Monika Veliz Interview, 08 August 2023

Abstract

Monika Veliz (b. 1977) was born in Italy and grew up in Euclid, Ohio, before attending Virginia Marti College of Design. Veliz discusses coming out as a transgender woman in the 1990s after attending meetings at the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland. She discusses becoming active in Cleveland's Black underground LGBTQ+ Ballroom scene after joining the House of Chayde in the late 1990s. She discusses her career as a drag entertainer in Cleveland and describes the various gay bars and clubs in she performed at throughout the 1990s before briefly moving to San Francisco in 2000. Veliz discusses returning to Cleveland in 2001 and opening Jai Girl Inc before becoming involved with Margie's Hope and Margie's Closet in the 2021. She reflects on racial and gender-based discrimination within LGBTQ+ spaces and changes to Cleveland's LGBTQ+ and transgender communities over time.

Interviewee

Veliz, Monika (interviewee)

Interviewer

Habyl, Riley (interviewer)

Project

LGBTQ+ Cleveland

Date

8-8-2023

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

138 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Monika Veliz Interview, 08 August 2023" (2023). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 701008.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1266

Transcript

Riley Habyl [00:00:00] Okay. Today's date is Monday, August 7th, 2023. This is Riley Habyl with the LGBTQ+ Cleveland Voices Oral History Collection. I'm interviewing Monika Veliz at Margie's Closet in Lakewood, Ohio. So, hi, Monika. Thank you very much for speaking with me.

Monika Veliz [00:00:16] Hello. No problem. It's a pleasure.

Riley Habyl [00:00:19] Of course. So, could you please state and spell your name for the record?

Monika Veliz [00:00:23] My name is Monika Veliz, M-o-n-i-k-a V-e-l-i-z.

Riley Habyl [00:00:32] Fantastic. So, where and when were you born?

Monika Veliz [00:00:36] I was—. It's complicated. I was born in Italy and raised in New York. And I moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1991.

Riley Habyl [00:00:50] How old were you when you moved to Ohio?

Monika Veliz [00:00:53] Oh, God. 13. (laughs) 13, yeah.

Riley Habyl [00:00:58] Could you tell me a little bit about your childhood and family background?

Monika Veliz [00:01:01] Sure. My father is a Sicilian immigrant and did a lot of photojournalism in the seventies—early part of seventies—freelance. My mother is—. She was born in Alabama, raised in Cleveland. And that was a very interesting happening. I am a twin. And they thought it was okay to go flying from Cleveland to Italy at eight months pregnant, and there we hopped out. (laughs) So, we spent like the first year and a half in Sicily, and then moved to New York, and then back to Cleveland, where my mom's family is. Yeah, very interesting. My mother is a child psychologist. My mom's a child psychologist. She loves children. She loves the development of children. And I think she did a pretty okay job with hers. I think. (laughs) When we got back to Cleveland in '91, I attended Central Middle School in Euclid. We moved to Euclid, Ohio, where my grandparents were living. And that is a bit of adjustment. I think—. Kids are kids, you know. I tend to have this thing where I use humor to fit in rather quickly. And so, lucky for me, I didn't have that many problems in high school or in middle school. So, yeah.

Riley Habyl [00:02:51] Speaking of education, could you tell me a little bit about your educational background—where you went to school, and what years you went to those schools?

Monika Veliz [00:03:00] (coughs) Excuse me. I attended Central Middle School in 1991 to 1993. Then I moved from Central Middle School to Euclid High School in 1993 to 1997-ish. And from there I went to Virginia Marti [College of Art and Design], which is right up the block, and obtained my degree in fashion design and retail marketing. Yeah, not bad for an immigrant's kid. It was an interesting—. That—. Just even that block was very interesting, because in that time I also discovered that I was trans [transgender], so—. Very unheard of in the nineties. Definitely unheard of for parents to be supportive of trans kids, and I'm—again lucked out. My parents were very supportive. And my last year of high school I started transitioning. So, I've been female for 30 years. I've been female always, but I've been female on the outside for almost 30 years. Over 30 years now.

