PAPER Magazine (@papermag.com.web.brid.gy)

Essence is Just Getting Started My name is Kay Poyer, and I met Essence Thomas about two years ago in Chicago. When did you? Essence had flown me out to host one of her iconic Affairs parties at Arbella, a moody downtown cocktail lounge and dance club. By that time, I had already come to know her simply as Essence — no last name required. Now it seems the rest of the internet is finally catching up. ### She had, before the internet ever met her, already lived many lives: a child actor, an Ivy League grad, a nightlife diva, and most recently a viral fashion muse. Her “Reverse Trend” has taken over the FYP; dressed in designer clothes, she dances erratically against dilapidated and liminal backdrops, flipping her hair and clutching her purse, always in reverse. Though the videos are usually no longer than twenty seconds, they capture a complex and visually stunning energy. She’s been tapped by many artists and brands, with FKA twigs, Diesel, and Luar all entering her otherworldly cinematic universe. Now the second Black transgender member of the Sephora Squad, it’s clear that both her beauty and her creative vision are utterly captivating, and that her rise to much, _much_ bigger things has only just begun. If I had to describe Essence, the first word I’d use would be “complicated” (in the most complimentary sense.) Every time she reveals a new side of herself, yet another is just around the corner. At such a pivotal moment, I thought it was time we sat down to reflect on her journey so far, and identify the core ethos of her presence more clearly. You can read our entire conversation for PAPER below. (_This interview has been edited and condensed_.) ### ### **Essence** : Can I hit my vape? Is that taboo? **Kay: This is a safe space. Let’s do one together. Cheers!** Cheers to the dolls. **Wait, what’s the flavor of the day?** Stolen… no, mint. **Is it my fault that you vape? Did I do this to you?** No, it’s my ex’s fault. I was hitting your vape when we were around each other. I was doing drunk cigs and then it just evolved. And then in nightlife, people just had vapes. I’m like, can I hit that? Oh, now I see why everyone does this. But I threw it away. Now I’m smoking cigs only, because it’s chic, you know what I mean? Go put on a gloss, go outside, light a match and hit a fag. **Are you worried about the chicness of vaping at all? Does it concern you?** I’m not too worried about the chicness of it, but I feel like I want it to not be accessible. This is just too easy. I’m hitting this everywhere. I’m hitting this at my grandma’s house. I’m hitting this in the bathroom at the club and at the coffee shop. I need to go outside and smoke a cig and be an adult. I don’t want to be hitting vapes. I want to go outside with all the other models and hit a cig. **It’s just about the right perfume pairing. I would rather look a little unchic than throw the scent off for myself. Unless it’s a club night, then it’s fine. During the daytime, I can’t have a cigarette in my hand. I can’t do it.** You can’t do it. ### **I feel like some bitches smell fine after a cigarette and I don’t think I’m one of them.** You think you stink after? Have you heard of a mint? **Girl, the smoke on your body bitch? You don’t want to reak like a fag after you smoke one of those. I blow it far away on one. Well, we’re having this interview because all of a sudden, a girl is finally getting her credit. You are a very weird figure on the internet, where the impact culturally that you have, on the way people speak and the way people meme has been outweighed by the lack of credit you’ve gotten up until this point. I want to start with the reverse video. I don’t think a lot of girls know I was there for the moment it happened, and I’ll always be happy about that.** You’re the videographer. **I am the videographer, but you did have a very clear vision. I remember that night, we were very fucked up, but you had a very clear vision about this video. And it’s a weird concept. It’s a strange concept to explain out loud. Where did it come from?