Translator: Arthur Lesbros Reviewer: Julie Walker
(Applause)
It's a risk to be me.
The Zanesville Y-bridge is a historic Y-shaped, 3-way bridge
that spans the confluence of the Licking and Muskingum Rivers
in downtown Zanesville, Ohio.
I used to stand on that bridge.
I'd watch the Licking with its gurgling pools
meander from the east in a southerly way towards my father's part of town
while the Muskingum rushed south,
its depths whispering tales of transporting American refugees
who fought its current via the underground railroad
towards hopes of freedom.
Its lusty gurgle accompanying my mother on her walks to school.
My favorite view: the rail beneath which the two rivers crashed together,
in a sense, creating something new as they poured out
onto the magnificently wild and unpredictable Ohio River.
I'd contemplate life there in that Y-shaped space.
I am a super proud, black, history-loving, river-running, biologically female-bodied,
transmasculine, gender queer, social activist hillbilly.
(Applause)
I just happen to be one of the co-founders of H.I.S. Kings.
My story actually begins decades before I was born.
My great-grandmother, Florence Elizabeth Ferris Adams,
was a handsome woman with a beautiful deep voice
and hands that were big and strong, manly even,
used to working the plough, wringing chicken necks,
beating the dust out of carpets, and clapping for God.
She held her chin high, back sturdy as a pine tree trunk.
Florence was an avid civil rights activist and didn't take no stuff.
She never met an eye without being direct. She spoke with authority.
Not one cracker even dared to mess with her.
And this was in Zanesville, deep south Ohio,
a hot bed for the KKK.
The risks she took were incredible, yet they elicited respect
and, truthfully, evoked a little fear.
She was just so dag burned bold and righteous.
Big Mama, that's what everybody called her,
was married to a reverend with a wandering eye.
She never divorced him,
most likely due to the scandal it would have created.
Regardless, she chose to be single, a single mother and principal bread winner
for her small family.
She used every resource available to her, not just to get by, but to thrive.
She worked her garden, took in laundry, traded pickles and eggs
and this wonderful relish called cha-cha.
Not an easy feat when you consider she was doing a majority of this
during the Great Depression.
Folks, Big Mama was always a risk-taker.
These risk-taking traits coursed through me like the conflux
of the Muskingum and Licking Rivers, coalescing beneath the apex
of the Y City bridge before rushing and gushing into the mighty Ohio,
giving me subsidence, energy to keep moving on,
historical grit, and though I didn't know it then,
to continue her legacy of risk. Fast forward to me as a little girl.
Saying that I was a tomboy and hated girls' wear
is really an understatement.
And, it did not help that my modelesque sister was the picture of femininity.
I look back on pictures of me then, and, honey, believe me when I tell you,
baaad drag queen.
(Laughter)
They had to have seen it, always the captain
of the starship Enterprise or the SS Minnow,
never the damsel in distress, unless I was Agent 99 from Get Smart,
pretending to be weak, so I could sock'em in the eye.
I drove my mother insane, strutting around like a peacock.
Her words: unbecoming of a budding lady. My word: uugh!
She forbade me, at age 12, to play football with the boys,
because she felt it wasn't fair how hard I was hitting them
and, well, they couldn't hit me back because I was a girl.
Little did she know, I was almost always the queer they were trying to smear,
regardless of whether or not I had the balls.
(Laughter)
See, I'm pretty sure I just scared the crap out of folks.
I used to practice my super fly walk, helped every perfumed lady in church
as best I could.
I actually practiced booming my voice like the pastors did
in preparation for what I believed
would be a commanding career as a preacher.
That is, until my dreams were dashed by learning only men could be preachers,
and that I would have to settle for being a minister's wife,
being careful not to outshine him.
The news was almost as shocking as the fact that the three shirts
didn't hide my budding boobs any more.
And while everybody was so happy,
perhaps relieved, that I was getting breasts,
I was depressed.
It was, and it is, a risk being me.
Big Mama saw me.
Like charting a river's twists and turns, she was always working in tidbits
about how to navigate and to survive.
She constantly reminded me that I was smart,
not just intelligent, but smart to people's ways and how they operate.
She would mentor me: "Speak exactly. Always look a person in the eye.
Not only do you see their truth, allow them to see yours.
There is always a blessing. Often you will have to accept it.
Be proud of your accomplishments and even prouder of your mistakes,
because that's where God is teaching.
We are given faith. You better use it."
I had known since age 8 that I was different.
And since age 14, that it wasn't just because I wanted to kiss a girl.
We didn't have the words "gender queer" or " transmasculine" then.
Though I would wrestle with Big Mama's advice,
college allowed me to let people see me the way she did.
It is there my life would begin a trajectory
that is nothing short of amazing.
In grad school, I would meet Julie Applegate,
and through a series of conversations, we realized we really were just tired
of gay men owning kitch, pop, and gay culture
(Giggles)
We hungered for something more than comfortable shoes
and girls with guitars, the lesbian feminist way of being
in the 1990s.
She was a budding DJ and I, a lover of drag queens.
Julie's friend, Helen Harris and her buddies,
Ivette Domalesky and Sue Steiner, were into this new thing
of female-to-male cross-dressing.
Their first initials gave me an idea for the name of the show
mixed with a play on drag queens. It was perfect!
The H.I.S. Kings Show,
where the best-looking boys just happen to be girls.
On September 13, 1995, I came out on stage as Lustivious de La Virgion.
My drag king, Luster, was a drag queen.
The house was so packed that night, we had to sneak our friends
in the back door and add a second show.
By January, Shauny Sky and Heidi Mattson joined the founders team,
and four years later, we connected with Donna Troka and hosted a conference
called the International Drag King Extravaganza!
In 2017, IDKE will celebrate its 21st year and be hosted once again
in Colombus, Ohio.
Because of H.I.S. Kings and IDKE, I have travelled the world,
encouraging people to be their authentic selves.
I have been heard to say that I don't know how I was able
to be alive, stay in it, stay positive, and so on.
But the truth is Florence E.F. Adams, Big Mama, mentored me, taught me
that risks are every bit worth taking.
I believe we all need risk mentors. Find yours.
Soak up everything they say and do.
Weed out those folks that encourage you to be scared, to stay in your lane,
to stay safe.
Seek beings that are willing to dream with you.
And, hold on tight.
Remind yourself that nothing great
has happened without enormous risk.
Take a big old breath
and live.
A speech writer would tell you to end where you begin,
but a river doesn't do that.
It ebbs and it flows, eventually spilling and spreading
out into the ocean, vast, mysterious, unabashed and free.
Thank you.
(Applause and cheers)