Riley Habyl [00:04:32] Could you tell me a little bit about—. I know you said you parents were supportive when you came out. Could you tell me a little bit more about how you—. Well, to circle back a little bit, I guess—. When did you first learn about trans identities and, you know, like, non-cis [cisgender] genders, and—?

Monika Veliz [00:04:53] So, it's a very interesting—. You know, me and my younger sister, you know, we always played house when we were younger. And it was actually—. My sister later down the road said, "You know, I always thought that I had a sister." She's three years younger than me, and so she said, "I always thought that you were just my sister, because whenever we would play house or we would play together Barbie Dolls, you were always a female character." I always chose the female character. I wanted to be mother, I wanted to be sister. I didn't know what that language was. I was just playing as a kid. When I was 15, I come home from school, and my dad's all excited. He's like, "I found someone. I found people like you." And I was like, "Oh my God, why are you—. Who?" You know, 'cause I'm comfortable living in my heterosexual bubble as that anomaly, you know. And everyone seems to be committed to me having a normal life. So, I didn't think it was necessary to have other people like me around. I came home at 11 and told my mom that I had a crush on a boy. My mom was like, "Oh, boy." So from 11 to 15, we assumed that I was just gay. When I came home from school that day and my father dropped me off at the first LGBT [Community] Center—which was located on West 29th and Detroit Avenue—and I go in and there's all these gay boys that are like, sitting around in a circle. And they're discussing gay issues, right? And I was like—. I'm sitting in a circle and I'm just like, this does not sound like me. I don't have the characteristics that these other gay boys—. Like, things that I saw was definitively gay—being effeminate or anything like that. I didn't—. I never saw myself as being an effeminate male. I always thought I was just a girl. So, after the session, the facilitator said, "So, how did things go? How'd you like group?" And I was like, "I don't think it's for me." She's like, "Why?" I was like, "Well, I don't think—. I don't think I'm gay by their definition." And so, I had this conversation with her about always being femme, and things like that. And she was the one who mentioned the word transgender, this and—. You know. And so, I go home and I tell my my parents. And my mom looks at me, she goes—she rolls her eyes, looks at my father, and she whispers, "I told you so." They always knew. I think they always had an inkling that this could go multiple ways. And so, yeah, that was—. I was 15 years old when I heard that, and it all made sense. It all clicked for me. It was like, oh my God, this is—. I actually have a name to what I feel, and it actually empowered me. It actually made me feel more of a girl, more female, to actually know what I was.

Riley Habyl [00:08:29] Was that your first time hearing the word transgender, and learning about identities that weren't cis [cisgender]?

Monika Veliz [00:08:36] No. It—. Ironically—. No. Somewhere between 13 and 15, I heard, you know, the colorful words they used to call us—like transvestites, and crossdressers, and she-males, and he-shes, and things like that. And those things sounded—even then, sounded deplorable. It sounded—. I guess it was because of the context that it was used then. It was always something extremely negative. Those words—. Those words are not negative words, but they were always used in the context of being bad. And so, I didn't think I wanted to be that way. And so, I heard those words, and—. Of course, you—. Any teenager fumbling through (laughs) pornographic material at—in the eighties or the nineties definitely discovered those ads in the beginning of the tape. And it always had a trans woman ad, or, you know, things like that. And it used to always freaked me out to the point where I would just like, not even watch. Like, I don't even want to know what's on this tape. This just seems really, really weird. It seemed surreal. And I definitely did not think that I was her. And so, yeah. Again, to hear that I had a name, and that I do have a culture. And learning about that culture throughout my later teens was like—. It was like a magic door opening for me.

Riley Habyl [00:10:19] Where did you end up learning more about the trans community in Cleveland?

