|
PRIDE & Equality commemorates another year of Models of Hope. Celebrating their 9th year, the Vincent R. Johnson Models of Hope Awards honor individuals and organizations that make a difference and can be seen as role models in the community. Models of Hope has created a roster of exceptional honorees over the past eight years, and this year’s nominees are no exceptions. Take a look at who we will be honoring in August.  Community Honoree: Jacquêsán Taylor Stratton How did you get involved with the LGBTQ community? I didn’t become an active member of the LGBTQ community until I moved to Albuquerque in 2010. Before that,I was mostly just out in the club scene, dancing, drinking, and having a good time. One of my best friends who had moved here a few months before me worked with NMAS and asked if I would be involved with a fundraiser for one of our non-profits. This not only introduced me to what it meant to be involved with gays during the daytime (still drunks), but also introduced me to The Dolls of ABQ and to drag! From there, I volunteered with Verge, which was a young people against tobacco team that hosted various shows and parties for all ages but focused on youth. I have volunteered on the ABQ Pride Board as assistant to the director of entertainment and managed the community stage and really just enjoyed meeting people and the entertainers. In 2013, I decided to compete for Miss New Mexico Pride, thank you Jay Decker, not only for the title, but my goal was to make Pride great again. There was a decline in contestants and a lot of bad-mouthing, and I wanted to make Pride something that the drag community wanted to be involved with again. Tell us about your history. What was life like when you were a youth? I’ve always known I was gay since I was a small child. I liked playing outside with the other boys from time to time, but I would much rather be inside ironing Barbie’s hair with the girls. I have always been a creative person with a very vivid imagination, so a lot of times, growing up was difficult. My family went to church. They weren’t super religious, but had a deep faith and involvement within the church. So, I was always there… from music lessons, choir practice, church dance groups, to Christian boy scouts’ groups. I’ve been the church decorator, janitor, choir director, worship leader, travelling soloist, sunday school teacher, youth leader, junior deacon, live radio program singer, and I’m probably missing a few things. In school I was a pretty good student. I made good grades, and stayed out of trouble for the most part. Being in a military family, we moved every 4 years, so I don’t really have any lifelong friendships. Pretty sure I went to 9 different schools. I was always in choir, and band, I ran track, and did JRROTC. My family was loving but not always supportive of my extracurricular activities, which made it a challenge to stay involved. It seemed like they were always trying to suppress me and my gayness. I did my best to make them happy and not act on my impulses, but there were way too many incidents that my parents decided I needed to be punished for. Would I go back and live my youth again knowing what I know now? Hell no. What was the changing moment in your life that led to you wanting to make a difference and live life as the real you? There was not ONE changing moment in my life that led me to wanting to make a difference and live my life as authentically as possible. There...have been several moments that make up this puzzle of my life, and I am still missing several of the pieces. A good friend of mine from a very traditional Hispanic family would always try to hide the fact that he was gay from his family. I didn’t feel I needed to hide but also felt that it wasn’t a lot of people’s business. When I was living in Clovis and working at the church with the youth, some information came out about me, and one of the other youth leaders decided that I should not be allowed to work with the teenagers or children anymore. She felt because I was gay, I was a pedophile, and perverted, and more of a sinner than her. She took this information to our pastor, expecting him to discard me and push me out of the church. Meeting with him, I felt all the shame that I had felt when I was younger and my dad would catch me with pornographic material, or worse, trying to pleasure myself. But you know what my pastor did? He loved me even more. We sat down, and he really got to know me. He is probably one of the only people, to this day, I have fully confided in with the sexual assaults and unwanted advances that happened to me growing up. He took me away from everything I was involved with in the church for 9 months, and we went through a program called Freedom from Your Past. We dealt with all the anxieties, stress, shame, and guilt, that made me who I was to that date. It was so freeing to know that even though I was severely damaged, that I was important, that I made a difference, that I could be exactly who I wanted to be, or I could create my best self and allow others to see who I was, instead of hiding behind what I could do. After the program, I went back to my duties in the church, but I knew I needed something different, because I was different. So I moved to Albuquerque. There was still rejection from people I had known for years, that I was actually being my gay self out loud and unapologetic, but I let those people go. My female illusion persona, Jacquêsán, was created to breathe new life into Bryan. She resuscitated me. Drag allowed my life to blossom. I have met so many wonderful people because of drag. People that love and believe in me, and in turn have allowed me to express my love out loud and be a better person. What piece of advice would you give today LGBTQ youth? I think the number one problem young people face is identity. Who am I? Well, my advice is simply to take your time, don’t rush. Life is made up of the moments, and the journeys, which include heartache, as well as goodness. The mistake I made was allowing other people to shape me instead of just being myself. My parents didn’t like who I was at times, but they came around. I lost a lot of people who I thought were my best friends when I came out, but the friendships I have gained are beyond amazing. I would rather live in my truth and be content with who I am, than live a lie my entire life to please someone else.  