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  • 6 weeks ago
Not Your Average Girl is a journey through survival and becoming—a visual memoir that dares to tell the story behind the spotlight. From growing up in the South to standing in her power at the 2025 BET Black & Iconic Awards, Hope offers viewers a raw and intimate look at the trials, triumphs, and tenderness that shaped her. This is a love letter to every Black trans girl who’s ever been told she wouldn’t make it—and a reckoning with the systems that tried to silence her.
Transcript
00:00It was also the day that my mom said, well, I'm going to tell you something.
00:04If you ever come home as anything other than my son, I don't know you and I'm not coming to
00:09the
00:09funeral. I was always different, but I didn't have the words for it yet. I can't run away from the
00:17fact that, like, I'm supposed to be something different. My mom burst in the door. So-and-so
00:24told me that he spoke to you and you walked away switching like a little faggot. And
00:29lamest terms, it is what it is. You couldn't tell me shit. Like, as a boy, I knew for a
00:36fact that I was fine. Before I was in their headline, I was just trying to survive the
00:41hush of being mean. It's like they see the red carpet, but they don't know what it took
00:45to get there. I always get those cameras going. Firstly, you look absolutely stunning. Because
00:52they want to know who the beautiful black girl is in the fly-ass outfit. And if I,
00:59I don't get your attention for anything else, you're never going to just pass me off as a
01:05backdoor shawty on the red carpet. Because you're always going to wonder who's that girl.
01:12The shooting death of a transgender woman in Northwest Miami-Dade.
01:16We are not just disappearing. We are being murdered and y'all are quiet about it. But
01:20there are so many of us that have been censored and killed and murdered. And I say killed and
01:24murdered and not died because we have been killed and murdered. If you catch me, you better kill
01:28me because I'm not going to be docile about it. Because without M.T. this community does not work.
01:32We are reminding you that a threat on one of us is a threat on all of us. So I
01:38got to be willing
01:38to die for this. Because they're willing to kill us for this. Death is on the menu. Because I fully
01:44believe that I'm going to die exactly the way that I say I am. For the cause, for the people.
01:48This is what democracy looks like. Show me what democracy looks like. They love the image,
01:55but they hate the truth. So, what keeps you going when it becomes difficult to love me?
02:06Love didn't save me, but it made surviving worth it. I'm going to miss my husband so much.
02:18I found somebody that genuinely loves me at my worst. But I found out today that I have
02:31a tumor. It's going to be okay.
02:33But I was blind, lost to life, and only I can make that right.
02:37Holy God, I am flawed, been a fraud, broken laws, I wanna...
02:42That man came ready to love me. When he decided that he wanted me to be his wife, he meant
02:49that.
02:56And there's not a bone in my body that doesn't believe that with everything in me. That man didn't make
03:03the decision to marry me for any other reason than because he knew that he couldn't live without me. And
03:09I can't live without him.
03:13This is the one that y'all are going to be watching. That y'all are going to write your
03:18papers on and talk about how that bitch was fearless.
03:21Bitch, I'm still Hope Giselle. People want the truth. And I bring that.
03:28I am really frustrated with you. I'm a good friend. I'm a good friend. I'm a good friend. And he's
03:34not a good friend.
03:36You

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