s2, e3: sister you turnt it tonight - ballroom houses
episode details
Welcome back for episode three! We hope y’all enjoyed learning about Queer writing and poetry salons last week. If you haven’t listened to episode one or two yet, no worries, baby! While we intended for the podcast to be listened to in the order we release it, this season’s episodes aren't in chronological order, so if you listen out of order, you’ll still be able to easily follow along.
This week, we’ll be exploring D.C.’s Ballroom history. In the Queer community, when you say the word “house,” it means so much more than just a physical structure. For the Ballroom community, to be in a house means you’re a part of a family, a chosen family.
While many know the Ballroom community of New York, especially from films like Paris is Burning, D.C. also has a vibrant history and Ballroom community.
Special thanks to the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
Audio editing by Abby Stuckrath and Julia Hay
A full transcript is available below or in this pdf. You can also find works cited and in-text citations for the episode in this pdf.
transcript
[QTDP theme music fades in]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Welcome back for episode three! We hope y’all enjoyed learning about Queer writing and poetry salons last week.
If you haven’t listened to episode one or two yet, no worries! While we intended for the podcast to be listened to in the order we release it, this season’s episodes aren't in chronological order, so if you listen out of order, you’ll still be able to easily follow along.
However, if you’d like to know a little more about what you can expect this season as a whole, episode one’s intro can give you some more detailed information.
This week, we’ll be exploring D.C.’s ballroom history. In the Queer community, when you say the word “house,” it means so much more than just a physical structure. For the Ballroom community, to be in a house means you’re a part of a family, a chosen family.
For those unfamiliar with the Ballroom community, I’m not talking about ballroom dance, like the waltz with those glittery dresses, tight pants, and rock hard hair-dos. I’m talking about ballroom, a once underground culture, where Black and Brown Queer folks compete in pageant-like categories, the most familiar being performance, which features voguing.
While many know the Ballroom community of New York, especially from films like Paris is Burning, D.C. also has a vibrant history in the Ballroom community.
But enough background, this episode, we start, not in the past, but the present, with the Ballroom community healing itself over the loss of an icon who was truly the heart of the DMV ballroom scene.
[QTDP theme music fades out]
[House music plays, MC yelling]
MC: All-American runway…All-American runway!
[House music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: In January of 2026, Kirk Pressley, also known as MC Boom Boom, legendary member of the House of Balenciaga and DMV local, died.
[Soft guitar music plays in the background]
ASIA BALENCIAGA: Kirk was that one.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Asia Balenciaga, the D.C. Mother for the House of Balenciaga joined the ballroom scene with Kirk in the 2010s.
ASIA BALENCIAGA: He was the outspoken one. He was the one that made everybody like happy all the time. He sets the mood back into a positivity.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Kirk was known for runway and emceeing.
[MC shouting indistinctly]
ABBY STUCKRATH: His voice would captivate the room. He was the definition of a powerhouse.
MC: Butch queen face!
[MC shouting indistinctly]
ASIA BALENCIAGA: He was a genius when it comes words. Words–that any word you give him, he would give it back to you in any style. He was that person.
ABBY STUCKRATH: When he died, the ballroom community decided to throw a ball in his honor.
ASIA BALENCIAGA: We’re gonna continue his legacy, and we’re gonna push through.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Every category was dedicated to him and what he loved about ballroom.
[MC yelling, crowd chattering]
MC: Do it in the name of…do it in the name of Boom! Do it in the name of…Do it in the name of Boom!
[MC fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: What the ballroom community did for Kirk was a beautiful testament to the purpose and power of ballroom. Within all the tens, chops, shade, glitz, and glamour, one thing remains true: ballroom is a space for growth, unconditional love, and, most importantly, family.
[Soft guitar music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Ballroom isn’t new. It didn’t start in the 80s when D.C. got its first ballroom house, nor did it start in the 60s when the first five ball houses were created in New York. The practice of underground parties to find a sense of Black Queer belonging, safety, and celebration has existed for centuries.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Because slaves could not worship with their masters, on the plantation they created underground praise houses.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Michael Roberson is an Icon, Hall of Famer, founder of the Haus of Maison Margiela, and author of BALLROOM: A History, A Movement, A Celebration. He says that historically the Black community has had two places they could be free.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: In their homes or in a church.
