As a black person of non-gender-conforming experience, my first existentially reciprocal and affirming experiences were in the New York ballrooms.
Slowly but surely, little by little, many different groups of vulnerable bodies and people have been targeted from since the beginning of time, from since the beginning of the construction of America and all the civilizations from around the world pre-colonially.
As a person of color, I feel like I'm socialized to feel like a remnant of poverty or something primitive, and I don't feel like that at all. I can be myself and be me.
If you tell a narcissist that someone is less than them in any way, they feel gratified; they feel very good about that.
Laverne Cox, Isis King, Janet Mock, Our Lady J, Ryan Murphy, Steven Canals, the people I've met growing up, and even me - all have inspired me to see that it is possible to get far anywhere and that the capacity for positive and motivating influence is truly unlimited.
I think of makeup as more like a design, decoration, or jewelry. I mean, it's literally paint; it's art. I don't prefer to use it as concealing anything because it influences the illusion of standardized perfection.