 All Indigenous and First Peoples of the land and space in which we live and breathe, especially today as we recognize it is Indigenous Peoples' Day. For our community at Haaland College, we recognize that we are on sole land and occupied Duwamish, Coast Salish, Muckleshoot, and Piaw lands. We want to thank all relations and tribes today as we prepare to hold space as a community. We recognize that all of us are joining this conversation from different locations through Zoom. So we also want to let us also acknowledge the Indigenous and First Peoples of the land and space in which you currently occupy. Further, we respectfully acknowledge the enslaved people, primarily of African descent, who provided exploited labor on which this country was built with little to no recognition. Today, we are indebted to their labor and the labor of many Black and brown individuals that have continued to work in the shadows for our collective benefit. And with that, I would like to pass it now on to Gio. Thank you, Maya, so much. Thank you so much for grounding us this morning on our first program for the 11th annual LGBTQIA Week here at Haaland College, honoring the past, healing the present, curing the future. Good morning, everyone. I want to just say happy LGBTQIA Week to you all. My name is Gio Mark Manahampanello. I use he, him, his pronouns, and I serve as the mentorship programs, leadership advisor at the Center for Cultural Inclusive Excellence. I have the honor of being the chair for the 11th annual LGBTQIA Week 2021, honoring the past, healing the present, curing the future. When we were brainstorming for a theme this year, the committee wanted to connect what we, what had happened in the past to the current situation and what our future could and should look like. Our theme this year looks at the struggles, the challenges and success of the LGBTQIA communities from across history. We have five amazing programs that will explore, highlight and celebrate experiences of LGBTQIA communities. We know that a week isn't enough and it will never be to honor the lives of our LGBTQIA community. But we do hope that it is a start and you continue to do so. We want you all to share what you learned from this week out there to your community. Before I introduce our presenter for today, I want to take this time to thank you all for being here. We appreciate your support. It does not matter whether this is your 11th year joining us or this is your first LGBTQIA Week event. What matters is that you are here today. You're ready to listen and learn. And I would also like to thank this year's LGBTQIA Week planning committee members, Amy Bergstrom, Betty Vera, Doris Martinez, Edwina Fui, Jenoa Wingo, Joshua Magallanes, Canton Westerfield, Maya Lennard, Robert Scribner, and Stephanie Ojeda Ponce. Throughout the summer, these individuals have been meeting weekly to make this week. So let's show them some love on the chat, give them a shout out. And now I'm excited for y'all to meet our first presenter for the week. I had the pleasure of seeing them perform this weekend at a fun drag brunch. Our presenter is the first Black trans woman in the Pacific Northwest to start and found her own house, the eclectic beauty house known as the House of Monet. Currently standing in Washington State, they are the oldest running house since its creation in 2018. She's known in her community for snatching trophies, her stunning looks, and breathtaking witty performances. Using both glamour and humor, she's sure to keep an audience beyond entertained. So let's all welcome Tina Shea Monet. Hello, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for that marvelous introduction, Gio. And thank you as well, Maya, for entering us into this space. As said before, my name is Tiana Monet, aka Tina Shea Monet for everyone that knows me and seen it in the nightline. I am from Seattle, Washington, aka West Seattle, or what's also known as Unceded Dormish Land. And I just wanted to start off by thanking everyone for coming here and tuning in on this marvelous afternoon. And I just wanted to open up with what we were talking about today, and that is love and not just any kind of love, but it's self-love and the power in me and what stands behind loving yourself because the greatest love of all is self-love. Because as a famous cross-dresser once said, if you can't love yourself, how can you love anybody else? Somebody here knows. Let me get an A man, somebody in the comments and we'll see it. There we go. Here. So I want to talk about what the journey of loving myself insists of, what that meant to me and how did I get on this road of self-discovery and love because it took a long journey for me to get to where I'm at today to look how I look, talk how I talk, and walk how I walk. And that basically just came from a place in my life of knowing that I didn't really see anyone that looked like me. I didn't see anyone that talked like me. I didn't see anyone that moved around and operated in life like me. That for a while through a lot of my childhood and a lot of my youth had brought me a lot of pain and hurt, feeling like I was just the only one and that I didn't feel seen in anyone or I didn't feel like anyone could see me. And I feel like what I took with that, what I took with that pain and what I took with those life lessons, I molded into something new. And with that being said, from that road that is less travel, I took that mission and I took that journey to take up that space, the space that I was going into looking for blindly thinking that someone was coming to be my golden light or my shining example. When that wasn't shown to me, I think it took me to reach inside to see that that person who I was looking for was me all along. And that I have to lead by example being that the example was not set. I have to set the standard. Whenever you walk into a room, and this is especially vital for my LGBT family. I want you all to know that when you walk into a room and you feel as if there's no one there that looks like you or there's no one else that you can be inspired by yourself in. Just know you're most likely that person in the room that someone else is looking for as a guiding light. You are definitely that person that someone's definitely trying to find themselves in. Excuse me, I just bought my life. But I wanted to say that because there's been so many times where I enter spaces and I'm unsure how to maneuver I'm unsure how to move I'm unsure how to, I guess, take my role and take my place. And with that being said is if you don't see anyone doing it, you are the one doing it, you can't see anyone ahead of you, because they're behind you you're leading the pack and I don't feel like a lot of people are aware of this. Goal or this blessing this duty that's put upon you, let me find my SAT words y'all get into it. I feel like people don't realize that, you know, even though you might not feel like it on the inside. But someone's looking up to you and that's anyone and everyone in the world right now, no matter how much you might not feel like your leader everyone has a little bit of a leader inside that this is coming from me a Leo. You know us leels were the leader of the voting act so I carry that very true to my heart. But with that being said you have to create these opportunities for yourself. If you don't see these opportunities, you create these opportunities, you make way in pain the way that you want to see. If there's no road in front of you baby that's because you're building it, you just don't know you're building it. That is honestly how I personally came into this attack ballroom scene. And when I went to my first ball out in Portland, Oregon, it saved my life. I've been a performer for about two years prior to step into ballroom as a drag queen as a former nightlife queen, you know, queen of the night. And I always felt like that was, I felt like it was a I felt like it was cute, but there was always something missing. I didn't see any six foot one tall black drag queens out there doing what they were doing I didn't see that. And I thought there was something wrong with me I thought there was something missing with me and I thought that I was the problem. But little did I know, because I did not have the self love at the time that I was the leader I was