Monika Veliz [00:10:22] I stayed with the LGBT [Community] Center throughout my youth. Actually, they had to kick me out because I think I was the only trans woman—trans girl, that was physically trans—in this group. So, I got to—. You know, it turns out I did find camaraderie with my gay brothers, and I found what it meant to be part of a chosen family. You know, going every Saturday and—oh, God, we did go out every Saturday from like 11 to, like, I think it was like 1. And then something happens where after group, we would all go somewhere and, like, do coffee together. We would spend a lot of time in Coventry, just being teenage kids on a Saturday, you know, and feeling normal amongst this new chosen family. And so, yeah, I learned more about who I was through that first. Through that first, then I started doing drag. Then I entered the drag community, and then you learn so much more. And like—. So many things you don't want to learn, but—. (laughs) But all beneficial. All great, great tools if you're going to survive an LGBT scene. Yeah, so—.

Riley Habyl [00:11:56] Before we talk a bit about drag, could you tell me—. When you were going to the LGBT [Community] Center as a teen, were there any specific programs or groups for trans [transgender] youth at the time?

Monika Veliz [00:12:08] No, there were none. There was—. I think it's one of the reasons why I did stay. The name of the group was called PRYZM, P-r-y-z-m, or something like that [PRYSM, Presence and Respect for Youth in Sexual Minority], and we—. If it—. If there was, it wasn't suggested to me. I was made to feel welcome in this group that was specifically for gay youth. Because again, we're talking, you know, mid-nineties, late nineties, where—. Even all the separation that we have now was not vocalized. So it was just—. It was all lumped into one—. There weren't even lesbians. There weren't even female youth that was in the group. It was all gay men, and it was headed by a lesbian facilitator. So, you know, we are just—. We all found a safe space, and, you know, things didn't look the way they do today. But, you know, we took advantage of the fact that it was a safe space, and we didn't care about a lesbian facilitator. We didn't care that there was a trans woman in the group. We just—. Yeah, we just needed a place. Yeah.

Riley Habyl [00:13:33] How did you first find out about and get involved with the drag community in Cleveland?

Monika Veliz [00:13:39] I went to a club on West 6th and Frankfort called Numbers Nightclub [620 Frankfort Ave.]. And at the time, it was a very specific—. It's where most of the Black community hung out, and—. God, I was—. I ha—. I hate to say this. Well, all those people who ran the club are probably no longer here, so it's okay to say that. I was 17. I was definitely underage when I went to this bar. And—. But because of the year before, where I spent so much time developing my relationships with the LGBT community, hanging out with people—. Lucky for me, there were people at the door that could vouch for me, "Come on, get in." So, I saw an entertainer on stage. She's very well known throughout the state of Ohio, Andrea Michaels. I saw Andrea [Michaels] onstage doing Certainly by Erykah Badu, and that was—. It was another puzzle piece because I was like, "Wait a minute, I get to be a girl and make money? Wait a minute—this is like the most perfect situation." And so, I begged—. I had—. It's funny, I just wrote a post on Facebook about this. My first time performing, the show host—her name was Yofreakka. I begged her for weeks to let me perform, "Please, please, please." "Ahh. You've never performed before. You've never done it before. Go away kid. Go away kid." Begged her, begged her, begged her. She finally said yes, and I went home and I practiced, and I practiced, and I practiced. Show day comes, and I psyched myself out. When I got onstage, I forgot every single word of the song. I was literally doing—. Oh, a song by Monica. Can't think of it. I want to say Before You Walk Out of My Life by Monica. And I froze. Froze. 17 years old. Froze. And they—. She started the music over. She said "Don't—. Give her time. She just started. This is her first time. Give her time." She started the music over. Still nothing. But something magical happened where—. The audience started to sing with me. The whole audience started to sing, and then slowly the words started coming back to me and coming back to me. And from that point on, I never forgot another word onstage. I won several crowns. Several titles. I am the last Miss Gay Ohio Teen U-S-of-A, and that was—. All those things were—. But doing drag for almost 15 years was magical for me. It was—. Like I said, it was probably the best school I attended too. And I attended some pretty good schools, but that was—. I learned a lot. I learned a lot from other trans [transgender] women that were in the business, and—. Yeah. (laughs) Sorry. I can go on, and on, and on about that. (laughs) It's—. I don't know, it's—. And I did see some dark things too, you know. But I'm sure there's time to talk about that stuff, but—. But yeah, the good stuff was making lifelong friends and understanding that business. Yeah, and I don't think you can be any closer to the LGBT community than being an entertainer. Everybody comes into those bars, and everyone wants to know who that entertainer is, and they want to have conversations with them. And so, yeah, it was it was really good.