ABBY STUCKRATH: But for Black Queer folks who were unwelcomed by the church and ostracized by their straight counterparts, another form of underground praise was created.
[Roaring jazz music plays in background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Drag balls
[Crowd cheers]
[Glasses clink]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The origin of drag balls is a debated topic, some historians say that we can trace the practice of Drag balls all the way back to 1869 in Harlem, New York, where Black Queer folks explored their gender and sexuality through underground dress and competition galas. Some authors however, like Michael, argue that it wasn’t until the 1900s that those galas would feature drag performance. Michael says that D.C. is the birthplace of the first documented drag balls. Nonetheless, history does agree in saying that the first recorded self-proclaimed drag queen was a formerly enslaved man from Maryland, who threw legendary underground drag balls in the District.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: It was illegal for men to dress up in women's clothes and women to dress up in men clothes, but created a space for people to be free.
[Roaring jazz music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: In Michael’s book, he describes the tumultuous night when WIlliam Dorsey Swann’s underground balls came to light.
[Horse neighs, horse hooves clop down a street]
[Carriage creaks]
It was April 12, 1888….
[Carriage wheels turning down a street]
Attendees arrived in horse-drawn carriages in their finest dressings at 1114 F Street NW, in what is now the Penn Quarter neighborhood.
[Knocking on door]
[Door creaks open]
[Sultry jazz music plays]
[Party guests chattering]
Dawned in a white lace silky dress with gold embellished slippers, Swann was celebrating his thirtieth birthday.
[Sultry jazz music stops]
[Pounding on door]
Right before the clock struck twelve, police stormed the building's third floor, chaos breaking loose.
[Indistinct yelling]
[Bodies scuffling]
[Footsteps running]
[Glasses shattering]
Someone even jumped out the window to flee.
[Window breaking]
Swann fought back, resisting his arrest, in which the police ripped his gorgeous gown.
[Fabric ripping]
A local newspaper who reported on the event called it a “rough and tumble” arrest.
[Mob yelling indistinctly]
A mob outside cheered while Swann and ten other attendees were taken to jail.
But this didn’t stop Swann. In fact, he was arrested again later that decade and was sentenced to ten months in jail for “keeping a disorderly house,” AKA a brothel in his home on L Street.
[Sad jazz solo plays]
His drag balls were described as “an offense so disgusting that is unnamed” by U.S. attorney, A. A. Birney.
Swann didn’t go down quietly. He petitioned his arrest with President Grant, which is regarded as one of the first Queer American political acts of resistance.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: We look at him as the very first sort of Queer activist, a Queer resistant person, because he does it. I'm sure there were other folks, but it's in the way that he does it. He's not hiding in that way, right? He's, he's arrested for that reason. And so he politicizes that reason, and the audacity to write to a president at that time to think that he can get a pardon.
[Sad jazz solo swells, then fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Swann helped lay the groundwork for ballroom to thrive, but the modern day structure of ballroom that we see today didn’t start until 1968 in New York City.
[Clock ticks quickly]
[Car honks quickly]
[Lively funk music plays in the background]
MICHAEL ROBERSON: House Labejia is the very first house.
ABBY STUCKRATH: After being racially discriminated against and discounted from the drag pageant scene in New York, Crystal LaBejia and Lottie LaBejia wanted to go back to the old drag ball circuit, which was similar to the parties that Swann threw, with individual categories of performance. But this time, they had a new idea.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Let's move away from the individual, right the individual participating, and create a system called house. And that's where you begin to see the morphing from drag ball to house ball.
ABBY STUCKRATH: A ballroom house defies the mainstream definition of a house. It’s not a home with a white picket fence, but a chosen family. There were five Houses and Mothers who were pivotal in leading and creating ballroom in New York in the late 60s.
Add house punches in between each name
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Pepper LaBejia
[House beat]
Dorian Corey
[House beat]
Avis Pendarvis
[House beat]
Paris Dupree
[House beat]
and Duchess La Wong.
[House music plays]
And so we call them the five Mothers in the modern house Ball community, because houses begin to be created after them.
