WEBVTT 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:05.410 Hello, I'm Calion and I 00:00:05.410 --> 00:00:07.650 am an artist and an illustrator 00:00:07.650 --> 00:00:09.060 as well as a child sex 00:00:09.060 --> 00:00:12.230 trafficking survivor. I'm 00:00:12.230 --> 00:00:14.180 someone who has a big passion 00:00:14.180 --> 00:00:16.370 for illustrating dogs in particular, 00:00:16.380 --> 00:00:19.370 And I also love providing peer 00:00:19.370 --> 00:00:20.950 support and healing spaces for 00:00:20.950 --> 00:00:21.790 people who have gone through 00:00:21.790 --> 00:00:23.650 similar traumas to me. And I'm 00:00:23.650 --> 00:00:24.650 also a passionate, like 00:00:24.650 --> 00:00:27.380 transformative justice activist and someone 00:00:27.380 --> 00:00:28.870 who really gives a voice to 00:00:28.880 --> 00:00:30.460 other trans people like me in 00:00:30.460 --> 00:00:31.350 my community. 00:00:31.350 --> 00:00:34.620 My trafficking began when I was a young child, 00:00:34.630 --> 00:00:36.590 probably right around the ages of 00:00:36.590 --> 00:00:39.170 five or so when my trafficker 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:41.470 began to groom me to be 00:00:41.470 --> 00:00:44.100 sexually exploited, primarily online, and 00:00:44.110 --> 00:00:45.820 with other people who would come 00:00:45.830 --> 00:00:48.200 to his house. And it really 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:52.200 began when I became his daughter's 00:00:52.200 --> 00:00:53.690 best friend. So he gained 00:00:53.690 --> 00:00:55.240 access to me, learned about me 00:00:55.240 --> 00:00:56.430 that way, and then I would 00:00:56.430 --> 00:00:57.680 stay over at his house. He 00:00:57.680 --> 00:00:59.150 only lived a few houses down. 00:00:59.160 --> 00:01:00.660 I would stay with my 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:01.870 best friend and he would traffick 00:01:01.870 --> 00:01:02.770 me from there. 00:01:02.869 --> 00:01:05.740 My trafficker provided me with a space to 00:01:05.750 --> 00:01:07.650 express my gender identity as a 00:01:07.650 --> 00:01:09.100 child, which was something that 00:01:09.110 --> 00:01:10.740 no one else in my life 00:01:10.750 --> 00:01:13.210 really knew about, or was 00:01:13.220 --> 00:01:14.860 able to provide a space for 00:01:14.870 --> 00:01:16.930 including just society as a whole. 00:01:16.940 --> 00:01:18.600 So my trafficker understood that 00:01:18.600 --> 00:01:20.750 I was a transgender boy and 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:23.070 I was someone who really 00:01:23.070 --> 00:01:24.030 didn't have a space to be 00:01:24.030 --> 00:01:26.110 validated for that masculinity that I 00:01:26.110 --> 00:01:27.990 knew I held inside and he 00:01:27.990 --> 00:01:29.880 recognized that he treated me like 00:01:29.890 --> 00:01:31.780 I was his son, which was 00:01:31.780 --> 00:01:33.250 very different from the dynamics 00:01:33.250 --> 00:01:34.570 that people around me would treat 00:01:34.570 --> 00:01:35.700 me with seeing me as a 00:01:35.700 --> 00:01:38.280 young "girl". So, of course, 00:01:38.280 --> 00:01:39.070 you know, the people in my 00:01:39.070 --> 00:01:40.730 life didn't really know better, 00:01:40.730 --> 00:01:42.720 They didn't necessarily know about 00:01:42.720 --> 00:01:43.710 my identity in that way, 00:01:43.710 --> 00:01:44.600 but that was something that my 00:01:44.600 --> 00:01:46.210 trafficker realized in me and it 00:01:46.210 --> 00:01:47.370 was a vulnerability that he 00:01:47.370 --> 00:01:49.500 exploited and used to groom me and 00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:50.620 to make me vulnerable to the 00:01:50.620 --> 00:01:52.260 abuses that I faced as a child. 00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:53.810 I think things could have been 00:01:53.810 --> 00:01:55.950 different for me if society, of 00:01:55.950 --> 00:01:57.610 course had been more accepting and 00:01:57.610 --> 00:01:59.780 validating of young transgender children, 00:01:59.790 --> 00:02:00.830 I think that that would have 00:02:00.830 --> 00:02:02.640 been a key thing for me to 00:02:02.640 --> 00:02:03.940 have spaces where I could have 00:02:03.950 --> 00:02:07.060 been validated and noticed 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:08.340 and my trafficker wouldn't have 00:02:08.340 --> 00:02:09.490 been the only person who was 