October 16, 2024 • 38 mins
Rayceen Pendarvis is an elder in the House of Pendavis. Rayceen recounts the beginnings of ballroom, how it exploded in the early 90s thanks to Madonna and “Paris is Burning,” and how, simultaneously, it began collapsing from within as AIDS ravaged the community.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
the Outspoken Podcast Network. Hey it's Jordan. Before we get
started with today's episode, I wanted to share some really
exciting news. We have been nominated for a Signal Award,
the Signal Awards reward podcast that impact American culture, and
(00:22):
our very first episode on Stonewall was nominated for Best
LGBTQ Podcast Episode. And you can actually vote for us
and we can win this. So I'm going to tell
you how to vote now. It's super simple. There are
a couple steps, but it's really easy and it should
take you look two minutes. So go to vote dot
Signal Award dot com. Click on the categories button, then
(00:45):
select individual episodes and under general click on LGBTQ Plus
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create an account, which takes like ten seconds. Once you vote,
you'll get a confirmation email to confirm your vote. Voting
closes kind of soon on October seventeenth, So get your
vote in and let's win this.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Because I know we.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Have the best listeners in the world. And a special
thank you to all of the listeners. This really would
not be possible without you. Now let's get into the show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I always tell people God gave me two mothers in
this world, but losing Avas took so much.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Out of me.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I remember her telling me that she was tired and
she wanted to be with her mother and her sisters.
And in that moment, I knew that she was going
to leave me. And she said to me, it's alright, Racine,
it's all right. And I said, Avis, if you're tired,
(01:50):
let go, Let go you and got to hold or
no more.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Your job has been done.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
You served us as an excellent mother. And I will
tell you a story. I will speak your name, and
I will let people know that you will never be forgotten.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And love.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
In this episode, we'll meet Racine Pandarvas, an elder in
the ballroom community. We'll learn about the history and influence
of ballroom and how one of its brightest moments in
the Spotlight was also one of its darkest behind the
scenes for My Heart podcast, I'm Jordan and Solves and
this is what we loved. The first time I learned
(03:19):
about ballroom culture was from the TV show Pose. I immediately
was obsessed the voguing, the costumes, the attitude. Recently, ballroom
culture has blown up. It was the inspiration behind Beyonce's
album Renaissance in twenty twenty two and the basis of
(03:40):
RuPaul's Drag Race. The language of ballroom has also become mainstream,
spilling tea and throwing shade and serving realness and serving
other things too. But the history of ballroom wasn't always
so glamorous. In fact, it was born out of races.
(04:00):
In the early twentieth century, New York and cities around
America hosted racially integrated drag balls, where contestants, gay men
and trans women usually would dress in drag and compete
in pageants. The famous nineteen sixty eight documentary The Queen
shows the moment when ballroom culture is said to be born.
(04:22):
Crystal li Besia, a black trans woman, loses a pageant
to a white rookie and walks off the stage in protest.
She accuses the organizer of rigging the pageant against the
black contestants. Crystal would go on to found ballroom culture
in Harlem with several other black and LATINX queens, including
(04:42):
Avis Pandavs, each of them creating their own houses or families.
My next guest, Racine Pendarvis, was an original member of
Avas's house. Racine has been a witness to the progression
of ballroom culture from when it was underground to what
it is now and it's darkest days of the AIDS
(05:04):
crisis in between. I want to take it back to
the beginning, racing. Tell me a little bit about what
it was like growing up as a queer child in DC.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
What it was like growing up in Washington, DC was
very affirming for a little African American child who identifies
as queer. My father died very early in my life.
My mom was a social worker for forty years and
taught me the importance of being in service. So I
(05:43):
learned everything about who I am from my mother. My
mother was advocating and I didn't even know she was advocating.
She was always on the front line of something. She
as a social worker. She was making sure people had
what they needed. Families that did not have. She made
sure they did, mothers and fathers and children and community.
(06:06):
And we came from an era of folks would come
to your house if they needed somewhere to stay. For
many years, I thought certain people were related to us.
I had no idea that this was not my cousin,
this was not my uncle.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
This was just.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
People in community that needed help. And that's where my mom,
my aunts, my uncles taught us. You must help each other,
each one teach one. My mother had five children, five boys,
and I'm one of them. And my mother had a
unique way of waking us up.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Every morning.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
She recited poetry, and each one of us had a poem,
and I would not move until my mother would do
in the morning, and it would go a little bit
like Liza, Eliza, bless the Lord. Don't you know the
days of ward? You better listen hear you, lazy camp.
You better get out of this bed before there's trouble
in this here camp. And it was such a beautiful poem,
(07:00):
and I wouldn't move until my mother would say it.
