By Crimson Jordan
On a warm summer night in 2013, I walk by myself across the parking lot of the Montrose Center. My youth group peers have left me behind, chatting amongst themselves. Dee Dee Watters notices me walking alone, smiles, and waves a hand with long decorated nails. “I don’t know you, but I love you,” she says. “Have a good night. I’ll see you around.”
Fast forward five years. I had seen her around. I’d seen her speak at the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) testimonies and the Houston Pulse vigil. I’d seen her lead the Trans Day of Remembrance ceremonies and countless other events. And now, here we are, sitting face–to–face. I start our interview by asking her to tell me about herself. She laughs. “I’m simple,” she says. “My nails are complicated.”
While the latter statement might be true, few would use the word “simple” to describe Watters. There are several adjectives that could be used to characterize this North Houston native—inspiring, diligent, and impactful, just to name a few—but what paints a better picture of who Watters is, is what she does.
A proud Black trans woman, Watters uses her voice for activism and education. She also uses her skills as a spoken word poet and performer to further a message of inclusion and equality, as well as to share her own lived experience. “I got into my art at a very young age,” Watters recalls. “Back when I was in middle school, I used to get into a lot of trouble. I got kicked out of school two or three times and wound up getting put in a ‘bad’ school, Lamar Fleming Middle School, in North Houston. When I first got there, a teacher heard me talking to someone in the principal’s office and she said, ‘Come here, you need to be in my theater class.’ And that’s how I got started with entertaining, through theater.”
But as the years passed, Watters put entertaining on the back-burner. “I stopped performing because of my transition,” she explains. “Simply because of the way that people try to belittle you when you do certain things. Me, I’m not going to go for that.” It is incredibly hurtful, Watters says, that the communities for which she has held Christmas toy drives for over 17 years, are the same communities that alienate and antagonize her because of her femme identity. “Because I am a Black woman, and I am trans, I am looked at differently and treated differently,” she says. “Those are things that really, really hurt. But at the end of the day, I can’t dwell on that. It’s sad, but it is what it is.”
But it was that same experience—living her truth as a trans woman—that reintroduced Watters to her love of performance. She was invited to speak at the Black Trans Advocacy Conference to honor the lives of the trans people lost that year. “I believe that when I spoke at the Black Trans Advocacy Conference, that’s when I reconnected with the entertainer inside of me,” Watters says. The depth of her spoken word performances stems from Watters’ underrepresented perspective and her desire to inform, educate, and advocate.
Now, when Watters goes to speak or perform, she enjoys hearing how her words have impacted those in attendance. Not only do these experiences affirm that her art is reaching people, but it pushes her to grow as an entertainer. “I want to perform more,” she says. “I want to speak more. I know that I can do so much more. In my activism, I want to use my ability to entertain and inform as my primary platform.”
When asked what her femme identity means to her, Watters says: “Sometimes we are so concerned with the concept of masculine and feminine identities that we lose the whole point. I believe that femininity is within a lot of different people no matter their gender. What femme is to me is beautiful. It’s loving. I identify as a Black trans woman. But there’s more to it than that. What I try to get people to realize is that, as a Black trans woman, my life is generally on the line. Black trans women’s lives are generally on the line. ‘I am she and she was me.’ That says so many things. It should be something that speaks volumes without any elaboration. It goes with my lived experience. It may not be a lot to say, but it is enough to say.”
Dee Dee Watters will be performing at Spectrum South’s “Vie de Femme” celebration, taking place on Thursday, March 29, from 7-10 p.m. at the Sharespace Preston Warehouse. This event is free and open to the public. Voluntary donations will be collected throughout the celebration for the evening’s beneficiary, Save Our Sisters United.
