Dance an Resistance  Voguing and Ballroom: A Form of Resistance for Trans* Communities

Voguing and ballroom culture are far more than just aesthetic expression: they are acts of resistance, self-expression and solidarity for trans*, drag and queer communities. In a world that punishes their existence, dance becomes a place of refuge, an outcry, but also an act of remembrance and a way of life. From its Afro and Latin American roots in Harlem to the streets of Mexico City, this scene celebrates what the system wants to erase: the beauty, strength and dignity of bodies that deviate from the norm. To dance is to exist - and to exist is also to resist.

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus, shouldering the weight of a massive rock. As it can be exhausting to bear this body, I sometimes wish that I could conjure myself into another body and crouch in a corner like a silent intruder to experience the universe from another body. Then I could feel every single muscle that the person I admire moves in their dance and acrobatic performance as if it were my own.

What I am trying to describe is a strange longing to live the lives of others. When I started dancing Vogue, I began to sort of live out this odd fantasy: to inhabit other bodies and my own at the same time. As I write these words, my body and I are navigating through difficult times. Sometimes the sparks literally fly. “I don't want us to hate each other,” I say to myself. “And since I need you, I'll take you dancing.”

Dancing is like a truce between me and my gay body, the body of a faggot, a trans person, a drag performer, my body inflamed and mutilated by fear, wounded and silenced. A fragile truce, because dancing Vogue pushes me to my (physical) limits.

My story began five years ago, on March 7, 2020, at the Urban Ball at the Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City, which was organized as part of the international exhibition “Elements of Vogue”. At the event, I saw LGBTQIA+ people dancing, competing, and celebrating together. Shortly after, the pandemic hit and swallowed the world for over two years. But in that moment, Chopo felt like an explosion and a violent upheaval. A culture full of complexity and layers opened up before me.

A Voyage Through The History of the Ballroom

“Ballroom is a pop culture that was created by African-American, trans and queer people during the golden years of jazz in the 1930s, but only blossomed in New York's subcultures in the 1980s, just before the AIDS crisis,” reads the dossier of “Elements of Vogue”. New York is exactly my goal. On February 13, 1967, the Miss All-American Camp beauty contest took place there, a drag competition that assembled people from all over the country.

That night, Crystal LaBeija, a black Latina trans woman, was denied the crown. The reason: at the time, white skin was one of the beauty standards in drag competitions, and the contestants had to lighten their skin with make-up to increase their chance of winning. LaBeija was livid and fiercely criticized the racism of these competitions. Without knowing it, Crystal was writing history.

In 1972, Crystal and Lottie LaBeija presented the 1st Annual House of LaBeija Ball at Up the Downstairs Case in New York's Harlem neighborhood. It was their own competition for the most marginalized fringe groups. It was one of the first events of its kind that “welcomed people from their community, people who looked like them, people who lived like them, people like themselves, people of color,” wrote the House. Ballroom thus established itself as an anti-racist and anti-colonialist space (insofar as it challenged the colonialist gender system) and a revolutionary divide ran through the heart of the empire of the United States of America.

Ballroom culture is celebrated and developed, grows and lives at the so-called Balls. There are various fashion and catwalk categories at these dance competitions, such as All American Runway, European Runway, Best Dressed, Realness, and Face. At each ball, a jury judges the performers. It's all about imitating the high fashion shows of the 90s, presenting an outfit, radiating a unique energy, and creating unforgettable moments.

The House of LaBeija is considered to be the first ballroom house. In this culture, the houses are groups of people who organize themselves to live together, usually under the leadership of a mother figure. They rehearse different categories and then "walk" at the balls under the same surname, which means taking part in the competition, regardless of whether or not they dance Vogue. Winning a category not only secures the performer a trophy, but also earns prestige for the house.

But these houses are much more than that. Given the rejection that this marginalized community has ceaselessly experienced from society, many houses became the families of choice for their members. Sharing a roof was a way of surviving financial insecurity and discrimination: a political choice. In Mexico City, among many others, you can find the Kiki House of Karn4Lx, the Kiki House of Deleite, the Kiki House of Pecadoras, and the Kiki House of Millán, my home.

Voguing: Trans History of the Body

Voguing, one of the possible categories within ballroom, is a dance style formerly known as pop, dip and spin. It was created by imitating model poses as seen in Vogue magazine (from which the name originates), but also sculptures, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or even military marches to the rhythm of house and disco music.

The trans women who danced at the balls developed their own style of this urban dance. Many of them were sex workers and shaped Vogue – which until then had been characterized by clean lines and symmetry – with an abundance of curves and sensuality. Proud of their transition, they showed off their long nails, accentuated their long hair and their hips. From that moment on, everything changed – forever.

The classic way of voguing was then called the Old Way. The new way the women embodied the dance was named Vogue Femme, an abbreviated form of "voguing like a femme queen," femme queen being a way for the community to overturn the social pyramid: by labeling the trans women walking the runway as queens, they inevitably position themselves at the top.
  The above quote is by Nezahualcóyotl, a trans woman with brown skin and black curls who has a kind and warm personality. She, who goes by the stage name Coyote in the community, says that she discovered Ballroom a few years ago, but was only looking for a way to get into the community in June 2024.

A dance style like voguing, seen in its context, is a way of experiencing the story of others. Every step and every element is part of a language and a form that many people before me have developed to express something about their experiences: I am sexy, I am a slut, I am a whore, I am trans. Vogue Femme and Old Way are therefore different ways of posing and positioning oneself in the world. Voguing has become a way of regaining power over our bodies, which have always been the target of attention.

