By Dennis Richmond, Jr.
“I never felt like a boy,” said Cienna Rosalina. “I guess God wanted me to be a trans woman.” Born on July 16th, 2000, Cienna Rosalina, 21, is a trans advocate who has dedicated her life to advancing trans conversations and improving the lives of others. “I’m a kind spirit who finds comfort in helping other people,” she said. It’s because of this that she agreed to do this interview. “I’m speaking for a community of people who society wants to be quiet.”
For Transgender Awareness Week 2021, (Nov. 13-19) Yonkers Rising and YonkersTimes.Com celebrate Cienna Rosalina. Transgender Awareness Week is from Saturday, November 13th to Friday, November 19th. The week is a celebration that leads to the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR). TDoR is a day that memorializes victims of transphobic brutality.
To be trans means “you were born in the wrong body,” said Rosalina. It’s when you want to “make your outer appearance match what you feel.” Young Black and Latinx trans girls and trans women are all over New York City. Cienna is from Yonkers, though. This interview is a necessity. A former Yonkers Lincoln High School student, Cienna’s unapologetically living her truth.
“Although society is becoming aware, trans deaths are at the highest they’ve been recorded this year,” Rosalina told me. Dozens of trans girls and trans women were murdered across the country last year, and they are continuing to be. One homicide should cause an outrage. Ten, twenty-five, or forty murders should call for reform. “Men can’t take their desire” to want to be with a trans woman. With that, they choose to kill them.
Cienna taught me the word demasculinized. The definition of the word is to remove the masculine qualities of something. Men think that if they fall in love with a woman who was ascribed male at birth, a trans woman, they’re less than a man. Not only that, but they feel that other men and women will look at them differently. Many men want relationships with trans women. “They want it, but they don’t want people to know that they want it,” said Rosalina.
This is one of the reasons that trans women protect themselves at all costs. According to the Human Rights Campaign, over 50% of trans adults experienced sexual assault. With that, there are a lot of families who have turned a blind eye to their trans relatives. “Some trans youth don’t get the love” they require, Rosalina said. Statistics back up her statement 100%. The HRC also states that 48% of Latinx and 39% of Black trans adults live in poverty.
Many families feel like they lose a child when their loved one shares their trans identity with the world. “You don’t lose a child. You gain an authentic child,” said Rosalina. One of the bravest things someone can do is let you know that they are trans. Don’t throw your child away. “If you love somebody, you should want to understand them.”
Ciswomen are women whose gender identity is the same as the gender identity assigned at birth. Many ciswomen, especially Black ciswomen, feel like trans women are trying to be them. They feel like trans women are nothing more than people trying to attain something they can never. To that, Cienna Rosalina says, “there is no type of woman. Mind your business. You have bigger fish to fry. If it doesn’t concern you, don’t let it concern you.”
Cienna Rosalina is living happily as an activist. A young trans woman in a relationship, Cienna wants girls to know that “there is somebody out here for everyone. Don’t let your trans identity let you feel like you’re less than,” she said. As she uses her social media platform to wave the banner for trans rights, her TikTok account, @ItsCeeRose, now boasts over 71,000 followers.
“You are only as small as people make you feel,” she said. “Don’t let them make you feel small.” Her last words to me were that she’s going to be famous. Or as she puts it, “I’m going to be “famous as f***.”
Dennis Richmond, Jr., is an author and journalist focused on the Black, Latinx, and LGBTQIA+ Community. He has covered HBCUs periodically for six years at Yonkers Rising. Richmond lives in Yonkers. Follow him on Twitter @NewYorkStakz.
