December 20, 2024 • 61 mins
Welcome to In Sacred Spaces, a three-episode series in which we visit spaces around New
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Episode Transcript
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Colby King (00:08):
[Music begins.] Welcome to In Sacred Spaces, a
three-episode podcast series inwhich we visit spaces around New
York City that are sacredspecific communities. These
include historic Black churchesin Harlem as well as the Chelsea
Piers a gathering place formembers of the ballroom scene.
There are many kinds of Blackchurches in the United States,
with hundreds of years ofhistory. Ballroom is a community
(00:30):
of mostly queer and transperformers from Black and Latinx
backgrounds, originating in Harlem.
Aya Labanieh (00:37):
Join us as we walk around these sacred spaces with
the people who love them. Wediscuss their personal journeys
with spirituality and how thespaces they've chosen to inhabit
connect to longer histories ofcivil rights, women's equality
and queer liberation.
Milan Terlunen (00:54):
We hope these conversations will connect with
your own experiences, whetheryou identify as LGBTQ+, as a
Christian, or as part of anyother religious or spiritual
community - or none at all. Ifyou can, we encourage you to
listen to this podcast whilewalking around a place that is
(01:14):
sacred to you.
Colby King (01:18):
Our podcast team includes people with diverse
religious backgrounds in a rangeof racial, sexual and gender
identities. You can find outmore about the team and the
project at our website insacredspacespodcast.com
Milan Terlunen (01:34):
We hope these episodes will inspire you to
reflect on your own uniquerelationship to spiritual
experience. Throughout eachepisode, we've included musical
interludes composed by StoneButler that give you some
private moments to meditate onwhat you've heard.
(01:56):
For this episode, we're gatheredat the Chelsea Piers with
members of the ballroom house ofLouboutin, Iman, Ciara, Kalik
and Shai, as well as Colby,who's been part of the In Sacred
Spaces team since the beginning.All five of them are LGBT
individuals who grew up inBaptist churches. Some are now
(02:18):
leaders in the ballroomcommunity, and others are
advocates for social justice.You can learn more about each of
them on our website. They sharetheir reflections on our first
two episodes, as well as howthey personally relate to grace,
love, motherhood and community.
We begin by talking about wherewe are, the Chelsea Piers. We're
(02:42):
sitting at a table overlookingthe Hudson River. It's late in
the day on a warm summerevening. All around us, there
are people strolling aboutenjoying the weather. [Music ends.]
Kalik B (03:02):
We on sacred grounds.
Colby King (03:05):
Yes, yeah.
Kalik B (03:06):
I mean, this is, this is like a sanctuary. This is a
safe space. It's been a part ofour history, ballroom history,
for as long as we can remember.Like the pier was, everybody
will come to congregate, speak,dance, celebrate, mourn, cry,
literally... what, not too longago we just had a memorial here.
(03:28):
And this is not the firstmemorial we had here or, and
unfortunately to say, gonna bethe last you know. This is our
space for safety. This is wherepeople learn how to vogue or
like perform. They speak withthe elders of the community
right here and learn, like, getfree knowledge, honestly. Yeah,
(03:49):
just the sacred grounds. Thepier is sacred.
Iman Hill (03:52):
I remember talking to the icon, Luna Khan. Well, I
don't know if he's still a Khananymore, but he walked Butch
Queen Face. He is responsiblefor the GMHC latex ball that we
do every year. And I know youall can't see because this is a
podcast, but if you look outhere, there are these little...
so we're on a pier, for thosewho don't know. So picture that
(04:15):
there is a pier and that thereis these little wooden stakes
that are, that are coming upfrom the water as you look over
into the Hudson River, which, ifyou look even further, it would
be Jersey City. And he told methat the old piers used to
extend all the way to wherethese wooden stakes are. And
from here, it's about maybe 100I would say maybe about 300
(04:38):
feet. I would say 400 feet. Buthe... the way he described it to
me last year, he said, I look atthese wooden stakes and I think
of tombstones because of all thepeople that we've lost and all
the people that we've buried andall the people that we've
celebrated and mourned andrevered, on this space, on, in,
on this pier. And when he saidthat, that just kind of like, it
(05:01):
brought me to this place of,like, I don't want to say
pensiveness, but just, it justput me in a place of, like, deep
thought, and I'm like, wow. Andwhen you think of like, even the
headline of saying, oh, MarshaP. Johnson's body was found in
the Hudson River. We're right onthe Hudson River. So
essentially, her ashes and herremains are here, and these are
(05:24):
icons and figures in our, in ourcommunity that to loop it back
around, were essentially pastorsof our movement, which is liberation.
Kalik B (05:37):
Like, you know, I really...
Shai Pratt (05:41):
Sorry I was just absorbing that, I'll you can go...
Kalik B (05:47):
I mean, honestly, personally, for me with
ballroom, this is where I had myfirst grand prize. Like, my
first win, my firstintroduction, like I remember
sneaking out at 13 years old,like coming to pride and like,
you know, like, you know, at thedaytime, and it's not really at
the night time. That's when thegirls are out. I just felt so
(06:07):
amazed by, like, what the pierhas brought me so, like, it's so
interesting now, like, youknow... When I was growing up in
ballroom, like, you know,certain people would... after
they do, after school, and thenwould come to the pier and
celebrate. But when we gotolder, we disrespected the pier,
almost similar to how we likedisrespected church, like, you
(06:28):
know, we'll go, but then after,like, we get older, we like,
"You going to church? Like, Idon't got time for that." Like,
I pray, like, you know, but inthe pier, we did that as well.
Like, we's like, "Why y'allgoing on the pier to vogue?
What, y'all look crazy like, youknow?" And it's good to see that
this generation has a verystrong appreciation for the
(06:49):
pier. And I appreciate, like,their openness to just coming
back to where it started, in asense, you know, because it's
important, like, these spacesare so important, and you have
to sometimes go back to thebeginning to get forward and
move forward.
Colby King (07:06):
Yeah, something that Ciara said right before we
started, and you Kalik just alsosaid, was: during the daytime,
the pier is not the pier. It'snot until it's like, the
darkness kind of falls over it,that it becomes that. Which...
there's layers to that. And Ican get into it, but I'm not
gonna do so. But lot of timeswhen we're here and people are
(07:28):
voguing, and then they'replaying beats, and everyone's
just kind of having fun, and,you know, congregating, people
start talking about wheneversomebody like "carries", which
means like they, for people thatdon't know, to "carry" means to...
Kalik B (07:43):
Be amazing, like...
Colby King (07:44):
Be amazing, exceptional. Do something beyond
what is expected, so...
Kalik B (07:50):
Overdo it.
Colby King (07:51):
Overdo it. Yeah. So, like, whenever someone's
carrying while they're voguing,people might say, "Oh, the
trancestors are speaking to meor running through me. So like
this place as a place you know,of mourning, yes, but also of
connecting to those that camebefore us, and being able to
feel that while being in this space.
Ciara Lyons (08:15):
It's kind of funny. This is not like a funny
comparison, but for anybodywho's like, watched like the
Avatar movies, right? And like,y'all know when, like, they go
to the tree and like, connecttheir like tail to like the tree
to like, kind of, like? Yes...The pier is like, our like,
LGBT, like, Eywa, because, like,it's... And it's hard to explain
(08:36):
to people who aren't familiar,like, who don't make up the
community, because it's such aspiritual experience to be here.
And I think, I really want tomake sure that's very clear is
that this is extremely sacred tous as a community, and even,
like, individually coming herewithout anybody else, just like
to clear your mind, or just toeven just like be one with,
(08:59):
like, your LGBTQ-ness, like thisplace is really, really, really,
really important and really,like our, our, our grounding
center. I think.
Kalik B (09:08):
No, honestly, because to your point, I remember I was
so lost in life, in general, andI don't even know what I was
doing. I didn't know where I wasgoing. I had no direction. And
I'm just in the city, and I waslike, "You know what? Let me
just get a bike." I didn't knowwhere I was going, but every
single time I was lost, I endedup literally in this spot
(09:29):
looking at me like it was justthat groundedness that I needed,
and I could never explain ituntil you literally just said it
like that. It was always thisspot that I come back to, but
it's so much memories of like...It's something special to happen
at this place, even when you'rehere with your friend, just
walking around, where they juststart spilling their secrets, or
(09:51):
just saying how they reallyfeel, or just confessions, or
just going back in the past, Ifelt like this, like it's just
something about this place whenit comes to us, where we just
get into our bag, we just reallyget emotional or like, really
want to communicate or... [Soundof howling.] See? [Laughter.] I
don't know, like something, Idon't know. It's an interesting
(10:12):
I don't know. It's hard toexplain. It's really like a
spiritual connection, if anything.
Milan Terlunen (10:43):
[Music begins.] Everyone puts on headphones and
wanders away while listening toour first episode on grace with
Derrick McQueen. After a halfhour, we gather again at the end
of the meeting. There are kidsplaying and yelling nearby as
the group shares their initialreactions. [Music ends.]
Ciara Lyons (11:05):
When he mentioned liberation and the Black church
just being based on liberationand just like freedom from
oppression, I think that thatresonates with all of us,
because we participate inballroom, and ballroom is
literally black queerliberation, like in its highest
capacity. And I think that'sbeautiful to see that
connection, because a lot oftimes when it comes to, like,
(11:28):
religious settings, they try toshy away from anything that
connects them to us when it'sliterally not a "them and us",
it's just like a collective.That's something that stood out
to me immediately.
Iman Hill (11:39):
I am so glad CeCe went ahead and started it off,
because that's exactly what Iwrote. So I was jotting down
notes as the pastor wasspeaking, and immediately, like
I just concur wholeheartedlywith what she said. So to quote,
he said that the origin of thischurch is an abolition. And in
(12:03):
the word abolition or the originof church, excuse me, I replaced
the word "church" with"ballroom". So the origin of
ballroom is abolition. Then theimmediate sentence after that,
he says, abolition is aboutliberation. And then, if you
subtract or supersede abolitionwith ballroom you have: ballroom
(12:27):
is about liberation. When hegoes and he talks about the
origins of the church, hementioned Samuel Cornish, and
Samuel Cornish, to me, could bereplaced with Crystal LaBeija.