Riley Habyl [00:18:12] Can you tell me a little bit about how your drag career kind of progressed after your initial performance?

Monika Veliz [00:18:20] Sure. I went from Numbers Nightclub [620 Frankfort Ave.] to The Cage [9506 Detroit Ave.] over on West 98th and Detroit. Or—. Yeah, 98th and Detroit. And I performed at Numbers for a number of years. Three years. And the owner of The Cage was in the bar—asked me, you know, to come perform over—. And there—. It was a very—. Not a lot of Black entertainers came on this side of the bridge. At the time, downtown there were a number of Black watering holes—LGBT watering holes—that we all just stayed to. And we said, "Okay, white people are on that side of the bridge, and then we're on this side of the bridge." And so—. You know, Black girls and entertainers did come this side, but it wasn't that many. Andrea Michaels was definitely one of those women, and Terri Williams was also one of those women. I went from Numbers over to The Cage, and I liked it. I like—. I loved that energy that the audience gave, and I've always fell in love with—. I guess from my first year at college, I fell in love with the West Side. It just seemed more diverse, it seemed more open. And yeah, again, I was going to school, you know, down the street from the bar, so that was convenient. I could, you know, go make money at night and then go to class at eight, nine in the morning, and, you know, I was all good. But—. Yeah, I ended up making The Cage my show home, and I performed there for a long—probably—until its last day in 2000 and—. 2001? 2001. Jan—. On New Year's—. It was New Year's Eve, New Year's Day 2001. It was bittersweet because I was there for maybe three years, and I saw a lot of entertainers coming and going, and—. Yeah, it was a good place. It was home. It was—. To me, it was like that modern-day Studio 54. Never knew what you were going to see in that bar, but you welcomed it. (laughs) It was interesting, yeah. From there I went to Bounce [2814 Detroit Ave.]. I was the very first show cast at Bounce Nightclub—on the very first show cast, and that was with Jennifer Phillips. Erica Martinez had started doing shows—hosting shows there, and that was good. That was back in its early, early days. And I performed there, but—. You know, with the close of The Cage, it allowed me to try other different bars on for size. And so, I was sort of everywhere, where I was performing at Twist [Twist Social Club, 11633 Clifton Blvd.], U4ia Nightclub [10630 Berea Rd.], Bounce, and then Deco. Deco Dance [11213 Detroit Rd.]—which is now called All That Class, I think. And so, I ended up making Deco—. Eventually settling into Deco, but I was still kind of fluent everywhere, all over the city performing. The Innerbelt, going back and forth between Akron and Cleveland, and—. Yeah. (laughs) This is just about Cleveland, 'cause there's like—. Because that journey actually does take a rather hard left, where—. In 2000 I left Cleveland, and I moved to California. I moved to Los Angeles, and then was performing out there. And I ended up joining in the Imperial Court System—and becoming a Grand Duchess in the Imperial Court System—all in a matter of, like, two months. (laughs) I moved out there, and I—. Because, I didn't know anyone. I moved out there with my ex-husband. That's his area, so I knew absolutely no one. And I said, if I'm going to make it in this town, I got to find my people. And so, I found gay bars, and slowly but surely made friends. And within two months, I was Grand Duchess in the Imperial Court System. So, that's—. I'm just ambitious. I'm just an ambitious cunt. (laughs) I'm cutthroat, and I just—. I don't know, I think it's just—. I love people. I love being around people—(coughs) 'scuse me—and I love the energy that my community gives when we're together. And there's—. You know, there's something about being in a bar and hearing the buzz. That's what I call it. It feels like you're inside of a beehive, because all these conversations are taking place—hundreds and hundreds of conversations all at one time—and it feels like you're inside of a beehive. And we're all there to enjoy the safe space together, no matter what walk of life you come from, no matter how you identify. The thing in Cleveland is that things start off as gay bars, but eventually they become like neighborhood bars where you're now partying alongside cisgender, heterosexual people. They just see a really cool bar, and everybody in the neighborhood is, like, packing those bars. And I think that adds to, like, the freedom aspect of just being—doing normal things. If I just went out to a—. Doesn't have to necessarily be a gay bar, because everybody's there. So, yeah. I've met a lot of people that way.

