#CIDLoveLetters 2.0: He's A Liar and a Thief and I Hate Him" by Dean Kubota

This piece is part of a series called He's A Liar and a Thief and I Hate Him, words that my cousin Jade said when they were hospitalized after this man stole our work and called Asians the new white slave masters. My cousin Jade Black and I had done the Mural Project boarding up the CID for our communities. We did this with Nora Chan and Walter Vining in an effort to bring the Black and Asian communities together. But through this cis male Asian artist stealing credit for The Mural Project, and using it to steal $10,000 in donations, it felt fruitless. Still me and Jade continue to be transgender disabled artists. Jade Black has had to put off their PhD program because of what this fake activist did. I am survivor of human trafficking as a child, and I was forced to do survival sex work once again. Rather than be blackmailed and live my life in fear of exposure and knowing that I'm was already blacklisted for being trans, I came out as a sex worker. Through this transformation, I wanna ask the question: what is truly obscene? Is it nipples? Is it nudity? Is it sex work? Is it sex that is paid for? Or is it stealing from people while saying that you are protecting the very same people you stole from? Is it claiming to be pro-trans while stealing the work of transgender disabled artists?

The other panels can be viewed on the artist's website Witch4Hire.gay / instagram: witch.for.hire