And when my mother passed on, that was one of
the poems that I said at her funeral. So all
of those wonderful things. Growing up allowed me to fully
blossom into who I am today because of the affirming
space that which I came from.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Well, what was the story of the moment you knew
you were queer? Because you grew up in the sixties
and seventies, and you know, from what we understand, that
wasn't exactly an affirming environment for queer people.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I always saw queer people in my life growing up,
my entire life, so I can't even say when did
I know who I was.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I think I was always who I am today.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
And of course you always grapple with those moments of
am I this?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Am I?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
That?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Am I to this? Am I to that?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
But I am enough and that's how I was raised
to be enough. I never felt then, And I remember
coming out to my family, so my mother said, let's
take a walk. So we walked outside and we walked
around the block. And as we walked, we talked and
we shared stories, and I was telling my mom, mom,
(08:15):
this is who I am.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And my mother said to me, you mean to.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Tell me you have sex with men? And I said, Mom,
it's more than that. It is about loving and loving
someone who happens to be the same gender, And in
that moment, my mother started to understand that being queer
was not just a part of a sexual experience. It
(08:39):
was about love and freedom. And I sat all my
brothers down in the midst of everything, and we talked
about it. And my older brother stood up, who was
a minister, and said, I love you, and God loves you,
and that's all the matters, and he hugged me. And
in that moment, I turned to everyone in the room
and said, if God loves me, y'all gotta love me.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
And it was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
How old were you when that happened?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
A teenager in my youth and ever so young and supple.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
You know, I'm amazed by that, because that's a pretty
young age to know who you are and to be
able to explain that queerness is so much more than
just a sexuality, but that it's about love. I'm blown
(09:33):
away by that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, when you're raised in love, you can't help but
give love.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Fast forwarding a little bit, you were actually part of
the House of Pandavis, which is the mother of that
house is Avis. Pandavis, one of the founding mothers of
the ballroom movement. In the ballroom culture, tell me the
story of how you first met her and how you
got involved with ballroom and joined that house.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Many people who don't know Avis Pandarus was originally from Washington,
d c. Born and raised here. She grew up with
my cousins. Avis spoke ten different languages. She was her
valle victorian of her class. She was a wealth of
knowledge and education. She was a light that everybody in
(10:26):
the ballroom.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Just drew to.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I just from the first moment I met Avis, I
was drawn to her. I was drawn to her light.
Her light was so strong and so bright that you
could not help But now say, I want to sit
under her. There is something about her. And the first
time I saw Avis at a ball I was with
(10:48):
my cousins. I wasn't a part of ballroom.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I was too young at that time, but.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
My cousins would go and compete in ballroom dancing. My cousin,
who was a straight male, would dance with the transgender women.
Why because they were amazing. They were the best dance partners,
and they would win trophies for ballroom dancing. And when
I began to come and go and understand, the first
(11:17):
time I went, I thought they were all las Vegas
retired Las Vegas showgirls.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I would say, who are they? Who are they?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
And then I realized, I said, something's quite special about them.
And then my cousin was like, you know, child, who
they are, You know what they're given. And my cousin say,
they wanted the girls. And I didn't quite get it then,
but I understood it, and automatically I just became a
(11:44):
member of the House of Pendarfus. And from that point
on until now, over thirty years later, I am still
a member. I am one of the elders of the
House of Pendarvius.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
What was that conversation like when you said down with her?
It sounds like she had really sort of seen you
in a beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
She did. She did.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
She in fact, she knew who I was before I
came and sat down with her. She said, I have
heard so much about you, and so many people tell
me about you because one they tell me, you're always
talking about books, and she was an avid reader. She
advocated for education, and that's what I loved about Avis
the most. She would always say pretty is not enough,
(12:32):
and being young is not enough, but being educated is enough.
And once you're educated, can't no one take that away
from you. And that's what I loved about her, and
that's what drew us to each other. That light sees
light and light connects with light.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Tell me what was the fundamental purpose of a house mother?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It gave them a role of like being there mother
that they didn't have anymore, that would sit them down
and give them structure, feed their mind and their spirit,
help them when they're hurt, Listen to them, see them,
allow them to be their full individual sells the role
(13:19):
of mother and father and people who don't understand it.
Ballroom is very similar to fraternities and sororities when folks
were being put out just for being their cells or
wanted to live differently and the family was not accepting.
Ballroom was a house. Gave them a home, gave them
(13:40):
a purpose, gave them direction.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So tell us, Raycine, how did ballrooms start? In the sixties.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Ballroom was created from transgender women transgender men who sometimes
society did not accept who they were. They created safe
spaces for themselves, for allies, for community, and the black
and Latino girls created the experiences we come today called
(14:12):
the balls of all balls to see. They created these
balls because sometimes when they would go downtown, they were
not treated properly, you know, because of racism, and because
of those balls were always geared to folks that did
not look like them and was not fair always. Unfortunately,
that was the world they lived in at that time.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
These were the drag balls. That were the drag ball
white predominant, yes, there.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Were predominantly, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
But even if they were not winning that night, everyone
in the ballroom knew who the true winnoer was. So
Miss Lottie, Miss Paris ms Pepper, Miss Dorian Avis all
them started creating balls uptown and everybody would go uptown
(15:03):
to the balls, and that was the balls where everybody
wanted to be.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
What was your favorite memory of walking in a ball?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Ooh shat.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Back then, the trophy was this big seven foot trophy
or a first prize trophy, So if you didn't win
grand you won first prize. And back then balls were
not as given as frequent as they are today. They
were given maybe three times or four times a year
in various cities all throughout the country New York, d C, Philly, Chicago.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And because I was.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
One of those original gender blenders, they didn't know quite
where to put me. So I walked butch, queen and drag,
which was one of my favorite categories. And I also
created a category called fag out in the late and
early eighties, was for gender blends such as myself, you know,
(16:04):
pocketwear and wearing queens like me who were not transgender,
who are not very butch but very feminine presenting. And
back then we were called the S word or the
F word, and I didn't like the F word, but
I liked the word fag better than the faggot, and
(16:25):
it was wonderful to see that category take off. But
what I remember the most was walking butch, queen and drag.
And my nemesis was Erika Revloud. She would set me down.
Every time we would walk, she would win grand and
I would win first my first time up against her. Oh,
she came through in a fabulous Chanelle suit and let
(16:46):
me know it. So after many years of her serving me,
Avis pulled me aside and said, listen, studying your competition
and learn it and learn it well. So I waited
for Patrick Ebene's Ball to come to DC. And back
(17:06):
then we came from the generation of call peeling and
where you would wear one outfit and it would convert
to three four maybe five sometimes, And I came out.
I had a pants suit that converted to a dress
that was multi colored. The swing jacket I had on
turned around. It had two colors that I had wore
(17:28):
it in black. I flipped it around it was red.