[House music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Rayceen Pendarvis, a Washingtonian and ballroom veteran, says one New York ball pioneer was very closely tied to D.C.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: I found out that Avis Pendarvis actually went to high school with some of my cousins.
[Rayceen interview fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Avis Pendarvis, pioneer and founder of the House of Pendarvis was a Washingtonian.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: She always felt like family to me, and she became my mother. Avis Pendarvis was the valedictorian of their class. She spoke 10 different languages. She was just a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of history. She was a force beyond ballroom. She did a lot in the community. She was well respected and well loved.
[Rayceen interview fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Rayceen says the House of Pendarvis was a home for the dolls.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: We were known for a lot of femme queens.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Ballroom's term for trans women.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: The loveliest femme queens and the realest and fabulous, even though some of the girls in the other houses was just as real, just as fabulous. But many of our girls, or let me just say–we're pageant girls, and they brought a different kind of flavor and a different kind of understanding to the ballroom floor. They brought a kind of competing as they were competing in pageants. So they brought a whole nother kind of concept to the floor.
[Rayceen interview fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Even without a ballroom house in D.C., the District was accustomed to the culture thanks to it being the hometown of one of the founders of modern ballroom, Avis Pendarvis.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: Well, of course, you know, when you talk about Pendarvis, because we are the one of the original four. You would always say, you have the foundation, and then you have the building. So we're the foundation, and then you're the building of the other houses that come after you.
ABBY STUCKRATH: It wouldn’t be until the late 80s that D.C. founded its first ballroom house.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Eric Christian Bazaar, who's from New York City, and he's ballroom, and he's in the service, I believe, and he's in stationed in Virginia or D.C. area. And he meets a guy named Lowell.
LOWELL KHANH: So he said, “You will be a pioneer, because you will be starting this in D.C.”
[Upbeat synth song plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Lowell first learned how to vogue on the dance floor of the Clubhouse, a legendary warehouse night club for the D.C. Black Queer community in the 80s that you might remember from last season.
He met pioneer and icon, Eric Bazaar, while attending a ball in New York City, who tapped him to start the first ballroom house in D.C.
LOWELL KHANH: He said, “I don't want you to join a house in New York. I want you to start your own house. It will be the first house outside of New York. The first tree or branch outside of New York for ballroom.”
[Upbeat synth song fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: For two years, Eric and Lowell would meet at his mom’s house in D.C. making plans and taking notes.
LOWELL KHANH: He told me about the Duprees, the Labejias–just a history of ballroom–the Ebonys. Who the mothers were back then, the fathers were back then.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Then they started recruiting, finding folks interested in joining their house. Eric played a pivotal role in not just building the house but educating people on the rules and standards of ballroom.
LOWELL KHANH: He knew, how do you walk different categories? What categories this person would be? Should they be face? Should they be runway? When we would bring people in the house, we would bring people in the house for those categories, and then we would have, days at a bar, meetings at someone's house, or meetings at a club, where we all would be in a corner discussing things. We had practices getting people ready.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Finally after years of planning, in 1986 they debuted…
[House music plays in the background]
LOWELL KHANH: The house of Khan–K, H, A, N, H.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Lowell wanted the first family of the house of Khanh to be a small tight-knit group
LOWELL KHANH: We did not want to be a huge house. I always said, let's keep it boutique.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Nevertheless they were a family unit.
LOWELL KHANH: We all went out together. It was no–you saw one or two of us. We all came out. It was always five or six of us.
ABBY STUCKRATH: And they always had their signature look.
LOWELL KHANH: We used to wear the EK glasses and the MCM clutches, and that's what the House of Khanh was known for. Once you became a member, you had to get EK glasses and have your MCM clutch, which I still have the original.
ABBY STUCKRATH: After making a splash at a New York ball in 1987, the House of Khanh was set to host their first ball at the place where it all started for Lowell–the Clubhouse.
[House music stops abruptly]
LOWELL KHANH: Well, you know, as if, with everything at first, no one's really interested. We had flyers in clubs, outside of clubs, passing them out. But, you know, people would take a flyer and throw it off the car. Once we had the ball, or was having the ball, word was getting out, people, ‘Oh, you need to get to the Clubhouse.’