A little Voguing Against Violence

Sara Millerey began her transition at the age of 15 and chose Millerey as her name “because she loved the Mirellas, the glitter, the shimmer, everything that made her hair and eyes shine”, as Colombian journalist Camila Osorio reports. “She looked beautiful when she danced Britney Spears choreographies,” says one of Sara's friends, as can be read in Osorio's text for the newspaper El País.

But on April 4, Sara was the victim of a brutal hate crime. Her arms and legs were broken and she was thrown into the La Quebrada river, which flows through the Playa Rica neighborhood in the municipality of Bello in Antioquia, Colombia, where she drowned. Witnesses (who, by their indifference or fear of intervening, made themselves accomplices to the crime) filmed the scene and shared the video on social media.

At 32, Sara is one of the youngest victims of a hate crime that shook Colombian society and the whole of Latin America. The wave of outrage over Sara's transfemicide also reached Mexico, itself a country of countless such tragedies. On Sunday, April 13, 2025, collectives and members of the trans community and their allies protested in front of the Colombian embassy in Mexico City to demand justice.

"I don't know if I'm next, I don't know if my friends are next. That's why the use of violence is legitimate, because transphobia is more violent than a protest, it's more violent than riots, it's more violent than graffiti," said a trans woman and activist, while other protesters expressed their dissent with slogans and signs on the building.

I think of what was inflicted on Sara Millerey: her body was erased. The crime was committed to set an example and broadcast a clear message: your body can and will be punished. In the face of systematic violence against our bodies, Voguing broke out of the balls that day and took place on the streets. 'Voguing in memory of Sara' was the motto – and this is exactly what was practiced. One of the special characteristics of the ballroom scene in Mexico is undoubtedly its ability – like Anarkx – to engage in battles that are closely interwoven with our own.

From Berlin to Mexiko

Diabla, a 33-year-old gay man, says that before he became the father of House Miu Miu in Mexico City and part of the Iconic House of Saint Laurent in Europe, he was a man who experienced the kind of loneliness that only migrants experience. Thousands of kilometers away from his homeland, living in the heart of Berlin, one work day changed his life forever. He took part in a voguing class which, to his surprise, was attended by other gay, trans, and queer people.

Some time later, Diabla left Germany, but never the Ballroom, at least not in spirit. When he returned to Mexico from Europe, he found a different scene there. The economic and social conditions gave the Latin American scene its own charm. In Germany, glamor, luxury brands, and black culture defined the scene, similar to the United States. The Mexican scene, however, is more theatrical, perhaps even burlesque, and adapts the ballroom to its specific contexts.

A Tool for Life

Rooted in these movements, which fought together, they prioritized the demand to establish a law for the state to recognize trans femicide as a specific form of violence against trans women. Routines of action should be established so that the authorities investigate these violent deaths. But it is not enough to legislate for death, we need laws for life. I think for many people Ballroom is that tool that enables life. Anarkx commented on the political power of the ballroom community: This dissident culture reminds us of the most obvious truth – one that much of the world chooses to ignore: that trans bodies, like any others, are capable to perform feats and acrobatics. That we deserve applause, celebration, and joy. That our bodies should not be visible only when we are featured in sensationalist crime stories.

Neza's Heels

"I can't even imagine practicing without heels anymore, you know? Because the heels are empowering me..." And it’s true. Neza trains in heels and wears a miniskirt because there are clothes that thrill us, and wearing them unlocks new sensations and possibilities in our bodies. A skirt, some heels, a crop top, lingerie, stockings – any of these can be a springboard into the explosion of femininity that happens while voguing.

I see someone grow in their performance when the body releases itself, when the head is not afraid to turn even when it is close to the floor; when the movements begin to flow beyond what has been learned; and I see joy. “It has helped me a lot to see my body as an altar that I need to take care of and cherish because my body allows me to turn, run, fall, and do whatever I want,” Coyote emphasizes.

These words trigger a strange feeling in me, and they ring in my ears. How many of us are fighting the same battle? "I have spinal issues, so I will most likely stop dancing at some point, and I'm grateful that it's not yet that time. But I will continue to be grateful and take care of myself for as long as I can," says Coyote. It feels as if dancing liberates us from chains we didn't know we were wearing. I have experienced this with my hands.

My Non-Binary Hands

Since I've been dancing, I can't keep my hands still. They wave around in the air all the time. Someone once asked me why I shoo away invisible flies. Hands can be very expressive, and if anything exposed my otherness in my childhood, even before I knew what an LGBTQIA+ flag looked like or what it meant to be a trans person, it was them: my non-binary hands.

Through my hands, I find a way to express the camp character of the gay community you often see in the way they move, speak, or dress. For the expressive gestures and femininity cannot be hidden, even if you try a thousand times over. When I dance Vogue Femme, my hands tell my story, touch parts of my body that I want to emphasize, open up like fans to showcase the nail polish on my fingers, circle around my face when I want it to be seen, serve as whips with every "boom, boom, boom" of the beat. They express eroticism or vulnerability. Also anger, annoyance, or rage.

And even in everyday life, when I am not dancing, my hands remain awake, as if – once the dam has been broken or this physical path has been opened through dance – the flow of my identity will continue to rush through them more freely. This naturally gives rise to gestures with which I emphasize what I say when I speak.

Voguing makes me feel alive. It paves the way for me and the burden of this massive stone on my shoulders turns lighter. Then I feel that we are not two – but that I am. For a moment, I am. And in this individual affirmation that I feel when I reach the final pose, the thousands in front of me who are supporting me also begin to be, again.