Then the outfit.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I pulled off my pants.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I had these chotch eyed the light heel shoes on
and then I had I took them off. I had
the multicolored black and red joker stockings. Then I flipped
that around. I put on a fun fur and then
I changed my glasses. Then I lit my hair down,
then I pinned it up. I was ready for her
at Baby I have one grand and she won first,
(17:54):
and that was one of those memories you never forget.
And we would hug each other back. Then we hugged
each other. We had a camaraderie. You know, it's like, okay, girl,
I catch you.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
At the next ball.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And she leaned over to me and whispered my ears
and said, sister, you turned it tonight.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Well what did you love about ballroom culture? Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
It was it was liberating, it was free, it was creative,
it was it was ours It was something that was
before social media, before television, word of mouth. You're going
to so and so ball, You going to the ball,
said everybody with buzz the buzzword and going to see it.
You would be like Alice in Wonderland looking through the
(18:37):
looking glass. It was amazing and creative, batwing, sequence, speeds, feathers,
fire dancing, kiva, snake charming. The girls would have live
snakes and they would perform and they would It was amazing.
It was fantasy. It was like something you never seen.
You had to experience it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
When we come back, ballroom explodes on the mainstream stage,
but behind the scenes it falls apart. When Racine first
became a member of the House of Pandavas, ballroom was
(19:23):
still a culture largely unknown to the masses, in a
world where black and Latin X, trans women and gay
men felt largely unwanted. Part of ballroom culture was about
creating a space where they could be the stars, and
in the early nineties, ballroom culture started to make its
way to the mainstream.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
I would think Paris' is Beurning had a lot to
do with that. Paris is beurning. Some people liked it,
some people didn't, like it, but it was groundbreaking. It
was something that showed the world that we heat ye.
It taught the world about houses, ballroom, terminology, film, queen butch,
(20:06):
queen realness, shade, all of those wonderful things that It
was a teaching experience. Folks would sit and watch Paris
Is burning and then would have questions afterwards, and that's
when I knew things were changing. It made us feel proud.
You know, everybody was excited about it.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It was Oh.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Girl, have you seen Paris is burning? Chow old girls everywhere,
the ninees all are wrapped around the block. Oh the girls,
Oh girl, you haven't seen You've got to.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Go see it. It was.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
It was a buzz in the community because it had
never been done before. Our stories had never been told
in ballroom like that before. And to see it now
being taught in colleges. I was a part of the
wonderful celebration here in Washington, DC when it was inducted
in the Library of Congress. So that let me know
(21:01):
that back then, we want the eve of something great.
And of course Madonna took it to the masses and
then it just exploded.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
In nineteen ninety, Madonna released her music video for Vogue.
It showcased voguing, a dance central to ballroom culture. It
was choreographed by members of the ballroom scene and quickly
became a global hit. Later that year, the documentary Paris's
Burning premiered, chronicling the lives of the ballroom community. The
(21:36):
movie's cast took America by storm with their charm and
their humor, and it initially brought job opportunities into the
community too, choreography and modeling and costume design. In twenty sixteen,
Paris's Burning was inducted into the Library of Congress for
being culturally, historically, or esthetically significant to American film.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So when I knew when the girls, when I saw
them voguing and Liz Sorez and Jody Watleysvitch and Queen Latifa,
I said, oh, the girls have arrived.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
They are working. The girls are working.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
So it allowed them to work in areas that they
never allowed them to sometimes be seen. And then it
opened the doors. Octavius st Ron appeared in several movies.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It allowed a.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Resurgeon of Tracy Africa's career, someone who was a legendary model,
who was a transgender woman and was out it. So
the girls were working, they started getting their sad cards,
and they were being respected in fashion, music, and then
they started moving into education where they're teaching ballroom classes,
(22:49):
teaching folks about ballroom. That's when I knew all of
that was beginning to change. And I remember the first
time I heard Vogue, I said, my goodness, isn't this something?
It made me feel so proud that all of this
was a part of where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Everything has a process.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, anytime you got people's grandmama's Vogue and you know it,
I mean it did what it needed to do.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Well, you know, it sounds like you were immensely proud
of how ballroom culture was really penetrating mainstream pop culture.
But what were some of the drawbacks. What were some
of the negative consequences of ballroom becoming really commercialized by
(23:37):
Paris's burning and Madonna.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I mean, there's always a downside to everything, you know. Unfortunately,
the HIV and AIDS epidemic began to sweep in our community.
It began taking many of these creative lights away thousands.
We lost thousands of amazing lights in our community that
could have done so much if they would have lived longer,
(24:03):
and when mainstream sometimes gets a hold of it, and
sometimes there is a downside. It becomes too much. They
take our terms and they make it their own, and
their logo loses its flavor because it's overused and it
becomes comical, and it doesn't become what we created, something
(24:25):
our own and something unique that is a part of
our culture. So sometimes it's a plus and then there
is a minus. But I always like to look at
the pluses more than the minus.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Paris's Burning was a huge success, making millions of dollars
at the box office and becoming a cultural phenomenon, but
many of the film's subjects died in poverty or from
AIDS related complications. While America became obsessed with the document
and the culture it was depicting, many thought of it
(25:04):
as just simply entertainment, not a culture grappling with survival.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
When the AIDS epidemic hit it, the ballroom community took
care of itself. We created and made sure that they
had food, clothing, housing, or they were given access housing,
food and clothing and medical needs, and then they could
die in dignity. We were raising money so they could
(25:31):
die in dignity.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
It sounds like you were in the middle of two
very intense things that were going on. On the one hand,
you have the explosion of this culture that was so
important to you and that you loved very dearly, And
(25:55):
on the other hand, your friends and your loved ones
are dying of aids. What was that like for you
to be in the middle of that story?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Very emotional at times, very sad, and at times fueled
by the sadness and the anger to take charge. But
I'm always reminded of all of those lights that were
taken too soon, the resilient spirit to be these brave
(26:36):
men and women, brave trans folks who dared to exist
in a time, in a world that told them they
were not being seen. They were brave enough to fight
through it. And we used ballroom to create it and make.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
It our own. So I fought I had.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
To avoid and to tell the stories today of all
the folks that they would never know to speak the
names of to Neil Dupree, Peppella, Basia, Dory and Corey Puffy, Ebony,
Tracy Ebony, Tempest, Saint Laurent, and so many other amazing
(27:17):
nights in our community that that just died too soon
that we would tell their stories that we remember who
they are. But losing Avis took so much out of me.