Crystal LaBeija, obviously, forus, is the Black matriarch and
the Black founder of theballroom scene. Prior to that,
(12:51):
it was the Harlem drag ballsthat was like in the 1920s,
moved into the 60s, and thenshe, as we all know, in her
participation was shunned andwas looked at as less than, or
othered. And what she decided: to take her talents over to ballroom. (13:05):
undefined
So I guess, like, withoutspewing my notes at you, she is
kind of like the directrepresentation of the, I guess
you could even say, thedifferent denominations of even
Christianity. How there isBaptist, Baptist Christian,
there's Presbyterian, there'sall these different
(13:27):
denominations. And even when wetalk about queer liberation as
it pertains to white queernessor Black queerness, we do have
people who can similarly beparallel to our experience, but
because they do not occupy thesame intersections, we believe
different things. So CrystalLaBeija could be Presbyterian,
whereas the white drag ballscould be Baptist, if that makes
(13:48):
any sense. And so, you know,they're saying that Samuel
Cornish, so obviously, I'm usingCrystal LaBeija in the place of
Samuel Cornish, founded thechurch, and he spoke about
freeing slaves, queerindividuals, and I'm... "slaves"
I'm also superseding as queer,Black queer, queer individuals
to not only be a churchballroom, being a church, but a
(14:08):
home for runaway slaves orrunaway queers. And if they
wanted to settle, which wassomething that they also
mentioned, if they wanted tosettle in ballroom, if they
wanted to settle in our church,it would not be just a place for
like that they could come in andout of, but it would be a place
that they could settle withincommunity of people that look
(14:28):
like them.
So I think that for me, becauseI did grow up Baptist Christian
for the majority of my life,I... And to be honest, even in
these different denominations,like how I was speaking about
how we can believe we can we allbe reading the same book, but
interpret it differently. It islike, in the Baptist way, it's
(14:49):
almost as if you did feel likeyou have to hide. And I, what I
loved in one of the other thingsthat I wrote in my notes was,
and I'm trying not to lookdirectly at them as to read off
the paper, but he mentionedsomething about grace. Grace was
like a overarching theme towardbeing graceful or Grace-filled.
(15:10):
And I think that that'ssomething that's so powerful.
Because when you say graceful orgracious, let's change the word
around, it is almost as if it'scoming from a place of pity,
like, or I'm gonna have or I'mgonna have mercy on you. And I
think for me to kind of pivotfrom just talking about
ballroom, for me, one of thethings that didn't resonate to
(15:33):
me in the church is I alwaysfelt like I wasn't good enough.
Like I always felt like I haveto be... I have to lay my sins
down on the line, I have toalmost crucify myself in order
to be welcomed here. And it'slike it's always this thing of
like we're not worthy of God'sgrace. We're not worthy of, of,
(15:53):
of the goodness of God. And it'slike I... If God is is
omnipresent, and if God issovereignty, and if God is
divinity, at what point in myhuman experience am I ever going
to get to a place where I am,quote-unquote "worthy", because
we are imperfect by virtue of usbeing human.
Iman Hill (16:12):
So it's like, how is it? How, what is this like? It's
like, it's almost like a ratrace, if that makes sense. Like
I'm not going nowhere if I showup to this church forever not
worthy. Whether I sin or I don'tsin or sin, sin correctly, let's
say that, because I think thatBaptist churches and Baptist
Christians, a lot ofdenominations of religion
(16:32):
period, have this like, this isan okay sin and this is a not
okay sin. This don't make senseto me. But what I love about the
word grace-filled is that whenyou realize that God is all
around us, and when you come tothis place, and we can use
ballroom now, we can bringballroom into it, when you come
to this place where you'veexperienced liberation at its
(16:52):
purest form, you want everybodyto experience what you felt. So
I think that is the grace-filledexperience that we get when we
come to ballroom and we hear thechanting, we hear the music, we
hear the drums, we see thedancing that is similar to
praise dancing. And it's almostas if: if I experience this,
come one come all who are likeus, to experience the liberation
(17:14):
that I feel.
Kalik B (17:18):
I think it's like the same thing with me, how I joined
ballroom. It was because, like,Baptists was like, you know,
like celebration, going tochurch, you know, every Sunday,
it was a traditional thing. Itwas like habitual. And in those
spaces, it's kind of likespecial to me, because I always
look at like the Blackexperience. And like, Black
(17:40):
experience, we always find a wayto find resilience and peace in
our struggle, in our like, inthe worst of times, right? And
it was similar to ballroom inthe sense of, like, it
correlated with the church.Because, you know, this is
something that... We know ourhistory: this is something that
wasn't originally ours, and itwas given to us or forced on us,
(18:02):
I should say, and yet, andstill, we found a way to make it
ours and find, like, some peacewithin it. And it's the same
thing with ballroom, how it cameabout, and just like the
navigation and how we navigatedwith it, and that's why it was
so special. And I just thinkthat's just like a Black
(18:23):
experience. I think that's amarginalized experience. I think
that's like an experience oflike just suffering, like all of
us continuously suffer, but hadto find a way of liberation, of
that peace. And I just lovethat. You know, sometimes the
church of any kind, or religionof any kind, bring that faith to
people. The opposite and the badside is, like, when you're
trying to be too good, you endup doing bad. Like, you know,
(18:45):
it's kind of similar. I know I'mgetting way off topic, but like
with Batman, where was it "darkknight", where he was just like
Two-Face, he was like, you livelong enough to see yourself turn
to the villain. I think that'swhat happened with churches. Or,
like, even, I've seen it inballroom with certain public or
like powerful figures, whereyou're there for a long time and
you want to... You, yourintentions are good, you know
(19:06):
you want good, and you want thatliberation on everybody, but
sooner or later, switch aroundand you weaponize in some way.
So it's very interesting. It'svery interesting of how it all
(19:29):
connects and intersects.
Iman Hill (19:33):
Ballroom, to me, the origin of it, going back to the
conversation in the firstepisode of this podcast, was a
place, or is a place, forrunaway slaves and, and the
slaves in which we're talkingabout, slaves of our own minds,
slaves of our, slaves of ourconditioning, slaves of
(19:54):
everything that we've beentaught to hate about ourselves.
And in that, though, however, intrying to give grace, and then
in the theme of grace, Irealized, and it's something
that I wrote in my notes, isthat we're all wounded people,
even Crystal LaBeija, when shefounded ballroom, this is a,
(20:17):
this... we're imperfect people.You know, as we talk about
humans and the concept of beingsinners. So now you have all of
these wounded people comingtogether in community, and a lot
of us are operating fromunhealed traumas and almost like
survival-based thinking, andit's not love, it's not informed
(20:40):
by love. And so I do give graceto where ballroom has changed
and how ballroom has changed. Itdoesn't make it right, but I
think that there needs to be agreater conversation about how
to shift the focus now that weare in this home base of
community. How can we love, andhow can we not bring our outside
(21:03):
experiences of hatred andbigotry to a place where we love?
Milan Terlunen (21:42):
[Music begins.] The sun is starting to set. It
glows orange across the HudsonRiver as the group discusses
their struggles withperfectionism. [Music ends.]
Shai Pratt (21:54):
It's like in ballroom and in church you deem
to be like perfect. You try tobe perfect in the church, and
you try to be perfect inballroom. And it's like, it's...
Ciara Lyons (22:04):
And I like the topic of like, perfection,
because it's so crazy how, inChristianity, in the ballroom,
we feel like we have to beperfect, so bad, but we have no
examples of perfection. So it'slike, where does this
unattainable desire to besomething that we obviously
can't be come from? And I thinkthe same way in ballroom you
(22:28):
have critics, you have criticsin church too, who just try to
just belittle you or make youfeel like you're not enough. And
I think it's like a cycle wherewe as a community and as a
people are so used to being putdown for hundreds of years just
as a whole, that we tend to dothat to each other and to
(22:49):
ourselves. And so then when wecome into spaces where we feel a
sense of community or sense oftogetherness, we, we, we begin
to honestly dismantle itourselves, because we are so
used to not having anything as acollective. And I hate that for
(23:11):
ballroom and for church, becausethese are two spaces that are
very influential in so manyBlack queer lives. Most Black
people that I know grew up inthe church, and most people,
most Black people that I know upthat are LGBT, are also a part
of ballroom. So to know thatthose two things are so
(23:32):
important to this community, butalso are so detrimental to our
mental health and just how weperceive ourselves is kind of
like, it's weird. It's weird.
Colby King (23:45):
I mean, like you said there, we don't have any
examples of perfection. And Ithink what was always so
confusing for me growing up inchurch and even now in ballroom,
is like the idea that God makesno mistakes, right? So the one
thing that's supposed to beperfect is God. And so I think
(24:07):
for me, when I realized that Iwasn't straight, it made me feel
crazy, because I was like, thenI must, something must be wrong
with me, because God can't be,this can't be possible if this
is not supposed to be somethingthat He created. And I, sitting,
I'm sitting here, and this iswho I am. And then you come to
(24:29):
ballroom, and there'sexpectations that are held for
all people. But you know, likeIman said, we are a microcosm of
the world, and like the categorywhere I walk is Face, so I'm
expected to look a certain waythat I do not. There are
(24:51):
standards that people areexpected to have about what
beauty is, what love is, allthese things that even though
ballroom really was meant to bethe antithesis of a lot of
things that have harmed Blacktrans and Black queer people, we
find ourselves replicating thosesame systems within it and
holding people to standards thatwe can't achieve.
Iman Hill (25:16):
If ballroom is a microcosm of the world, and the
world we live in right now isvery patriarchal and
whitewashed, then Christianityto me is also a product of that
as well. Christianity to me iswhiteness. I mean, honestly,
because I'm thinking about andnone of this have we talked
about the root of AfricanAmerican religions, and not even
(25:38):
African American, Africanreligions. And this idea of
imperfection, just, I mean, thisidea of like, God makes no
mistakes, and all these things.It's like, this is very white.
This is very white. And I knowwe're talking about Christianity
in specifically, but when youstudy Ifá, which is a
Orisha-based faith, we learnthat Olodumare is God, and the
(26:02):
Orishas are emanations of God,and who've had human
experiences, but um, there's a,there's a, there's a PatakÃ,
which in, in, in Christianityyou would call a "proverb" or
"tale" where Obatala, who is theking of the white cloth, is
drunk and he is responsible withthe mind. So when you talk about
Orisha, the root word of Orishais Ori, which means your head.
(26:25):
So if Obatala was drunk, and heis responsible for, for
cognitive thinking, theresponsibility or... the PatakÃ
says that people with mentaldisabilities are a product of
his drunkenness. Because he wasnot able to properly, you know,
configure the the minds of thesepeople. So we have mental
illness because of Obatala. Butthat was, if you would think of,
(26:49):
in God, that would be a mistake,you know. But we are, in my
lived experience, I find thatpeople, sometimes people who are
quote-unquote "mentallydisabled", are some of the most
beautiful and intelligent peoplethat I've ever spoken to, but
not in the norm of the way wethink about it, you know?
Milan Terlunen (27:32):
[Music begins.] The group splits up again to
listen to the second episode onlove with Nigel and Lisa Pearce.
By the time they're donelistening, it's fully dark. The
table we were at before has beentaken over by other people, so
we go sit on some grass in a bigcircle. [Music ends.]