Community Honoree: Brittany Renee Ameson How did you get involved with the LGBTQ community? I organized my first protest in support of the LGBTQ community in 2011. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I literally improvised the entire action with the guidance of a few close friends. But, guess what?! A TON OF PEOPLE SHOWED UP! After that, I was asked to join GetEQUAL NM, a grassroots organization that takes bold actions to liberate the LGBTQ community. I organized with GetEQUAL for five years and met some of the most influential people I will ever know. I have participated in more actions than I can count now, but I am still grateful for all of the people who showed up that day. Tell us about your history. What was life like when you were a youth? I grew up with four brothers—and parents that were addicted to drugs/alcohol. I moved out of my family’s house when I was almost 17 years old. When I was 18 years old, my father lost his life to an overdose. I spent most of my youth studying my ass off in school, working full-time, and creating community. My life was tough as a young person, but there is a happy ending. My mom eventually became my best friend in the entire world. She turned her life around and is one of the most ferocious allies in my life. I honor my story because it helped me become the resilient person I am today! What was the changing moment in your life that led to you wanting to make a difference and live life as the real you? I was the State Lead of GetEQUAL NM as a junior at the University of New Mexico. At the time, I considered myself to be a “straight ally.” Funny, right? That was until I heard the word pansexual, and I realized that I had finally found a term that matched my sexual orientation. Shortly after that, I started dating someone who was part of the LGBTQ community. As a white, cis, feminine person, my experiences were very different than his. Realizing these differences led me to doing more anti-racism work. White male faces continue to dominate the LGBTQ movement, and although I think it is starting to change, we still have a lot of work to do. What piece of advice would you give today’s LGBTQ youth?
 Community Honoree: Josh Garcia/Seliah DeLeon How did you get involved with the LGBTQ community? I got involved with the community shortly when I came out at the age of 18. Not knowing gay people my age, a friend introduced me to a program called MPower, now known as NMPower. There, I met many friends that I have ‘til this day. In June 2005, at the age of 21, I discovered the nightlife of Albuquerque, where I was introduced to drugs, drinking, and partying. In 2008, I decided that I wanted to make a change in my life from the partying, drugs, and drinking….I soon was introduced to ABQ Pride, [which} was in the process of bringing back the AIDS/HIV walk. From there, I got involved with giving back to my community through the art of drag. Tell us about your history. What was life like when you were a youth? Early on in my young life, I had the normal childhood—a father, a mother, a sister. Like most families, there were many secrets that my family had and kept. My father was a womanizer [and an] alcoholic who would get into arguments and physically and mentally abuse my mother so that he had a reason to leave. In the fall of 1992, my mother made a decision to no longer be a victim but to be a survivor, and she left my father and moved my sister to a small town outside of Pecos. Growing up, I went through many struggles, from starting a new school [and] being sexually molested to being teased and being called homo [and] faggot. I found myself keeping to myself, isolating myself from friends, family. At one point...in junior high, I even had suicidal thoughts.  What was the changing moment in your life that led to you wanting to make a difference and live life as the real you?
The changing moment in my life that made me want to make a difference and live life as the real me was in my mid-twenties [when] I was partying, drinking, and using drugs. It became so bad that I was blacking out and not remembering what happened the night before. One day, I woke up naked in the middle between two guys not knowing where I was or what I had done. I left right away, and throughout that whole week, it really bothered me—how my life going and where I was heading. I looked into ways to get involved with the community and use my time to give back. I saw on Facebook that an organization by the name of Albuquerque Pride [was] looking for volunteers to help bring back the HIV/AIDS walk. I thought, “Why not?” I had been part of the M'Power program and thought it would be a great way to get involved. Little did I know, that would be the start [of my] being involved with the community. Shortly after volunteering with the gay community, a friend of mine passed away from HIV. Losing him in such a short time frame...made me want to become more of an advocate with our community. What piece of advice would you give today’s LGBTQ youth? The advice that I would give to the young LGBTQ youth is be yourself. Never let anyone bring you down. Just like the rainbow flag, we are all different….[E]mbrace that.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
P&E - After PrintHere are some of the latest articles and topics in the GLBT community. Archives
June 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed
