New doc Kokomo City tells the stories of trans sex workers from their POV

Kokomo City is a story of survival, but not as you might expect it. Released this week in the UK after rave reviews stateside, the highly-anticipated documentary profiles four Black trans sex workers – Dominique Silver, Daniella Carter, Liyah Mitchell and Koko Da Doll – as well as a handful of men, who speak candidly on-screen about loving and desiring trans women.

There are stories of sex, violence, struggle and adversity, but the women in particular light up these stories with their charisma and filthy chuckles, turning tales of client brawls into hilarious anecdotes. They do so in hyper-stylised black-and-white shots, accompanied by the sounds of old-school jazz, blues and soul. It might be a documentary about trans women, but Kokomo City deviates from linear reportage and trauma-led narratives, creating a blueprint all of its own.

Director D Smith wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. “I knew Kokomo City would be a hard sell,” she laughs, speaking to Dazed via Zoom from a New York hotel room. “I wanted to make a documentary about trans women with this cool, edgy look, and I wanted them to be cussing and swearing, doing whatever they wanted.” Smith tried for years to pitch the project, but the rejections came thick and fast. “It kind of screwed up my ego a little bit,” she admits.

By late 2019, she had started to “seriously consider” the possibility of creating Kokomo City herself, of bringing her own vision to life. In retrospect, Smith says going the independent route turned out to be a blessing in disguise. “Maybe it would have been a disaster to work with another director,” she jokes. “I would have micro-managed them right out of there!”

Smith was new to filmmaking, but she was already a seasoned musician and creative powerhouse. Perhaps most importantly, she was no stranger to being portrayed on-screen. In 2016, she made a handful of appearances in Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta, an experience which taught her “the power of editing,” she says. “People can make you look any way they want, and you have no control over it.” Smith recalls being “egged on” to start arguments, to fight her natural instinct to shy away from confrontation. “It’s so draining, and it’s complete bullshit,” she sighs. “I was encouraged to say certain things, and it made people online hate me. For the first time in my life, I felt suicidal. What was shown on-screen was completely not who I am.”

Despite years of high-profile gigs, Smith was flat broke by the time she started working on Kokomo City in earnest, in 2019. “The girls didn’t know that I was homeless when I was filming,” she explains, “but they knew I didn’t have money, because I walked in there by myself with a camera and a backpack.” What they did know was that Smith was determined to learn from her own experience of being burned by video editors hungry for scandalous content. It was a learning process, but one driven by passion and a hunger to create a sensitive, artistic and nuanced portrayal of what it means to exist in the world as a Black trans woman. There were hiccups along the way – “I definitely forgot to press ‘record’ a few times,” Smith laughs – but with time, patience and a few “good glasses of wine, to break the ice,” she succeeded in building genuine rapport with the women, and it shows on-screen.

Dominique Silver recognised D Smith’s name as soon as it flashed up in her Instagram notifications. “I knew her from her Love & Hip Hop days,” she tells Dazed. “She really was the first Black trans representation I had seen on a reality show.”

When Smith eventually contacted Silver and asked her to be part of a “love letter to Black trans women”, Silver saw it as an opportunity to “portray our resiliency”, to give voice to the “struggles we face in terms of acceptance, finding love and just surviving”. Although initially hesitant to speak openly about sex work, she gradually leaned into the “vulnerability” of Kokomo City and decided that her story would show that “we’re people, just like anyone else. We had to make some decisions for survival, just like everyone, but our options were limited”.

Although the documentary oozes old-school glamour, Smith says that one of her primary aims was to “show a stripped-down version of trans women, so that people aren’t distracted by a fabulous wig”. The result is a documentary packed with wise and memorable monologues, many of which come courtesy of Daniella Carter, whose background as an activist and public speaker shines through. “I’ve used materialistic things to cover up my struggle in the past,” she tells Dazed, walking the streets of Chicago just hours before speaking at a national law conference. “I was married to a millionaire at 21 years old, but when I was divorced from that partner and sent back into the community, people didn’t accept the poor Black version of me. I was living in shame for having to navigate systems that didn’t exist. There was no job to fall back on, no family or financial support.”

Carter has long been booked and busy, but Kokomo City represented a chance for her to “remind young women, especially where I come from, that it’s OK to live in your truth. You don’t have to just appear as this wealthy person, and it’s not about having the $10,000 income or the red bottoms. It’s OK to just be vulnerable.”

Kokomo City is game-changing in the sense that it “lifts the veil on this idea that trans people have to be loved in the dark”, according to Carter. Black men talk not only about being attracted to trans women, but also the stigma that still shrouds this attraction. They speak of navigating conflict with family members, as well as more broadly battling the transphobic myth that desiring trans women somehow makes them gay. Silver in particular is hopeful that documenting these conversations will give other men the “courage to come out of their shell” and do the same, loving trans women in public rather than in the shadows. “Trans women are women at the end of the day,” she says. “As long as it’s consensual, it shouldn’t matter. There are really powerful people that take care of us and love us, but what we need is for them to come out and say it. If more men had the nerve to say it, there might be less violence against us.”

This violence isn’t a focal point, but it’s there. “This is survival work,” says Carter of sex work, in a standout scene. “This is risky shit. This is putting your life in the hands of a man that doesn’t know shit about you, all to escape his own reality – and that reality is ten times better than the one he’s giving you.”

Many trans sex workers – especially trans women of colour – don’t choose this work. Whether it be due to employment, housing or financial discrimination, many have few alternative options for survival. In some cases, sex work is one of the only ways to raise cash to access gender-affirming care, which can also be life-saving. Silver describes eye-watering costs and a system “in shambles” as key obstacles to accessing this care, and these barriers are worsening, especially for trans youth. “It’s life or death right now,” says Carter. “I can be the sacrificial lamb and speak vulnerably on a public platform, because families are literally being criminalised for supporting their trans kids. I’m very lucky to have had opportunities in my life, so if I stay silent, I contribute to that oppression. I’m going to keep fighting, to make sure that we’re all free.”

This mantra is as urgent as ever. Smith set out to show the “fun, humanised, natural side of Black trans women”, to “create images that didn’t show the trauma or the murder statistics” yet prior to Kokomo City’s release, news broke that cast member Koko Da Doll had been shot dead in Atlanta. “Here we are again,” wrote Smith, in an emotional tribute. “[Koko] will inspire generations to come, and her legacy will never be forgotten.”

Despite this sometimes lethal adversity, the message of Kokomo City is one rooted in solidarity. “It’s so easy to run with these narratives of people not liking each other,” explains Smith, “but a lot of times, these stories aren’t as big as they’re made out to be. I’m not saying these issues don’t exist, but they’re blown out of proportion.” Instead, she advises “focusing on the people and the organisations that do love us, because we’re making a lot of leeway.

As these stories continue to reach wider audiences, there’s hope yet for a brighter future. “We’re actually making a lot of leeway, which is why we’re getting so much shit from everyone. Actually, we’re killing it right now,” concludes Smith. “We’re not trying to convert people or turn them trans. We’re literally just asking people to be more compassionate, to listen and to understand. I really feel like Kokomo City will create opportunities for people around the world to do just that.”

Kokomo City is out in UK & Irish cinemas from August 4.