts extensive protest activism during the 2020 uprisings, detailing 18 arrests and a violent encounter on November 4, 2020, at Washington Square Park that left them injured, suicidal, and haunted. Despite the trauma, Eves reaffirms their commitment to activism. The latter part of the talk shifts to current self‑care initiatives: organizing events for seniors, rescuing and fostering pit bulls (drawing a parallel to racial discrimination), and mentoring queer teens. Eves emphasizes the beauty of aging, the importance of representation for marginalized youth, and ends with a hopeful message urging young queer people to live authentically without harming others.
Chapters
I also hope that I can be a very, very old man with my wrinkly tattooed skin and beautiful gray hair and just sit on a porch with really short shorts and just live my life in a rocking chair. Yeah, just like— What's up? I'm Eves. I'm a queer, Black, proud activist, musician, human model person. I'm tattooed from head to toe, and even the place that you're thinking of right now, it's also tattooed. Yes. I see my skin as a memorial, as a passion painting, as a scrapbook, as my personal yearbook, because so many of the pieces that I have are a reflection of people in my life that have influenced me and challenged me to be the person that I am today. Queerness is in the queerness of the beholder. Though I see myself as queer, I have friends who look nothing like me and who also live nothing like the way that I live and see themselves as queer. And I think queerness is also a journey and an exploration of yourself as well. Thinking about the celebration of Pride is quite difficult for me, to be honest. Till the day that I die, I will have an unwavering rage and flame in my heart for the rights of trans people. Some of the greatest people I've ever known in my life are trans, and they've been killed. I sometimes struggle with what are we celebrating exactly. Those in our community who created this thing that we call Pride aren't even benefiting from this so-called respect. It feels strange, um, sometimes trying to emit celebratory feelings towards this month when every single month there's nothing but tragedy and violence and death and the stripping of humanity when it comes to those who are in our community. [APPLAUSE] During the uprising of 2020, through those months, I had been traveling to different states and different cities to protest. I was arrested about 18 different times in that time period. And November 4th, 2020, when I was at a protest at Washington Square Park, I was thrown down to the ground and the officer ripped my dermal piercing out of my face and punched my eye into the concrete. I believed that I was gonna die that night, just because of the circumstance and because there were so many officers on top of me. I was in the bus on the way to the jail. In that moment, I kind of was like, I need to figure out a way to take my own life. Coming out of that situation, seeing how Everything was kind of like working against me, and my own thoughts were working against me where I kind of felt useless to my community because of how much anger that I had in regards to this one situation when we have multiple situations going on. And I hated that I let my, my own personal pride get in the way of a bigger cause. As much as it made me feel like I wanted to be in the ground, it has encouraged me to keep my boots on the ground even harder. I would do it again just because of how much I care. During that time, I could have never imagined I would be able to sit and say that I would do that again because of how much it took out of me. And I'll probably be healing from that situation till I die. Today we are doing a self-care event for our seniors. My activism and My care for people dates back to many different things. This is my girl Nikki. This is foster number 38. I rescued her yesterday. These different groups that I happen to be heavily involved with, I see as an extension of myself. And with my seniors, you know, a lot of people discard someone because of their age. It's almost as if, like, the older you are, not much of an asset to those around you, where I think it's the opposite. I think there's so much beauty in aging, and there's a gorgeousness that comes with someone who has been around to witness and see so much, and the stories they have to tell. Okay, so I've had Juice for about 2 weeks now. To me, pit bulls are like the black people of the dog community. Because people hear one thing about a pit bull, or they see one thing, and they completely write off every single dog. I've experienced so much discrimination in my life, and still to this day. I have such a soft spot for them, and I really care for their well-being, and they're the best dogs I've ever met and worked with in my life. And today, I'm gonna be picking up foster number 39. Same goes for the teens that I get the chance to work with. I know that so much involving men, rightfully so, comes with this cloud of fear and toxicity. Being a queer guy and being in these spaces with kids and helping them to build trust with me, because when I was a kid, I fully believed that I was the only gay person in the world. Because I just felt so other. And to show kids and to be with kids and be like, hey, you may feel like other, but there are others, and I'm one of them, and I survived. For any young queer person watching this, do whatever you want, just don't hurt anybody. I love it all.
