This audio is a companion to the written piece I’ve just published in The Trans-Atlantic Conversations. Part 1. After writing it, Avari and I spoke again—this time about what it means to be trans in America right now, and why telling stories like hers matters in this particular moment. Here is the introduction if you haven’t read it. And click here to read the piece.
I HAD NOT met Diva Avari yet. She was one of my new pal Martin’s best friends, and he’d told me all about her. In certain parts of the world, she was legendary—a big Black American woman and powerful singer of House Music. Martin was Estonian, and they had met in Paris at an underground gay party. Martin was then the Artistic Director of Club Hollywood in Tallinn, and one month after they met, he called and asked Avari to come sing at a party. She did—and so began the buzz around her.
On this fateful day, Martin and I were descending the grand stairs of the gorgeous salon of his celebrity hair stylist partner—David Mallett—off the Place des Petits Péres in the 2nd Arrondissement of Paris. David was actually my first friend in Paris. I had read about him and his splendid new salon when my husband (The Lone Wolf) and I lived in the artist village of Collioure in the south of France. I treated myself to an appointment with David for my birthday, and we immediately hit it off. As fate would have it, a few weeks later, The Lone Wolf and I were kicked out of our sweet flat in Collioure because our landlord wanted to move in a new girlfriend, so we moved to Paris.
In a synchronistic turn of events, we ended up living in the very first apartment we looked at—beautifully decorated, chic with 14-foot ceilings plus modern built-ins, and right around the corner from David’s salon. So first there was David, and then there was his boyishly handsome naughty scholar of a partner, Martin, who became my hanging buddy. And now here we were, descending the salon’s grand staircase, and, suddenly, there she was: Diva Avari, standing right in front of us.
From that day on, Avari has been one of my sisters.
Diva Avari is a Presence. She has no fear. She is trans, and she’s had to fight so hard in her life to just be herself that she refuses to let anyone take advantage of her or put her down. Over the years of our friendship, she has educated me about racism and prejudice on both sides of the Atlantic.
Next week, Part 2:
Back in Boston—“That’s where I really discovered racism”…The first time Avari saw Donald Trump’s face…Sleeping with skinheads (“If anyone finds out, we’ll kill you.”) And more!
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