[house music resumes]
So the expectation in the beginning, no one was really showing up. But then, as the ball went on, more people were coming, because the word’s getting out. So after the ball, everyone wants to join.
[house music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: With the House of Khanh now in high demand, they had to set up some house rules, the first being that you had to be in school or working. The second rule was:
LOWELL KHANH: If you were in the house, we were family, so it could be no you messing with one of your kids, meaning me or Hassan messing with one of the kids, or the kids messing with each other sexually. We're a family. We weren't having that.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Beyond establishing house rules, the house also began to develop its own personality and sense of style–the D.C. way.
LOWELL KHANH: We were more fluid. We expressed ourselves more. They used to call us the Jelly Bean kids because we always was so active. Scuzzing, for example, came from D.C., when people falling out, shaking, kicking, splitting–New York is like, ‘What is this?’ You know, we always had a little more oomph in what we did in dancing.
ABBY STUCKRATH: But when Lowell returned after moving away for a couple of years to go to school in Virginia, he found the foundation he built had changed.
LOWELL KHANH: So I come back to D.C. at the end of ‘91, and I go to a house meeting. They don't know nothing about where Khanh came from.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Lowell knew things had really changed when he asked…
LOWELL KHANH: “How do you spell Khanh?” “K-H-A-N.” I said, “Well, where did that name come from?” No one knew. I said, “Well, you know, Khanh came from Emmanuel.” “Who is that?” So I, you know, I give them history, show them we all wore EK glasses. They knew none of, nothing of the history. So I told them, after talking to I said, “Derek,” I said, “this is not what I created.”
ABBY STUCKRATH: The House of Khan, now with one ‘H,’ had started to redefine itself and had a new house Father.
LOWELL KHANH: James Khan was the first Khan, and he was the start of K-H-A-N.
[Funky beat plays, then distorts]
[Thumping dance beat plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The house no longer held the same rules. Being in school or having a job was no longer a requirement, neither was the anti-fraternization rule, according to Lowell. The boutique house was no more, its membership growing exponentially. According to author and ballroom Icon, Michael Roberson, they also started to have a new reputation.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: The don't-play-with-house. New York City was Ebony. You didn't play with Ebony. Philadelphia was Karan, the House of Karan. You didn't play with the House of Karan. Baltimore was Revlon. You didn't play with the House of Revlon. And D.C. was Khan.
[Thumping dance beat ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: While Khan was in their rebuilding phase, the ballroom scene continued to grow.
[Smooth jazz music plays in the background]
Just two years after the founding of Khan, a new powerhouse entered the scene.
Its legendary lore begins in 1989 on 1420 Harvard Street.
Juan, an environmental lobbyist on the hill, started what was first called the House of Power, but it was soon renamed after Juan saw a vendor cart on the street that reminded him of a 1977 sexy perfume commercial from his childhood with the jingle, “We’re gonna have an Aviance night.”
[Perfume bottle spritz]
He was immediately struck with inspiration, and decided to call his house the House of Aviance.
[Techno beat plays in the background]
Juan Aviance was, and is to this day, the Mother of the house, and Daddy Tony Avaince was the Father. Their one mission for the house was, “To have an understanding of one’s self worth regardless of the situation or circumstance that one has been dealt.”
The House of Aviance started to make waves in D.C. and New York balls, but it wouldn’t be until 1991 that they would hold their first ball at Tracks, a famous warehouse club in Navy Yard that you might remember from our first season.
Its name? The Inferno Ball.
[Flames ignite]
Dorian Corry and Pepper LaBejia, two of the founding ballroom Mothers were judges.
BET, Black Entertainment Television, even came to document the blowout event.
[Techno beat ends]
Their ascension to stardom, quickly led Mother Juan Aviance to New York where the Aviance name grew not just into the big Apple but around the world.
While Mother Juan Aviance made her way to New York, others were starting to make their way down.
SHANNON GARCON: The Mother of D.C., Rayceen was down here, and she's like, ‘Come on down and visit.’ You know, ‘We can use you down here in the ballroom scene.’ So I came down and fell in love with it.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Shannon Garcon, like many others, was introduced to ballroom in New York and later moved to start or join houses in other cities. After moving to the District, Shannon joined the House of Pendarvis. It was here, at his first ball in D.C., that Shannon achieved the first of many ballroom milestones.