Riley Habyl [00:25:00] Circling back to the early-to-mid 1990s, you mentioned that the—like, that there was a lot of, like, racial division in terms of the gay bar scene.

Monika Veliz [00:25:14] Mhm.

Riley Habyl [00:25:14] What were some of the bars that you mentioned that were more—like, more like Black LGBT community spots, versus white LGBT community spots?

Monika Veliz [00:25:24] Oh, God. So, there was—. Okay, so, when I first started—going between Numbers, there was another after-hours place called the Colosseum [7218 Euclid Ave.]. I definitely recommend you finding more Black LGBT people from that era, because they will probably go on and on about the Colosseum. The Colosseum with the located—. Well, it was the Colosseum on 79th Street, like, the Masonic—whatever that was. It was attached to the Masonic Temple, or something like that. But we would get together after the bar closed at 2:00 and we would head over that way. And it was in the basement of the Colosseum. It was weird. There's DJ tables set up. It felt very much like a house party. It was in the basement, which was just an open floor. And that was—. When I think about it, that was spiritual. It was spiritual, because there were all these people of color in this place, and we were doing things like voguing and battling—vogue battling and walking. And for some strange reason, that all resonated spiritual to me, because this was—. It felt like this was ours. This was—. You know, there were a lot of bars that were mixed and not so segregated. But when you went to the Colosseum, this felt like this was ours. And we're communing with each other, and we're enjoying our Blackness together, and—which was very much needed. But it was a Numbers, the Colosseum, and then—. Oh God, there was—. There was the nights where the bars that were not as segregated would have what they would call 'Black nights.' That's where all the Black community only went on that particular night—didn't go any other night of the week. They played hip hop, they played house music, they played deep house, things that—again, we could have as a Black community, this spiritual communion and just be with ourselves, you know? And every now and then, there would be, you know, quite a few white people that, you know—. Which was welcoming, you know, there wasn't—not that I can remember—too many bad racial mix-ups, or anything like that. But yeah, there was—. There were quite a few lesbian bars. One called [Code] Blue [1496 St. Clair Ave.], I believe, and so—. 727—. I'm trying to remember. I believe it was called [Club] 727. [Club] 727 [727 Bolivar Rd.] was, like, a really popular lesbian bar. But, again, all the Black LGBT community converged in that space, and—. Yeah, you hardly saw white people there. Yeah, really, when I think about it, it's sad, but it's also kind of beautiful because those spaces now are nowhere to be found. And so, yeah. Belinda's [9613 Madison Ave.]—. Well, we're talking in early nineties, so—or, mid-nineties. Yeah, there were—. We were—. The community was very big on—because those spaces were so limited, we were very big on 'Black nights'. They were important, I think.

Riley Habyl [00:29:34] Did Cleveland have a big ballroom scene in the nineties? I know that you mentioned the Colosseum and voguing—.

Monika Veliz [00:29:41] Yes. So—. Oh, God. We should have, like, numbered these [questions] so that I would be able to not jump ahead, but—.

Riley Habyl [00:29:51] No worries.

