LGBTQ+ Youth Conference Puts Empowerment Front & Center

Jacqueline Soares, Gabby F., Big Freedia, TJ, Khloé Lawson, and Mikayla Williams. 

The first time TJ heard Big Freedia's "Rent" blasting over a speaker, they leaned right into the song, hooked by the tight, lyrical swerve in the artist’s voice. Years later, it has become their soundtrack to self-acceptance—and now, the story of how they met a queer icon on an otherwise ordinary school day.

Last Wednesday, TJ, who chose not to share their last name, joined dozens of New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) students for the 2024 Empowerment Through Visibility Conference, held at Southern Connecticut State University. An end-of-year celebration and exploration of LGBTQ+ empowerment, political engagement and self-love, the conference drove home the need for more queer affinity spaces in New Haven, and the power of intergenerational connection. 

Collaborators on the hours-long event included the New Haven Pride Center, Dwight Hall, City Wide Youth Coalition, the New Haven Youth and Recreation Department (YARD), the Children of Marsha P. Johnson, and the Neighborhood Freedom School. In total, the conference brought in roughly 60 students. 

"I really wanted this to be a big event where young people could come together and really explore and talk to each other, and I think that's what happened," said Ta'LannaMonique "T'Mo" Lawson-Dickerson, youth services coordinator at the New Haven Pride Center and the founder of the Neighborhood Freedom School. "We talked about why to get politically engaged, and how they're not learning these things in school. I think young people are really ready and primed to have these conversations and be in these spaces." 

Those words echoed across panels on political activism and organizing, LGBTQ+ intersectionality, self-care, and finding queer joy in a world upturned by violence both at home and abroad. As students gathered in the Adanti Student Center, several gravitated toward a third-floor conference room, stretching out on the couches and chairs that overlooked the campus below. 

Introducing herself, facilitator Loretta Dickerson scanned the room, beaming at attendees. The founder and creator of Living By Design, Dickerson stressed the need to practice self-love, even and especially amidst the pace and chaos of living in the present. 

Dickerson leads a panel on self-care and self-love.

"We all have values," she said. "We can say, 'Okay, that's important to you. Just do you.'" 

She lifted her palms, asking attendees how they might create a better framework for taking care of themselves. As she listened, her hands were suddenly bird-like, fluttering through the space on every other word. It seemed that she was constantly in motion, criss-crossing the carpet.

"Setting daily goals for yourself?" ventured Tae Williams, a student at Gateway Community College. "

"Setting daily goals for yourself!" she replied. "Having some sense of direction and purpose."

Growing up between New Haven and Bridgeport, Williams later said that he's still figuring out how to practice self-care. "I thought something was really wrong with me," he remembered thinking when he came out as a teenager. Around him, peers often used "gay" as a slur, and he didn't understand why he suddenly felt attracted to men. He felt hesitant embracing his queerness after hearing his friends throw around homophobic language.

"I didn't want to get judged, so I kept it to myself for a minute," he said.

Tae Williams and Heaven Hamilton.

That changed, when he started to see Black and LGBTQ+ representation in the mainstream. As he tuned in to Netflix shows like The Upshaws, RuPaul's Drag Race and Survival of the Thickest, friends also started to voice their support, reminding him that their love for him wasn't conditional. 

"I know myself now," he said. "Now I know my worth, I know my value, and I have nothing to prove to anyone. I can stand on my own."

Part of that is making time for self-care even when it feels like there's no time for it. Right now, it might look like something as simple as a facial routine and shower with his favorite lavender body wash, or taking 90 minutes to clean his workspace and declutter his mind. 

"I feel like I took different perspectives" from Dickerson's workshop, he added. "I feel like in life sometimes, it's good to have different points of view in what people do in their daily lives. You see, like, 'Oh, maybe that can work for me.'"  

Tia Lynn Waters, who uses Bubbles interchangeably with her name, and performer and DJ Ephraim Adamz. 