SHANNON GARCON: My first category was light and lovely, which was face, meaning you're a lighter skin African American, competing against, lighter skinned African Americans.
[Shannon interview fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The Face category, is exactly what it sounds like: a competition on who has the best face. Judges look at teeth, skin, face symmetry, but it’s also about your confidence, poses, and aura.
SHANNON GARCON: I won the light and lovely. My first trophy that I ever won in ballroom was here in D.C.
ABBY STUCKRATH: To Shannon, balls are all about its infectious energy and competition.
[Muffled party noises, crowd chattering in the background]
[Ballroom music and crowd chattering indistinctly in the background]
SHANNON GARCON: You get in there with your house and first, the energy of just being around your friends and your house members and hyping everybody up for their category so they can win, gets you in the mood. Then once you're there, and you start seeing because you have your own celebrities within the community, start seeing people there walking, and you see them getting together, and you're seeing the battles, the competition that go along with it. It's just so much right there.
ABBY STUCKRATH: One thing Shannon loves about balls is…
SHANNON GARCON: The shade. Of course, the shade.
[Ballroom, party, and crowd chattering ends]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Shade is a subtle, and sometimes not subtle, way of dismissing or showing dislike in ballroom. Dorian Cory said it best in Paris is Burning, the 90s landmark film about the New York ball scene. She said, “Shade is I don't have to tell you you're ugly, because you know you're ugly.”
SHANNON GARCON: Sometimes it can be taken to another level, but for most time, it's all out of fun and and just out of camaraderie and entertainment.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The shade and competition is what drives growth in ballroom.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: I remember my nemesis, God rest her soul, Erica Revlon.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Rayceen was known for runway and Erica Revlon would always come out on top when they competed together, but Rayceen was determined to literally watch and learn.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: I waited as I studied her this particular night. I waited for the ball to come to D.C.
[House beat plays in the background]
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: I watched her walk. So she was turning, oh, she came through. She had on this fabulous suit. She was slaying it. And I said, ‘Okay, I’ve got something for her tonight.’
ABBY STUCKRATH: Rayceen was the master of ‘peeling,’ which is to have multiple layers of clothes that you peel off revealing more stylish outfits.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: So I walked out. I had this fabulous, big Tibetan lamb white coat. I peeled it off, had on these fabulous glasses. I had a black and red outfit with a swing coat. So when I dropped the front fur to the floor, I had this fabulous black swing coat on. Then I stood…
[Rayceen interview fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Layer after layer, Rayceen stunned the crowd, with more than four outfit reveals, and rightfully snatched the grand prize.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: I walked up to the judges, grabbed the the grand prize trophy, and said, “Thank you so much.” And I turned to Erica, and I gave her a hug, and she said, “Sister, you turnt it tonight.”
[Rayceen laughs]
ABBY STUCKRATH: It’s moments like these that not only nourishes Rayceen’s love for ballroom but Shannon’s.
SHANNON GARCON: They're putting on the show for me. So I love that about it, just that sportsmanship and the energy to see people who have worked so hard and then get out there and just start showing their thing and their talent.
[House beat fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: After starting in the House of Pendarvis, Shannon moved on and helped usher in the era of the House of Miyake Mugler in D.C. To change houses or create new ones is a typical practice in ballroom.
The House of Miyake Mugler is the father and grandfather of many ballroom houses that would later dominate the D.C. scene, like Garcon and Balenciaga. The House of Mugler started in New York, and according to Michael, grew into D.C. through Shannon’s leadership as the House Mother, starting in 1991.
At the time of its conception, Mugler was a butch queen house, a label typically used for cisgender men.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: It was a boutique house, small, beautiful looking house. It was around the aesthetics of face and body and sex siren.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The sex siren category is about sensuality. It's often compared to a pin up model, which are popular photos or posters of celebrities in risque and revealing clothing.
Michael remembers when he saw the D.C. Miyake Mugler house walk at Tracks.
[House beat plays]
He was dancing on the massive warehouse floor, when all of sudden the DJ cut the music…
[House beat stops abruptly]
…and in walked the House of Miyake Mugler.