** I always lie on the internet — I went to Columbia for film and media, but I tell people I went for computer science. So I always had this eye since I was a child, watching with my mom on a hand me down couch, _Taxi Driver_ , just very inappropriate things. _Sex and the City_ , Cinemax. I mean, my favorite film is _The Skin I Live In_ , I was watching that. I was watching the darkest things that woke up my tea. When it came to these videos, I was like, wait, what if I just dance? I’m always in the club, I’m always freaking out, I’m always just going crazy. I never really capture that. And, I’ve always been an insecure dancer. I studied ballet, but I’ve always overthought it so much. I was like, what if I just got this on camera, and saw myself? The Aphex Twin video really woke something up in me. I love the backrooms, I love creepypasta. I saw JT and Nadia Lee Cohen do that video, and I was like, that’s so me. This is what I want to give to the camera. I was in this clean girl, Columbia aesthetic. Everyone was like, “She’s so Republican coded.” I was like, _that’s so not me._ So the vision set in, where everything is backwards. If I’m putting on lipgloss, it’s like putting lip gloss on when I’m taking it off backwards. It’s such a weird thing to explain out loud, and never really made sense to anyone. When we shot the original video, I was like, _girl, let’s flip my hair on camera. Let’s do this. Do that. We have to do this again, but you have to fall from this angle. This is the vision._ We’re in Chicago just walking around. ### > @sayessence > > the doll takes a hit #aphextwin #jt ### **You know what it was? We were leaving the Ron Carroll Memorial Party, and we were literally just walking down the street. And I remember, you saw that spot, it’s literally a loading dock on the side of the road, a random fucking side street in Chicago. You had spotted it earlier, and were like, I want to shoot there. We came out of the club and you said we needed to head down there, and then we can go meet the boys.** **You had a vision, and I do think it captures something. A lot of the girls nowadays have an issue with being anything but perfectly posed and sexy on camera. It was freaky and strange, and you even described horror elements of it. Can you talk a little bit more about why that aspect was particularly important to you?** When I think of Black horror, being a Black person in America, being a trans person, it’s horror. It’s a horror experience. Just to be in these spaces. But there’s also the joy of it. I always say, every reverse video, and seeing other people do it and replicate it — it starts with Black trans joy, period point blank. I hope I’m answering your question. **You’re not!** Ask me one more time. **You talked about the horror inspiration behind this, and what really made it so captivating was that it didn’t feel like you were trying to be sexy and just a model, and fully letting loose. It’s always in a strange setting. I remember one you did, where you were in between a bunch of shipping containers in those beautiful white leather boots. Was it Diesel, where you did it against the graffiti wall? It’s very liminal and there’s this degradation element, in the backdrop, and you’re moving in a way that there is some horror, uncomfortability, and it makes it more chic and more sexy.** I think I’ve never thought about it that deep. Like I said earlier too, with the Aphex Twin video, are you familiar with backrooms and creepypasta? **Oh, girl.** I remember watching these very dark, I want to say black market, videos. Those things linger in my brain sometimes. How do I express horror? How do I express this darkness that is inside my head? I had this clean girl aesthetic, and [these videos] are liminal spaces we don’t see Black people. I feel like that just came out, now that you’re asking these questions. I’m sitting here and I’m like… it was never that dark to me! But something about when I see it now, I know it. I know the moves and the character that’s behind this person. ### ### **I don’t think anyone knows either, that we literally would film this shit in silence. I’d be like, okay, walk this way. I’m taking the camera this way. I’m going to start low, go high. It was quiet on set. It was dead silent.** No one knows this, but I was a child, or teen actor, or whatever. I get into this mindset where I get into different realms of things that I’m interested in — being a film person, being an actress, being a person who puts on a face and sells something and shows fashion. I get to bring all these different elements together and put them in a video. I feel like as a creator, I was always trying to be clean, cookie cutter, and now we’re messier, and I feel like I’m actually thriving now. I got bitches getting the vision, which is the craziest thing to say out loud. I’ve got Charli, Slayyter… creative people getting the vision and seeing the work I’ve created. JT is a blueprint, a pink print… JT was the thing that sparked for me, as a dark skinned girl, that I can do this. I got a chance to connect with JT from these videos, and we got to kii together and hang out. Me and JT be texting. But seeing her take up spaces inspired me to take up space. It’s been dark, but it’s been joyful at the same time. [Reverse videos] are showing another element of what it means to be Essence. It’s how I feel in so many spaces, just liminal, dark, twisted, putting