How the Toronto ballroom scene taught me what it means to be real

Emerging Queer Voices is a monthly LGBTQ arts and culture column that features different up-and-coming LGBTQ writers. You can read more about the series and find all published editions here.

My life changed when I first learned what the ballroom scene was. I was an effeminate gay 17-year-old living in Cartagena, Colombia. I thought I had already come to terms with my gender identity and sexuality, but I soon discovered I had been in denial of my trans identity. 

The catalyst for me to embrace myself as a trans woman was the television series Pose, which depicts the 2SLGBTQ+ Black and Latinx ballroom scene of the '80s and '90s in New York City.

For reasons that now seem very apparent, I saw myself deeply reflected in the show's character of Angel Evangelista, played on the series by Indya Moore. Angel is a beautiful Black, Latinx trans woman. Despite her physical attributes enabling her to pass as a cis woman, Angel experiences the same struggles as many other trans women, such as survival sex work and being kept a secret by her lover. 

It would be another two years until I was out as a trans woman and living in Toronto, and another 3 years until I came face-to-face with ballroom culture. 

In October of last year, I caught my first glimpse of the ballroom scene in real life. I was looking online for staple figures within the Toronto ballroom scene, and I found Nofil Nadeem's name on the AGO website. I reached out to him through Instagram, and he agreed to meet over coffee. After having coffee with Nadeem, who's the overseer of the Kiki house of Juicy Couture, he invited me to attend open practices. It took several weeks of encouragement, but when I finally made it,  I practiced walking the femme queen realness category, which exists specifically for trans women. 

The Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance(TKBA) is made of 12 houses. Ballroom houses emulate the structure of how a conventional family is structured, with a designated father and mother. Some houses have an overseer, godfather, godmother, prince, and princess. These more experienced performers train and mentor ballroom walkers with a lower seniority in the scene. After I attended weekly rehearsals for over a month, the house leaders asked me to join the house.  

I debuted as Victoria Juicy Couture on Dec.6, 2024, walking the femme queen realness category at the Toronto Kiki Ballroom Alliance's eighth annual awards ball. Femme queen realness is a category that assesses how much a trans woman can pass as a cisgender woman, while abiding to a ball's theme – which at that competition was "cosmic circus." 

Other iterations of the Realness category include: transman realness, and butch queen realness, the latter being for gay men. However, in recent years the realness categories have become a subject of debate, with some questioning if they have passed the test of time in terms of value. Given that trans people still live under intense scrutiny and face attacks to their basic human rights – such as U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order falsely declaring that there are only two genders – passing as a cisgender person remains a survival tactic. And the realness category speaks to that reality. Yet, realness also reinforces stereotypes of what a woman or a man is supposed to look like. 

While walking femme queen realness I have been told to smile and exude my womanhood. I am rewarded for showcasing my recently done nails (only done for the occasion), the absence of an Adam's apple, my long brown hair, my small back, and apparent breasts.   

In my day-to-day life, I embody my womanhood less elaborately without all the glitz and glamour of ballroom. I don't tend to smile unless it comes naturally, and I don't feel the need to flaunt my femininity. 

But even controversial traditions are sometimes worth honouring due to their historical value. When walking realness at a ball, I consciously put myself in a box of stereotypical attributes and mannerism attached to womanhood for about 5-10 minutes, because I value the shared experience of participating in ballroom competitions with my new chosen family. 

After joining the house, I got a chance to talk with Mother Diséiye Juicy Couture about her ballroom journey and what being part of this community means to her. Outside of the ballroom scene, she is a fashion designer who runs her self-titled brand, 'DISÈIYE'. 

Diséiye, known in the scene today for walking the best dressed and European runway categories, came to Toronto in 2010 at the age of 15, as a refugee from Nigeria. Soon after arriving, she got her first glimpse of the Toronto ballroom scene through the Supporting our Youth (SOY) Black Queer Youth program at Sherbourne Health.

An environment like the ballroom scene was something she had been craving.

"Being a young queer kid coming from Nigeria, I was looking for a space that felt safe, a space that I felt seen, a community of like-minded folks," she said.

"[I was] definitely trying to distance myself from the Nigerian scene and trying to find more queer elders that I could look up to or just experience queerness for the first time openly."

Last September, Diséiye walked tag team realness for the first time. The realness sub-category sees a femme queen accompanied by another realness walker and the judges evaluate their performance as a team. Diséiye walked alongside Noble Constantine at the QueerTopia Kiki Ball in Ottawa.

Diséiye says realness is not for everyone, but is for those who desire to live as close to a stealth life as possible when it comes to their identity. 

"I walked realness, because someone asked me to be their partner, and I was like 'Sure let's do it,'" she said.

"But I don't see myself walking realness, because I tell myself that I didn't transition to put myself in a box, I transitioned to be my truest, realest self," she said. 

Not all ballroom walkers who walk the realness category feel restricted by it, and Godfather Jax Juicy Couture is one example. 

Jax says finding the ballroom scene has made him proud of his trans identity. 

"I feel like I lived very stealthily before, and almost in a very shameful way. Ballroom really changed that for me. It made me proud, and realize that I don't care about being a cis man, I'm very proud of being a trans man," he says.  

Some people in the scene tend to forget the importance of the realness category, Jax said. "This is such a core part of ballroom, and it's not necessarily there to instill stereotypes, but to celebrate people's identity, and to also instill a part of safety in it, too," he says.

But it's not just the realness category that some ballroom community members are in conflict with. The face category also has its challenges, and Nadeem knows those difficulties first hand.

Nadeem was born in Pakistan, and immigrated to Toronto with his family when he was two years old. As a gay, Pakistani, Muslim man, his cultural and sexual identity were often in conflict with each other, and this juxtaposition drew him to the ballroom scene. 

Nadeem has competed in the face category, and has broken barriers in a category that mainly celebrates a racialized person's ability to demonstrate European facial features. Although his features aren't the standard of what is celebrated in the face category, he has been able to succeed in this category.

"The attributes that are prioritized are Eurocentric features. Having a strong jawline and a thin nose. The core of Face is unattainable beauty," he says. 

Outside of the ballroom scene, Nadeem is a lawyer and workplace investigator. Ballroom is his artistic outlet. "I don't get to be creative as a lawyer. I don't get to express myself. When I walk face I feel like a movie star, so the ballroom helps me address those gaps," he says.  

The ballroom scene has gone mainstream in recent years with reality TV shows, like Legendary. As it has grown, so too has the number of participants who are neither Black nor Latinx.

Nadeem says the ballroom scene is open to anyone as long as they acknowledge whom the scene was initially intended for. 

"There are people in our scene who are white, and who are not of trans experience. I think that as long as you carry the essence and the heart, and carry the torch forward, and ultimately understand that ballroom is meant to be a safe space for black and brown bodies. And to put those first, then I think you are doing it justice," he says.      

Although walking Realness has brought back insecurities I thought were buried in the first two years of my transition, I will continue walking without seeking validation but instead to make a name for myself in the community that has allowed me to meet talented and caring femme queens, butch queens, and trans men like  Mother Disèiye, Overseer Nofil , and Godfather Jax Juicy Couture. Their stories have resonated with me on deeper levels, in ways I unknowingly needed to feel less isolated in my own personal struggles surrounding being trans.      

Regardless of what the future of the Canadian ballroom scene looks like, the scene will continue growing in spite of conservative policies, religion, and discrimination. One thing femme queens, butch queens, and trans men have continuously proven, is their capacity of thriving amidst chaos, something all iterations of ballroom scenes serve as testament of.