the person who was coming in and making these these changes to what this scene knows itself as to now today. And when I stepped into ballroom, my eyes just opened, and I was like, Wow, I am not alone. These are my people these are the these are the people in life that I've been looking for for so long. This is the family that I've been needing. And even within that, I still didn't see nobody they look like me now, don't get confused. Nobody looking like me and I said, Well, if no one's looking like me. And there's no one that I can look up to. And there's no one that I can take notes from. The only thing for me to do at this point is to become the resource and to become the blueprint if you may. And that's where I ended up starting my own house. I just felt like there wasn't really anyone in this scene or in life at the moment for me that I could look up to me to take notes from. And I figured with all the trials and tribulations of life that I've been through, for anybody that knows anything, a wise man knows they know nothing at all. But with that being said, I knew that with the knowledge that I have, I'm still growing, I'm still changing I'm still evolving I'm still learning to love myself I'm still loving myself more and more every day, sometimes less more. It all depends on how you uphold yourself and how you look to yourself and what you see for yourself. As long as you keep that optimistic eye open, and you're always looking for the better for improvement, you'll never fail. You'll never fail anything in life at that point is just a stepping stool or an opportunity for you to grow, evolve to flourish to blossom. And I take all of my learning practices and all of my experiences and all of my trials and tribulations of life. And I take those stepping stones for me to evolve for me to take the next steps that I do need to further and encompass. I told y'all bring up SAT words today. Okay, so look, I'm like, like a little stuck every now and then and pause the words in there. Um, it's just something that you take to level yourself up. You know, if anyone knows what a diamond is, you don't know what diamonds are diamonds or girls that's bad. Diamonds start out as cold rocks underneath the ground dirt. That's a special, but what's applied to that dirt what's applied to that soil is pressure, pressure constantly all of your trials tribulations all I could say trials and tribulations don't be kind of better word, all of your struggles in life, all of your downfalls, everything that is taken for you, or taken at you that you feel like you know this too much. These things are used to apply pressure to you. So that way that dirt in the soil. Eventually, she becomes the diamond. She blossoms she flourishes and she comes out of that dirt a full fledged diamond. What you do with diamonds, baby, you want them, you show them and you show that inner love and that inner peace that you have on yourself. You let the world see because maybe the world's already watching. They already know, but it's your goal and it's your job to have that love for yourself. All your experiences happen for a reason all of the bad things all of the crying nights lonely nights. You all know, all the six of wine that you might have to be through. It's all for a reason it's called character development. We all need character development and that's what makes a diamond. That is what we call perseverance. I told you I don't like these as a two words out tonight. Tell me I'm going to get a dive all of these words. So for me, that is how I came into the scene to say, I need to create what I don't see. I need to create what I want, because I have the experience. I have the knowledge and all that it takes for me is to look into myself with the love that I have for myself. And further take those issues or those afflictions and turn them into something new. You turn those bad things, those weapons, those everything negative, and you turn it into something positive. Whenever I go through something in life. And I just feel like it's too much I just go, often to be a bad bitch after this. Excuse my language, but I'm going to be a bad bitch after this because I know I'm stressed. I'm going through it my hair feels like it's thinning y'all can't see a little dining and see it. I've been feeling like I'm just going through it I can't make it through. But when I realize all of these things that I'm going through are what it takes to get to the next level you can't go through the next level whenever you're in life and you feel like you're at the top of the food chain baby. Let me tell you, you're not. I think the greatest piece of advice that I received this from my cousin and she told me I was fourth grade going on fifth, or was I fifth going into sixth, it don't matter. I was going up a grade I was going up a new scale and new journey in life. And she told me, baby, I'll let you know this, you can always be the small beta, the beta fish in the pool, you will always be the small fish in the pool. You know why? Because once you overgrow that pool that you went now, you're going to get shifted into another tank. When you get moved into that new tank that new journey in life, you will be the small fish again. And you have to grow constantly evolve. And I feel like with love and with self love, it's an ongoing journey. You're going to have to have new times in life where you look in the mirror. Sometimes you might feel like oh I don't see it. And then the next morning after that, oh baby, you see this skin. You see this. Oh, I feel it. You know, it's an ongoing journey. There's no such thing as perfect. There's no such thing as perfection, even though it's a goal that I strive for, which doesn't exist, which tells a lot about me. It's just something that you have to constantly give yourself grace. You have to constantly give yourself the power and the patience. That's the word that I want to use. You have to give yourself the patience to continue moving. Life is hard. We go through it. We got bills. We got social things. We got anxiety. We got all these things in life. But all of these are put into your life and they're put into your path to help you grow, to help you move, to help you evolve. Just like with the little fish, to the big fish story, like you're always going to be the small one. But the journey would be in the small one is that if you keep feeding yourself, you feed your soul, find yourself something that you might. Read a good book. Read a good anime. Read a good manga. Watch a good anime. Read a good manga. Okay. I'm reading Jojo right now. We love the Jojo's Adventure. You've got to find you something. You've got to find you something that you love in like a plant. You've got to nourish yourself. We all nourish ourselves. Everything in life nourishes ourselves. You've got to have your water, your food. You've got to have what you need. These are the things that you need to take time for yourself to grow. You can't just grow with no problems. You can't become that diamond without that pressure. You can't do these things on your own and feel like you're going to get somewhere because if you travel through life, feeling like you're at the top of the top, baby, you still have small fish. You still have room to grow. You always have room to grow. With that being said, I feel like the biggest thing that you just have to take is giving yourself the time and giving yourself the patience and the ability to feed into yourself. You know, not your ego, but feed it to yourself. Feed into what you need. The egos are going to always be there. We all have ego. Everybody has a little bit of an ego. You know, growing up, we had Shigo in Kim Possible. And I said, she's a bad girl. I like her. But aside from Shigo, you know, you got the ego. You don't want to feel that. You want to feel the inside. You want to feel the heart. You want to feel the soul. I'm a comedy girl, so I might go on these tangents. I might go on these random tangents. Please excuse me. It's how I talk. It's how I process. Y'all understand. Y'all just have to understand that you just have to continue giving yourself what you need to grow. Sometimes you might not feel like you have everything and that's okay. That's a part of the journey of loving yourself. Just like going natural with hair. Like, it's not