Ciara Lyons (27:58):
I think in both the ballroom community and in
church, love is, is supposed tobe the guiding light to
everything that that we do andparticipate in. But I think that
kind of gets lost in the actionof those two things a lot of
(28:19):
times. But also I feel like inthis episode, the people
speaking were really accountablefor Christianity as a whole. And
Lisa was like, she understandshow, like, churches really hurt
people, and she really didn'twant to be a part of that. And I
think that's beautiful, becausea lot of times churches don't
(28:43):
take accountability. And I don'tthink that is necessarily that
they don't know that a lot ofthings are wrong in that
institution, but I think thatit's like we're, we're too good
to do anything wrong. But whenshe took accountability for just
Christianity as a whole, beinglike an aiding factor in the
detriment of Black people, Ithink that was beautiful, and
(29:05):
it... a big healing thing for alot of us. I think, as people
who come from a Baptistbackground, hearing somebody say
that, yeah, you went to churchand they fucked you up because
they did, but to also be like,but we love you still, and we
want you to come here because wecan offer you something that
maybe you haven't received thatcould maybe change your
(29:26):
perspective on church. Andthat's beautiful to me, because
that's what I was looking forwhen I came to ballroom.
Iman Hill (29:41):
First and foremost, let me just say this. Lisa being
a Black woman. I'm assuming Lisais a Black woman.
It's no surprise to me that she said all of these
Shai Pratt (29:48):
Yeah she is.
things. Why? Because women andpeople who are often the most
marginalized are always, and Iwould say 100% of the time, the
most self-reflective and mostself-aware. It is not lost on
(30:09):
me, or it does not surprise methat the person who is the most
oppressed in the room is able tothink about, how can we include
everybody else? So from aballroom perspective, when Colby
talks about trans women notbeing centered anymore, trans
(30:30):
women are the most self-awareand self-reflective people in
the space. Trans women are alsothe most marginalized people.
Black trans women, excuse me,are the most marginalized and
oppressed people in the world.So it is also not lost on me
that in our reflection, we areoftentimes met with backlash
when we say, "Hey, this is notright, and we need to change
(30:54):
this." You know, she talkedabout expansion and inclusivity
and making ways for other peopleto experience, I guess, the love
that she had felt when she firstcame to the church. But we all
know with expansion, sometimeswe lose... the mission statement
kind of gets lost a little bitwith expansion. And we've seen
(31:14):
that with ballroom. How New YorkCity was the Mecca. You could
only go to a ball in New YorkCity. As we've expanded, things
have changed, and it's not thesame ballroom that... when we
talk about venue. So shementioned the old church that
had the holes in the top of it,right? And to me, I think of the
(31:35):
Elks Lodge. I think of Tracks. Ithink of the Roseland Ballroom.
I think of these places wherethe balls were held and how
dilapidated these places were. Ithink of the pier that we're on
right now. This turf was nothere 30 years ago. It was
actually potholes and concreteand, you know, to the naked eye
garbage, but with loving eyes,like she said, we were able to
(32:01):
see the beauty, we're able tosee the spirituality, we're able
to see the divinity that is thatis housed here. So to tie that
into womanhood, and it's just,it's not lost on me, or it
doesn't surprise me that a womanis bringing this up, you know,
and I think later on in thisconversation, maybe we could
(32:23):
pivot to motherhood and howthat, and how, you know, people
treat Black mothers, and howthat is actually reflective of
how men treat women who aren'ttheir mothers. And yeah, I have
a lot to say about that, butwe're just gonna keep the
conversation flowing.
Colby King (32:43):
Something else, you know, thinking about all these
things too, is like that I thinkthe episode did really well is
in Christianity, like a lot oftimes, love might also be just
like little kids running acrosslike racing across the pier
right now. Love as charity,right and they talk about their
(33:09):
church providing housing forpeople and providing safe spaces
for people to actually be ableto live. And I think there was a
point in time I think that was abig part of ballroom was
providing safe spaces incommunity for people to be able
to survive. I don't know ifeveryone still has those same
(33:32):
missions. Huh?
Milan Terlunen (33:37):
Talk a little louder.
Colby King (33:38):
Talk a little louder. I don't know if everyone
still has that same mission ofloving and supporting one
another, beyond walking theball. Surface-level things. But
it's like love can be so muchand love is also about making
(34:00):
sure that people you care aboutaren't hungry if you can, and
are housed if you can, andfinding community support in
those ways. And I think that is,you know, in a lot of ways, what
the foundation of ballroom wasand was supposed to be. And I'm
not saying it's not. Like theredefinitely are still people that
(34:22):
that is their mission. But aslike all things, and as Iman was
getting to, when things becomemore commercialized, once
capitalism takes its hold onthings, once things become more
mainstream. I love my goodgirlfriend Beyoncé down.
(34:51):
[Laughter.] I love... You know,but I feel like I... What has
happened, in a lot of ways, isthat people don't recognize this
space is something that actuallymeans something, not taking the
(35:12):
time to actually learn about aculture that they want to
participate in. And I'm kind oframbling here because I'm just
thinking about a lot of,thinking about a lot of
different things, but it's likelistening to this episode. I
(35:32):
thought a lot about just howthings have been taken in a lot
of ways. And some people don'teven necessarily see ballroom
not only as LGBT, but I want tobe very explicit to say, like,
ballroom, yes, it's LGBTQ, andspecifically it's trans. It was
started by trans women. But it'sBlack. And I think that... And
Brown. Black and Brown. ButBlack. And lot of the people
(35:57):
that get to represent ballroomoften are not Black, and often a
lot of them these days are noteven trans or even LGBT at all,
and get to vogue on very largestages and claim to represent a
(36:19):
community without pouring anysupport into it. And so it's
always about love is themessage, but losing the charity
and the support that's supposedto come with that, because love
is about more than just seeingpeople. It's about making sure
(36:41):
that you are supporting them.
Ciara Lyons (36:43):
I want to piggyback off that. Because I think when
Lisa was talking and she wasdiscussing her nephew who
transitioned from female tomale, I think that was
important, because a lot oftimes we have family members who
(37:03):
probably wouldn't even mentionthat at all, and as someone who
has an aunt who probably wouldrather die before admitting on a
public forum that she has atransgender niece, I think
that's beautiful to even seeher, to see Lisa mention that to
(37:24):
her husband as like, "You'regood with this, right? Because I
am. Like, so, are you good?"Because a lot of times people
don't even, like, consider that.People don't consider the fact
that people have queer, trans,lesbian, gay, whatever, family
(37:44):
members who could be impacted bythese hateful beliefs that
people have, I think that'sreally beautiful, because she
didn't have to do that, and shedidn't have to mention that, and
she didn't have to make it apoint to make sure that her
husband understood where she wascoming from. Yeah.
Milan Terlunen (38:25):
[Music begins.] A group of drag queens have
shown up on the pier and arehaving their own conversation
nearby. Inspired by Lisa's storyabout Dr Katie Cannon's
(38:48):
ancestor, our discussion movesto the topic of mothers and
motherhood. [Music ends.]
Shai Pratt (38:59):
So I wanna talk about mother. So me and my
mother were very close. Sohonestly, I came out when I was
15 years old, and I'll neverforget I came to the village, I
think I was by the pizza shopthat was up the block, and I ran
into, right, and I ran intothis, this lesbian. I ran into
(39:21):
this lesbian up the block, andshe she grabbed me by my neck. I
will never forget this. Shegrabbed me by my neck, and she
said to me, she was just like,I'm gonna tell everybody that
you out here. So in my hood, ifyou came to the pier, West 4th,
you were, you were deemed gay.At that time I didn't know what
I liked, so I came here. Shedragged me all the way to the
(39:41):
train, I literally was cryingfrom West 4th all the way to
Coney Island. When I got home, Iwoke my mother up, and I was
like, "I have something to tellyou." So my mother was like,
"Oh, my God, did you killsomebody?" I'm like, "No".
She's (39:44):
"somebody's pregnant?" I was like, "No". She's like,
"What the hell you got to tellme?" So I was like, I was like,
"I'm gay". So she was just, "Goto sleep". So the next day, when
she woke up, she, she wasflat-ironing, hot-combing her
(40:06):
hair. And she was just like,"I'ma ask you a question". She
was like, "Do you want to be agirl?" I was like, "What do you,
what do you mean?" She was like,"Do you want to be a girl?" I
was just like, you know... Shesaid, "Because if you wanted to
be a girl, we got to get you onhormones now. I'm not raising an
ugly daughter"
Kalik B (40:21):
Wow...
Shai Pratt (40:21):
So to me, I didn't understand that at that time. I
didn't understand it because I'mjust like, "What? Like, why did
you ask me that?" Because itwas... one time I said, she
asked me who I want to befollowing. I said, Pocahontas.
[Laughter.] I guess I lovePocahontas. So I guess to her,
she was accepting of it then.I'll never forget. When I got
(40:42):
older, I asked her, I said,"You, I'll never forget when you
said that to me, because to me,it was like, you accept me for
who I, who I am." And she toldme she was just like, "It's so
crazy, but you don't know it,but your uncle, your uncle, your
uncle, your aunt. I'm sorry.Your aunt was trans, and she
raised me. So she was like abeautiful woman who raised me.
(41:03):
So if that's what you wanted todo, I was gonna stand by you a
hundred and ten percent. So ifyou, if y'all look on Facebook,
y'all see my mother vogueing andeverything, my mother's been in
the scene for years. So to me,what I when I look at my mother,
I just like, damn, I got a goodmother. Like, but like, I think
I had to come to realize that alot of people didn't have that,
(41:24):
a lot of people didn't havethat. So me seeing that...
[Someone passes by playing loudmusic.] Oh I'm sorry...
Ciara Lyons (41:29):
I grew up with a single mother as well, and I
[Laughter.]
don't have any siblings, so itwas me and my mom up until I was
(41:51):
15, 16. And I think I came outto my mom when I was 13. And
when I came out to my mom when Iwas 13, my mom actually came out
to me as well. When I wasyounger, my mom had a girlfriend
that I thought was just her bestfriend that lived with us for a
while, and she was a veryintegral part of my childhood,
my mom's girlfriend, and so whenI came out to her, and my mom
(42:13):
told me that, and also, my momasked me if I wanted to be a
girl, and I said, "No, no"because that wasn't a
possibility. I didn't know whatthat was. I didn't know that was
an option to me, that was sooutside of my realm of, just
(42:35):
outside of my space, that I justcouldn't even fathom the
possibility of even doing...That whole thing was just a myth
to me. But it was weird becauseshe came out to me, but then she
also kind of made me feelhorrible about my sexuality,
which was weird for me, becauseI'm like, we've kind of had the
(42:58):
same journey to an extent. So Iwould expect you to understand
where I'm coming from, but youdon't. Then she comes out to me
further to tell me that shebroke it off with her girlfriend
then because she don't want meto get bullied in school for
having two moms. And so itseemed like a bit of that
resentment that she held becauseshe couldn't suffer through the
(43:21):
consequences of her ownrelationship, were put onto me
as a burden. So it was okay fora while, and then I was like,
"Wait, but I do want to be agirl". And it went to hell,
because at that point it was: "So you lied to me, because I (43:38):
undefined
asked you, and you told me no."And so, my mom is my best
friend. She was then, when shetold me that, she is now, and
she will be whatever the fuckhappens with me and my mom.
