But, she adds, “it’s not just me,” before rattling off a list of others who have contributed to either the visibility or wellbeing of transgender people, and who have been doing the work for years. “So it’s not about what I have brought to Elektra, it’s about a community that has opened up, and has been fighting so hard that a character like Elektra was possible.”
“Ball culture saved my life, and many people don’t understand that,” she explains. “But ballroom is where I found chosen and proven family. Ballroom is what gave me the strength to be able to be strong enough to go back to my family and try to reclaim what was lost. So, I am not just someone playing a part. I’m someone that has lived this part.”
“She came up to me and said I was going to hurt myself if I kept dating the person who I was attempting to date…” she recalls. “She walked up to me that day and held my hand and said to me, ‘I will not see you go down this path.’ And I had no idea who she was. I looked at her like, ‘I don’t know you and you’re blocking me!’ God bless her soul. Years later I realized that she saved my life, so ballroom saved my life. It was because of the ballroom culture that I’m able to stand before you.
“So, when we talk about Pride and Stonewall and the movement,” she says, “let’s remember this was not a ‘riot’ [as it is often referred to], it was a rebellion,” in response to a masquerading ordinance that said everyone had to wear at least one item of clothing that corresponded to his or her birth sex.
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