God gave me. I always tell people God gave me
two mothers in this world, Avis and Mary, and I
(27:41):
learned so much from them. But losing Avis was the
wind was knocked out of me for a while. I
remember the wonderful things. Going to see her in the
hospital one day and the people at the hospital say,
(28:03):
pull us aside and say, excuse me, who is this
woman in here? Because we have to have a log
of people that come in to visit her.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Is she famous? Is she every everybody in the hospital
wanted to know who she.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Was because so many people came to see her, And
that those are the moments that, even in my sadness,
would bring me joy.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Do you remember one of the things she said to
you when she was in the hospital.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
I remember her telling me that she was tired and
she wanted to be with her mother and her sisters.
And in that moment, I knew that she was going
to leave me. And she said to me, it's all right, Racing,
it's all right. And I said, Avis, if you're tired,
let go, Let go you and got to hold on
(28:52):
no more.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Your job has been done.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
You served us as an excellent mother well, and I
will tell your story, I will speak your name, and
I will let people know that you will never be forgotten.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Even though ballroom in the early nineties was exploding on
the world stage, it was collapsing from within the United States.
Government had been slow to respond to the epidemic with
prevention resources and research, and according to the CDC, lower income,
black and Latin X people were disproportionately affected by HIV
(29:46):
and AIDS, and Racine felt that impact in the ballroom
scene and realized that if the community was going to survive,
they couldn't rely on the government or any of the
fame that had come from the media. They had to
rely on themselves. In May nineteen ninety one, Racine helped
organize and lead the nation's first Black Pride with the
(30:10):
intention of raising money and awareness for people of color
dying because of AIDS.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
When we created the Black Pride experience, as it came
out of a need to create funds and awareness for
people of color living and dying from HIV and AIDS,
I knew in that moment. I knew the importance of
what I was doing, would live far beyond who I
(30:40):
am today.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
And tell me about the Black pride the first one.
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (30:50):
On Georgia Avenue, across the street on bannic Of Field
from the historical Howard University. That day was very amazing.
That day was like no. We went through a mixture
of emotions, fear, joy, anger, scared, a whole lot of emotions.
But that day, at six o'clock in the morning, rose
(31:14):
and the sun came up and I saw a sea
of blackness descend upon Georgia Avenue. I knew in that
moment what we were doing was much more important than
who we were.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I felt proud.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I could feel the spirit of my ancestors speaking and whispering,
the voices of so many shoulders.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I stand on.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Marsha p Johnson, Silvia rivera Stormy Selvest, Harvey, Milk, all
of these.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I could feel.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
All of these folks around me, spirits of folks who
have gone before me, pushing me, fueling me, letting me
know when I'm tired and when I'm a little broken,
that I got to push on, that I'm doing it.
I am standing in spaces created and carved from blood,
(32:25):
sweating tears.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
What was the outcome of the march.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And lets us know that what we were doing we
couldn't give up. It gave birth to so many other movements.
Black Pride is all around the world.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Now, So this was the very first one.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
DC is the mother DC.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Black Pride is the mother of them all.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Very seen. You survived so much. You survived the AIDS pandemic,
and you survive to really see the community that in
so many ways you were a part of its very
early beginnings. Ballroom, You've seen that now transform into so
(33:14):
many different forms of everything. I mean the Beyonce album
that just came out, pose the HBO show, It's everywhere.
What do you think about that? Having survived to see
this through? And I know you lost your house mother
(33:34):
and many other loved ones along the way who weren't
able to sort of see the fruits of their labor.
How do you feel about that, being able to survive
to see that.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That isn't a part of my purpose?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And I'm grateful and I say thank you. And to
when young people watch and hear the Beyonce album Beyonce
and want to know more, and when young folks who
are not a part of this community, reach out and
say I want to know more about this, and somehow
(34:12):
they find someone like me who can sit down and
tell stories.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And tell them, Yes, we are.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Proud of everything that we went through, the bricks, the bottles,
the racism, the hate, losing, surviving through two pandemics in
my lifetime.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
But I stand.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
I am living and walking and seeing all of the
hopes and dreams of our ancestors come forth. And a
part of that is being queer, part of the nonconforming,
part of being treads, part of being allies, part of
(35:03):
being various colors and shades of our greatness. All of
us are part of this journey together. So that makes
me feel proud.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
The show is called but We Loved? What does that
mean to you in the context of ballroom and the
ballroom community that you grew up in?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
But we Love? It speaks to who we are.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
The love of life, the love of freedom, the love
to be, the love to stand, the love to walk,
the love to dream, love to dare, love to be different,
love to be daring, love to be bold, to love
to be resilient in our spirit. That's what that means
(35:59):
so much many things.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
You're an elder in this community, and we look up
to you as a role model who has survived so much.
What do you want young people to know.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
That you are enough, that you are seen. Affirm yourself
every day, Look at yourself in the mirror and say
there is no one like you. Smile because you are
seen and you are loved.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsalves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but Weloved at
gmail dot com or send us a message on Instagram
or TikTok at What We Loved. We are a production
of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We
(37:27):
Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Special thanks to Jay Bronson and Rokel Willis. If you
loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
(37:50):
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you next week.