Monika Veliz [00:29:51] So, I was a part of a very prominent House here in Cleveland. There were tons, tons of Houses in the nineties. Part of my journey from, let's say, that group on 29th [Prysm], and spreading my wings a little bit definitely brought me to the House of Chayde—C-h-a-y-d-e—where—. It was run—. I had a mutual friend that was friends with people that—. She belonged to the House, and she said, "You should come to—." Like, "You should come over to the house." And it was literally a house—it was an apartment over on 97th and Chester Avenue. Little apartment, one bedroom apartment. I said, "I don't know. I'm—." You know, I'm thinking gang activity. You know, like, I don't know what a House is, and things like that. I go to the house and there's tons of people that I've seen already in the bar scene, or part of the group that I belong to. And they're all just like sitting around, laying around, talking. You know, talking about going out, and things like that. And my friend said, "Well, she want—. She's thinking about joining a House." And the House Mother at the time—who was Mahogany Reason—asked me what my name was. And I—. My parents—.My family calls me Money—M-o-n-e-y, and that was before Monika. That was my nickname. So, I said, "My name's Money." And Mahogany said, "I love it. She's in. Done." And I instantly became a part of the House of Chayde. And we vogued, and the ballroom scene was— was everything. There was the House of Elegance, there was the House of Couture. There was a lot of Houses here, and one by one they just started disintegrating. I think it's still underground—but at one point it wasn't. At one point there were House balls happening everywhere—from Numbers, to U4ia, to the Colosseum—where all these Houses would, you know, converge, and—again—commune (laughs), which is what the ballroom scene is about. It's about us having a place to commune together, and—. Yeah.

Riley Habyl [00:32:34] Do you know how the ballroom scene in Cleveland developed? I'm not sure if you know anything about, like, the history of Cleveland's ballroom scene.

Monika Veliz [00:32:41] I do not. I have to admit, I don't know too much about where it left off and where I picked up, but—. No, and I wish I did. (crosstalk) Maybe that's something I should go look for. (laughs) I should look for that, because that—. I think that would—. That's a very interesting piece of history considering, you know, my time—'96— there were a considerable amount of Houses that were that were here. So, somebody had to start it. (laughs) Someone had to start it. So, yeah. I think it's—. And, you know, the later decades, it's nice to know that you can now make a House the nonprofit, and—. Yeah, and so, I—. We definitely didn't have that. I think someone just said, "I'm going to start a House," and then they started it, and people started joining, and so—. Yeah. It's pretty good.

Riley Habyl [00:33:41] For the record, could you sort of explain what a House is, or the dynamics of being a member of a House?

Monika Veliz [00:33:49] So, in a House, there's either just a House Mother—. In my case, it was a House Mother and a House Father. And the dynamics are—. First and foremost, we're family. We compete as a family, and we hang out as a family, we—. You know, in a sense, it is a gang—but it's a loving gang. And the dynamics are usually different, because there's so—. It's not all trans [transgender], not all lesbian, it's not even all gay. There can be heterosexual members of a House, or—. I'm sorry, heterosexual cis [cisgender]-identifying people, members of the House. And the dynamic is—. Again, we're all here for each other. And I don't think there is, like—. I don't think there's anything where you, like, rise above—you know, like any type of official title that you can—. No, it's just—. We're all just House sisters, and House brothers, and—. Or, in the nineties the convention was just 'sister.' (Riley laughs) We didn't care who you were, you were just "sister". And so—. Yeah, that was—. It was good because, again, I found more trans [transgender] camaraderie. Being a part of this House, there are more trans women—youth—that was a part of this House. That was—. It really wasn't much to it. We would compete in House balls. And, you know, it was fun because we spent a lot of our time practicing. Practicing walking [ballroom categories], and practicing voguing. Any time there were, like, three or more of us in a room, house music was playing, and we were voguing, and stretching, and all—. Oh God. So long ago. But—. (laughs) I definitely don't have those legs anymore. (both laugh) But it was good, because even that was—. That was bonding time. And, you know, obviously we did talk about the racial disparages of the time, and, you know, being LGBT and Black and on the fringe of, you know, everything else. Not just certain things, but everything else. And so, you know, those were I things—. Those were times where we could have like deep discussions, and it's kind of—. For me, it's kind of—where the group left off, the House picked up. Where I still found myself sitting in a circles talking about, you know, political stuff, and change, and—. You know, I owe everything that I am proudly to that House, because they were loving, they were supportive—sometimes. (laughs) Everybody is—. Nothing is perfect, and no family dynamic is perfect, but—. For the most part, we supported each other's endeavors. And we had a really good House Mom, and a really good House Father.

Riley Habyl [00:37:17] What were some of the things that you learned in the House of Chayde?