always going to look good. Some days you're going to look in the mirror and be like, ooh, baby, it's short. But it's not going to be short forever unless you want it to be short and warm. We love short hair. We love long hair, but it's all a journey is what I'm trying to say. And how that ties into me and ballroom. It's all a journey. I never thought that I would be known as a leader or a blueprint or something like that. But when I realized that this is something that is under me, this is something that I have to uphold and uplift, it's an honor. And it's something that I look forward to every day waking up in the morning and seeing my family texting the group chat coming from a family personally where my grandma had nine kids. All her nine kids had kids and my dad was the youngest out of the whole group. So I already came into the game with a biological family that's just huge out of this world. And with that being said with that family, I never felt seen. I never felt embraced. I never felt the attention on me and when I did find the attention on me was never in a positive way. That's what they could always see that that diamond in the rough in me, my whole family saw it, but they only saw it as the dirt in the soil first. They couldn't acknowledge the sparkle that I had with it. And when I knew that when I was of age to separate myself from that, and to put myself in a more positive surrounding where I can grow and change involved on my own without anything or constrictions or anything like that placed on me. I flourished, and it honestly happened quite instantly and sometimes it's not a matter of what you're doing, but it also matters on where you surround yourself in and where you put your energy and your time into. It doesn't matter if you have the most immaculate blueprint for a house or mansion out there you get the finest contractors and builders and all the money can buy. If you build that house on sand is going to fall. If you try and build yourself and love yourself on sand. It's going to fall. Some people might not want to hear this but some friends that you have or some people in your circle might be that you can. And if you don't get yourself on that solid foundation on a solid branch of people and loved ones who are going to support you uplift you through the bad. If they can't see through the bad baby, they don't deserve to see that you're good. And that's something that I feel like everyone needs to take in and out for me was a lesson that took me so long to learn. And once I learned that it ties back into self love, because when you love others so much, but they don't get back into you or they can't get back into you. That's not loving yourself. I think a better analogy is you have a cut. Everyone has a cut. When you put water in that cut your nourishing yourself when you're reading your favorite books when you're watching your favorite shows listening to your favorite music that's filling up the cut baby. When you have a full cut, you pour that cut out and others you pour that cut out and the people who are around you surround you, who you want to uplift the baby eventually if you don't refill that cut, people go on empty, and you can't travel on empty. You can't build a mansion on Sam. That's just not something that is possible. And that's something that all has to do with changing your surroundings. When I went into ballroom, I changed my surroundings I changed my circles. There isn't necessarily shade to the people who were in my life before, as I said, in order to become that diamond, you're going to need those afflictions those challenges and those things that are in your life. You're going to need those people, they help for your character development but when it's time to grow and blossom and be that diamond who you really are. You need to make sure that those people around you are the best of the best. You need to make sure that you're surrounding yourself by people who love you, who support you. That's why you fill your cup. When you're pouring out your cup, they pour right back into you. And that is love. That's self love. That's everything that you need and that's everything that you need to flourish. I feel like, you know, that's all I really need to even say. And I'm more than excited to answer all of our Q&A. Let's see the questions filling up in the chat, chat, chat, chat, chat right now. I appreciate everyone watching but I'm also going to have to take this time to pass our mic right on over to Father Zendemone and let them tell their story and let them give y'all a little insight. Hello, my name is Zendemone, aka Fossumone. I also grew up here in Seattle on the city of Duwamish land. I grew up in the Central District and in that time I grew up in a very large family. I am one of 10. So growing up in that kind of environment is very hard to gain a sense of foothold. So you're constantly combating and competing with your siblings trying to gain some form of attention and with 10 siblings, parents can't give attention to all of them. And so you had everyone's fighting around for that same kind of attention but no one's really going to get that pool. And so for the majority of my life, I spent a lot of time just really trying to step into that limelight without actually trying to find things that actually built me and made me. And so as I started to grow up, I started to really like realize like over time that you know, self-love is the backbone of who you are in life. It's how you become like your actual genuine self and how you find new things about yourself that you never thought you would find. And over time, I would try and start actually, you know, getting into things that I would like bring into my family and try and like, you know, get my mom to like sign me up to things. And a lot of times growing up just because also about myself, I didn't really know what it meant to be queer or what it meant to have that within myself, but it was something that was fighting that I didn't even know. And so I would often come to my mom about things that I really want to do like gymnastics, you know, acting, dancing, a lot of things like that. But being the standard of how people put into the world as far as what is defined as masculine and what is treated and respected as masculine, a lot of times you got to deny it. And so over time, the feeling of self-worth and self-love begin to diminish within myself. And it took a very long time to build that back up. And I just remember always, you know, after a certain point, probably around like middle school, I decided to try and just take the background of it. Notice that things weren't being paid attention to you as much that I wish or wanted to. And so my solution was to step back and just wait, wait, you know, until my moment came. And once I got to high school, I began to gain a lot more, you know, control over my life and the things that I engaged in. And in that time, I started to investigate and like find more of myself in different things such as poetry. I did speech and debate, and I really just started to widen my scope on the things that I actually love to do. In that time, I also learned, you know, about my career identity and learning that, honestly, that's another thing about career identity is more of a journey. So even at that point, I was still only at the starting line for that. I came out as five first, and do time learn more about myself to find that I was more that I was in. And from that point on, I learned more about myself to find out that I do identify as non binary. And so there was a lot of time and a lot of growth that went into that. And I started to just learn over time is that you can't rush anything. That's worthwhile anything that's worth your attention or worth your love is going to take some hard work. Because at the end of the day, those are the things that are going to build you up. Those are the things that are going to make you feel whole within yourself. And it's really hard to find those things. But that's in those moments where you have to really like get out of your comfort zone and find those things, because they're not going to come. They're not going to just come to you. You got to work on it, you got to find them. And that's where borrow really came into play for me is like, even after high school, you