But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
the Outspoken Podcast Network. Hey it's Jordan. Before we get
started with today's episode, I wanted to share some really
exciting news. We have been nominated for a Signal Award,
the Signal Awards reward podcast that impact American culture, and
(00:22):
our very first episode on Stonewall was nominated for Best
LGBTQ Podcast Episode. And you can actually vote for us
and we can win this. So I'm going to tell
you how to vote now. It's super simple. There are
a couple steps, but it's really easy and it should
take you look two minutes. So go to vote dot
Signal Award dot com. Click on the categories button, then
(00:45):
select individual episodes and under general click on LGBTQ Plus
and you should see us there. It'll ask you to
create an account, which takes like ten seconds. Once you vote,
you'll get a confirmation email to confirm your vote. Voting
closes kind of soon on October seventeenth, So get your
vote in and let's win this.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Because I know we.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Have the best listeners in the world. And a special
thank you to all of the listeners. This really would
not be possible without you. Now let's get into the show.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I always tell people God gave me two mothers in
this world, but losing Avas took so much.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Out of me.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I remember her telling me that she was tired and
she wanted to be with her mother and her sisters.
And in that moment, I knew that she was going
to leave me. And she said to me, it's alright, Racine,
it's all right. And I said, Avis, if you're tired,
(01:50):
let go, Let go you and got to hold or
no more.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Your job has been done.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
You served us as an excellent mother. And I will
tell you a story. I will speak your name, and
I will let people know that you will never be forgotten.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to unlearn
that by seeking out our history, and what I've found
are people and stories full of courage, perseverance.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And love.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
In this episode, we'll meet Racine Pandarvas, an elder in
the ballroom community. We'll learn about the history and influence
of ballroom and how one of its brightest moments in
the Spotlight was also one of its darkest behind the
scenes for My Heart podcast, I'm Jordan and Solves and
this is what we loved. The first time I learned
(03:19):
about ballroom culture was from the TV show Pose. I immediately
was obsessed the voguing, the costumes, the attitude. Recently, ballroom
culture has blown up. It was the inspiration behind Beyonce's
album Renaissance in twenty twenty two and the basis of
(03:40):
RuPaul's Drag Race. The language of ballroom has also become mainstream,
spilling tea and throwing shade and serving realness and serving
other things too. But the history of ballroom wasn't always
so glamorous. In fact, it was born out of races.
(04:00):
In the early twentieth century, New York and cities around
America hosted racially integrated drag balls, where contestants, gay men
and trans women usually would dress in drag and compete
in pageants. The famous nineteen sixty eight documentary The Queen
shows the moment when ballroom culture is said to be born.
(04:22):
Crystal li Besia, a black trans woman, loses a pageant
to a white rookie and walks off the stage in protest.
She accuses the organizer of rigging the pageant against the
black contestants. Crystal would go on to found ballroom culture
in Harlem with several other black and LATINX queens, including
(04:42):
Avis Pandavs, each of them creating their own houses or families.
My next guest, Racine Pendarvis, was an original member of
Avas's house. Racine has been a witness to the progression
of ballroom culture from when it was underground to what
it is now and it's darkest days of the AIDS
(05:04):
crisis in between. I want to take it back to
the beginning, racing. Tell me a little bit about what
it was like growing up as a queer child in DC.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
What it was like growing up in Washington, DC was
very affirming for a little African American child who identifies
as queer. My father died very early in my life.
My mom was a social worker for forty years and
taught me the importance of being in service. So I
(05:43):
learned everything about who I am from my mother. My
mother was advocating and I didn't even know she was advocating.
She was always on the front line of something. She
as a social worker. She was making sure people had
what they needed. Families that did not have. She made
sure they did, mothers and fathers and children and community.
(06:06):
And we came from an era of folks would come
to your house if they needed somewhere to stay. For
many years, I thought certain people were related to us.
I had no idea that this was not my cousin,
this was not my uncle.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
This was just.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
People in community that needed help. And that's where my mom,
my aunts, my uncles taught us. You must help each other,
each one teach one. My mother had five children, five boys,
and I'm one of them. And my mother had a
unique way of waking us up.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Every morning.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
She recited poetry, and each one of us had a poem,
and I would not move until my mother would do
in the morning, and it would go a little bit
like Liza, Eliza, bless the Lord. Don't you know the
days of ward? You better listen hear you, lazy camp.
You better get out of this bed before there's trouble
in this here camp. And it was such a beautiful poem,
(07:00):
and I wouldn't move until my mother would say it.
And when my mother passed on, that was one of
the poems that I said at her funeral. So all
of those wonderful things. Growing up allowed me to fully
blossom into who I am today because of the affirming
space that which I came from.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Well, what was the story of the moment you knew
you were queer? Because you grew up in the sixties
and seventies, and you know, from what we understand, that
wasn't exactly an affirming environment for queer people.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I always saw queer people in my life growing up,
my entire life, so I can't even say when did
I know who I was.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I think I was always who I am today.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
And of course you always grapple with those moments of
am I this?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Am I?
