Live your truth. A mantra promoted by Las Cruces Pride and queer community as the organization hosted its fifth annual Pride on the Plaza event on Oct. 5th. Attendees were able to enjoy drag performances and get to know the numerous organizations throughout Las Cruces and on NMSU campus that were tabling. All to celebrate pride in one’s identity with love and community support.
But the journey into the world of drag started long ago for some, with each person having their own journey — but all paths lead them to Las Cruces. For instance, take Allison Saint, someone who has been doing drag for over a decade.
“I did get inspired by just the queer life around me, because I was usually volunteering in GSAs (Gender and Sexual Alliance) and youth groups in my local area,” Saint said. “[Then] ‘Empower’ allowed me to see a different side of the community and I decided , yo, this [stuff] is tight, I don’t know what it’s called, but I want to do it. Then they taught me how to do a lot of stuff and I started at a started at a very young age, but it was an amazing experience and ever since then I’ve been lifted by my community.”
Little did she know her influence would only draw more individuals into drag and find more ways to express themselves and their identity. This includes one of the members of Saint’s troupe “Saints Ball” Kayla Shingada who has been performing drag themselves for six years now.
“[Saints Ball is] the reason I got into drag, and it started on accident.” Shingada said. “One of my friends was producing a show, so she invited all her best friends. And ever since then, we’ve had a monthly show going strong for six years now.”
This world they’re in has provided a home away from home for Shingada, a far cry from their roots in the Land of Enchantment.
“I myself am from Española, New Mexico, and I just remember being a queer youth wishing that there were events like this going on in my city,” she said. “So I think having pride in such a large, open space and being highly visible to not only queer people, but people who may not have ever experienced such love and community like this is going to have a major impact on the way people treat one another and the way they interact with their families and loved ones.”
However, Shingada is not the only performer from a small town in New Mexico. Tasha Hart is from Las Cruces and someone who has seen the community’s growth with her own eyes. Especially with her homecoming as part of Pride on the Plaza.
“I was part of Las Cruces Pride back in 2008, 2009 before the plaza, when it was just a group of maybe 50 people walking through the farmers market and being a young, queer person in Cruces, being able to embrace community back then was so amazing,” Hart said. “Back when it used to be at Apodaca Park and it was so small, and it was just a couple of families and now it’s this huge, huge event and I can only imagine how amazing and validating it is for queer youth now to see this in such a small town like Cruces.”
Hart said that it is inspiring to see events and spaces carved out for people like her. Hart also mentioned that she likes seeing the generations after her enjoy the events within a supportive community.
“I want to cry,” Hart said. “It makes me so happy, just because I feel like rural areas get a bad reputation for not being accepting. It can be really difficult for young queer people to feel that acceptance. So this is amazing, I’m overjoyed, absolutely overjoyed.”
While seeing support from the city is one thing, having it at school helps that much more, according to Lore Falls, the program coordinator for LGBT+ Programs at NMSU. They have been involved with the organization since 2019 and long enough to celebrate the organization’s 10-year anniversary at the university. NMSU LGBT+ programs was tabling at the event.
“I got my undergrad at Eastern New Mexico University where we didn’t have a whole program, it was just a student group,” they said. “Between the community on campus and being able to bridge that and show people there’s a whole community outside of campus, I think that’s really important.”
Their interest in getting involved within campus life got its spark right away when Falls came to NMSU for the first time.
“It was huge for me, I came for my campus tour at the beginning of graduate school and saw an office with pride flags in the windows and I was like ‘holy [expletive]’ we had never seen anything like that,” they said. “I think there’s something to be said about the program coming from our director being a Ph.D student here and building it up into a program because there weren’t the resources.”
The organization’s work has paid off over the program’s 10 years of existence, with membership numbers growing every year. But what’s most important for Falls, is their ability for the organization to have the same impact on the lives of new freshman that it had on them.
“Sometimes when folks talk to me at orientation, they’ll say ‘I picked NMSU because I read about the program here’,” Falls said. “That one kind of stays with me, it’s really exciting to hear especially when I see those students on campus in the fall. I think that’s really important and really cool and really exciting.”