know, there are still a lot of things that didn't quite make sense to me. I'm not having as many friends or as any people that were within my mother's pod, within my same sense of mind. I didn't really have any too many people to actually look around to for advice, and to actually build on those things that make me. So I spent a lot of I spent a lot of my time within the hip hop community. I'm also a rapper so like for me, my release of self release of like self expression was within hip hop and poetry. And many of you might know, as of around the 2016 era, there are a lot of the hip hop culture was very much based around heteronormative views. And so for me is I spent a lot of my time, essentially master the heteronormative self. And with that being said, it's kind of hard to express that kind of vibe and like, especially like, express yourself in totality. And so I spent a lot of my time suppressing what I actually felt within myself. As far as my friend and go, go with because I felt that if I was going to flourish within the hip hop community. There are certain sacrifices that I would have to take. But little did I know that that was not true. So over time, I spent a lot of time within that community, but over, it began to weigh and it began to drain me to a deeper level, and I had to take a step back. And it hurt me, you know, because at the end of the day is I did enjoy doing hip hop and doing poetry but it did very much drain me and how it's navigating that space. And so over time, I began to, I began to like, look into myself and think about what part of that brought me down. And I began to look back and notice that a lot of it was because I wasn't loving myself. I wasn't loving the parts myself that actually made me, you know, who I actually am today. And so I had to take a step back and look into that and actually find a lot more of myself and start to actually rework myself in the sense of how I wanted to display my art. And since then, I have, what do you call it, since then I have found out that I actually love not just poetry and hip hop, I also love modeling. I also learned that there was just a lot more of exposure with himself and then when ballroom came around to me, which is what me and Tiana said, I realized that there was so much more within me that has just been really thought about. And having ballroom around me allowed me to, you know, find in like really dig deep into the self love of myself and like actually start to like bring out more of that creative self bring out more of that creative vibe bring out that more genuine me. And so I started to, I remember the first ball that I walked, I had previously went to like two ball prior, but I just remember watching and like seeing everybody like feeling their oats, having fun, enjoying themselves. And I was like, I'm going to walk because at that moment I felt like this is my space, this is my community, and this is where I feel like I can flourish. I was on the panel, and I was judging that ball. And I had, I was like, you can walk. I said no. You should walk. You have a nice walk. You've got good stage presence. You walk. No. I said, oh, okay. And so I got there. I sat around I watched everybody and then I was like, why not. Like, this is an amazing space. This is where this is the place where I feel I can take space. And so I went for it. And in that moment, I felt like a flood, like just a fury of just love and just self motivation within myself and just like knowing that feeling having that feeling was very foreign to me for a long time. And so getting that vibe and actually being able to feel that out and have something come back to me that I didn't, you know, expect to come from that was very refreshing. And that in its own like brought a different view of perspective about myself and how I wanted to carry myself and how I wanted to also like encourage others to get get themselves into the mindset and into spaces in which they can also feel like themselves to their fullest. So after that, I spent a lot of a little bit of time like actually thinking about how I can affect the community and how I can actually get more people within the spaces such for borrow and how they can use those spaces to actually, you know, you know, display the most of their to the best of their capability. And that was when I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be the house father and me and Tiana had conversations and honestly is been a really loved journey since then. And I've been able to meet new people in children and get them into volume spaces, helping them be able to actually like learning different parts themselves in different ways in which they can express themselves and being able to see that and see them grow in those spaces, even still currently growing into those spaces is honestly so lovely to see because it's a resource that I wish that I had when I was younger. And within like our house, especially within our dynamics, we try to make sure that we, you know, influence or put forth that we are family first, and that we try to speak up about the things that we want within our community within our family, which comes to our first rule within our house, which is say so. We built that rule, because a lot of us, a lot of us have grown up in families where we didn't feel like we could do that. And that being so it created a lot of trauma within many of us and I know it definitely did within myself and made me feel as though there are a lot of space in which I could not speak up and not say so. And so being able to create that as our first rule and actually be able to like uplift our children to be able to do so, create a positive narrative and honestly a positive just community in general being able to speak your mind and being able to speak when somebody either as Harvey has brought yourself work to a point that you didn't think it would and allowing you to exercise self love so that you can actually become a better person and not only that help those around you become better people. And so my journey is over just begun. I want to be able to continue to push that journey to be able to bring more people into the space of, you know, being able to find themselves and know just bring out that genuine self that hasn't been seen for a long time. And that all starts in forever will start and then with self love. So I want y'all to really think about these kind of things, think about how you are looking into yourself and how you are navigating your spaces and think about whether or not you are taking the time to say so. Think about whether or not you are taking the time to express yourself to your fullest and think about whether or not you are in the actual space where you feel comfortable to do so, because if you are not is stifling. And you have to be able to put yourself inside the communities inside the spaces that you want, or that you feel is comfortable in order for you to grow and become the person that you want to. And with that being said, I want to pass it back to you. Thank y'all so much for having us here. And thank you for being a lovely and receiving audience and we look forward to your questions. So let's give it up for the monies. Thank you all so much. So we do have our break at 1250. We do have questions and Q&A we can go ahead and start if that's okay with the monies with some of the questions. Just knowing that some of the attendees that we have might have to go to class might move to a different classroom. So let's go ahead and start question on Maya. I invite you to come here and co-host with me if that's okay. The first question on our list is what the things you do are just for the sake of others' happiness. So I think this is talking about loving yourself and making sure that you're doing things that is for your own good and that it makes you happy. But what if the things you do are just for the sake of others' happiness? Let me talk a little bit. So when I was talking earlier about the cup scenario, when you, I guess, look at yourself as a cup, a cup of water, wine, whatever, whatever floats your boat, floats your boat. When you are constantly taking your cup and you're taking the things that you need for yourself and you're pouring it into others, eventually after a while, even if it does bring you happiness, you can't continue