Monika Veliz [00:37:22] Oh, God. Well, that depends, because I learned a lot of things. I learned—. I learned how to be a woman—if that makes any sense. Obviously, you know, in my own birth family dynamic, I'm the only trans [transgender] person in my family. So, there's not like a whole lot of conversations. You know, me and my mother's mother-daughter conversations aren't conventional. So, in this House, finding other trans women like myself taught me a lot about being a woman. And, I don't know—. Things that—. 'Cause there's—. You know, lessons have good aspects and they have bad aspects, and I was taught kind of both. There were things that I heard, or was trying to be educated about, that just didn't sit well with me as far as being a trans woman. But, you know, this journey is—. I think at that point I had—. The most important thing I learned is that this journey is singular. We can come together as trans people, but the trans journey is a singular one. And so, I learned how to do makeup. I learned how to—. I learned how to dress for drag. I learned how to perform. I mean, I was a good performer to start with, but the House [of Chayde] definitely taught me how to hone my craft, and to control it. (laughs) Control it. It was a place where we learned new dances, and we learned how to push our bodies' limits and—you know, for the sake of the ballroom, you know, was like, you have to keep going, keep going, but—. Above all, I learned how to be a friend. I think that was—. Because there were other issues that we dealt with within the House. We did deal with HIV, you know, and during a time where medicine was not that helpful—or, as helpful as it is today. So, we did deal with those issues. And keeping it secret, you know, and—. Oh, yeah. I learned a lot.

Riley Habyl [00:40:06] When you were performing within the ballroom scene, were there any specific— (crosstalk)

Monika Veliz [00:40:10] Categories?

Riley Habyl [00:40:11] —categories that you walked?

Monika Veliz [00:40:11] Yes. I walked for Realness, and—. I think that was it. And—. Once there was a Turnabout Ball, and I had to walk for—. Oh, Fem Queen Boogie Like a Butch Queen, which was very difficult. It's very easy—. (both laugh) It's like—. It's safe to say that I lost that one. But it's okay. (laughs) I did bring the House [of Chayde] quite a few trophies home for Realness, and—. Yeah, it's all good. (laughs) [For] Realness, obviously. And if that was your follow up question, "What is Real[ness]?" The [ballroom] category of Realness is, well, presenting like a cis [cisgender] woman. That is not just in looks, but in walking, and all that. Voguing, body movements, all that good stuff. Yeah.

Riley Habyl [00:41:12] This might be a little bit of a silly question, but I don't know if we've seen the FX show Pose—.

Monika Veliz [00:41:17] I have.

Riley Habyl [00:41:17] And— (coughs)

Monika Veliz [00:41:21] Forced to watch it. Because I was like—. It was weird, because when it when it first aired, everyone's like, "Are you watching? Are you watching?" I said, "No, I lived it. I don't need to watch it. I could sit here and tell you exactly what it's playing out there." So, yeah. Go ahead.

Riley Habyl [00:41:39] Would you say that the ball scene in Cleveland was at all similar to, say, the scene in New York? Or, was it is was it its own sort of thing?

Monika Veliz [00:41:56] I would have to say it was sort of its own thing. It was sort—. I could see where they were trying to push. But, you know, it takes a lot of working together, and the Cleveland LGBT scene, for all of its pocket camaraderie, is never—in my experience, has never been on the same page. And so, it was sort of its own thing, but it wasn't that far off. It wasn't—. It was almost there. And, you know, I think that had it been able to survive to today in Cleveland, we would be—probably—where [the ballroom scene in] New York is. Obviously, with things like Pose and, you know, RuPaul's Drag Race, and all these inspirational ideas that are just like fluid now. You can't turn off—turn on the TV without seeing inspiration that—. Yeah, it probably would be one of the biggest things here in Cleveland. It's really sad, and someone should really work hard to try to bring that scene back—the scene back.

Riley Habyl [00:43:17] At least from your experience, could you sort of tell me a bit about how the scene evolved when you were a part of it? I know you said it's declined in recent years.

Monika Veliz [00:43:27]

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