[Groovy song plays in the background]
MICHAEL ROBERSON: They walked through the club in formation. They were beautiful. They were polished. They were face. They were body, and I was in absolute awe. I just could not believe that Black gay men looked that goddamn beautiful and polished and poised.
ABBY STUCKRATH: What started as a small boutique house became a powerhouse when the D.C. Mugler chapter got new leadership.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Hal's aim has always been a big, a big house, to be one of the top houses, one of the shut-you-out kind of houses.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Hal, now today known in the community as Harold Balenciaga, expanded the House of Mugler, growing its reach and impact at balls when he became the house father in 1996.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Harold wanted to be competitive. Wanted to be ‘I'm going to win house of the year. We're going to win house of the most trophies at balls.’ He wanted a lot of folk at, you know, walk in multiple categories, be at a whole bunch of balls.
[Groovy music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: After the House of Mugler secured its place as a foundational ballroom house in D.C., another family entered the scene.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: The House of Allure was started by Al Allure in Washington, D.C.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Amongst the D.C. houses that were filled primarily with butch queens…
MICHAEL ROBERSON: House of Allure had the dolls…
ABBY STUCKRATH: Many dolls competed in the category realness. To be what is called:
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: Unclockable, spooky.
ABBY STUCKRATH: The realness category at balls measures someone’s ability to pass.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Can you pass as a straight person? And if you can pass the gay eye, not necessarily the straight eye, but the gay eye–because we can always tell–then you're really, really real.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Realness was born out of survival. To be Black and gay was dangerous, especially in the 70s, 80s, and 90s–even more so for Black trans women whose lives would be at risk if they were clockable on the street.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: If you got spooked, you got beat. It wasn't just performance. It was survival.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Many categories, such as face and runway, are split into two groups: Femme Queen and Butch Queen. Competitors are asked to compete in one or the other, but this binary structure can feel restrictive to those that don’t feel that they fit in either category.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: I competed in Big Boy runway, and I was told that I was too femme to compete, that they thought I was a femme queen, and they told me on the panel, one of the judges who did not know me, said, “Aren't you a femme queen?” And I had to explain to him that I was not. And it was a little tug of war for a minute. Got a little heated. I said, “Sweetheart, just give me my tens. I don't need to come back. I don't need it at this point”’ Just, “Am I presenting? Am I serving? That's all that matters. Give me my 10.” Because it's obvious I wasn't going to win grand prize.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Rayceen is...
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: The original gender blender, and I felt the need in the early days to create a category for folks who were not femme queens or who were not considered butch enough. In my day, they called us sissies, punks, and fags. So I created Fag Out.
ABBY STUCKRATH: This new category created space for Rayceen and other gender blenders.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: People such as myself had to create something within ballroom for someone who felt as if I was not a femme queen, and I was definitely not butch enough to compete with the butch queens, so I created that category for someone such as myself. But that's what ballroom is all about–creating spaces where we can be our full authentic selves.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Today, Fag Out could be considered the new gender nonconfirming aka GNC categories, a mixture of gender presentation, with both masculine and feminine fashion, styling, and energy. The fluidity of GNC has caused some push back in the ballroom community, critics say it lacks clarity and structure within a few categories.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: Ballroom’s great at certain things, and oppressive or repressive with with some some other things. So we struggle with GNC. Because GNC realness is oxymoronic. You can't say you're real, passing as a gender when you're saying you’re GNC death, and so it made no sense. And I remember it being contested.
ABBY STUCKRATH: For some, competing in balls is a form of a presentation. The categories and their performance isn’t a direct reflection of their gender identity. It can be the exact opposite for others. They want their categories to reflect who they are, on and off stage. This is an ongoing debate within the ballroom scene.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: This is the thing I love about ballroom, is that it wrestles with these things. We argue. We fight. We contest. We go back and forth. But it is in the not trying to reconcile, that's the liberal thing to do, but progressively wrestle with things. When you wrestle with things, it allows for better modes of operating. Because there's more thought in it, right? And so we're still, we're still wrestling through it.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Amongst the practice of realness and gender conformity, by the mid-90s, D.C.’s three most dominant ballroom houses were started and led by butch queens. Ballroom’s history is heavily rooted in the leadership of trans women of color and was now, in a way, being reshaped.