pouring into your cup and you can't continue pouring into others' cup. You can't continue giving unto others without giving something back to yourself. At the end of the day, even if it does bring you great joy, there's still going to be a time that you need to recharge that social battery. I can talk to everybody and talk to, or talk about all of our afflictions going on, what's hurt us throughout the week. And eventually, even though it brings me joy to talk about these things and to create these conversations, you're going to have to get back to yourself. And that might not be taking yourself out to a shopping spree or something like that. It could be a nice little bubble bath, something really simple. Light a candle, then you turn off the lights, get your back massager, you know, hit up the massage chair. Something that is simple like that is what helps you refill your cup. Doing things like that are what allows you to continue manifesting into yourself so that way you can continuously give up to others. All right, thank you. And I'll just go with the next question. What is your favorite hobbies or what are your favorite hobbies? I play video games, love it down, quickly. I'm also going to play video games right after this period, get into it. I too play video games. I very much love to do so. I also love to roller skate. I love to write just as anything that I can do to really just let out the stress today. But those are definitely the main ones. Yeah, I would say video games, drawing, fashion, sketching, things like those that help me restock and build my own cup if you may. Oh, they're very serious about that. I'm very serious when I say that I roller skate. I have my own skates. I take it to the rink. I put my headphones in and I refill my cup to the pools. So if you like to skate, if you need something for moving, go buy you some skates. Take it to the rink. Get your headphones. Have fun. See you at Queer Skate in West Seattle. Yes, plug. There's a question on the chat that I think was not able to make it to the Q&A, but how long did this journey take you? And this can go for both of you. For me, and I'll start and end with this, my journey is not over. Even though I'm here to talk to you all today about self love, my own journey with self love is not over. I don't feel like anyone should feel as if any journey that they're on is over, that they're at the top of the pole. When I said that you're always the smallest fish in the pond, I meant that. And for me, I would say it took me ever since high school, so it's 2016 to now, is when I really started to go, okay, I need to focus on myself. I need to know what makes me happy. I need to know what is going to make me flourish, because if I don't, and I continue operating through life trying to get by without giving myself the attention and the love that I need, I'm not going to make it. I'm literally not going to make it. I'm not going to survive if I cannot give back to myself. And that journey has definitely been. I'm also holding on to faith in the making, but it's it's been a while and I don't want anyone to think that it just stops here as I come here now. Right, I wish you tailed to talk to you guys about love. It's still not over and I'm still going through some challenges and everyday today life but like we're all human. And that's a part of the journey is to constantly evolve and to constantly grow and love yourself more and more every day. And like I'm going to tag on to that like definitely that journey will always be forever. And I say that because some days you'll have your downs and those are the days that honestly with that we're going to have to reevaluate and like rebuild that self love again because you're going to have to it's going to be literally a full roller coaster. And you have the good days or bad days, but those bad days make the good days 10 times better. And so, keep on that journey, keep it up but like, you will have your tough days. And that's okay, because everyone has them we all have them but they definitely make it stronger and so over time, the self love will just get better. That's a period. Okay. Before I let everyone go on an intermission. Last question is like, hey Monace, what is your favorite food? I love to eat baby. I don't know about you. But I love to eat and I love to cook. She's weaker. I'm the chef queen down boots period. Mama work, yes, boots, Gaga roots. I can tell you what I'm obsessed with right now. And what's always on my taste buds. I made this at our last house meeting. I love cream of potato soup. I said, it's an addiction at this point. I love a good creamy cream of potato soup with some green onions and chives. It's slaps. It's real good. Like, when I tell you that she can throw it down, she can go down. It's soup season y'all. It is soup season. And for me, you know, I, my family is Honduran. So I love me a real good chicken. It's real good. That is my favorite. I'll make that. I hear that any day, any year, any month, I'll eat it all every single day. And I will have no complaints. I'm also a baker. So like for dirt wise, I love me a good plan. Thank you so much. We'll go back at 1pm here. We'll do like a 10 a quick 10 minute intermission break. We have a lot of great questions on our Q&A. So I can't wait to ask you all these questions. But yeah, so for our attendees, please make sure to, if you are leaving, if we post it on the chat, please don't forget to do the form and the feedback. Bitly CCI slash CCIE evaluation. So thank you all. And I believe our ZJ Edwina will be playing us some music. All right. See you in 10 minutes. Thank you, Edwina for that song. It was amazing. I wanted to keep going, but we have a program to continue. I would like to invite Maya on the stage and of course, the monies. Welcome back you all. So now we're just going to take turns asking, we have a lot of amazing questions on the Q&A. So we're just going to take turns on asking questions on monies. This is now the Maya NGO show with our special guest, the monies. I'll start us off with our first question. Can you explain the ballroom culture? What it means to have a house and being house mother and house father and bringing your family members into your house for those that might not know what that means? Absolutely. I can speak on this very fluent. I feel like when I had brought up my backstory about being a large family. For me, what ballroom was that everything that I was not allowed everything that I was not given all the love that I could not receive from my own family. I took that and I created my own family and I feel like that's not just my story to tell that's majority of everyone in ballroom to tell usually when they're doing for the right reasons. Ballroom is a place and it's an opportunity where people who are ostracized from, you know, the cis world, we have a place to come to as our safe space to grow and to evolve and to be honored and love for our talents and for what we bring to the table. And with what houses are formed houses are formed to keep those people in community, give them a solid foundation and to give them a solid group of people that they can rely on that they can trust that they can talk to that they can spend time with as such as a chosen family. And that is the basis of what bar room is for not to talk about what the competitive side is as a whole different nature, but it definitely goes hand in hand with competing and definitely making sure that the family aspect of houses and what that's for. And as I said earlier, my duty as mother is that all of the things that I felt like I didn't get as a child. It is my opportunity and it's my right to create these spaces of opportunity where the things that I did not get. I can make sure that my family gets I can make sure that they get the love the opportunities, the bookings, the long FaceTime calls on the phone, I can give them all of these things. And I feel like that is what people are looking for a community that don't have those opportunities are the people to talk to and it's my goal and it's my mission as a mother to be able to create that solid math and that solid foundation of people that you know you can rely on. That's what bar room is to me. And for me as father, I have like I touched on it earlier is my purpose is to bring people in and be