Speaker 1 (07:51):
That?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Am I to this? Am I to that?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
But I am enough and that's how I was raised
to be enough. I never felt then, And I remember
coming out to my family, so my mother said, let's
take a walk. So we walked outside and we walked
around the block. And as we walked, we talked and
we shared stories, and I was telling my mom, mom,
(08:15):
this is who I am.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And my mother said to me, you mean to.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Tell me you have sex with men? And I said, Mom,
it's more than that. It is about loving and loving
someone who happens to be the same gender, And in
that moment, my mother started to understand that being queer
was not just a part of a sexual experience. It
(08:39):
was about love and freedom. And I sat all my
brothers down in the midst of everything, and we talked
about it. And my older brother stood up, who was
a minister, and said, I love you, and God loves you,
and that's all the matters, and he hugged me. And
in that moment, I turned to everyone in the room
and said, if God loves me, y'all gotta love me.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
And it was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
How old were you when that happened?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
A teenager in my youth and ever so young and supple.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
You know, I'm amazed by that, because that's a pretty
young age to know who you are and to be
able to explain that queerness is so much more than
just a sexuality, but that it's about love. I'm blown
(09:33):
away by that.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, when you're raised in love, you can't help but
give love.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Fast forwarding a little bit, you were actually part of
the House of Pandavis, which is the mother of that
house is Avis. Pandavis, one of the founding mothers of
the ballroom movement. In the ballroom culture, tell me the
story of how you first met her and how you
got involved with ballroom and joined that house.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Many people who don't know Avis Pandarus was originally from Washington,
d c. Born and raised here. She grew up with
my cousins. Avis spoke ten different languages. She was her
valle victorian of her class. She was a wealth of
knowledge and education. She was a light that everybody in
(10:26):
the ballroom.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Just drew to.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
I just from the first moment I met Avis, I
was drawn to her. I was drawn to her light.
Her light was so strong and so bright that you
could not help But now say, I want to sit
under her. There is something about her. And the first
time I saw Avis at a ball I was with
(10:48):
my cousins. I wasn't a part of ballroom.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
I was too young at that time, but.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
My cousins would go and compete in ballroom dancing. My cousin,
who was a straight male, would dance with the transgender women.
Why because they were amazing. They were the best dance partners,
and they would win trophies for ballroom dancing. And when
I began to come and go and understand, the first
(11:17):
time I went, I thought they were all las Vegas
retired Las Vegas showgirls.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I would say, who are they? Who are they?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
And then I realized, I said, something's quite special about them.
And then my cousin was like, you know, child, who
they are, You know what they're given. And my cousin say,
they wanted the girls. And I didn't quite get it then,
but I understood it, and automatically I just became a
(11:44):
member of the House of Pendarfus. And from that point
on until now, over thirty years later, I am still
a member. I am one of the elders of the
House of Pendarvius.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
What was that conversation like when you said down with her?
It sounds like she had really sort of seen you
in a beautiful way.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
She did. She did.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
She in fact, she knew who I was before I
came and sat down with her. She said, I have
heard so much about you, and so many people tell
me about you because one they tell me, you're always
talking about books, and she was an avid reader. She
advocated for education, and that's what I loved about Avis
the most. She would always say pretty is not enough,
(12:32):
and being young is not enough, but being educated is enough.
And once you're educated, can't no one take that away
from you. And that's what I loved about her, and
that's what drew us to each other. That light sees
light and light connects with light.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Tell me what was the fundamental purpose of a house mother?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
It gave them a role of like being there mother
that they didn't have anymore, that would sit them down
and give them structure, feed their mind and their spirit,
help them when they're hurt, Listen to them, see them,
allow them to be their full individual sells the role
(13:19):
of mother and father and people who don't understand it.
Ballroom is very similar to fraternities and sororities when folks
were being put out just for being their cells or
wanted to live differently and the family was not accepting.
Ballroom was a house. Gave them a home, gave them
(13:40):
a purpose, gave them direction.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So tell us, Raycine, how did ballrooms start? In the sixties.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
Ballroom was created from transgender women transgender men who sometimes
society did not accept who they were. They created safe
spaces for themselves, for allies, for community, and the black
and Latino girls created the experiences we come today called
(14:12):
the balls of all balls to see. They created these
balls because sometimes when they would go downtown, they were
not treated properly, you know, because of racism, and because
of those balls were always geared to folks that did
not look like them and was not fair always. Unfortunately,
that was the world they lived in at that time.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
These were the drag balls. That were the drag ball
white predominant, yes, there.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Were predominantly, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
But even if they were not winning that night, everyone
in the ballroom knew who the true winnoer was. So
Miss Lottie, Miss Paris ms Pepper, Miss Dorian Avis all
them started creating balls uptown and everybody would go uptown
(15:03):
to the balls, and that was the balls where everybody
wanted to be.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
What was your favorite memory of walking in a ball?
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Ooh shat.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Back then, the trophy was this big seven foot trophy
or a first prize trophy, So if you didn't win
grand you won first prize. And back then balls were
not as given as frequent as they are today. They
were given maybe three times or four times a year
in various cities all throughout the country New York, d C, Philly, Chicago.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
And because I was.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
One of those original gender blenders, they didn't know quite
where to put me. So I walked butch, queen and drag,
which was one of my favorite categories. And I also
created a category called fag out in the late and
early eighties, was for gender blends such as myself, you know,
(16:04):
pocketwear and wearing queens like me who were not transgender,
who are not very butch but very feminine presenting. And
back then we were called the S word or the
F word, and I didn't like the F word, but
I liked the word fag better than the faggot, and
(16:25):
it was wonderful to see that category take off. But
what I remember the most was walking butch, queen and drag.
And my nemesis was Erika Revloud. She would set me down.
Every time we would walk, she would win grand and
I would win first my first time up against her. Oh,
she came through in a fabulous Chanelle suit and let
(16:46):
me know it. So after many years of her serving me,
Avis pulled me aside and said, listen, studying your competition
and learn it and learn it well. So I waited
for Patrick Ebene's Ball to come to DC. And back
(17:06):
then we came from the generation of call peeling and
where you would wear one outfit and it would convert
to three four maybe five sometimes, And I came out.
I had a pants suit that converted to a dress
that was multi colored. The swing jacket I had on
turned around. It had two colors that I had wore
(17:28):
it in black. I flipped it around it was red.
Then the outfit.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
I pulled off my pants.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I had these chotch eyed the light heel shoes on
and then I had I took them off. I had
the multicolored black and red joker stockings. Then I flipped
that around. I put on a fun fur and then
I changed my glasses. Then I lit my hair down,
then I pinned it up. I was ready for her
at Baby I have one grand and she won first,
(17:54):
and that was one of those memories you never forget.