MICHAEL ROBERSON: All oppressions are patriarchal in formation, because anything that believes it has power over something is patriarchy. That is why we call God, ‘He,’ and so, when it's particularly unchecked, when you don't even think that you have the ability to be patriarchal because you're black and gay, it's like, I don't, ‘I can't because I'm double minority or doubly marginalized,’ it's unchecked. So you create, you begin to eradicate the people in real, systematic ways, small at first, who created that space for you to be free and you create the conditions in which they supposed to show up now. ‘Realness is this way, da, da, da, da’ ‘You have to be this.’ You have to be all these other things. And so you more categories, less categories for the girls, more categories for the guys. And so that is where you begin to then see most houses being created by men. And because, again, we live in also, not only a patriarchal society, but we also live in a transphobic society.
ABBY STUCKRATH: While the ballroom community continues to “wrestle,” as Michael says, with its categories and leadership, one thing has always stayed true about the service and purpose of ballroom: It’s a haven for Queer folks who are ostracized by not just the straight world but, as Shannon describes, also the gay world.
SHANNON GARCON: It was really underground because we were so shunned upon from the greater LGBT community, was kind of, they looked down upon us. A lot of people in the 90s did not want to date someone who was in a ballroom. The stigma that they had on ballroom people with it, either they were sex workers, they were thieves, or, you know, drug users. Just the low of the low, and it took a lot in the community to shake those stereotypes. But back then, in the 90s, those were the stereotypes that were placed on the community, and so a lot of people just didn't want to associate with that.
[Somber piano music plays in the background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Ballroom was never just about performance and competition; it was about community and support. This was especially true to Rayceen and Lowell’s experience during the AIDS crisis.
RAYCEEN PENDARIVS: In the 80s and 90s when there were only three funeral homes in D.C. that would take folks that died from HIV and AIDS. Can you imagine a time like that? It's a very dark and sad time. When we would go to funerals, and families would bury their loved ones and dishonor their life by burying them as men. Or we would go to funerals and being told that certain people could come in and certain people could not come in because they didn't want all of this, and they didn't want a circus at a funeral. Arguing with family members and crying and tears of hearing family members saying, ‘I'd rather for my child to just be left in the morgue, opposed to having a funeral, because I didn't want people to know my son or my daughter or my child died from HIV and AIDS.’ It was the Ballroom community in D.C. that buried all of those children, and the folks, and the family members, and parents, and loved ones was shunning them and rejecting them. We came together, and to me, that is one of the moments that shines so bright.
LOWELL KHANH: So you seen your kids go from vibrant, vulgar, beautiful kids, attractive, to getting on drugs, getting HIV, getting a–one of the first kids of mine, Donald–was the first person I knew to die of AIDS, and that was back in like ‘89, like before it was really even a thing. So a lot of kids had it hard. They, their parents didn't support them. They were gay. They had to live with their grandmothers. A lot of them lived on the streets. We had to do what we could do to feed them or find them places to live. I mean, that was ballroom back then. That was D.C. gay lifestyle back then, especially for the Black gays.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Being a Mother or a Father of a house isn’t just a title in ballroom; it’s a commitment. A family that can be deeper and stronger than blood.
SHANNON GARCON: There have been so many times where I had members, couple of times members graduate from college, but they didn't have their family because they kind of estranged from the family. And you're there for that moment to cheer them on, to support them while they're getting a degree. Or members you know, who have passed, and they didn't have insurance, they didn't have money to cover funeral costs needed to their family. And you, you chip in, and you help, you try to, to, to make things right, and and, and put them at rest. There's so many moments like that that you get that people don't see because they think, ‘Oh, these guys are just dancing out there.’
[Somber piano music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: By the early 2000s, Shannon was no longer a Mugler… he had gone on to create a house of his own.
The House of Garcon.
Alongside Pioneer Whitney Garcon, Shannon created a house with a specific vision.
