Afterlives: The Layleen Polanco Story By cover art

Afterlives: The Layleen Polanco Story

By: iHeartPodcasts
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  • Summary

  • The life and legacy of Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco is at the heart of Afterlives, a podcast about trans lives we’ve lost and the ways their stories have reshaped our world. Known to light up a room, Layleen was an Afro-Latina trans woman in New York City who was sentenced to the city’s notorious jail complex on Rikers Island. She died there in 2019, at the young age of 27.

    Hosted by Raquel Willis and inspired by her award-winning work on Out magazine’s Trans Obituaries Project, this 7-episode series celebrates Layleen’s vibrant life through memories from her family of origin and the community she discovered in New York’s famed ballroom scene. The series unpacks the systems that failed Layleen leading up to her death at Rikers through in-depth interviews with activists fighting against the criminalization of sex work, solitary confinement, and the epidemic of anti-trans violence.

    Afterlives is the story of Layleen’s life, and the fight that continues in her name today.
    2024 iHeartMedia, Inc. © Any use of this intellectual property for text and data mining or computational analysis including as training material for artificial intelligence systems is strictly prohibited without express written consent from iHeartMedia
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Episodes
  • Introducing: Afterlives: The Layleen Polanco Story

    Introducing: Afterlives: The Layleen Polanco Story
    Nov 8 2023

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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    3 mins
  • Episode 1: Layleen

    Episode 1: Layleen
    Nov 15 2023

    Layleen Polanco was full of energy and always up for an adventure. From her love of music, to the first time she expressed her girlhood, we’ll explore how Layleen came to discover her sense of self and found her way to New York City’s ballroom scene. As a picture begins to form of her vibrant life, we also see how it took a turn and why her demise could have been prevented.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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    37 mins
  • Episode 2: To Survive

    Episode 2: To Survive
    Nov 22 2023

    Layleen’s mid-twenties weren’t easy. In the years leading up to her death at age 27, she was denied job opportunities, spent periods of time incarcerated, and struggled with her physical and mental health. Sex work was one way Layleen could support herself; but a sex work arrest set off a dehumanizing battle with the criminal justice system that led to her death.

    Layleen’s story is not an outlier. Decades of transphobic policies made her arrest feel familiar. We’ll hear from trans women who were devastated by the loss of Layleen, in part because they felt her fate could have been their own.

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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    42 mins
True Crime History Social Sciences
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