able to like allow them space to grow into the most genuine self, and that is still to say because a lot of people don't always have that space. And so, in order to get asked or get further it might be to be able to like actually start somewhere, which is also, you know, finding yourself. And if you want to find yourself and you can really do anything that you need to find something that went on. So for me as fathers just to be able to foster and grow that for people, and also be able to help create spaces in which they can actually use that after the fact that you know that they have grown growing to find themselves in just, you know, be a guiding light for that all times. Thank you for that question. Thank you for all of your third answers and that reflections on to our next Q&A question from row boys. What advice would you give to your younger self? Yeah. I would give my younger self three points. Speak up. You are a mighty voice. You have a lot of things to say and you have a lot of experiences to give to express yourself know that whatever you find and find your actual point of outlet, none of that is wrong. It's who you are. And to be able to grow and foster that especially you know at a younger age is an important thing. And three is don't be a pushover. You know, you have power, use it. That's what I would give my younger self. I would say the number one thing that I would tell my younger self, stretch, bitch. Stretch them legs out. We have a middle split we're working on and we could have did it a lot sooner. He would have been stretching. I would say one and I was, I cracked myself up. I think also with that I would say, you know what you want, and you know who you are, and there's no reason to try and nurture it on your own. If you had a team like you would have a support system, but you do, and definitely take that leap and I think that was a big problem for me growing up is that I was too afraid to take the leap. I was too afraid to take that step that would take me to the next level because I felt like I just wasn't ready. But had I known this at a younger age. No one is ready. Even the adults that we know now that we think of are so full of wisdom. They don't be known what they're doing. And I feel like that was something as a child that I did not understand. I figured when you get to a certain age, you know everything. And I feel like when I'm coming into myself as an adult now I'm learning that people who came before me did not know everything and it's okay to not know everything because we're constantly evolving and growing. I tell myself to give myself that patience and continue doing what you're doing and just take that step. Lastly, spark a YouTube channel. Just do it. I was really scared. And I felt like there was a lot of things holding you back. I was like, I want to work my family sees it. What if people see it? That's the point, baby. They're supposed to see it, honey. So you get somewhere as exposure. You get seen. And I was, as I said in the last one, you know, I'm always scared to take that step. So definitely take that step. Do what you need to do for yourself and stretch. You're still struggling with that middle split. Five split, left split, right split, all that. I can't even do it. I can't get lower than a squat. Oh my goodness. All right. Thank you. So the next question. How do I enter the ballroom scene respectfully? I think the best way to enter the ballroom scene. And this is a question that I feel like can go towards both queer people and allies is to take up your space and watch. You have to support the scene first. You have to see what you're getting yourself into and from all my allies that I feel like feel like they need to walk and they feel like they need to snipe you don't. As an ally, the thing that you can do is to participate, just show up, just watch, be a presence because nine times out of 10 majority all it takes for you to be in the room. That's how you can watch. That's how you can start out. And eventually when you've been there and you put the time in to help contribute to that scene and to grow it. Then you should walk. Then you should do what you want to do. But I think for starters, it doesn't hurt anyone. I feel like anyone and everyone can go to a ball and watch. You know, clap or you need to clap or roof or you need to roof or and that's it. Follow your houses and when the events come up, show up. All right, thank you. And another question, the Q&A, can you reiterate the cup analogy please and after that there's also some more follow up question. Yes, I'm glad we're going back to this cup analogy because I was leaning back in my head and I low key got a misconstrued with the cup analogy. When I'm saying that you're supposed to give in to your cup and replenish your cup, your cup should not just be full. Your cup should be overflowing because you're just constantly refilling that cup refilling that cup and with the overflow that you get in that cup with that overflow you pour into others cut. So that way when you're pouring into the other's cup, you'll never be empty because when you're empty, you can't do anything at all. When that cup has nothing in it when it's dried out, you don't have anything to give back. That's why you need not only a full glass to give on to others. It's an overflowing cup. Your cup should overflow. When it does, you take that overflow and you give to others that need it. What was the second part? Sorry, that's my part now. Sorry, I'm taking notes. I'm like, okay, I like that analogy. Going back to the cup analogy, what would you do if you're already on empty but your peers are expecting you to pour out even more into the community? The best thing you could do in that moment is you got to set boundaries. You got to say, you got to say so, you got to say, no, sometimes I can't do that right now. I have things to work on. I need to be able to refill my cup and be able to refill my energy before I can give back to anybody. Because when you start to pour out on empty, there's nothing to give and people can see that. And that will furthermore affect you and now furthermore hurt you and also the people that are around you. And so the best thing that you could do in that moment is pause. Hey, I can't do that right now. I need to work on myself. I feel like if these people that are expecting you to constantly give out into their cups as well, if they truly do love you and they truly are your friends and they are truly your support system, they should be more than understanding to hear you say out of your own mouth, I cannot do this baby. I cannot currently I'm lacking in things that I need for myself. And until I refill my own cup. I really can't do anything or you don't have to say refill my own cup but you have to be able to say until I get back to myself or until I feel complete as a person I cannot give what you need at this moment and if they're respecting and loving of you. Perfect. And if they're not baby. This time for them to go. Thank you. My idea of the next question. Yes, I'm just trying to listen to all these amazing points and being able to process that and to the next question. What was that rock bottom moment for you that kept capulted. Oh, sorry, it moved into the answer part. What was the rock bottom moment for you that catapulted you into your self love journey. Well, the rock bottom moment for me that's catapulted myself to self love journey was. I would say about two and a half years ago, I got evicted. I didn't quite know where I wanted to go where I wanted to do. I totally felt defeated. And in that moment, I had a feeling of kind of like, there's really nothing else to do, except for to try and build yourself up. And so, when that moment, I started to actually like, you know, actually do more writing. And just try and focus on the moments in which I kind of messed up along that journey and try to learn and reflect on those things and I in that time down to myself that I would never reach that point again. And since that point, I have, in my opinion, I've only gone up. And I'm going to keep going up because I know for a fact that never going there again. I'm not that person anymore. I am a person of growth. I'm a person of light, and I will make it to my destination in due time but never again back to that point. For me, I