‘What Cha Cookin Baby:’ LGBTQ Identical Twins Turn Setbacks Into Success with Popular Food Truck
In a food truck in Southwest Atlanta, identical twins Jada Grèmillion and Branden Louis, 31, are serving up crawfish beignets, cornbread waffles, chicken, and candied yams at What Cha Cooking Baby, a thriving to-go-order restaurant on wheels that infuses the culture of their native New Orleans with authentic creole recipes passed down from their late grandmother Betsy Ann Anderson. The business is the manifestation of a lifelong dream for the owners and chefs who first opened their food truck to the public in March 2021, after a series of personal and professional setbacks that threatened to derail their future.
“We’re the same person, we just live in different bodies,” said the openly gay Louis in a 2018 documentary where he describes life with his twin sister Grèmillion, a trans woman.
“When we were younger, people would always say, 'Oh, Branden is the boy twin and Jada is the girl twin,' Louis said. “And then, I would always think in my head, what do they see that I don't see?”
“I just knew something about me was always different,” Grèmillion said. “And I knew that I didn't wanna grow up to be an old man. I knew that was not my story.”
Grèmillion tells The Reckoning that she knew she was going to transition as early as age 14.
“But of course, coming from the South, there was no word for being trans,” she said. “There was no education for being trans. I didn't even know that you can transition. I just knew that I was gonna be a woman. That is what I knew. And I knew I had to get there some way, somehow.”
Displaced to Dallas, TX following Hurricane Katrina, which marked the first time the twins were able to experience life outside the city where their entrepreneurship blossomed as early as second grade with opportunities to earn cash by directing cars to parking spaces and selling bottled water at The New Orleans Jazz Festival. Now that they were aware of the opportunities that existed beyond their hometown, Louis says he was determined to strike out on his own in 2011 by moving to Atlanta.
“I saved up all my money, and I got in my used car and it broke down in Mississippi, 100 miles outside of New Orleans. But I was so determined,” Louis said. “I think I had $90 dollars left. And at this point, I didn't have an apartment or a car. I said, I'm gonna take my last little bit of money and I'm still gonna go to Atlanta. And I did.”
“When I transitioned about eight years ago, being trans was taboo. It was almost foreign, to be honest. They weren’t doing the name changes. There weren’t inclusive bathrooms. There weren’t inclusive jobs based on gender identity. It was none of this, and I was catching the wrath.”
Grèmillion followed Louis a year later as she was beginning her transition. And after nearly five years in Atlanta, she tells The Reckoning that she had no choice but to relocate to New York City in 2017.
“I was going through a lot mentally as a trans woman,” said Grèmillion. “When I transitioned about eight years ago, being trans was taboo. It was almost foreign, to be honest. They weren’t doing the name changes. There weren’t inclusive bathrooms. There weren’t inclusive jobs based on gender identity. It was none of this, and I was catching the wrath.”
According to Georgia Equality, the state of Georgia remains one of only three states without any non-discrimination protections for anyone in state law, and one of only five with no protections in public spaces. It wasn’t until the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bostock vs. Clayton County in 2020 that workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans became enshrined into federal law.
Grèmillion says she struggled to find and maintain employment in Atlanta during the early days of her transition.
“I knew that New York was inclusive of trans people. So I said, baby, I gotta get up outta here cause this ain’t working for me. It was the middle of October. I caught a bus to New York City, and I didn't even have a coat,” she said.
In a new city with no support system, Grèmillion says she broke down in tears. It wouldn’t be the last time she’d cry or be tested in New York City, but it would be the last time she’d have to endure a test there alone.
Swift Transitions
With Louis leaving Atlanta to join his sister in New York City, he would become one of two important Black gay men to show up for her during defining moments in her life. In New York City, the first lesson transplants learn is that you either work or starve. Grèmillion tells The Reckoning that she quickly secured work as a cashier at a major grocery store chain in Bryant Park with identifying documents that were inconsistent with her female name and gender marker after transitioning. The inconsistency left Grèmillion vulnerable to employment discrimination and reckless deadnaming.