(43:59):
However, it's weird, becausemotherhood, especially Black,
single motherhood, is such ajourney that is so, so, so, so,
so, so traumatizing, but sobeautiful, because the way that
my mother loves me is beyondthis world. And I think that us
(44:23):
all that have been raised bysingle mothers, we understand
that, because as, as horrible assome of the things that my
mother has done to me have been,I know that there's nobody else
ever at all who will ever loveme as hard as my mother does.
And I think that's such avaluable feeling. And I hate
(44:44):
that it comes with, I hate thatit comes with, I hate this kind
of like, a backhandedcompliment. Because while my
mother has made mistakes, againthere, there's no one who could
replace what she has done for meand what she will continue to do
(45:05):
for me in her position in mylife. And in terms of Black
motherhood, as even going backto slavery, we weren't allowed
to raise our children, and wehad to raise the children of the
people who were causing us themost harm, and I don't think
that people realize to this dayhow horribly slavery impacts the
(45:28):
Black woman. I recently read,I'm kind of on a topic, I
recently read Beloved by the.Iconic. Toni. Morrison.
[Laughter.] But reading thatbook...
Milan Terlunen (45:50):
[Music begins.] At this point, we've been
recording for over two hours.And guess what? The batteries in
our recorder run out. Once weput some spare batteries in,
Ciara picks up with a discussionof a book by Toni Morrison.
(46:33):
[Music ends.]
Ciara Lyons (46:38):
In the book Beloved, she began to discuss
how, as Black people beingslaves, she felt like she didn't
control her heartbeat, like shefelt like her heartbeat was
someone else's, like her handswere someone else's. The white
children stole her milk from herbreast when her children were
(47:04):
hungry. And so I think thattotally lends itself to Black
motherhood now with that senseof control. And if you're not
who I want you to be, or ifyou're not living up to what my
expectations are of of you, thenyou're not good enough for me or
(47:24):
for the world. And I think it'sbeautiful now to see that
transformation for my mom,because at a time, I didn't see
a point where we would have agood relationship, and I didn't
see a point where my motherwould be in my life, but now
we're in a totally differentspace. Because I think she
understands that that sense ofcontrol that she felt like she
(47:48):
needed to have over me was justsomething that was forced upon
her by something that she had nocontrol over. And so when she
relinquished that control, Ifelt like that, that totally
changed our relationship. Andthat pertains to ballroom,
because, again, that sense ofcontrol. We are all our own
(48:12):
people. We all do what we haveto do for us. We all feel
differently, think differently,look differently. And I think
once we step back from trying tomake someone who we want them to
be, and let them be who theyare, we'll blossom, because
(48:33):
it'll it'll be true and totalself reflection and not some
constructed bullshit that we areseeing now, in ballroom and in
the church.
Shai Pratt (48:48):
So I was, I was basically going into the, like,
starting from the beginning,like a gay Black man is more
accepted than a trans woman inthe Black household.
Kalik B (48:58):
Well, I think that's...
Shai Pratt (48:59):
But that was, that was the topic.
Kalik B (49:01):
I think that has a lot to do, of like the system and
society we live in, andwhat's...
Shai Pratt (49:07):
And like, why is a gay Black man more accepted in
society than a trans woman?
Kalik B (49:12):
Because he's still a man.
Shai Pratt (49:13):
Because he's still a man, yeah.
Kalik B (49:15):
And men, you know, we run the world...
Iman Hill (49:18):
Definitely.
Kalik B (49:18):
... in a sense.
Iman Hill (49:19):
Definitely. You could still be, I mean, no shade
though. You could still be yourmother's protector as a gay
Black man. You could still beyour mother's provider as a gay
Black man. You could still be,you know, everything that you I
mean, you could still, there's alot of things you can still do,
and you have the privilege ofbeing a man. One thing that I
realized that when Itransitioned, and I say this to
(49:41):
every trans woman that I, whoasks me about transitioning, who
is questioning transitioning, Ialways say like you must
understand that you are... as agay Black man, you have things
taken away from you, or you havemarginalizations and
oppressions, but you are givingup the last bit of privilege
that you have, deciding totransition, because you are now
(50:02):
choosing to be a woman, to be...and I'm not saying "choosing",
as in like, trans is a choice.I'm not saying that. But what
I'm saying is that you areforfeiting the last bit of
privilege that you have in thisworld, which is the fact that
you are presenting masculine. Sothink long and hard about that,
and I didn't realize just how,just how serious that was, until
(50:23):
about maybe six or seven monthsinto my transition. Eight months
into my transition. I realizedthat like, "Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm
speaking in spaces, and nobody'slistening to me. Like I am, I
am... I don't feel as though...I feel like people are hearing
me. They're not listening to me.I feel as though people are not
considering me." And, and what Iwas, what I was witnessing was
(50:47):
the shift in perception. I amnow being perceived as woman, so
therefore this is, these are...You on a whole new set of rules,
baby, and beyond you being aBlack woman, now you a Black
trans woman. So even the littlebit of decorum and cordiality
and respect that we give a Blackwoman, you not getting it. So I
gagged in real time, like I was,like, "Hold on. Like, this is
(51:11):
crazy!" Because I was so usedto... I transitioned when I was
20, almost 21, 21, so I'm usedto these past, you know, X
amount of years, feeling like Iwas on top of the world, like
feeling like I could speak andeverybody would shut up, I could
speak and everybody wouldlisten. And feeling so silenced,
almost like, like it was likenight and day. So we like, we're
(51:34):
gonna repeat these cycles untilwe going back to the root of
finding, finding God. Going backto the podcast - finding God in
you, finding God in, in you, sothat you don't need a church to
tell you how to love God. Youdon't need the ballroom to tell
you how to love yourself, or howto do, to do these things.
Finding that within yourself isgonna take work, and it's gonna
(51:58):
take effort, but that is theonly way to be able to come back
to the space healed. You everseen somebody come back after
having a sabbatical and you belike, "Damn, that bitch is
glowing. What you doing?" Sheloving on herself. Mika, prime
example. Mika, Mika Prodigy.She, she's one of those people
that I could say, if you don'tsee them, if you don't see her
(52:21):
for 6, 7, 10 years, she'll comeback to the ballroom and she'll
she'll light up the whole room.
Colby King (52:24):
The concept of humanity was constructed around
being white, being wealthy,being cis, being a man, and so
if you are not those things...Being Christian in a lot of
places. So when you are notthose things, when you start to
take away those identities, youbecome literally less human. And
(52:46):
I think we have to shift from...And going back to the idea of
church as this place, andChristianity when it comes to
the concept United States andthe Caribbean and even lots of
lots of Africa, but not all ofAfrica, something that was
(53:09):
forced onto many Black people. Imean, even the concept of
Blackness itself was forced ontoBlack people. We were not Black
when we were in Africa. We werepeople. I think what has to
happen is not just seeing peopleas human is... To completely
abolish something is tocompletely get rid of all
(53:33):
limitations and concepts andthings that were created to
define what some people were andwhat other people were not. And
ultimately, the reason why whitepeople are human is because
Black people are not, and Ithink it's the reason why cis
(53:54):
people are human is becausetrans people are not. The reason
why men get to obtain morehumanity than women is, is
because they are men and womenare not men, right? So much of
people's identity is based onwho they are not, so much of
oppression is based on who youare not. Even the Black church,
(54:22):
as opposed to being the white.To this day, the most segregated
place in the United States ischurches on Sundays. Churches on
Sundays are still the mostsegregated space in the United
States, because the Black churchis not a white one, right? And
(54:42):
therefore it's not, to manypeople, a church. And I think in
order to truly change andtransform the world, we have to
ultimately abolish so many ofthese systems that we want to
(55:03):
hold on to. Even the idea ofbeing a human in general has to
be changed in order for us allto be seen as... not necessarily
human but as persons. And worthyof... all equally worthy of love
(55:25):
and equally worthy of securityand equally worthy of being able
to live and thrive. I mean, noteven necessarily thrive - live!
Like I mean...
Kalik B (55:39):
"Thrive" can be so many different things to, you know,
so many people. And I think, toyour point, like, I think it's
so hard to abolish a systembecause it affects everybody so
differently. So they want tokeep the parts that's holding
them in a certain space, youknow. So I think that's the
(56:00):
tricky part, because then, like,how do we go and tell... It's
just a lot, like, it's layered.It's so layered that, like, we
have people that will willfullyknow that wrongdoing is being
done to someone. Or this... Theywouldn't want things done to
them but still allow and acceptit, or turn the cheek, because
(56:25):
they know that "this doesn'taffect me and my privilege and
my understanding of whatreligion may look for me
compared to them, or what thismay look..." So it's a very
layered, interesting thing, andI just think that, like, as a
whole, in, in communities ofchurch and in ballroom, it's the
(56:47):
fear of like, what does thisfuture look like without these
systems? You know, what does itlook like starting from the
ground up, when we never had tostart at ground up? And even
that within itself is aprivilege to certain people of
not having to start from theground up and build and create,
like, a specific reality forthemselves, you know. And again,
(57:11):
that aligns with going back towhat you say as far as
accountability. Accountabilityin church, accountability in
ballroom, accountability in thisworld of like: what part do we
play? Where's the blood on ourhands, or what have we done? And
can we absorb that? And can webe honest with like, those
points that actually are thethings that connect us, like our
(57:32):
wrongdoings, our mistakes arethe things that connect each and
every one of us, None of us,make every perfect decision, you
(58:01):
know?
Milan Terlunen (58:01):
[Music begins.] The pier has started to empty.
As our conversation has gottenmore personal, we find ourselves
speaking quieter and moving intoa tighter circle. After many
(58:26):
stories about the past, Colbyleaves us with thoughts for the
future. [Music ends.]
Colby King (58:35):
I think part of the reason why so... church and
ballroom are so alike is becauseso many people in ballroom are
people that ran away fromchurch. And ran away from
church, still wanting it. Andcreated something and
(58:56):
participating in something thatthey... participate in something
that they do love, but they alsocarried and brought in the
traumas of those same places. Sothere's that. But what do I
think the future looks like?I'll say I'm an afrofuturist,
produced by Olivia Branscum,Colby King, Aya Labanieh and by
(59:21):
very Beyoncé Renaissance, veryalien superstar. And I mean, I
think the future of the world,or the world that I want to see
is one that is Black trans andBlack queer and Black ballroom.
All over. And in a lot of ways,this community has influenced
(59:46):
the world over, whether peoplewill give credit to it or not.
So it already is. I just imaginea world where people actually
know that. Yeah.
(01:01:23):
me Milan Terlunen.
With musical compositions by Stone Butler and
technical support from Evan Liand Ana Maria Rodriguez.
Aya Labanieh (01:01:31):
Thanks to our speakers and to the church and
ballroom communities forinviting us into their spaces.
Thanks also to MarÃa GonzálezPendás and Chris Chang for their
mentorship, and to Humanities NYand Columbia's Heyman Center for
the Humanities, for their support.