00:02:09.490 --> 00:02:10.720 able to validate that side of 00:02:10.720 --> 00:02:11.890 me and then to groom and 00:02:11.890 --> 00:02:13.560 exploit that side of me as well. 00:02:13.740 --> 00:02:14.530 So, I think that would have 00:02:14.530 --> 00:02:15.970 been one of the biggest things 00:02:15.980 --> 00:02:17.650 as well as I think that a 00:02:17.650 --> 00:02:18.440 lot of this could have been 00:02:18.440 --> 00:02:19.820 prevented if there was just more 00:02:19.820 --> 00:02:21.900 community care in general. There's 00:02:21.900 --> 00:02:23.010 a lot of isolation in our 00:02:23.010 --> 00:02:25.260 society and there's a lot of 00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:26.860 people kind of learning to fend 00:02:26.860 --> 00:02:28.650 for themselves and even in 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:30.200 communities that seem tightly knit, 00:02:30.200 --> 00:02:31.220 there needs to be more care, 00:02:31.220 --> 00:02:33.070 there needs to be more collective 00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:35.150 healing and collective spaces to 00:02:35.540 --> 00:02:36.770 really work on some of the 00:02:36.770 --> 00:02:38.100 things that society could do a 00:02:38.100 --> 00:02:39.280 little bit better on, like 00:02:39.390 --> 00:02:41.040 expressing emotions and creating safe 00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:42.740 spaces especially for vulnerable and 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:43.680 different children. 00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:47.020 Sometimes, like children show pain in ways that 00:02:47.030 --> 00:02:48.950 are overlooked because children 00:02:48.950 --> 00:02:50.580 experience a lot of fantasy. We 00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:52.130 experience a lot of, you know, 00:02:52.130 --> 00:02:53.060 like as a child, we all 00:02:53.060 --> 00:02:55.620 experience a lot of creativity 00:02:55.620 --> 00:02:56.790 and different ways of expressing 00:02:56.790 --> 00:02:58.500 ourselves that adults may not 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:00.670 recognize are either pain or methods 00:03:00.670 --> 00:03:02.580 of escaping a painful 00:03:02.580 --> 00:03:04.100 reality that we're in. So I 00:03:04.100 --> 00:03:05.300 would, you know, encourage, 00:03:05.300 --> 00:03:06.740 like parents and educators and 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:08.690 people to start to understand what 00:03:08.690 --> 00:03:10.790 children who might be suffering, 00:03:10.790 --> 00:03:12.020 and might be experiencing traumas 00:03:12.020 --> 00:03:13.730 would be like. So looking for 00:03:13.740 --> 00:03:15.780 child-based signs of like self-harm 00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:17.200 and things that might be 00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:19.710 exploring like sexuality or exploring 00:03:19.720 --> 00:03:21.840 things that hurt a lot more 00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:23.340 than a child should be doing 00:03:23.340 --> 00:03:25.500 at that age, more 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:26.470 than just, you know, normal 00:03:26.470 --> 00:03:28.280 childhood curiosity. As well as I 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:29.430 would really encourage people to 00:03:29.430 --> 00:03:31.850 learn the signs of, you 00:03:31.850 --> 00:03:33.400 know, dissociation and detachment 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:34.650 from trauma. So just when a 00:03:34.650 --> 00:03:36.030 child might be like zoning out 00:03:36.030 --> 00:03:37.650 or forgetting things a lot or 00:03:37.660 --> 00:03:39.270 seems disconnected from the world. 00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:40.140 So I think that that needs 00:03:40.140 --> 00:03:41.130 to be a conversation that's 00:03:41.130 --> 00:03:43.450 also happening around, you 00:03:43.450 --> 00:03:44.660 know, anti-trafficking and just 00:03:44.660 --> 00:03:46.250 around child welfare in general, 00:03:46.340 --> 00:03:48.530 because, I think a lot of 00:03:48.540 --> 00:03:49.780 what was happening to me, 00:03:49.780 --> 00:03:50.670 could have been noticed a lot 00:03:50.680 --> 00:03:52.530 earlier if that had, if that 00:03:52.530 --> 00:03:53.600 had been a conversation that was 00:03:53.600 --> 00:03:54.260 happening too.