“They knew I was trans before I got my name legally changed,” said Grèmillion. “The lady [store supervisor] would always call me by my birth name. And I don't know if she did it to be funny, but one day she did it and I just exploded. I let her have it!”
Grèmillion tells The Reckoning that she quit before the supervisor could fire her. With her dignity intact, and for a second time since arriving in New York City, she was faced again with uncertainty, unemployment, and no guarantee that she wouldn’t experience the same anti-trans discrimination in the next workplace, especially since her name hadn’t been legally changed.
“I went to Workforce Queens to find a job, and the guy called my name. He was a Black gay guy. He called my name, and I didn't move,” said Grèmillion. “I waited until everybody else left the lobby. And he was like, 'What's your name?' I pointed to it [my birth name] because he kept saying it over and over. He looked at me and he looked at my name, and he was like, ‘I’m not gonna be able to give you this job, but I know somebody that can change your legal name. Here's her number.’ And it happened to be Elektra from “POSE”—Dominique Jackson. He sent me to Destination Tomorrow, and they filled out my paperwork, and maybe a month later, I got my name changed. He told me that once I got my name legally changed and my new ID to come back, even if they weren’t hiring, he was going to give me the job. And when I got there, I didn't even have to interview. He gave me the job,” she said.
For Louis, hearing his sister recount this story, which he’s heard before, still moves him as if he’s hearing it for the first time.
“The stigma of the LGBTQ [community] not sticking together is so thick, that whenever you hear a story like that, it gives me chills because that's not the reality all the time,” he said.
Grèmillion says once she got her name legally changed that she never had a problem getting a job again. It was poetic justice for an employee who was about to become a boss, however unconventional the journey would be.
“I always tell people, don’t let your sexuality determine your success. I think that a lot of people think, ‘Oh, I’m trans, I can’t be successful. I won’t be able to do this,’ but that’s not true. You can’t let one piece of you determine your whole life.”
In 2019, the twins relocated to Atlanta for a second time with minimal savings after being within reach of a $100,000 cash prize on the Netflix reality show “The Circle,” only to be informed by producers that they were no longer interested in the duo the day before shooting was scheduled to begin.
“We started all over, and we were like, at this point, we’re just gonna do the food truck because that's our real dream,” said Louis. “We announced [our plans] on the Ts Madison Show in February 2020. We did the LLC the next day. We also did a GoFundMe at the beginning of the pandemic and we raised $6,000. By the end of the year, we’d saved almost $20,000 to buy the food truck for our 30th birthday gift. And that's exactly what we did,” he said.
The twins officially opened for business during an emotional ribbon-cutting ceremony on March 19, 2022. They received overwhelming support from the LGBTQ+ community, including from trans actress and model Amiyah Scott who was present during the ceremony, and endorsements online from LGBTQ actors Angelica Ross and Miss Lawrence, along with everyday Atlantans who lined up to taste their delicious New Orleans cuisine and are still returning over a year later.
“To us you’re family, and we’re out to prove it every time you visit,” writes the twins on the What Cha Cooking Baby official website. Due to demand, the food truck can now be found at various sites across the metro Atlanta area. Louis directs those interested in finding out where they can get their hands on some “Booty Poppin Banana Pudding'' or fried fish to their official Instagram. He also has a message for those who identify as LGBTQ.
“I always tell people, don't let your sexuality determine your success. I think that a lot of people think, 'Oh, I'm trans, I can't be successful. I won't be able to do this,' but that's not true. You can't let one piece of you determine your whole life,” he said.
Grèmillion is now enjoying professional success on her own terms. She tells The Reckoning that she hopes she can serve as a model to other Black trans women of what is possible.
“Being trans is a small part of who I am. It's the smallest piece of me,” she said. “If I can do it, all the other trans girls can do it.”
