Meet Roshawn Bell

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Roshawn Bell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Roshawn , thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

Being an artist who works in arts education it’s easy to get caught up in fostering creativity in others and forget about your own artistry. After years of teaching the arts I realized I wasn’t getting any younger and I had so many stories in me that I wanted to get out. So I decided to dig through some old scripts and short stories. After pitching one of my plays to my oldest daughter, my daughter said, “that’s not a play. I can easily see that as a series on Netflix that I would watch.” The idea brought me fully back to creativity. I began studying everything thing I could about film and television. Finally, I was chosen for a film production fellowship and eventually wrote, produced and directed my first short film. It’s exciting to be back in the creators seat and not just on the sidelines watching new artists be born. Being a student myself has taken me back to my roots. Now I try to learn something new each week that will foster my own creativity.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

There is an African proverb that I use in my artist statement that says, “Until the lion tells the story, the hunter will always be the hero.” I have always been dedicated to telling the lion’s story, the other side of the story when it comes to queer folks and people of color. But I became even more passionate about it when I began socially and medically transition.

I have always been a person who had a million stories running through my head. I needed to get them all out so I started writing when I was young. I really loved to tell stories about the underdog coming out on top. They go through a series of trials and tribulations and they come out better than what they were before. I also loved sci-fi and Afrofuturism. So that meant that many of my stories were set in the future or on some distant planet or had some supernatural element to it. And up until recently, my stories were told through the lens of a bisexual woman who felt out of place most of the time because I wasn’t actually a bisexual woman.

I began questioning my whole existence after I learned words like genderqueer, non-binary, trans masculine. I was like oh what’s this? Oh, this is me. You see, when I was a teenager discovering who I was those words didn’t exist so they weren’t an option. I had to get in where I fit in. You were either male or female, straight or gay, there was a lot of bi-erasure at the time. So I did the best I could with what was offered. But later in life I found out there were words and language for what I was feeling and I began my journey of discovering who I really was.
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So in 2019, I begin the process of medically transitioning. Starting this journey made me want to do more research. Like with everything I start, I go on a google rampage to learn everything I can about it. I wanted to learn as much as possible about the trans experience and especially the history. So I did and I found out about the Hijras of India, the Mahu of Hawaii, the Chibados of Angola, the two-spirited of Indigenous America and the list goes on. I even learned the mentality surrounding gender non-conformity in Africa: In the book The Splendor of Gender Non-confirminty in Africa, S Collins states:

“In Mali, the Dogon tribe generally maintain that the perfect human being is androgynous; the tribe worships Nommo, ancestral spirits who are described as androgynous, intersex, and mystical creatures, and whom are also referred to as ‘the Teachers’.” -Collins, S.

I’m reading through all this material and realizing that there were so many cultures, pre-colonialism, who had 3 or more genders and those non-confirming genders were highly revered in these societies, holding high positions of importance. I was so excited to learn all of this new information that had never been told to me before and began to think …. how did trans & gender non-confirming people go from being highly revered and damn near worshiped to suffering injustices on a daily basis? Well, we all know that storytelling has always been a very important part of culture, especially for people of the African diaspora. It has been the way we passed down information from generation to generation. It’s the way we understood our lineage and it’s how we honored our ancestors. The stories of a people give insight on who they are as a people. As the stories of our transcestors would have given us insight into the role they played in the human story? But why haven’t we heard of their stories?

Well, somewhere along the way the people who began to control the narrative didn’t see a need for it. It went against the type of society they wanted to create. So the stories and the history of trans people, much like black people, get tuck away in the chambers of time. Now they can be found if you go looking for them, like I did. If you did deep enough. But if you’re not looking for us you will barely hear anything about trans people in the history of human beings. So I got a brilliant idea. I’m a storyteller…Instead of asking where our stories are, I could tell them.
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So I created TransAct Entertainment so I could. Our short film, Femme, was featured in four film festivals this year and we are currently working on a full length feature film that tells the nostalgic love story of a black trans woman and a black cisgender man. A story that could save lives.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I think my ability to see the possibilities where no one else can has been the driving force throughout my life. I’ve always been a visionary, and I have always been valued for my ideas and innovation. Later in life I learned how to share my ideas with others with a level of passion and excitement that created buy in and commitment. Because of that, I have a network of friends and colleagues who are always willing to jump in to help and share resources for a cause or a project I am working on.

Motivating and inspiring others through my creativity is my superpower. I think everyone has a unique power. You really have to take the time to discover the thing that brings you joy, tap into it and master it. Then people will pay you top dollar to be apart of that mastery.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

I think in the last 12 months I have really learned how to turn failure into research. I do not see my mistakes as failures but the opportunity to dig deep and dissect the process and outcome of a situation; and within that exploration I find valuable lessons.

Just like a new product that needs to be tested before being put on the market; you are researching what works and what doesn’t. The mistakes that are made during the testing allows for the creation of a high quality product.

So the mistakes I make leads to the research that provides me with valuable information that’s lead to quality living.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.transactentertainment.com/
• Instagram: @roshawn_bell

Image Credits

Danielle Vauters
Danny Kim