Down a sun-dappled corridor, attendees discussed knowing and honoring one's own history—including the fact that Pride started as a riot—as another form of self-care. As she spoke with attendees throughout the day, longtime activist Tia Lynn Waters stressed how deeply the past informs the present. 

"I'm trying to build connections, because there's a lot of history that's not been taught or learned," said Waters, whose drag alter ego, Bubbles or Bubblicious, is one of New Haven's longest-performing and venerated queens. "A lot of kids at this age, they don't know about Stonewall. They don't know about AIDS [the AIDS crisis].” 

“When you don't pass on information," she knows that history can repeat itself.

She speaks from decades of lived experience as a Black trans woman, she added. Born and raised in New Haven, she remembers a time when drag brunches—or drag performances anywhere outside of a gay bar—were inconceivable. As a teenager, she was beaten up, chased, and bullied for her feminine mannerisms. Now close to 60, she's a mentor and member of Rainbow Elders, a support and affinity group at the New Haven Pride Center.  

"I love them but I don't always like them," she said of LGBTQ+ youth with a little smile. "I have to give them their grace."

Lorra: "It means finally being able to be myself." 

That grace extended to students like Angel Lorra, a senior at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School (Co-Op) who plans to study sociology at Howard University in the fall. As she finished her lunch in the Adanti Student Center, Lorra remembered coming out to her mom this year, after bringing a girl home. After years of "wanting to meet family standards" that she assumed were hetero, she was amazed when her family was largely unphased. 

"My family is very supportive, so it didn't make a big difference," she said. "It means finally being able to be myself." 

Nearby, Co-Op junior Amani Pierce agreed. When she came out as bisexual in 2018, Pierce was still in middle school, and didn't know what to expect from her friends and family. 

Pierce. 

In the years since, she's learned to field questions on everything from potential paramours to LGBTQ+ and particularly trans rights. While some of their queries strike her as "really ignorant," she appreciates the fact that they're trying, she said. 

"Our school is the rainbow school," she added with a laugh when asked if she felt supported at Co-Op. "If they could paint the walls rainbow, they would."   

The day ended at the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts, as a handful of students waited for a meet and greet with Big Freedia (due to a miscommunication from YARD, several students had to return on city buses earlier in the day). Sitting close to the stage, TJ clasped their hands eagerly in their lap, then lifted them animatedly as they began to speak. 

A junior at Achievement First Amistad High School, they made the trip over to Southern after hearing that the musician was a featured guest at the conference. For them, Big Freedia isn’t just an artistic star— she’s also a role model, and an example of what it can look like to thrive as a Black trans woman.

“She’s just unapologetically herself,” TJ said. She’s successful and so good at what she does. I want to be able to be free like that.”

For them, getting free like that is still very much in the works, they added. While they feel comfortable “society wise,” they still struggle with fellow worshipers at church who don’t accept LGBTQ+ identity because they believe it is at odds with their faith. As they spoke, the words Jesus Loves You peeked out from a tote bag. 

Listening to Big Freedia is part of that. Every time they need to do “a good clean” or are headed somewhere on the road, they turn her music on.

BRAMS students at the conference.

Nearby, Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School student Mikayla Williams praised the conference, grabbing a pride flag before she bounded up to the stage. After coming out as bisexual to her mom last month, Williams is still figuring out “what it means to be gay,“ she said. The conference gave her a safe space to express herself.

“I like helping people,” chimed in fellow BRAMS student Khloé Lawson. “ I like helping people who feel oppressed in the world have somewhere where they can feel themselves.” 

As Big Freedia appeared on the stage against rainbow lighting, remaining attendees bounded up the steps with flags celebrating both LGBTQ Pride Month and Juneteenth. 

Freedia, in return, said that she hopes she can inspire young people to express themselves exactly as they are.

"They get to see me in my light, and also get to see that anything is possible," she said. "If you dream big, things can happen."