Milan Terlunen (01:01:47):
And most of all, thank you for listening. [Music ends.]
[Music begins.] Welcome to In Sacred Spaces, a
three-episode podcast series inwhich we visit spaces around New
York City that are sacredspecific communities. These
include historic Black churchesin Harlem as well as the Chelsea
Piers a gathering place formembers of the ballroom scene.
There are many kinds of Blackchurches in the United States,
with hundreds of years ofhistory. Ballroom is a community
(00:30):
of mostly queer and transperformers from Black and Latinx
backgrounds, originating in Harlem.
Aya Labanieh (00:37):
Join us as we walk around these sacred spaces with
the people who love them. Wediscuss their personal journeys
with spirituality and how thespaces they've chosen to inhabit
connect to longer histories ofcivil rights, women's equality
and queer liberation.
Milan Terlunen (00:54):
We hope these conversations will connect with
your own experiences, whetheryou identify as LGBTQ+, as a
Christian, or as part of anyother religious or spiritual
community - or none at all. Ifyou can, we encourage you to
listen to this podcast whilewalking around a place that is
(01:14):
sacred to you.
Colby King (01:18):
Our podcast team includes people with diverse
religious backgrounds in a rangeof racial, sexual and gender
identities. You can find outmore about the team and the
project at our website insacredspacespodcast.com
Milan Terlunen (01:34):
We hope these episodes will inspire you to
reflect on your own uniquerelationship to spiritual
experience. Throughout eachepisode, we've included musical
interludes composed by StoneButler that give you some
private moments to meditate onwhat you've heard.
(01:56):
For this episode, we're gatheredat the Chelsea Piers with
members of the ballroom house ofLouboutin, Iman, Ciara, Kalik
and Shai, as well as Colby,who's been part of the In Sacred
Spaces team since the beginning.All five of them are LGBT
individuals who grew up inBaptist churches. Some are now
(02:18):
leaders in the ballroomcommunity, and others are
advocates for social justice.You can learn more about each of
them on our website. They sharetheir reflections on our first
two episodes, as well as howthey personally relate to grace,
love, motherhood and community.
We begin by talking about wherewe are, the Chelsea Piers. We're
(02:42):
sitting at a table overlookingthe Hudson River. It's late in
the day on a warm summerevening. All around us, there
are people strolling aboutenjoying the weather. [Music ends.]
Kalik B (03:02):
We on sacred grounds.
Colby King (03:05):
Yes, yeah.
Kalik B (03:06):
I mean, this is, this is like a sanctuary. This is a
safe space. It's been a part ofour history, ballroom history,
for as long as we can remember.Like the pier was, everybody
will come to congregate, speak,dance, celebrate, mourn, cry,
literally... what, not too longago we just had a memorial here.
(03:28):
And this is not the firstmemorial we had here or, and
unfortunately to say, gonna bethe last you know. This is our
space for safety. This is wherepeople learn how to vogue or
like perform. They speak withthe elders of the community
right here and learn, like, getfree knowledge, honestly. Yeah,
(03:49):
just the sacred grounds. Thepier is sacred.
Iman Hill (03:52):
I remember talking to the icon, Luna Khan. Well, I
don't know if he's still a Khananymore, but he walked Butch
Queen Face. He is responsiblefor the GMHC latex ball that we
do every year. And I know youall can't see because this is a
podcast, but if you look outhere, there are these little...
so we're on a pier, for thosewho don't know. So picture that
(04:15):
there is a pier and that thereis these little wooden stakes
that are, that are coming upfrom the water as you look over
into the Hudson River, which, ifyou look even further, it would
be Jersey City. And he told methat the old piers used to
extend all the way to wherethese wooden stakes are. And
from here, it's about maybe 100I would say maybe about 300
(04:38):
feet. I would say 400 feet. Buthe... the way he described it to
me last year, he said, I look atthese wooden stakes and I think
of tombstones because of all thepeople that we've lost and all
the people that we've buried andall the people that we've
celebrated and mourned andrevered, on this space, on, in,
on this pier. And when he saidthat, that just kind of like, it
(05:01):
brought me to this place of,like, I don't want to say
pensiveness, but just, it justput me in a place of, like, deep
thought, and I'm like, wow. Andwhen you think of like, even the
headline of saying, oh, MarshaP. Johnson's body was found in
the Hudson River. We're right onthe Hudson River. So
essentially, her ashes and herremains are here, and these are
(05:24):
icons and figures in our, in ourcommunity that to loop it back
around, were essentially pastorsof our movement, which is liberation.
Kalik B (05:37):
Like, you know, I really...
Shai Pratt (05:41):
Sorry I was just absorbing that, I'll you can go...
Kalik B (05:47):
I mean, honestly, personally, for me with
ballroom, this is where I had myfirst grand prize. Like, my
first win, my firstintroduction, like I remember
sneaking out at 13 years old,like coming to pride and like,
you know, like, you know, at thedaytime, and it's not really at
the night time. That's when thegirls are out. I just felt so
(06:07):
amazed by, like, what the pierhas brought me so, like, it's so
interesting now, like, youknow... When I was growing up in
ballroom, like, you know,certain people would... after
they do, after school, and thenwould come to the pier and
celebrate. But when we gotolder, we disrespected the pier,
almost similar to how we likedisrespected church, like, you
(06:28):
know, we'll go, but then after,like, we get older, we like,
"You going to church? Like, Idon't got time for that." Like,
I pray, like, you know, but inthe pier, we did that as well.
Like, we's like, "Why y'allgoing on the pier to vogue?
What, y'all look crazy like, youknow?" And it's good to see that
this generation has a verystrong appreciation for the
(06:49):
pier. And I appreciate, like,their openness to just coming
back to where it started, in asense, you know, because it's
important, like, these spacesare so important, and you have
to sometimes go back to thebeginning to get forward and
move forward.
Colby King (07:06):
Yeah, something that Ciara said right before we
started, and you Kalik just alsosaid, was: during the daytime,
the pier is not the pier. It'snot until it's like, the
darkness kind of falls over it,that it becomes that. Which...
there's layers to that. And Ican get into it, but I'm not
gonna do so. But lot of timeswhen we're here and people are
(07:28):
voguing, and then they'replaying beats, and everyone's
just kind of having fun, and,you know, congregating, people
start talking about wheneversomebody like "carries", which
means like they, for people thatdon't know, to "carry" means to...
Kalik B (07:43):
Be amazing, like...
Colby King (07:44):
Be amazing, exceptional. Do something beyond
what is expected, so...
Kalik B (07:50):
Overdo it.
Colby King (07:51):
Overdo it. Yeah. So, like, whenever someone's
carrying while they're voguing,people might say, "Oh, the
trancestors are speaking to meor running through me. So like
this place as a place you know,of mourning, yes, but also of
connecting to those that camebefore us, and being able to
feel that while being in this space.
Ciara Lyons (08:15):
It's kind of funny. This is not like a funny
comparison, but for anybodywho's like, watched like the
Avatar movies, right? And like,y'all know when, like, they go
to the tree and like, connecttheir like tail to like the tree
to like, kind of, like? Yes...The pier is like, our like,
LGBT, like, Eywa, because, like,it's... And it's hard to explain
(08:36):
to people who aren't familiar,like, who don't make up the
community, because it's such aspiritual experience to be here.
And I think, I really want tomake sure that's very clear is
that this is extremely sacred tous as a community, and even,
like, individually coming herewithout anybody else, just like
to clear your mind, or just toeven just like be one with,
(08:59):
like, your LGBTQ-ness, like thisplace is really, really, really,
really important and really,like our, our, our grounding
center. I think.
Kalik B (09:08):
No, honestly, because to your point, I remember I was
so lost in life, in general, andI don't even know what I was
doing. I didn't know where I wasgoing. I had no direction. And
I'm just in the city, and I waslike, "You know what? Let me
just get a bike." I didn't knowwhere I was going, but every
single time I was lost, I endedup literally in this spot
(09:29):
looking at me like it was justthat groundedness that I needed,
and I could never explain ituntil you literally just said it
like that. It was always thisspot that I come back to, but
it's so much memories of like...It's something special to happen
at this place, even when you'rehere with your friend, just
walking around, where they juststart spilling their secrets, or
(09:51):
just saying how they reallyfeel, or just confessions, or
just going back in the past, Ifelt like this, like it's just
something about this place whenit comes to us, where we just
get into our bag, we just reallyget emotional or like, really
want to communicate or... [Soundof howling.] See? [Laughter.] I
don't know, like something, Idon't know. It's an interesting
(10:12):
I don't know. It's hard toexplain. It's really like a
spiritual connection, if anything.
Milan Terlunen (10:43):
[Music begins.] Everyone puts on headphones and
wanders away while listening toour first episode on grace with
Derrick McQueen. After a halfhour, we gather again at the end
of the meeting. There are kidsplaying and yelling nearby as
the group shares their initialreactions. [Music ends.]
Ciara Lyons (11:05):
When he mentioned liberation and the Black church
just being based on liberationand just like freedom from
oppression, I think that thatresonates with all of us,
because we participate inballroom, and ballroom is
literally black queerliberation, like in its highest
capacity. And I think that'sbeautiful to see that
connection, because a lot oftimes when it comes to, like,
(11:28):
religious settings, they try toshy away from anything that
connects them to us when it'sliterally not a "them and us",
it's just like a collective.That's something that stood out
to me immediately.
Iman Hill (11:39):
I am so glad CeCe went ahead and started it off,
because that's exactly what Iwrote. So I was jotting down
notes as the pastor wasspeaking, and immediately, like
I just concur wholeheartedlywith what she said. So to quote,
he said that the origin of thischurch is an abolition. And in
(12:03):
the word abolition or the originof church, excuse me, I replaced
the word "church" with"ballroom". So the origin of
ballroom is abolition. Then theimmediate sentence after that,
he says, abolition is aboutliberation. And then, if you
subtract or supersede abolitionwith ballroom you have: ballroom
(12:27):
is about liberation. When hegoes and he talks about the
origins of the church, hementioned Samuel Cornish, and
Samuel Cornish, to me, could bereplaced with Crystal LaBeija.
Crystal LaBeija, obviously, forus, is the Black matriarch and
the Black founder of theballroom scene. Prior to that,
(12:51):
it was the Harlem drag ballsthat was like in the 1920s,
moved into the 60s, and thenshe, as we all know, in her
participation was shunned andwas looked at as less than, or
othered. And what she decided: to take her talents over to ballroom. (13:05):
undefined
So I guess, like, withoutspewing my notes at you, she is
kind of like the directrepresentation of the, I guess
you could even say, thedifferent denominations of even
Christianity. How there isBaptist, Baptist Christian,
there's Presbyterian, there'sall these different
(13:27):
denominations. And even when wetalk about queer liberation as
it pertains to white queernessor Black queerness, we do have
people who can similarly beparallel to our experience, but
because they do not occupy thesame intersections, we believe
different things. So CrystalLaBeija could be Presbyterian,
whereas the white drag ballscould be Baptist, if that makes
(13:48):
any sense. And so, you know,they're saying that Samuel
Cornish, so obviously, I'm usingCrystal LaBeija in the place of
Samuel Cornish, founded thechurch, and he spoke about
freeing slaves, queerindividuals, and I'm... "slaves"
I'm also superseding as queer,Black queer, queer individuals
to not only be a churchballroom, being a church, but a
(14:08):
home for runaway slaves orrunaway queers. And if they
wanted to settle, which wassomething that they also
mentioned, if they wanted tosettle in ballroom, if they
wanted to settle in our church,it would not be just a place for
like that they could come in andout of, but it would be a place
that they could settle withincommunity of people that look
(14:28):
like them.