feel as if my rock bottom point was a lot for me to react like I have a couple times but that's okay. So how you know the journey of life goes, but I feel like for me it was very much in the beginning of my transition. And this is when I was realizing that I was building a journey I was building a dream on broken land and I was building these ideals and these goals with a broken. I was building it on sand. The basic way I can say this, and I feel like once I had realized that. And I realized that it was not just myself that needed to grow more it was my circle as well. When I realized that maybe my cup was empty and I was the one who was constantly pouring out of an empty glass with nothing left to give. When I kept doing it, people started turning on me, people started to leave me people started to not accept me at my lowest. And when I realized that it was a very, very hard realization for me. But it was something that was very vital for my character development that the people who I would surround myself with were not necessarily there for me. They were there for what I could do for them. And the moment that I figured that out. And I was able to cut these people out of my life and focus more so on the things that I need to uphold myself and to continue going and moving and growing in my own journey and my own position. I feel like everything just fell into place ever since then. Thank you. So our next question is, it's two, but I'm just going to make it to one question. See, I just lost it. Okay, what is this say so thing you keep referencing. And why is say so rule important to you all. So for me, say so is our number one rule. And it's my life rule that I like to live by because for so long I feel like I went through life without a voice. And I feel like I went through life without having that backbone to set my own boundaries. I feel like once I learned that you can set your own boundaries with people and how you traverse the life. Everything became so much easier because as a person, without boundaries, you become very much so a yes man. And within that you're always giving into other people and you're always doing things for others without really acknowledging what you need to do for yourself. What I think say so came along with was to say that hey baby I do have this voice and where that comes in to the dynamic of our house. It comes into that there are some houses that I have seen where if the mother does something out of pocket, you can check her because that's mother. I never come from other and I felt like when I started my house, I don't want that giant. I wanted to be that if I step on your toe, anyone in my house, you all have the right to say, hey baby I don't like that. Mother, I'm sorry but I'm happy to agree. And I wanted everyone to know that when we started on this is something I said on our very first meeting with my house. Everyone has the ability to give in and to implement their own wisdom, everyone has the opportunity and the ability to give in to their own ideas, and they will all be heard. As long as we keep that within mind. Communication is number one, not only with a house. It's number one within a relationship. It's number one within a friendship. It's number one with anything that you need as a human being to communicate. You need to be able to speak your boundaries. Set your limits, set what you're comfortable with what you're not comfortable with. That for me is what say so is. That's why it's our number one rules only two words baby. Say, so you're feeling some kind of way, say, so, you know, agreeing with something, say, so, and that's it. That's where that comes from. And that's why it's so important to me and to my house as well. Definitely see why it's so important and I can really feel your total emphasis on the phrase. And to the next question. How can I help better show up for trans women of color as an ally. That's the question I love because I feel like so often I hear people take up these roles as allies. But I feel like there's a lot of facts within the word ally that gets misconstrued. Well, yes, you're fighting with us. I want people to understand that you're not fighting for us. In order to be an ally. This is my favorite analogy I like to use I'm full of analogies y'all don't learn this today don't learn this today. An analogy to be an ally, you are nothing more than a megaphone. Your duty as an ally. Be that microphone that megaphone to use your power, your platform, your own voice to uplift the voices of others that's not to say to speak for others to speak for black trans women. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking you to take your platform take your power that you have as an ally, and you uplift these girls who don't have that. If a girl has a post of whatever they need, share that post. That's something that in our modern terms like terms I can say will help uplift others but as an ally, your duty and your goal for me as a black trans woman is to uplift our own voices not to speak for us in rooms of opportunity but to let our own voices be heard. I will also say if you are given opportunity that you believe belongs to someone else, give it to the person that you believe it belongs to. Yeah. Thank you for that question. Thank you. This kind of ties into that previous question. What does healthy queer love look like to you all. I feel like healthy queer love to me starts off first with making sure that you're able to communicate your own needs. You're able to communicate what you want. And when you have that you can kind of traverse through any space as long as that your needs are being met and the things that you need are being heard. You can traverse and grow through anywhere as long as you have the ability to communicate and I don't feel like this is necessarily restricted to just for spaces this is to any space that you walk in within any room that you're in. It's your duty to take up that space take up that mantle and let your voice be heard even if you feel like you don't have the loudest voice that's fine. Not all of us do and that's okay we all grow at our own rates, but you should still be able to let your presence be heard. Don't ever duck yourself down under don't ever try and put yourself under someone even I tell Mike is this. Yes I'm mother but that doesn't mean you don't have a voice. Yes I'm mother but that doesn't mean you have to speak underneath. You have your own right to speak. Say so and do whatever you want in that manner as long as it's not self depreciating. Yes. As long as it's not diminishing your own word, say what you need to say. At the end of the day, communication is key. That's it. Communication is key. You can communicate anything that you need and then you want anything that you are missing. That is everything. And if it's, if it has to receive, that is the next step. And so, it's a give it it's a, yeah, give it a moment. Yeah. Yes, thank you for your responses definitely communication is key just want to reiterate that. Another question. What is the next step in your journey. That's it. What is the next step in your journey. Maybe I'm on a lot of journey. That's a deep question with many roots and many answers and many. I like to say the way that I talk I speak in tangent. This tree this in the background of the presentation that's how I talk when I talk there's one line and that line sprouts into another and to another and to another to another to another to another to have a beautiful tree. That's how I talk that's how I speak but that's also how I move through life. And with my journey there's not just one set journey that I'm on. There's constantly as an artist as a black woman of trans experience there are many things that I'm going to go through and they're going to be many things that I pursue. And I feel like with this journey of life. I want to constantly be evolving and finding new things and finding new pathways, new alleyways new by ways for you to be traversing through an order for you to grow and mature and find yourself as a person. What I feel like for me right now what my journey is on through COVID-19 and this Delta variant is staying safe and making sure that I'm protected and I'm giving and receiving all the love that I need from my family. And the next step to my journey as well as staying