And we would hug each other back. Then we hugged
each other. We had a camaraderie. You know, it's like, okay, girl,
I catch you.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
At the next ball.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And she leaned over to me and whispered my ears
and said, sister, you turned it tonight.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Well what did you love about ballroom culture? Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
It was it was liberating, it was free, it was creative,
it was it was ours It was something that was
before social media, before television, word of mouth. You're going
to so and so ball, You going to the ball,
said everybody with buzz the buzzword and going to see it.
You would be like Alice in Wonderland looking through the
(18:37):
looking glass. It was amazing and creative, batwing, sequence, speeds, feathers,
fire dancing, kiva, snake charming. The girls would have live
snakes and they would perform and they would It was amazing.
It was fantasy. It was like something you never seen.
You had to experience it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
When we come back, ballroom explodes on the mainstream stage,
but behind the scenes it falls apart. When Racine first
became a member of the House of Pandavas, ballroom was
(19:23):
still a culture largely unknown to the masses, in a
world where black and Latin X, trans women and gay
men felt largely unwanted. Part of ballroom culture was about
creating a space where they could be the stars, and
in the early nineties, ballroom culture started to make its
way to the mainstream.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
I would think Paris' is Beurning had a lot to
do with that. Paris is beurning. Some people liked it,
some people didn't, like it, but it was groundbreaking. It
was something that showed the world that we heat ye.
It taught the world about houses, ballroom, terminology, film, queen butch,
(20:06):
queen realness, shade, all of those wonderful things that It
was a teaching experience. Folks would sit and watch Paris
Is burning and then would have questions afterwards, and that's
when I knew things were changing. It made us feel proud.
You know, everybody was excited about it.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
It was Oh.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Girl, have you seen Paris is burning? Chow old girls everywhere,
the ninees all are wrapped around the block. Oh the girls,
Oh girl, you haven't seen You've got to.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Go see it. It was.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
It was a buzz in the community because it had
never been done before. Our stories had never been told
in ballroom like that before. And to see it now
being taught in colleges. I was a part of the
wonderful celebration here in Washington, DC when it was inducted
in the Library of Congress. So that let me know
(21:01):
that back then, we want the eve of something great.
And of course Madonna took it to the masses and
then it just exploded.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
In nineteen ninety, Madonna released her music video for Vogue.
It showcased voguing, a dance central to ballroom culture. It
was choreographed by members of the ballroom scene and quickly
became a global hit. Later that year, the documentary Paris's
Burning premiered, chronicling the lives of the ballroom community. The
(21:36):
movie's cast took America by storm with their charm and
their humor, and it initially brought job opportunities into the
community too, choreography and modeling and costume design. In twenty sixteen,
Paris's Burning was inducted into the Library of Congress for
being culturally, historically, or esthetically significant to American film.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So when I knew when the girls, when I saw
them voguing and Liz Sorez and Jody Watleysvitch and Queen Latifa,
I said, oh, the girls have arrived.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
They are working. The girls are working.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
So it allowed them to work in areas that they
never allowed them to sometimes be seen. And then it
opened the doors. Octavius st Ron appeared in several movies.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It allowed a.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Resurgeon of Tracy Africa's career, someone who was a legendary model,
who was a transgender woman and was out it. So
the girls were working, they started getting their sad cards,
and they were being respected in fashion, music, and then
they started moving into education where they're teaching ballroom classes,
(22:49):
teaching folks about ballroom. That's when I knew all of
that was beginning to change. And I remember the first
time I heard Vogue, I said, my goodness, isn't this something?
It made me feel so proud that all of this
was a part of where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Everything has a process.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, anytime you got people's grandmama's Vogue and you know it,
I mean it did what it needed to do.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Well, you know, it sounds like you were immensely proud
of how ballroom culture was really penetrating mainstream pop culture.
But what were some of the drawbacks. What were some
of the negative consequences of ballroom becoming really commercialized by
(23:37):
Paris's burning and Madonna.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
I mean, there's always a downside to everything, you know. Unfortunately,
the HIV and AIDS epidemic began to sweep in our community.
It began taking many of these creative lights away thousands.
We lost thousands of amazing lights in our community that
could have done so much if they would have lived longer,
(24:03):
and when mainstream sometimes gets a hold of it, and
sometimes there is a downside. It becomes too much. They
take our terms and they make it their own, and
their logo loses its flavor because it's overused and it
becomes comical, and it doesn't become what we created, something
(24:25):
our own and something unique that is a part of
our culture. So sometimes it's a plus and then there
is a minus. But I always like to look at
the pluses more than the minus.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Paris's Burning was a huge success, making millions of dollars
at the box office and becoming a cultural phenomenon, but
many of the film's subjects died in poverty or from
AIDS related complications. While America became obsessed with the document
and the culture it was depicting, many thought of it
(25:04):
as just simply entertainment, not a culture grappling with survival.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
When the AIDS epidemic hit it, the ballroom community took
care of itself. We created and made sure that they
had food, clothing, housing, or they were given access housing,
food and clothing and medical needs, and then they could
die in dignity. We were raising money so they could
(25:31):
die in dignity.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
It sounds like you were in the middle of two
very intense things that were going on. On the one hand,
you have the explosion of this culture that was so
important to you and that you loved very dearly, And
(25:55):
on the other hand, your friends and your loved ones
are dying of aids. What was that like for you
to be in the middle of that story?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Very emotional at times, very sad, and at times fueled
by the sadness and the anger to take charge. But
I'm always reminded of all of those lights that were
taken too soon, the resilient spirit to be these brave
(26:36):
men and women, brave trans folks who dared to exist
in a time, in a world that told them they
were not being seen. They were brave enough to fight
through it. And we used ballroom to create it and make.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
It our own. So I fought I had.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
To avoid and to tell the stories today of all
the folks that they would never know to speak the
names of to Neil Dupree, Peppella, Basia, Dory and Corey Puffy, Ebony,
Tracy Ebony, Tempest, Saint Laurent, and so many other amazing
(27:17):
nights in our community that that just died too soon
that we would tell their stories that we remember who
they are. But losing Avis took so much out of me.
