Walking through West Hollywood feels like a scene out of a reality show worth watching. Queerness radiates from every building onto the rainbow-painted streets. It’s the reason I fought so hard to live here, so I can walk hand-in-hand with my genderqueer wife without fear. A few months back, my rose-hued bubble burst, when a group of men wearing MAGA hats posted up on the corner. The men were handing out alt-right propaganda flyers to passersby from behind a poker table. They reminded me that homophobia can exist in any corner of the globe.These men, part of a group that claimed to be peacefully memorializing Charlie Kirk, were spreading hate in the heart of WeHo’s rainbow district. They strategically set up in front of the sheriff’s office, in the hopes they would coax someone to attack them. No one did. Their intentions were largely thwarted by a glittery bar named Mattie’s across the street.There, a resident drag queen named Billy Francesca was armed with a microphone, a giant brass hand bell, and six-inch stilettos. Francesca’s resounding voice and infectious personality deflected any effect the MAGA group could have had.Francesca tends to downplay his legendary status in the community, but he’s performed around the world and is one of the country’s longest-running Pride hosts. Describing himself as an anomaly from another planet, he accepts any pronoun. Since stumbling upon “Billy Francesca’s Bitchy Bingo,” my partner and I have been happily enveloped in his boisterous panache every week. Even when we don’t win, we’re winning.“People will say, ‘God, you walk in those heels?’” says Francesca. “Yeah, I love it. They said I’d never walk normal because I wore a brace on my right leg [as a child]. I’m 6 foot 2, walking in heels. I feel like I look like Sofía Vergara.”For a trans Latina like me, his vibrant musings feel like therapy in a world that feels entirely too heavy. Watching Francesca prance around, aggressively ringing a giant bell at people with a full beard and flowing dress eases the weight. And when Francesca becomes Beyoncé and Sofía Vergara, I feel like them, too.But his unapologetic joy didn’t always exist. Being a queer kid who wore a leg brace in a conservative part of Boston, Francesca learned how to use humor to counter being bullied. “If you want joy in the world, make more. Go give it away,” he says.Francesca’s brand of exuberance isn’t unique to WeHo. In Georgia, a social welfare nonprofit named Angel Action Atlanta uses a similar method to counter aggressive anti-LGBTQ protesters and as a means to process anti-transgender violence. Led by death doula Meredith Greer, the nonprofit organizes an annual event called the Death Cabaret to celebrate Transgender Day of Remembrance.Each year, people from all over the state come together to counter sorrow with drag, burlesque, and conversation. Greer and a group of volunteers provide materials for creating art and facilitate a safe space, in case attendees feel overwhelmed. They share stories, process grief and smile through tears under Greer’s careful guidance. “We just want to make sure everyone is taken care of,” she says.The nonprofit’s early years were spent standing up to hate groups protesting at LGBTQ events and funerals, using 12-foot wings built from bedsheets and PVC pipes to block protesters. Greer realized the nonprofit could do more than protect parade attendees and funeralgoers by providing much-needed end-of-life care.Everyone grapples with the reality of death, but the LGBTQ and especially the transgender community is disproportionately forced to consider it. A 2023 study has shown that transgender mortality in the United States is up to double that of their cisgender counterparts.Greer believes it’s possible to experience joy while processing the sorrow of death. At the most recent Death Cabaret, Greer altered the TDoR tradition of reading the names of transgender people who lost their lives because of anti-transgender violence. “I asked the whole cast and the board if we’d read their names and age, then after each name we and the entire audience would say, ‘I love you’,” says Greer. With a slight modification, she allowed the group to add joy to their collective grieving.In New York City, artists like Shakina Nayfack use humor and unflinching openness to combat the violence of anti-queerness. Nayfack, a Broadway-style performer, created a one-woman show called “Manifest Pussy“ to share her story. In 2016, when North Carolina passed anti-transgender legislation called HB-2, a number of artists canceled tours and boycotted the state.“I decided to get a band together and crowdfund a tour through N.C.,” says Nayfack. One week later, she and her band were driving through some of the most conservative parts of the country, with the goal of spreading hope.She describes the tour as an embrace, where she could be the first openly transgender person many North Carolinians met. To have the biggest impact, she booked shows at both queer-friendly and conservative spaces. She learned many people in the state didn’t hate transgender people — they just hadn’t met one.Currently, she’s crowdfunding a film based on “Manifest Pussy” in hopes of sharing it with a larger audience through streaming and film festivals. “Every time we choose joy in the face of our sorrow, we win,” Nayfack says.What I learned from these three people is that everyone has the ability to create their own bubble of joy, starting in the spaces we already inhabit. For me, this means writing a weekly newsletter about good news happening in the trans community. For someone else, it could be make-up lessons at a trans support group or volunteering at the local LGBTQ+ youth shelter.The choice to actively create positivity can be a tough one, some days. But if Billy Francesca’s booming demands have taught me anything, it’s that making hatred obsolete sometimes takes a loud, stubborn reminder of joy.RelatedLGBTQTransgenderwest-hollywoodQueer Voices