on a game face — that’s the tethered side of me, but everyone else sees the light side of me. But the reverse video girl, that’s actually how I feel most of the time walking out my door. **You talk a lot about taking up space as a black trans woman. I think this is a theme that carries through a lot of your content, and is a very real ethos and principle to who you are as a person in all the spaces you navigate. I know a lot of that started with your “Black trans woman in an Ivy League” videos, but this is also something you’ve spoken about in nightlife spaces, in fashion spaces. We’ve seen this mantra of “protect the dolls” repeated a lot, and it gets emptied out as it gets repeated more. I’d like you to talk a little bit more about that, why taking up space has become such a repeated thing that you talk about and emphasize.** Protect it all! Take us out to dinner, take us to see a show, take us to see the world. Give us these opportunities. There was a CNN report or something, that was this investigation, this deep dive, about how Equinox and Barry’s is networking, and a way for men to bond. Girls have the nail salon, straight guys go to golf, gay guys have Equinox. What do the dolls have? Who’s elevated? Who’s putting the ladder down for us to come up and climb it as a collective? Because when we get up there, we’re going to take up space. I think people are fearful of that. We’re going to take up space and extend the ladder out to the sisters and protect the dolls, connect us to our dreams, show us what we can do and be and more. [...] We see so many times, our peers who are not trans women, become creative directors, or do assisting and styling, taking our shit and giving it to the girls who have never even graced us, who’ve never even thanked us or been in spaces with us, and running off with all of our shit. There was a saying that when you see the girls pop out, these upcoming divas, singers, comedians or whatever… baby, we saw that 10 years ago, we saw it 5 years ago. This is not new for us! It’s never new! We’ve been having new slang and I’m like, girl, when this gets out in the public, we’re going to see some comedian walk off with it and make a fucking million dollars. Where’s our money? So it’s important to take up space. That’s why it’s been a beautiful thing to see so many more trans girls, queer trans men just popping out on the internet. If I could have seen myself 10 years ago, or just any time, as a kid, how life changing that would’ve been! People who look up to me: be better than me. I’m not perfect at all, I don’t have everything together. I want people to be better than me. I hope that when I’m able, I’ll put the ladder down. Girl, come up with me! ### ### ### **I think it’s important to mention credit when we talk about what your path to this moment has looked like, because I think before this, the big thing was you made a video about painting DL trade. That was the first time so many people heard that word. It was like Ursula, they took it out of your mouth and it was everywhere across the internet, and you have twinks running around talking about painting.** **How has it been for you specifically to get this recognition, and this credit online?** It’s crazy, because I’ve always tried to be humble, but there’s those nights where I’m like, _bitch, I’m that girl. I am exactly who I think I am._ I don’t want to be humble, personally. We need more delusional, Black trans women in the world, and maybe I should be the first one. But it has kept me sane. I’m going to talk my shit. I’m a Black trans woman at an Ivy League university, what the fuck do you think I’m out here doing? I was flying back and forth from New York to Chicago, producing parties and being with my community. I talk about my chosen family… they hold me to a high ass standard. My drag mother’s from Mumbai. My chosen aunt is a fucking big investor in the restaurant industry, hospitality, nightlife. My chosen family are pioneers of house and techno. And the scene in Chicago raised me. With DL trade, as I said earlier, trans people give so much to the culture, especially Black trans women from these underground scenes, from ballroom. It gets taken. I was like, let’s play a fucking game and let’s paint DL trade, and people started catching on. I was just having a fun time. And it got taken and people have now monetized on it. I didn’t monetize on DL trade. I got a few interviews — a couple of brands wrote full ass essays and didn’t credit me at all, and have never paid me my money and still run around using DL trade. This Black trans girl brought this back into the lexicon. There’s about 10 million views, maybe more, of me popularizing that phrase. Give credit where credit is due! **We both make jokes