So I think that for me, becauseI did grow up Baptist Christian
for the majority of my life,I... And to be honest, even in
these different denominations,like how I was speaking about
how we can believe we can we allbe reading the same book, but
interpret it differently. It islike, in the Baptist way, it's
(14:49):
almost as if you did feel likeyou have to hide. And I, what I
loved in one of the other thingsthat I wrote in my notes was,
and I'm trying not to lookdirectly at them as to read off
the paper, but he mentionedsomething about grace. Grace was
like a overarching theme towardbeing graceful or Grace-filled.
(15:10):
And I think that that'ssomething that's so powerful.
Because when you say graceful orgracious, let's change the word
around, it is almost as if it'scoming from a place of pity,
like, or I'm gonna have or I'mgonna have mercy on you. And I
think for me to kind of pivotfrom just talking about
ballroom, for me, one of thethings that didn't resonate to
(15:33):
me in the church is I alwaysfelt like I wasn't good enough.
Like I always felt like I haveto be... I have to lay my sins
down on the line, I have toalmost crucify myself in order
to be welcomed here. And it'slike it's always this thing of
like we're not worthy of God'sgrace. We're not worthy of, of,
(15:53):
of the goodness of God. And it'slike I... If God is is
omnipresent, and if God issovereignty, and if God is
divinity, at what point in myhuman experience am I ever going
to get to a place where I am,quote-unquote "worthy", because
we are imperfect by virtue of usbeing human.
Iman Hill (16:12):
So it's like, how is it? How, what is this like? It's
like, it's almost like a ratrace, if that makes sense. Like
I'm not going nowhere if I showup to this church forever not
worthy. Whether I sin or I don'tsin or sin, sin correctly, let's
say that, because I think thatBaptist churches and Baptist
Christians, a lot ofdenominations of religion
(16:32):
period, have this like, this isan okay sin and this is a not
okay sin. This don't make senseto me. But what I love about the
word grace-filled is that whenyou realize that God is all
around us, and when you come tothis place, and we can use
ballroom now, we can bringballroom into it, when you come
to this place where you'veexperienced liberation at its
(16:52):
purest form, you want everybodyto experience what you felt. So
I think that is the grace-filledexperience that we get when we
come to ballroom and we hear thechanting, we hear the music, we
hear the drums, we see thedancing that is similar to
praise dancing. And it's almostas if: if I experience this,
come one come all who are likeus, to experience the liberation
(17:14):
that I feel.
Kalik B (17:18):
I think it's like the same thing with me, how I joined
ballroom. It was because, like,Baptists was like, you know,
like celebration, going tochurch, you know, every Sunday,
it was a traditional thing. Itwas like habitual. And in those
spaces, it's kind of likespecial to me, because I always
look at like the Blackexperience. And like, Black
(17:40):
experience, we always find a wayto find resilience and peace in
our struggle, in our like, inthe worst of times, right? And
it was similar to ballroom inthe sense of, like, it
correlated with the church.Because, you know, this is
something that... We know ourhistory: this is something that
wasn't originally ours, and itwas given to us or forced on us,
(18:02):
I should say, and yet, andstill, we found a way to make it
ours and find, like, some peacewithin it. And it's the same
thing with ballroom, how it cameabout, and just like the
navigation and how we navigatedwith it, and that's why it was
so special. And I just thinkthat's just like a Black
(18:23):
experience. I think that's amarginalized experience. I think
that's like an experience oflike just suffering, like all of
us continuously suffer, but hadto find a way of liberation, of
that peace. And I just lovethat. You know, sometimes the
church of any kind, or religionof any kind, bring that faith to
people. The opposite and the badside is, like, when you're
trying to be too good, you endup doing bad. Like, you know,
(18:45):
it's kind of similar. I know I'mgetting way off topic, but like
with Batman, where was it "darkknight", where he was just like
Two-Face, he was like, you livelong enough to see yourself turn
to the villain. I think that'swhat happened with churches. Or,
like, even, I've seen it inballroom with certain public or
like powerful figures, whereyou're there for a long time and
you want to... You, yourintentions are good, you know
(19:06):
you want good, and you want thatliberation on everybody, but
sooner or later, switch aroundand you weaponize in some way.
So it's very interesting. It'svery interesting of how it all
(19:29):
connects and intersects.
Iman Hill (19:33):
Ballroom, to me, the origin of it, going back to the
conversation in the firstepisode of this podcast, was a
place, or is a place, forrunaway slaves and, and the
slaves in which we're talkingabout, slaves of our own minds,
slaves of our, slaves of ourconditioning, slaves of
(19:54):
everything that we've beentaught to hate about ourselves.
And in that, though, however, intrying to give grace, and then
in the theme of grace, Irealized, and it's something
that I wrote in my notes, isthat we're all wounded people,
even Crystal LaBeija, when shefounded ballroom, this is a,
(20:17):
this... we're imperfect people.You know, as we talk about
humans and the concept of beingsinners. So now you have all of
these wounded people comingtogether in community, and a lot
of us are operating fromunhealed traumas and almost like
survival-based thinking, andit's not love, it's not informed
(20:40):
by love. And so I do give graceto where ballroom has changed
and how ballroom has changed. Itdoesn't make it right, but I
think that there needs to be agreater conversation about how
to shift the focus now that weare in this home base of
community. How can we love, andhow can we not bring our outside
(21:03):
experiences of hatred andbigotry to a place where we love?
Milan Terlunen (21:42):
[Music begins.] The sun is starting to set. It
glows orange across the HudsonRiver as the group discusses
their struggles withperfectionism. [Music ends.]
Shai Pratt (21:54):
It's like in ballroom and in church you deem
to be like perfect. You try tobe perfect in the church, and
you try to be perfect inballroom. And it's like, it's...
Ciara Lyons (22:04):
And I like the topic of like, perfection,
because it's so crazy how, inChristianity, in the ballroom,
we feel like we have to beperfect, so bad, but we have no
examples of perfection. So it'slike, where does this
unattainable desire to besomething that we obviously
can't be come from? And I thinkthe same way in ballroom you
(22:28):
have critics, you have criticsin church too, who just try to
just belittle you or make youfeel like you're not enough. And
I think it's like a cycle wherewe as a community and as a
people are so used to being putdown for hundreds of years just
as a whole, that we tend to dothat to each other and to
(22:49):
ourselves. And so then when wecome into spaces where we feel a
sense of community or sense oftogetherness, we, we, we begin
to honestly dismantle itourselves, because we are so
used to not having anything as acollective. And I hate that for
(23:11):
ballroom and for church, becausethese are two spaces that are
very influential in so manyBlack queer lives. Most Black
people that I know grew up inthe church, and most people,
most Black people that I know upthat are LGBT, are also a part
of ballroom. So to know thatthose two things are so
(23:32):
important to this community, butalso are so detrimental to our
mental health and just how weperceive ourselves is kind of
like, it's weird. It's weird.
Colby King (23:45):
I mean, like you said there, we don't have any
examples of perfection. And Ithink what was always so
confusing for me growing up inchurch and even now in ballroom,
is like the idea that God makesno mistakes, right? So the one
thing that's supposed to beperfect is God. And so I think
(24:07):
for me, when I realized that Iwasn't straight, it made me feel
crazy, because I was like, thenI must, something must be wrong
with me, because God can't be,this can't be possible if this
is not supposed to be somethingthat He created. And I, sitting,
I'm sitting here, and this iswho I am. And then you come to
(24:29):
ballroom, and there'sexpectations that are held for
all people. But you know, likeIman said, we are a microcosm of
the world, and like the categorywhere I walk is Face, so I'm
expected to look a certain waythat I do not. There are
(24:51):
standards that people areexpected to have about what
beauty is, what love is, allthese things that even though
ballroom really was meant to bethe antithesis of a lot of
things that have harmed Blacktrans and Black queer people, we
find ourselves replicating thosesame systems within it and
holding people to standards thatwe can't achieve.
Iman Hill (25:16):
If ballroom is a microcosm of the world, and the
world we live in right now isvery patriarchal and
whitewashed, then Christianityto me is also a product of that
as well. Christianity to me iswhiteness. I mean, honestly,
because I'm thinking about andnone of this have we talked
about the root of AfricanAmerican religions, and not even
(25:38):
African American, Africanreligions. And this idea of
imperfection, just, I mean, thisidea of like, God makes no
mistakes, and all these things.It's like, this is very white.
This is very white. And I knowwe're talking about Christianity
in specifically, but when youstudy Ifá, which is a
Orisha-based faith, we learnthat Olodumare is God, and the
(26:02):
Orishas are emanations of God,and who've had human
experiences, but um, there's a,there's a, there's a PatakÃ,
which in, in, in Christianityyou would call a "proverb" or
"tale" where Obatala, who is theking of the white cloth, is
drunk and he is responsible withthe mind. So when you talk about
Orisha, the root word of Orishais Ori, which means your head.
(26:25):
So if Obatala was drunk, and heis responsible for, for
cognitive thinking, theresponsibility or... the PatakÃ
says that people with mentaldisabilities are a product of
his drunkenness. Because he wasnot able to properly, you know,
configure the the minds of thesepeople. So we have mental
illness because of Obatala. Butthat was, if you would think of,
(26:49):
in God, that would be a mistake,you know. But we are, in my
lived experience, I find thatpeople, sometimes people who are
quote-unquote "mentallydisabled", are some of the most
beautiful and intelligent peoplethat I've ever spoken to, but
not in the norm of the way wethink about it, you know?
Milan Terlunen (27:32):
[Music begins.] The group splits up again to
listen to the second episode onlove with Nigel and Lisa Pearce.
By the time they're donelistening, it's fully dark. The
table we were at before has beentaken over by other people, so
we go sit on some grass in a bigcircle. [Music ends.]
