MiSELA hosts open mic event for queer and trans adults on United Against Hate Week

Queer and Trans community members visited the MiSELA LGBTQ Resource Center in Bell September 24 for an Open Mic night, where many performed poetry, songs and ballroom dance. 

United Against Hate Week, the series of events hosted by L.A. vs. Hate to combat hate crimes, listed the open mic as an event encouraging LGBTQ community and visibility. 

Arelybel “Aré” Iniguez brought their ukelele to perform a rendition of Radiohead's famous song, “Creep.” Iniguez said the song personally brought them so much comfort and meaning that they’d stay up practicing it until 3 a.m. some nights, and they wanted to share it with others for the first time by performing at MiSELA.

“Immediately, you know, the vibes were there. I really clicked with folks,” Iniguez said of the clothing swap event they had previously attended at MiSELA. “I knew I needed to be around trans people. I just knew that. I could feel it in my soul. It felt like something that was missing in my life." 

That type of community feeling is exactly the mission of MiSELA, which exists as a result of the partnership between the Latino Equality Alliance (LEA) and the greater Los Angeles LGBT Center. The open mic event was organized by a program called Queer and Trans Connect, or QT Connect, specifically serving adult queer and trans people in Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles, Southeast Los Angeles and gateway cities.

Yaliitza “Yaya” Vazquez-Lopez runs the QT Connect program and came up with the idea for the Open Mic. She said their goal with the program is to bring people into the space so they can not only get to know each other, but also take advantage of all the resources the center has to offer. It’s also important to them that the space is a sober one, so adult LGBTQ people can have another community gathering option besides bars. 

 “It is just a little hard out here because we're so new,” Vazquez-Lopez said. “I'm not from Southeast L.A. or even East L.A., I'm more like from the West Side. So I feel like it's new for me to see almost a fear [from] queer people to come out and just be out, and even much less to ask for resources out here.”

 The hesitance and fear of coming out is something Javier Garay, a community organizer for LEA and lifelong SELA resident, can understand from their experience growing up in Bell Gardens. 

 “Growing up here, you know, it's something that was rarely talked about…you knew people were gay, but you didn't really talk about it,” Garay said. “Even myself, you know, I still feel that when I talk to my coworkers from other cities. They feel more vibrant and loud, and I'm more to myself. So I feel like growing up in SELA is so interesting because I feel like we work a little bit more quietly.”

 But MiSELA is working to encourage people to find each other. Eden Westwood of the KiKi House of Vivienne Westwood. taught attendees how to do historic, queer ballroom dance moves like duck walking, voguing and dips. And by the end of the night, the furniture in the space had been pushed aside to make room for a dance floor so attendees could try new moves.

 “It's very rare to have a space like this in Southeast L.A.,” Garay said. “I think us hosting this is a way to show trans people, we're still here, this is a space for you and you're not alone.”