safe and being protected within the COVID environment we have now is, yeah, just keep growing and as the opportunities come, take them, grow from them, learn from them and step out of the comfort zone when I feel it's time to. Thank you. We have so many questions like amazing questions on the chat I'm like trying to like figure out like which one to ask. Let's see. So, any advice you want to give for those that haven't find themselves yet. I would say the best advice I can give for you is take some time of solitude for yourself. Find and actually I think of yourself as a third person perspective, which means also looking at the good and looking at the bad. Because without doing that, you're never going to be able to check yourself and be able to go up in spots that you know that you probably should be addressing within yourself to accountability for. So take accountability of your actions and the things that you definitely can grow from but also make sure you cherish those things that you are already for that you are the nurturing and allow that to flourish and grow better. So I would say the best thing absolutely is just, you know, take some time for yourself. Yes, it's great to talk to many people and try to get this perspective but sometimes only perspective that you need is your own. I would say for me, I happen to be blessed and cursed at this point with knowing who I was at a very early age and I say curse because a lot of people my age and a lot of people even older than me. I'm coming to the realization that not everyone does know who they are and there's a lot of times that you walk into spaces where these authority figures you feel as if should have all the answers and the reality is that they don't majority of them do not. And I feel like coming to terms with that is something that you should also keep in mind and I think for me, the biggest thing that I can say is to never idolize anyone. Never put anyone in a higher pedestal never make assumptions and put people into these boxes of high places when you're not giving them room to grow you're not giving them room to be themselves you're not giving themselves room to do anything on the other side of the norm or the box of pedestal put them under and that can even be, you know, the same message can be said for yourself as a person if you don't know who you are yet give yourself that time to grow. Give yourself that patience to find the things that you do need for yourself. This is a time to what Father Mufasa said is that you need to take time to step back and look at yourself from a third party perspective look into the things that make you happy. The things that make the flowers the things that put a smile on your face effortlessly, you need to be able to nurture that and when you do the person who you are becoming and who you are meant to be, it will come naturally to just like that. You know, we make mistakes. So make sure you allow that for the people that you look up to as well. Another question. How much backlash did you receive when you came out. Oh, how much backlash did you receive when you came out. For me baby. I lost everything. I lost my housing. I lost my family. I lost the respect of my loved ones. It honestly took me to have absolutely nothing. And this was being in my rock bottom to eventually realize that if these people aren't going to love me the way that I need and the way that I want to be nurtured. The only person who's going to do it and the only person who has the power to do it is yourself. And when you realize and you take back that power to say that I can be full. I can be happy. I can be loved. You don't really need to look for anything or anyone else. And I'll say that before Zendaya came into my life. I was at a time period where I felt like oh I need a partner. I need to be loved. I need to find someone child going on to their all night. But one day I got to a point where I was just like what's the point of me doing this looking for someone to help love me when I can't love myself. And once I came to that realization that I need to give into myself and I need to take the time out for myself to go get my nails done. Go get my hair done. Let me get back into myself. And I feel like the moment I did it was instantaneous. This one just fell right into my arms. And I'll say it for me. Honestly, this is where I was because I was at a point of progress. I was lucky enough to still have a family that was not necessarily ejecting of my bread and they did not quite understand it. They didn't also necessarily take the time to actually try to necessarily understand this much but they never truly ejected it. And so I will say in that moment that is where I say that I have a lot of progress here. And yeah, I honestly that's really like to say on this I really wish that I really wish that I could I could I could like, you know, provide more insight on that. So it's the privilege that I kind of came in. They privilege they didn't lose nothing. Well, thank you for sharing. It's all good. You don't have to say anything. This will be our last question I apologize to everyone who asked question we couldn't go. We can answer all of them but our last question is what brings you joys these days. I have a motto. I like to laugh every day. Once a day, every day, I need to laugh at something. Or I'm just bite the dust and that's just on period. I can't go a full day without laughter that for me something that's necessary to me, whether it's a meme. I can't go a full day without laughing at myself, whether it's me looking at nature and saying baby that tree looks funny and I start cracking up. You need to find something to be grateful for every day and you define something every day that can give you not only a spirit of gratitude but it's great to say I'm happy to be up this morning I'm happy to see another day. I'm happy to be alive. And I felt that the next best feeling the joy is laughter baby. For me it could be any and everything. Well, I would say for me, honestly, I find joy in the smaller things like, you know, adding my cat, you know, and watching her get down founded by new things and Joseph is our adventure. And just just the small things around that happen that just brings a smile to my face that I really can't like, like what happens, I can't help but smile. And so like being able to find those small things that I find enjoyment in that also that just allow me to smile feel good within my day. Those are the things that bring a lot of joy to me. Even if even in the past months, you got to be able to find joy anywhere you can. And that is most likely in the smaller things. Alright, with that we'll end our program for today. Thank you all so much. For those who are we all still here please show love on the chat. Don't forget to do our feedback at bit.ly slash the center CCI evaluation, which will be posted on the chat. Amaya what's going on tomorrow. So we have next up we do have an event with Ronnie Sanlo, which will be an event called heroes heroes and heroes walk through LGBT history. So that'll be happening tomorrow from 11am to 1230pm. And there'll be some information for the event in the Zoom chat as well. So on the same day, we have additional events with LGBTQIA weeks on Wednesday, we'll have a history of HIV and AIDS in Seattle and AIDS Memorial Pathway. So that will be happening from 10am to 1130pm and also information to that Zoom webinar is on the screen. And on Thursday, we'll be hosting an event with Senator Marco Leis, who will be giving us some info and walk through of cure politics post marriage equality. So that'll be happening from 11am to 1230pm and the info for that Zoom webinar is on there as well. And then to close out the week we'll have a film called to make him, which will be facilitated by we know fully and Robert Scribner that shows the story of trans women in Hawaii and preserving one culture that'll be shown from 3pm to 430pm and also this webinar info is on the screen as well. So with that, I would like to close out today's event and thank you so much to everyone who attended today. I'm also special shout out to the House of Menez, Mother Tinashe and also Father Mufasa for joining in with us today. Lastly, also being sure to fill out the feedback form for us so we know how to better improve our events in the future.