Ciara Lyons (27:58):
I think in both the ballroom community and in
church, love is, is supposed tobe the guiding light to
everything that that we do andparticipate in. But I think that
kind of gets lost in the actionof those two things a lot of
(28:19):
times. But also I feel like inthis episode, the people
speaking were really accountablefor Christianity as a whole. And
Lisa was like, she understandshow, like, churches really hurt
people, and she really didn'twant to be a part of that. And I
think that's beautiful, becausea lot of times churches don't
(28:43):
take accountability. And I don'tthink that is necessarily that
they don't know that a lot ofthings are wrong in that
institution, but I think thatit's like we're, we're too good
to do anything wrong. But whenshe took accountability for just
Christianity as a whole, beinglike an aiding factor in the
detriment of Black people, Ithink that was beautiful, and
(29:05):
it... a big healing thing for alot of us. I think, as people
who come from a Baptistbackground, hearing somebody say
that, yeah, you went to churchand they fucked you up because
they did, but to also be like,but we love you still, and we
want you to come here because wecan offer you something that
maybe you haven't received thatcould maybe change your
(29:26):
perspective on church. Andthat's beautiful to me, because
that's what I was looking forwhen I came to ballroom.
Iman Hill (29:41):
First and foremost, let me just say this. Lisa being
a Black woman. I'm assuming Lisais a Black woman.
It's no surprise to me that she said all of these
Shai Pratt (29:48):
Yeah she is.
things. Why? Because women andpeople who are often the most
marginalized are always, and Iwould say 100% of the time, the
most self-reflective and mostself-aware. It is not lost on
(30:09):
me, or it does not surprise methat the person who is the most
oppressed in the room is able tothink about, how can we include
everybody else? So from aballroom perspective, when Colby
talks about trans women notbeing centered anymore, trans
(30:30):
women are the most self-awareand self-reflective people in
the space. Trans women are alsothe most marginalized people.
Black trans women, excuse me,are the most marginalized and
oppressed people in the world.So it is also not lost on me
that in our reflection, we areoftentimes met with backlash
when we say, "Hey, this is notright, and we need to change
(30:54):
this." You know, she talkedabout expansion and inclusivity
and making ways for other peopleto experience, I guess, the love
that she had felt when she firstcame to the church. But we all
know with expansion, sometimeswe lose... the mission statement
kind of gets lost a little bitwith expansion. And we've seen
(31:14):
that with ballroom. How New YorkCity was the Mecca. You could
only go to a ball in New YorkCity. As we've expanded, things
have changed, and it's not thesame ballroom that... when we
talk about venue. So shementioned the old church that
had the holes in the top of it,right? And to me, I think of the
(31:35):
Elks Lodge. I think of Tracks. Ithink of the Roseland Ballroom.
I think of these places wherethe balls were held and how
dilapidated these places were. Ithink of the pier that we're on
right now. This turf was nothere 30 years ago. It was
actually potholes and concreteand, you know, to the naked eye
garbage, but with loving eyes,like she said, we were able to
(32:01):
see the beauty, we're able tosee the spirituality, we're able
to see the divinity that is thatis housed here. So to tie that
into womanhood, and it's just,it's not lost on me, or it
doesn't surprise me that a womanis bringing this up, you know,
and I think later on in thisconversation, maybe we could
(32:23):
pivot to motherhood and howthat, and how, you know, people
treat Black mothers, and howthat is actually reflective of
how men treat women who aren'ttheir mothers. And yeah, I have
a lot to say about that, butwe're just gonna keep the
conversation flowing.
Colby King (32:43):
Something else, you know, thinking about all these
things too, is like that I thinkthe episode did really well is
in Christianity, like a lot oftimes, love might also be just
like little kids running acrosslike racing across the pier
right now. Love as charity,right and they talk about their
(33:09):
church providing housing forpeople and providing safe spaces
for people to actually be ableto live. And I think there was a
point in time I think that was abig part of ballroom was
providing safe spaces incommunity for people to be able
to survive. I don't know ifeveryone still has those same
(33:32):
missions. Huh?
Milan Terlunen (33:37):
Talk a little louder.
Colby King (33:38):
Talk a little louder. I don't know if everyone
still has that same mission ofloving and supporting one
another, beyond walking theball. Surface-level things. But
it's like love can be so muchand love is also about making
(34:00):
sure that people you care aboutaren't hungry if you can, and
are housed if you can, andfinding community support in
those ways. And I think that is,you know, in a lot of ways, what
the foundation of ballroom wasand was supposed to be. And I'm
not saying it's not. Like theredefinitely are still people that
(34:22):
that is their mission. But aslike all things, and as Iman was
getting to, when things becomemore commercialized, once
capitalism takes its hold onthings, once things become more
mainstream. I love my goodgirlfriend Beyoncé down.
(34:51):
[Laughter.] I love... You know,but I feel like I... What has
happened, in a lot of ways, isthat people don't recognize this
space is something that actuallymeans something, not taking the
(35:12):
time to actually learn about aculture that they want to
participate in. And I'm kind oframbling here because I'm just
thinking about a lot of,thinking about a lot of
different things, but it's likelistening to this episode. I
(35:32):
thought a lot about just howthings have been taken in a lot
of ways. And some people don'teven necessarily see ballroom
not only as LGBT, but I want tobe very explicit to say, like,
ballroom, yes, it's LGBTQ, andspecifically it's trans. It was
started by trans women. But it'sBlack. And I think that... And
Brown. Black and Brown. ButBlack. And lot of the people
(35:57):
that get to represent ballroomoften are not Black, and often a
lot of them these days are noteven trans or even LGBT at all,
and get to vogue on very largestages and claim to represent a
(36:19):
community without pouring anysupport into it. And so it's
always about love is themessage, but losing the charity
and the support that's supposedto come with that, because love
is about more than just seeingpeople. It's about making sure
(36:41):
that you are supporting them.
Ciara Lyons (36:43):
I want to piggyback off that. Because I think when
Lisa was talking and she wasdiscussing her nephew who
transitioned from female tomale, I think that was
important, because a lot oftimes we have family members who
(37:03):
probably wouldn't even mentionthat at all, and as someone who
has an aunt who probably wouldrather die before admitting on a
public forum that she has atransgender niece, I think
that's beautiful to even seeher, to see Lisa mention that to
(37:24):
her husband as like, "You'regood with this, right? Because I
am. Like, so, are you good?"Because a lot of times people
don't even, like, consider that.People don't consider the fact
that people have queer, trans,lesbian, gay, whatever, family
(37:44):
members who could be impacted bythese hateful beliefs that
people have, I think that'sreally beautiful, because she
didn't have to do that, and shedidn't have to mention that, and
she didn't have to make it apoint to make sure that her
husband understood where she wascoming from. Yeah.
Milan Terlunen (38:25):
[Music begins.] A group of drag queens have
shown up on the pier and arehaving their own conversation
nearby. Inspired by Lisa's storyabout Dr Katie Cannon's
(38:48):
ancestor, our discussion movesto the topic of mothers and
motherhood. [Music ends.]
Shai Pratt (38:59):
So I wanna talk about mother. So me and my
mother were very close. Sohonestly, I came out when I was
15 years old, and I'll neverforget I came to the village, I
think I was by the pizza shopthat was up the block, and I ran
into, right, and I ran intothis, this lesbian. I ran into
(39:21):
this lesbian up the block, andshe she grabbed me by my neck. I
will never forget this. Shegrabbed me by my neck, and she
said to me, she was just like,I'm gonna tell everybody that
you out here. So in my hood, ifyou came to the pier, West 4th,
you were, you were deemed gay.At that time I didn't know what
I liked, so I came here. Shedragged me all the way to the
(39:41):
train, I literally was cryingfrom West 4th all the way to
Coney Island. When I got home, Iwoke my mother up, and I was
like, "I have something to tellyou." So my mother was like,
"Oh, my God, did you killsomebody?" I'm like, "No".
She's (39:44):
"somebody's pregnant?" I was like, "No". She's like,
"What the hell you got to tellme?" So I was like, I was like,
"I'm gay". So she was just, "Goto sleep". So the next day, when
she woke up, she, she wasflat-ironing, hot-combing her
(40:06):
hair. And she was just like,"I'ma ask you a question". She
was like, "Do you want to be agirl?" I was like, "What do you,
what do you mean?" She was like,"Do you want to be a girl?" I
was just like, you know... Shesaid, "Because if you wanted to
be a girl, we got to get you onhormones now. I'm not raising an
ugly daughter"
Kalik B (40:21):
Wow...
Shai Pratt (40:21):
So to me, I didn't understand that at that time. I
didn't understand it because I'mjust like, "What? Like, why did
you ask me that?" Because itwas... one time I said, she
asked me who I want to befollowing. I said, Pocahontas.
[Laughter.] I guess I lovePocahontas. So I guess to her,
she was accepting of it then.I'll never forget. When I got
(40:42):
older, I asked her, I said,"You, I'll never forget when you
said that to me, because to me,it was like, you accept me for
who I, who I am." And she toldme she was just like, "It's so
crazy, but you don't know it,but your uncle, your uncle, your
uncle, your aunt. I'm sorry.Your aunt was trans, and she
raised me. So she was like abeautiful woman who raised me.
(41:03):
So if that's what you wanted todo, I was gonna stand by you a
hundred and ten percent. So ifyou, if y'all look on Facebook,
y'all see my mother vogueing andeverything, my mother's been in
the scene for years. So to me,what I when I look at my mother,
I just like, damn, I got a goodmother. Like, but like, I think
I had to come to realize that alot of people didn't have that,
(41:24):
a lot of people didn't havethat. So me seeing that...
[Someone passes by playing loudmusic.] Oh I'm sorry...
Ciara Lyons (41:29):
I grew up with a single mother as well, and I
[Laughter.]
don't have any siblings, so itwas me and my mom up until I was
(41:51):
15, 16. And I think I came outto my mom when I was 13. And
when I came out to my mom when Iwas 13, my mom actually came out
to me as well. When I wasyounger, my mom had a girlfriend
that I thought was just her bestfriend that lived with us for a
while, and she was a veryintegral part of my childhood,
my mom's girlfriend, and so whenI came out to her, and my mom
(42:13):
told me that, and also, my momasked me if I wanted to be a
girl, and I said, "No, no"because that wasn't a
possibility. I didn't know whatthat was. I didn't know that was
an option to me, that was sooutside of my realm of, just
(42:35):
outside of my space, that I justcouldn't even fathom the
possibility of even doing...That whole thing was just a myth
to me. But it was weird becauseshe came out to me, but then she
also kind of made me feelhorrible about my sexuality,
which was weird for me, becauseI'm like, we've kind of had the
(42:58):
same journey to an extent. So Iwould expect you to understand
where I'm coming from, but youdon't. Then she comes out to me
further to tell me that shebroke it off with her girlfriend
then because she don't want meto get bullied in school for
having two moms. And so itseemed like a bit of that
resentment that she held becauseshe couldn't suffer through the
(43:21):
consequences of her ownrelationship, were put onto me
as a burden. So it was okay fora while, and then I was like,
"Wait, but I do want to be agirl". And it went to hell,
because at that point it was: "So you lied to me, because I (43:38):
undefined
asked you, and you told me no."And so, my mom is my best
friend. She was then, when shetold me that, she is now, and
she will be whatever the fuckhappens with me and my mom.