all the time that are like,_I’m only talking to the other trannies. I’m not talking to any of you. I’m specifically making a joke for trans women._ But they want to laugh too, but they don’t really get it! Sometimes, when you talk about credit, people get defensive and the knee jerk is like, _Well, you didn’t make it up._ No, Essence didn’t make it up, but you heard it from her. You heard it from your TikTok For You page from Essence. This is where it gets dicey. It becomes a really magical, mystical thing to emptily say “protect black trans women,” “Black trans women do everything.” But then, when there is one Black trans woman that you can name that you got shit from, people get defensive about it. ** Social media is my resume. This is me proving to you time and time again that I can do it. Just give me the job. **“Protect the Dolls” starts to fall apart when we’re talking about specific dolls — three dolls sitting in a row who are pushing the culture but we’re not getting any money. There’s not checks being put on the table. We’re both influencers. We watch some of these bitches get paid for _nothing._** Give me the chance! What is it, from Cassie, from _A Chorus Line_? “Give me the chance to show you, to prove to you, that I can be great.” Here I am showing you that people are fucking with me. ### **You talk about the money you spend on doing your hair, the amount of money that’s gone into getting work done. I think people see a trans woman and they either see, like,_oh, she struggled all her life. She did sex work. She’s had to scrounge for money. That’s such an inspiring story._ You have to have to look good all the time, have your hair done, have your face beat, have your surge up, have the fit on, or nobody’s even going to look. And they don’t care if you’re funny. They don’t care if you’re talented.** Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I talk about my success a lot. Sometimes, it’s like I feel like I’m not doing enough, but I also get that I’m palatable. There’s so many trans women in general that inspire me. But I get how I’m able to code switch, and it impresses people. _Oh, the last thing I thought was you were trans._ People don’t know this: I don’t have my own place. I live with my family. People take care of me. But other than that, people don’t have the support. I'm a very blessed woman to be able to chase my dreams as a 25 year old trans girl, but not everyone has these opportunities. So they have to go into sex work, go work at Starbucks. They can’t chase their dreams authentically, it’s hard. It’s not possible. The wall in front of you is insane. I have people fighting for me, just even this opportunity right now, to talk to _PAPER_. Someone pitched me. I didn’t do that. It means something. That’s the work we need to see from our allies and from our community. Not just bringing us out with you to the club, getting us on the guest list. **I have noticed bitches take pot shots at you from the side in a way that I’ve never seen. I think it’s because they like trans women online who are struggling. There’s a big portion of my audience that will say these things out the side of their mouth like,_oh, I like her because she’s relatable and she’s sometimes broke too._ I’m like, so what bitch, I need to be broke for the rest of my life so that you’ll still like me? There’s something inside of them that makes them angry to see a chic, well dressed, put together Black trans woman who looks like she’s doing well, even if she’s not. ** It blows people’s minds. It pisses them off, because with everything against you, how are you still showing up? It’s not for me! It’s for the next generation. It’s for my children, it’s for my sisters, it’s for the little Black boys. It’s for those people to see themselves and be like, _oh, I can do this._ If I can do it in this climate, you can do it. **I think they don’t understand that so often, it becomes a shitty food service or retail job, sex work or nightlife. Then those of us who push and push and push and push and push to get this kind of recognition — bitch, you’re fucking working at Domino’s, they got your dead name on your name tag, all your coworkers know your dead name, they know your T. There’s no protection for trans women. There are the spaces we get pushed into, so of course we have to dominate it, of course we have to go hard as fuck. I think there’s a reaction to seeing how well you keep it together on camera, it activates something people don’t want to recognize in themselves, that they are transphobic, that they are uncomfortable when you’re not visibly struggling.