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Melissa Harris-Perry: According to a 2020 study by the Williams Institute and LGBT Think Tank at UCLA Law School, 19% of transgender adults are parents, and many are parents of biological children. For transgender people who choose to adopt or foster, the process can be particularly challenging. Laws vary by state and while 28 states prohibit adoption discrimination on the basis of gender identity, 19 states do not. Our next guest navigated the foster and adoption system in New York State.

Octavia Lewis: My name is Octavia Lewis Y. Lewis, MPA, and I am the Transgender Health Coordinator at Montefiore Health Systems.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Octavia hails from Georgia and is planning a move back to her home state with her two sons, Ethan and Payton.

Octavia Lewis: Motherhood is very complex to me. It's complex for many reasons, being a woman of transgender experience, I was never taught that I could see myself in a position or the role of a mother. I had to unlearn a lot of binary constructs with regards to being a mother and calling myself one. Again, I am still unlearning a lot of things around being a mother but what brings me joy now with claiming that title of motherhood is the fact that I do have two boys that call me mom. That to me is the greatest accolade of being a mother. No, I wasn't able to have them by birth but the fact that they know me, they love me and they accept me as a mother that means the world to me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I love that because it is what makes us mother, is somebody's calling to us. Sometimes it's sweet that, "Mama." Sometimes it's annoying like, "Mom," but it's that. That's the thing that makes us mama, is that we're mama to somebody.

Octavia Lewis: Absolutely.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me a bit about that unlearning. You were talking about needing to unlearn these binary constructs, these limitations on what you could be, talk about how you undid.

Octavia Lewis: It's still a process. When I say unlearning around the construct of being a mother, because for me, again, that was never something that was instilled or taught to me. It really wasn't even shown to me, because growing up in a Southern Baptist home it was boys are supposed to do this and girls are supposed to do that. A lot of the things that girls were conditioned to do and taught to do, I was not taught then.

For me, going into having a child of my own, and then knowing that I am female, identify, and that I am coming into this role as a mother, it was a lot of things that I was like, "Oh, my God, am I going to get this right?" Because there is no book that I know of that is going to teach me the Black Southern trans woman who's also HIV positive on how to be this perfect cookie-cutter mom. In my mind, I was like, "Does that even exist?" Because my mom made a lot of mistakes along the way, but the thing that made her so great, and a supermom to me is that she acknowledged those flaws. That she was able to have conversations with us about things.

For me, it was gravitating to those things or those imperfections of motherhood that has really shaped the way that I view being a mother now because it is not perfect. I've learned that along the way that there is no perfect mother, and that we all are going to make mistakes on this journey. What has really been monumental for me is that I have been able to walk in my truth with it. I have been able to own that, the good, the bad, and the indifferent.

To know that my son loves me regardless is one of the things that I hold on to and one of the things that I cherish, but am I afraid of when he gets older and when people begin to have conversation on what my motherhood or what my womanhood looks like? Absolutely, because not only does it impact me it impacts my boys as well. That is why I tend to have them around other women with trans experiences so that they can see that there is no one size fit all to being a woman or to being a mother. Those are the things that I want them to be able to see and for them to be able to take with them into spaces that I was not allowed access to.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm going to say if you are a perfect mama, then you're the very first one in all of history.

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Imperfection, that's just is but also as you're talking about what you're afraid of as your boys' age, I think to myself there is for every mother of a Black child in this country, maybe particularly for Black boys, but I think of all Black children there is plenty to be afraid of.

Octavia Lewis: I assure you. It really is. My boys' names are Ethan and Payton. That is the reason why since Ethan was a young age, I've always taken him to rallies and I've always taken him to conferences because I wanted him to see people for who they were. Oftentimes when people like myself, that are a person of trans experience and a person living with HIV, we are often othered. Oftentimes our identities and the disease that resides in us, that does not make us who we are.

Those are things in which people often see and speak out first before they get to know us. For me, I wanted to show Ethan all of those things so that it will become normalized for him so when people have conversations on a person with trans experience, "Oh my goodness, a person living with HIV." It won't be so difficult or hard for him to have those conversations because he grew up around those individuals. He was exposed to my people. That's what I want or hope that he would be able to have those conversations or be able to have the tools to have those conversations if he so choose to do so.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As you talk about your people, my people, and he's around my people and bringing my sons up around my people, I think all of us want to bring our kid-- Well, we don't all want to bring our kids up around our people but often we do. There is a lot of value to being around family, both born family and made family. I understand that, you talked a little bit earlier about being Southern and that you're planning a move back to Georgia. The Georgia people have been being to South it's also your people, we welcome you on back to the South. Talk to me about that decision and the good, the bad, and the indifferent you might be wrestling with.

