POLITICS
Trans Woman Aims to Replace Torres on Council
Elisa Crespo offers life & work experience, dissatisfaction with district being overlooked
BY MATT TRACY
Elisa Crespo, an out transgender
aide to Bronx
Borough President Ruben
Diaz, Jr., is aiming
to take over for term-limited out
gay Councilmember Ritchie Torres
— and if successful, she would be
the fi rst trans city lawmaker and
the fi rst LGBTQ woman elected to
offi ce in the Bronx.
But Crespo makes it abundantly
clear that she wants voters in the
district to focus less on her gender
identity and more on what she
hopes to achieve as a councilmember.
“I don’t want to be seen as running
because I’m transgender,”
Crespo told Gay City News. “I just
so happen to be a transgender person
who is running. I’m more than
a trans woman: I’m a woman of color,
I’m a working class person, and
I’ve been through the public school
system and public housing.”
When that Council seat will actually
open up remains a question
for at least for a few more days.
Should Torres emerge victorious
in the Democratic primary in the
deep blue 15th Congressional District,
he would almost certainly
coast to victory in the November
general election, at which point
there would be a special election
for his Council seat.
If Torres loses, Crespo would instead
compete in the regular Democratic
primary election in June
of next year. That Council district,
encompassing the neighborhoods
of Bedford Park, Fordham, Mount
Hope, Bathgate, Belmont, East
Tremont, West Farms, Van Nest,
and Olinville, is shaping up to be
a competitive affair. Other candidates
that have declared so far
include Oswald Feliz, who is listed
on the Bronx Democratic Party’s
website as the male state committee
member in the 78th Assembly
District, and Community Board 7
district manager Ischia Bravo.
Crespo was motivated to run for
the soon-to-be-open seat because
she became tired of living in a community
that she said has been rife
Elisa Crespo, who would become the fi rst trans city lawmaker, is vying to replace the fi rst LGBTQ
elected offi cial in the Bronx, Ritchie Torres.
with poverty and unemployment
and always seems to be the “last in
everything.”
“I couldn’t sit idly by and not do
anything about it,” she said.
Crespo’s political journey has
been infl uenced in large part by
her own experiences and the adversity
she has faced along the
way. A New York City native who is
29, she has resided in every borough
but Staten Island, though
she has lived in the Bronx for a
decade now. After transitioning at
age 15, she started engaging in sex
work by the time she was 16, and
was diagnosed with HIV when she
was 19 years old.
“I had a really rough, challenging,
testing adolescence, and sex
working landed me in trouble
with the law,” Crespo said. “That
changed my way of thinking, my
politics, and the course of my life in
general… because I realized I had
to do something and I changed my
life for the better.”
Crespo said she stopped engaging
in sex work, obtained a college
degree, and started building her
professional network and seeking
out internship opportunities.
She went on to intern for Assembly
Speaker Carl Heastie and also
interned in the City Council before
joining Diaz, Jr.’s offi ce.
In her current capacity as education
liaison in the borough president’s
offi ce, Crespo said much of
her work revolves around overseeing
efforts to help special needs
students requiring special education
services.
While she does not want to be
defi ned by her gender identity, Crespo
acknowledged the signifi cant
meaning of her campaign at a time
when the current occupant of the
seat she wants, Torres, is the fi rst
out LGBTQ person in the Bronx
and one of only two queer councilmebers
of color, along with Carlos
Menchaca of Brooklyn.
“It’s part of my responsibility
to take up spaces and try to fulfi
ll that void in a borough that is
known as a boys’ club and one that
is not particularly open-minded
as other boroughs may be,” Crespo
said. “It’s important we have
a queer candidate in the Bronx to
send a message that Bronx is not a
homophobic, transphobic borough
as people like to paint it out to be.”
Crespo is among those supporting
the effort to decriminalize sex
work. The issue is regulated on
the state level, but the discussion
can still be infl uenced by leaders
across the political spectrum.
Crespo said she went to Albany to
push for the campaign to repeal
the ban on Walking While Trans,
which is a discriminatory loitering
law used to target trans women of
color, and she met with Heastie in
an effort to gain his explicit support
for the legislation.
“He didn’t give me a commitment,
but he said he would keep in
contact with me and we would talk
again, but I never heard from him,”
Crespo said. “I think and I hope
the Legislature will understand
that this issue, too, is going to be
part of providing justice for Black
and brown bodies, and Black lives
cannot matter until Black trans
lives matter.”
Crespo pointed to the case of her
late friend Layleen Xtravaganza
Cubilette-Polanco, a trans woman
who died in her restrictive housing
cell at Rikers last year after she
suffered from seizures caused by
epilepsy. Polanco was left alone for
over an hour by correction offi cers
who were supposed to be checking
on her more frequently. She was
behind bars for charges that included
sex work-related offenses.
Crespo said she grew up with
Polanco, but the two had drifted
apart during the time before she
died.
“If we decriminalized sex work,
Layleen would be alive today,” Crespo
said. “Her death was completely
preventable and we know their
guards were not following protocol.”
➤ ELISA CRESPO, continued on p.26
June 25- July 15, 2 24 020 | GayCityNews.com
/GayCityNews.com