** Some people were like, just share it. I can’t give it to them! I can’t give that access. We talked about my work earlier — I’ve been in the Chicago scene for six years employing people, I’ve been putting people on. I could have gotten the shine and ran out and did my own thing. When I went to Columbia and finished after seven years, I was getting DMs from all kinds of people being like, _you inspired me to go to college, you inspired me to do this._ That’s my work. Even the bridge of being a Black trans woman, being able to show women we have shared experiences. Let me guide you. Let me be a bridge. Let me show you the community that you can have. Don’t see me as an enemy, see me as a friend. The only thing that we can do together is build and break generational curses and break this patriarchal ass society built by white men on this indigenous ass land. Let’s wake it up. We need to grow; I like being uncomfortable. It’s why I go to nightlife, I like to be woken up. ### ### ### **I hope what people are taking from this is: they see a lot of these cultural spaces that trans women tend to exist in, and I think to them, it looks fun, it looks sexy, it looks cool. There’s rarely a fully fleshed understanding of how deep it really is, and why there’s a bunch of trannies there. In the next ten years… this is a crazy year for you. You’re on the Sephora team. You’re basically a fashion muse. What is the vision for yourself? Let’s start with 2026.** I want to do so much and so little at the same time. I want to produce my first short film. I want to get more cinematic with my content. It’s been so hard to be seen and have my work be like, wow, this is the work she’s good at. So, produce a short film, write more, write my stories and get started on a memoir. Work with fashion brands — right now, modeling is on the table. My manager is meeting with agencies next month about me. I’m like, bro, this is actually scary! I didn’t see it for myself, so modeling would be something really beautiful. And that came from the reverse videos. I want to act… I used to be a teen actor, I said that earlier. I want to get back in front of a camera. I want to show my body and just feel sexy. I want to travel more. I just got my passport back. I want to produce more. I want to do more community events. That’s something that’s been in my heart forever. I just want to put more girls on. That’s probably my main goal right now. Oh, music! I want to do music, I want to make a track, I want to have a little Tate McRae, Addison Rae dance, because you know I’m a dancer. **Are you going to sing? Are you going to give us a full pop moment?** No one knows that I studied opera for fucking 10 years, bitch. **What didn’t you study for 10 years?** Well, I did everything girl. Rosalia better be scared of me…. A bass-baritone ain’t going to scare nobody. **She calls you, she’s like: “We need some real low notes on this next album babe. Come to the studio.”** Give it to us! Give it to us. Those are the things I want to work on this year: fashion, modeling, music. I have so many different dreams. Long term goal… I want to open up the first queer youth housing in Chicago. We don’t have one here. New York City has one. I want to open up the first queer housing in Chicago, that’s something I want to work on. I want to build this resume, so when I do come up to these tables, I’m like, _oh bitch, lemme give y’all a couple million dollars to get queer housing._ We need this for the kids, because these big cities are runaways for queer youth. Look what’s happening in this political climate! So those are my goals. If you’re a modeling agency, talent agency, and you want to see the call win? Sign the doll. **I’m really excited, I think it’s going to be a really crazy year for you. I really do.** For all of us. It’s going to be so major as long as we have each other and we’re sharing these opportunities, girl, it’s over for the girls! I didn’t even talk about Sephora at all. I’m the second Black trans woman on the Sephora squad, and it's been the most nerve-wracking thing, meeting all these major brands, telling ‘em to take a chance on me. Not only me, but my community. It’s been absolutely scary, but it’s been world changing. It's going to be a fab moment for the girls, and we're about to take up so much space and it's going to be beautiful. **Girl, I'm going to have to check my shoulders at the door. I'm taking up so much space this year,** Girl. **Well, that's okay.** We’re both linebackers, so we'll try to go through the door together. We won't make it in. **Yeah, I got to get my traps done when I get to the city.** Do that _now._ ### ### Photography by Jack Maffucci Story by Kay Poyer Stylist: Noah Diaz Makeup: Mollie Gloss Hair: Dylan Silver Executive Creative Director: Jordan Bradfield Senior Editor: Joan Summers Social Editor: Alaska Riley https://www.papermag.com/essence-thomas-kay-poyer