God gave me. I always tell people God gave me
two mothers in this world, Avis and Mary, and I
(27:41):
learned so much from them. But losing Avis was the
wind was knocked out of me for a while. I
remember the wonderful things. Going to see her in the
hospital one day and the people at the hospital say,
(28:03):
pull us aside and say, excuse me, who is this
woman in here? Because we have to have a log
of people that come in to visit her.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Is she famous? Is she every everybody in the hospital
wanted to know who she.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Was because so many people came to see her, And
that those are the moments that, even in my sadness,
would bring me joy.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Do you remember one of the things she said to
you when she was in the hospital.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
I remember her telling me that she was tired and
she wanted to be with her mother and her sisters.
And in that moment, I knew that she was going
to leave me. And she said to me, it's all right, Racing,
it's all right. And I said, Avis, if you're tired,
let go, Let go you and got to hold on
(28:52):
no more.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Your job has been done.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
You served us as an excellent mother well, and I
will tell your story, I will speak your name, and
I will let people know that you will never be forgotten.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Even though ballroom in the early nineties was exploding on
the world stage, it was collapsing from within the United States.
Government had been slow to respond to the epidemic with
prevention resources and research, and according to the CDC, lower income,
black and Latin X people were disproportionately affected by HIV
(29:46):
and AIDS, and Racine felt that impact in the ballroom
scene and realized that if the community was going to survive,
they couldn't rely on the government or any of the
fame that had come from the media. They had to
rely on themselves. In May nineteen ninety one, Racine helped
organize and lead the nation's first Black Pride with the
(30:10):
intention of raising money and awareness for people of color
dying because of AIDS.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
When we created the Black Pride experience, as it came
out of a need to create funds and awareness for
people of color living and dying from HIV and AIDS,
I knew in that moment. I knew the importance of
what I was doing, would live far beyond who I
(30:40):
am today.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
And tell me about the Black pride the first one.
What was that like?
Speaker 3 (30:50):
On Georgia Avenue, across the street on bannic Of Field
from the historical Howard University. That day was very amazing.
That day was like no. We went through a mixture
of emotions, fear, joy, anger, scared, a whole lot of emotions.
But that day, at six o'clock in the morning, rose
(31:14):
and the sun came up and I saw a sea
of blackness descend upon Georgia Avenue. I knew in that
moment what we were doing was much more important than
who we were.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
I felt proud.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I could feel the spirit of my ancestors speaking and whispering,
the voices of so many shoulders.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I stand on.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Marsha p Johnson, Silvia rivera Stormy Selvest, Harvey, Milk, all
of these.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I could feel.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
All of these folks around me, spirits of folks who
have gone before me, pushing me, fueling me, letting me
know when I'm tired and when I'm a little broken,
that I got to push on, that I'm doing it.
I am standing in spaces created and carved from blood,
(32:25):
sweating tears.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
What was the outcome of the march.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
And lets us know that what we were doing we
couldn't give up. It gave birth to so many other movements.
Black Pride is all around the world.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Now, So this was the very first one.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
DC is the mother DC.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Black Pride is the mother of them all.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Very seen. You survived so much. You survived the AIDS pandemic,
and you survive to really see the community that in
so many ways you were a part of its very
early beginnings. Ballroom, You've seen that now transform into so
(33:14):
many different forms of everything. I mean the Beyonce album
that just came out, pose the HBO show, It's everywhere.
What do you think about that? Having survived to see
this through? And I know you lost your house mother
(33:34):
and many other loved ones along the way who weren't
able to sort of see the fruits of their labor.
How do you feel about that, being able to survive
to see that.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That isn't a part of my purpose?
Speaker 3 (33:51):
And I'm grateful and I say thank you. And to
when young people watch and hear the Beyonce album Beyonce
and want to know more, and when young folks who
are not a part of this community, reach out and
say I want to know more about this, and somehow
(34:12):
they find someone like me who can sit down and
tell stories.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And tell them, Yes, we are.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Proud of everything that we went through, the bricks, the bottles,
the racism, the hate, losing, surviving through two pandemics in
my lifetime.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
But I stand.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
I am living and walking and seeing all of the
hopes and dreams of our ancestors come forth. And a
part of that is being queer, part of the nonconforming,
part of being treads, part of being allies, part of
(35:03):
being various colors and shades of our greatness. All of
us are part of this journey together. So that makes
me feel proud.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
The show is called but We Loved? What does that
mean to you in the context of ballroom and the
ballroom community that you grew up in?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
But we Love? It speaks to who we are.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
The love of life, the love of freedom, the love
to be, the love to stand, the love to walk,
the love to dream, love to dare, love to be different,
love to be daring, love to be bold, to love
to be resilient in our spirit. That's what that means
(35:59):
so much many things.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
You're an elder in this community, and we look up
to you as a role model who has survived so much.
What do you want young people to know.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
That you are enough, that you are seen. Affirm yourself
every day, Look at yourself in the mirror and say
there is no one like you. Smile because you are
seen and you are loved.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsalves. New
episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in
to tell your story, email us at but Weloved at
gmail dot com or send us a message on Instagram
or TikTok at What We Loved. We are a production
of The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We
(37:27):
Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our. Executive producers
are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Special thanks to Jay Bronson and Rokel Willis. If you
loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
(37:50):
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you next week.
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