Serving Archival Essence: Vogue Femme as Response to Homonormative Crisis

At the end of 2021’s Alexander Ball Ella Ganza, Mother of the House of Alexander, called all the transwomen of colour onto the stage and demanded the audience protect them. She reminded the diverse audience of this delayed Brisbane Festival event that Vogue Ballroom was birthed out of the crisis of discrimination these women faced even within Queer communities and their search for a "sense of belonging" (Leane and Harkin 51). This search was/is made more urgent by the disproportionate effects the HIV/AIDS epidemic had/has on Bla(c)k, Brown, and Transgender bodies; a crisis concurrent with the catapulting of Vogue Ballroom into the cultural mainstream (Centre for Disease Control; Moore 148). This moment explicitly highlighted what I understand to be the purpose of any ball: to rejoice in the transfeminine and develop "ways of knowing, being, and doing" (51) that operate free of hetero- and homonormative constraint. In particular, Vogue Femme as a ballroom category operates as a "conjuring that deform[s] and re-form[s] the world" (Muñoz 196) of those who perform and witness it. Transfeminine, especially Bla(c)k and Brown transfeminine, voguers are able to "insist on their visibility" (150) and demand their bodies be acknowledged as archives of Queer survival in a world that still seeks to erase them. Other performers and spectators pay homage to this archive by returning to the origin, "to the most archaic place of absolute commencement" for which they remain "homesick" (Derrida 91), even in a post-marriage equality society.