Octavia Lewis: Absolutely. I'm excited to be the one back because again, Georgia is my native home. I'm happy to be going back as a woman of trans experience that has learned how to advocate for herself and to make informed decisions around everything, all of my intersectionalities that makes Octavia who she is. I'm excited to be able to go back and to be able to offer that to other individuals who did not have someone around to be able to highlight that or show them that there are alternative ways or different ways of doing things.

With my family and friends back home, I'm excited to see them but I'm also a little scared because some of them will still drop a dead name every now and then.

Some of them still will use a he pronoun every now and then. My grandma, I love her to death, sometimes she will be like, "Boy get over here." I'm like, "What boy?" Then she goes, "Oh I'm sorry, Octavia." Yes, am I a little afraid of that? I am because my sons they'll be like, "Mom, why did she call you a boy?" Or, "Who is Tony?" They will ask because they want to know. It will force me to have conversations that I myself may not be ready to have in that moment but I have to prepare myself for those moments because I never want to keep secrets from them. Because I always want to be transparent and I always want them to know that there's a safe space for them to come and have conversations with me.

Those are some of the things that I'm mentally preparing myself for with this relocation back to Atlanta.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It is of course, always true that we're rearing our children, but they're rearing us too. We're teaching them lessons, but [laughs] they're teaching us just as much, dragging us into some of the places we just have to go.

Octavia Lewis: That's the thing. I think with me, it will really make me come face-to-face with some of the things that I have really compartmentalized. Because I think, me compartmentalizing a lot of things that happened in my past, was instrumental to my survival to this point. I think with me, it is a day of reckoning with a lot of things that have yet to come.

Honestly, it is me preparing myself, and it is me acknowledging or accepting the fact that some of the people that I might have thought was near and dear are some of the same people that I might have to let go of, and vice versa. Some of the people that I thought that I had let go of, maybe they have grown within their own personhood, or their own truth or their existence. Maybe they are in a space where they want to have conversations. Conversations coming from places of, I want to learn, versus I want to judge. It is bringing up many emotions and many things that I am thinking about with this relocation.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As you were talking about grandma, and dropping the occasional dead name, misgendering on pronouns, that kind of thing. Yet, I also heard, at least I want to be sure that I heard that, "I also heard grandma trying." Grandma is like, "Oh, let me pull it back. Okay, miss Octavia, come on in here." I'm wondering about the purposeful, and sometimes, perhaps not intentional, but certainly, nonetheless, violence that cis moms can do, when we think and talk and reflect on motherhood.

That can be a limiting exclusionary, and if there's a way that you can, not that it is your job to give advice to cis moms, but it says it's Mother's Day, other way that cis moms like me and other cis-gendered mothers can be more expansive and more inclusionary, more honest in our understandings of motherhood, that will not do intentional or unintentional violence to our trans sisters?

Octavia Lewis: Honestly, yes. Again, I'm glad you asked that question because oftentimes when we talk about particularly brown and Black women, they are not always given the space to be their authentic selves also. When I go into spaces, particularly talking about motherhood, I also have to read the room and also gauge where are they in their own existence, or at their own proximity with motherhood? Because if you're in some groups where they are not ready to have conversations that are inclusive of women of trans experience, maybe it's not going to be a safe environment.

When you go into spaces, where they have set down ground rules of like, "We're going to be respectful of all women in this space, cis-trans and non-binary," and we agreed that there are going to be some Ouch out moments, but we are here to learn from one another. We are here to understand that our liberation is all entwined with one another. The fact that we can grow with one another, those are spaces that I try to gravitate toward.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Just a final question for you again, as we're moving here into Mother's Day, tell me one of your favorite mommy moments? Tell me a moment of motherhood joy?

Octavia Lewis: Wow, I have quite a few. I've had quite a few kids in my home with foster parents, but I think the best moment for me was when Ethan began to talk, and he uttered the word, "mama." For me, that really brought me to a space where it's like, "Okay, I'll take it. This person sees you as their mother. It is okay for you to assume the role, the title, and walk into their space on being a mom now."

That was the greatest feeling in the world to hear him say that. Then to have the adoption become finalized and see my name on his birth certificate as his mother. That really was the icing on the cake for me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: What a lovely conversation. Octavia Lewis, really I just enjoyed every moment of this. Octavia Lewis is a transgender Health Coordinator at Montefiore Health System, and Octavia is one heck of a mom. Octavia, thanks for joining us.

Octavia Lewis: Thank you for having me.

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