(43:59):
However, it's weird, becausemotherhood, especially Black,
single motherhood, is such ajourney that is so, so, so, so,
so, so traumatizing, but sobeautiful, because the way that
my mother loves me is beyondthis world. And I think that us
(44:23):
all that have been raised bysingle mothers, we understand
that, because as, as horrible assome of the things that my
mother has done to me have been,I know that there's nobody else
ever at all who will ever loveme as hard as my mother does.
And I think that's such avaluable feeling. And I hate
(44:44):
that it comes with, I hate thatit comes with, I hate this kind
of like, a backhandedcompliment. Because while my
mother has made mistakes, againthere, there's no one who could
replace what she has done for meand what she will continue to do
(45:05):
for me in her position in mylife. And in terms of Black
motherhood, as even going backto slavery, we weren't allowed
to raise our children, and wehad to raise the children of the
people who were causing us themost harm, and I don't think
that people realize to this dayhow horribly slavery impacts the
(45:28):
Black woman. I recently read,I'm kind of on a topic, I
recently read Beloved by the.Iconic. Toni. Morrison.
[Laughter.] But reading thatbook...
Milan Terlunen (45:50):
[Music begins.] At this point, we've been
recording for over two hours.And guess what? The batteries in
our recorder run out. Once weput some spare batteries in,
Ciara picks up with a discussionof a book by Toni Morrison.
(46:33):
[Music ends.]
Ciara Lyons (46:38):
In the book Beloved, she began to discuss
how, as Black people beingslaves, she felt like she didn't
control her heartbeat, like shefelt like her heartbeat was
someone else's, like her handswere someone else's. The white
children stole her milk from herbreast when her children were
(47:04):
hungry. And so I think thattotally lends itself to Black
motherhood now with that senseof control. And if you're not
who I want you to be, or ifyou're not living up to what my
expectations are of of you, thenyou're not good enough for me or
(47:24):
for the world. And I think it'sbeautiful now to see that
transformation for my mom,because at a time, I didn't see
a point where we would have agood relationship, and I didn't
see a point where my motherwould be in my life, but now
we're in a totally differentspace. Because I think she
understands that that sense ofcontrol that she felt like she
(47:48):
needed to have over me was justsomething that was forced upon
her by something that she had nocontrol over. And so when she
relinquished that control, Ifelt like that, that totally
changed our relationship. Andthat pertains to ballroom,
because, again, that sense ofcontrol. We are all our own
(48:12):
people. We all do what we haveto do for us. We all feel
differently, think differently,look differently. And I think
once we step back from trying tomake someone who we want them to
be, and let them be who theyare, we'll blossom, because
(48:33):
it'll it'll be true and totalself reflection and not some
constructed bullshit that we areseeing now, in ballroom and in
the church.
Shai Pratt (48:48):
So I was, I was basically going into the, like,
starting from the beginning,like a gay Black man is more
accepted than a trans woman inthe Black household.
Kalik B (48:58):
Well, I think that's...
Shai Pratt (48:59):
But that was, that was the topic.
Kalik B (49:01):
I think that has a lot to do, of like the system and
society we live in, andwhat's...
Shai Pratt (49:07):
And like, why is a gay Black man more accepted in
society than a trans woman?
Kalik B (49:12):
Because he's still a man.
Shai Pratt (49:13):
Because he's still a man, yeah.
Kalik B (49:15):
And men, you know, we run the world...
Iman Hill (49:18):
Definitely.
Kalik B (49:18):
... in a sense.
Iman Hill (49:19):
Definitely. You could still be, I mean, no shade
though. You could still be yourmother's protector as a gay
Black man. You could still beyour mother's provider as a gay
Black man. You could still be,you know, everything that you I
mean, you could still, there's alot of things you can still do,
and you have the privilege ofbeing a man. One thing that I
realized that when Itransitioned, and I say this to
(49:41):
every trans woman that I, whoasks me about transitioning, who
is questioning transitioning, Ialways say like you must
understand that you are... as agay Black man, you have things
taken away from you, or you havemarginalizations and
oppressions, but you are givingup the last bit of privilege
that you have, deciding totransition, because you are now
(50:02):
choosing to be a woman, to be...and I'm not saying "choosing",
as in like, trans is a choice.I'm not saying that. But what
I'm saying is that you areforfeiting the last bit of
privilege that you have in thisworld, which is the fact that
you are presenting masculine. Sothink long and hard about that,
and I didn't realize just how,just how serious that was, until
(50:23):
about maybe six or seven monthsinto my transition. Eight months
into my transition. I realizedthat like, "Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm
speaking in spaces, and nobody'slistening to me. Like I am, I
am... I don't feel as though...I feel like people are hearing
me. They're not listening to me.I feel as though people are not
considering me." And, and what Iwas, what I was witnessing was
(50:47):
the shift in perception. I amnow being perceived as woman, so
therefore this is, these are...You on a whole new set of rules,
baby, and beyond you being aBlack woman, now you a Black
trans woman. So even the littlebit of decorum and cordiality
and respect that we give a Blackwoman, you not getting it. So I
gagged in real time, like I was,like, "Hold on. Like, this is
(51:11):
crazy!" Because I was so usedto... I transitioned when I was
20, almost 21, 21, so I'm usedto these past, you know, X
amount of years, feeling like Iwas on top of the world, like
feeling like I could speak andeverybody would shut up, I could
speak and everybody wouldlisten. And feeling so silenced,
almost like, like it was likenight and day. So we like, we're
(51:34):
gonna repeat these cycles untilwe going back to the root of
finding, finding God. Going backto the podcast - finding God in
you, finding God in, in you, sothat you don't need a church to
tell you how to love God. Youdon't need the ballroom to tell
you how to love yourself, or howto do, to do these things.
Finding that within yourself isgonna take work, and it's gonna
(51:58):
take effort, but that is theonly way to be able to come back
to the space healed. You everseen somebody come back after
having a sabbatical and you belike, "Damn, that bitch is
glowing. What you doing?" Sheloving on herself. Mika, prime
example. Mika, Mika Prodigy.She, she's one of those people
that I could say, if you don'tsee them, if you don't see her
(52:21):
for 6, 7, 10 years, she'll comeback to the ballroom and she'll
she'll light up the whole room.
Colby King (52:24):
The concept of humanity was constructed around
being white, being wealthy,being cis, being a man, and so
if you are not those things...Being Christian in a lot of
places. So when you are notthose things, when you start to
take away those identities, youbecome literally less human. And
(52:46):
I think we have to shift from...And going back to the idea of
church as this place, andChristianity when it comes to
the concept United States andthe Caribbean and even lots of
lots of Africa, but not all ofAfrica, something that was
(53:09):
forced onto many Black people. Imean, even the concept of
Blackness itself was forced ontoBlack people. We were not Black
when we were in Africa. We werepeople. I think what has to
happen is not just seeing peopleas human is... To completely
abolish something is tocompletely get rid of all
(53:33):
limitations and concepts andthings that were created to
define what some people were andwhat other people were not. And
ultimately, the reason why whitepeople are human is because
Black people are not, and Ithink it's the reason why cis
(53:54):
people are human is becausetrans people are not. The reason
why men get to obtain morehumanity than women is, is
because they are men and womenare not men, right? So much of
people's identity is based onwho they are not, so much of
oppression is based on who youare not. Even the Black church,
(54:22):
as opposed to being the white.To this day, the most segregated
place in the United States ischurches on Sundays. Churches on
Sundays are still the mostsegregated space in the United
States, because the Black churchis not a white one, right? And
(54:42):
therefore it's not, to manypeople, a church. And I think in
order to truly change andtransform the world, we have to
ultimately abolish so many ofthese systems that we want to
(55:03):
hold on to. Even the idea ofbeing a human in general has to
be changed in order for us allto be seen as... not necessarily
human but as persons. And worthyof... all equally worthy of love
(55:25):
and equally worthy of securityand equally worthy of being able
to live and thrive. I mean, noteven necessarily thrive - live!
Like I mean...
Kalik B (55:39):
"Thrive" can be so many different things to, you know,
so many people. And I think, toyour point, like, I think it's
so hard to abolish a systembecause it affects everybody so
differently. So they want tokeep the parts that's holding
them in a certain space, youknow. So I think that's the
(56:00):
tricky part, because then, like,how do we go and tell... It's
just a lot, like, it's layered.It's so layered that, like, we
have people that will willfullyknow that wrongdoing is being
done to someone. Or this... Theywouldn't want things done to
them but still allow and acceptit, or turn the cheek, because
(56:25):
they know that "this doesn'taffect me and my privilege and
my understanding of whatreligion may look for me
compared to them, or what thismay look..." So it's a very
layered, interesting thing, andI just think that, like, as a
whole, in, in communities ofchurch and in ballroom, it's the
(56:47):
fear of like, what does thisfuture look like without these
systems? You know, what does itlook like starting from the
ground up, when we never had tostart at ground up? And even
that within itself is aprivilege to certain people of
not having to start from theground up and build and create,
like, a specific reality forthemselves, you know. And again,
(57:11):
that aligns with going back towhat you say as far as
accountability. Accountabilityin church, accountability in
ballroom, accountability in thisworld of like: what part do we
play? Where's the blood on ourhands, or what have we done? And
can we absorb that? And can webe honest with like, those
points that actually are thethings that connect us, like our
(57:32):
wrongdoings, our mistakes arethe things that connect each and
every one of us, None of us,make every perfect decision, you
(58:01):
know?
Milan Terlunen (58:01):
[Music begins.] The pier has started to empty.
As our conversation has gottenmore personal, we find ourselves
speaking quieter and moving intoa tighter circle. After many
(58:26):
stories about the past, Colbyleaves us with thoughts for the
future. [Music ends.]
Colby King (58:35):
I think part of the reason why so... church and
ballroom are so alike is becauseso many people in ballroom are
people that ran away fromchurch. And ran away from
church, still wanting it. Andcreated something and
(58:56):
participating in something thatthey... participate in something
that they do love, but they alsocarried and brought in the
traumas of those same places. Sothere's that. But what do I
think the future looks like?I'll say I'm an afrofuturist,
produced by Olivia Branscum,Colby King, Aya Labanieh and by
(59:21):
very Beyoncé Renaissance, veryalien superstar. And I mean, I
think the future of the world,or the world that I want to see
is one that is Black trans andBlack queer and Black ballroom.
All over. And in a lot of ways,this community has influenced
(59:46):
the world over, whether peoplewill give credit to it or not.
So it already is. I just imaginea world where people actually
know that. Yeah.
(01:01:23):
me Milan Terlunen.
With musical compositions by Stone Butler and
technical support from Evan Liand Ana Maria Rodriguez.
Aya Labanieh (01:01:31):
Thanks to our speakers and to the church and
ballroom communities forinviting us into their spaces.
Thanks also to MarÃa GonzálezPendás and Chris Chang for their
mentorship, and to Humanities NYand Columbia's Heyman Center for
the Humanities, for their support.
Milan Terlunen (01:01:47):
And most of all, thank you for listening. [Music ends.]
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