SHANNON GARCON: We talked about the stereotypes of being ostracized and kind of devalued in the greater African American community when it comes to ballroom. I wanted a house that took the best of ballroom and community service–the ‘give back’ approach. There's some good people out there, a lot of good people. A majority of you are good people–college students, educated–that, you know, just want to have fun. And you know, this is their recreation, and some of them, even their support. And so that was the foundation for the house of Garcon.
ABBY STUCKRATH: Ballroom legendary, Kenya Hutton didn’t think D.C. would be his forever home.
KENYA HUTTON: I said I would be in D.C. for no more than two years. One, two years tops. Here I am 20, some odd years later, I'm still in D.C.
[Kenya interview fades behind]
ABBY STUCKRATH: After becoming a legend on the ballroom floor in New York, Kenya was no longer interested in walking in balls when he moved to D.C. in the early 2000s. But he still wanted to be involved in the community. That’s when he learned about the House of Garcon’s CDG Pro program.
KENYA HUTTON: A section of the house that is not focused on walking balls, but it's career professionals, people that are in the field, does non-profit work. We have hair stylists, makeup artists. People that really do a lot of work and can lend benefit and value to the House of Garcon.
[Kenya interview fades behind]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The House of Garcon has worked to grow ballroom outside of the ball, providing networking and career opportunities that are away from the runway. But that doesn’t mean the lessons and performance of shade, face, and voguing don’t inform how ballroom folks navigate their professional careers.
KENYA HUTTON: If you are throwing balls, right, successful balls, if you're throwing successful balls, you're gathering people, putting together…that is, that is event planner skills, right? That is a, you are an event planner. Put that in your resume, utilize that, understand some of the transferable skills you get in ballroom, right? We have people in ballroom that have started their own security companies, right? And have gone off and been like head security been, had major security companies for major people. Hair stylists, clothing stylists.
[Kenya interview clip fades underneath]
ABBY STUCKRATH: While the House of Garcon worked to redefine the confines of ballroom, another house–also founded in the early 2000s–started to dominate the runway like no other.
You always know when this house hits the floor.
[House of Balenciaga chant]
Their thunderous chant fills the room…
[House of Balenciaga chant]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The biggest, most dominant house in the D.C. ballroom scene right now:
[House of Balenciaga chant]
The House of Balenciaga.
[House of Balenciaga chant]
Remember Harold Mugler? Who helped grow the House of Mugler in the late 90s? Well, in 2002, he started his own house–the House of Balenciaga–which has taken over the DMV.
ASIA BALENCIAGA: I think we're very welcoming, very welcoming and more genuine as well, too. Our personality, I want to say, [chuckles] I want to say the party vibe. The party vibe, because I know me, I party. I'm known as the partier [laughs].
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s Asia Balenciaga, Mother of the House of Balenciaga in the D.C. region. She first joined the house in 2014, but was exposed to ballroom when she was in the modeling scene as a teenager. In the early 2000s, ballroom houses began looking to modeling agencies and groups to recruit new members.
ASIA BALENCIAGA: So somebody saw me. It was like, I need her with me. I need her.
ABBY STUCKRATH: And she never looked back.
ASIA BALENCIAGA: I fell in love when I saw the kindness, the genuineness of how responsive they are. And when I say like chosen family, it felt like they chose me as well too, because that was 2014 and it's 2026 now, and I still feel the same, the same love and respect.
ABBY STUCKRATH: King O, another Balenciaga, was courted and brought into the ballroom scene through modeling in 2008. How did he get involved in modeling?
KING O: MySpace.
[King O and Abby laugh]
And then through the modeling scene I met my father, my gay father, Mark Mugler, and he came to one of the shows and recruited me.
ABBY STUCKRATH: While his journey to becoming a Balenciaga wasn’t as clear cut as Asia’s, he chose the House because…
KING O: There's a level of structure, professionalism, organization that I really love, and they're always on the floor, and they have amazing talent in the house. And I'm a big aesthetic person. The House of Balenciaga fits my aesthetic personally.
ABBY STUCKRATH: King O hasn’t always been a Balenciaga. He joined another House first….
SHAUN KHAN: A lot of people were birthed by the House of Khan.
ABBY STUCKRATH: That’s legendary Shaun Khan, he has been a part of the House of Khan since 2006. Now remember, this is the House of Khan with no second H, now the longest running house in D.C.
SHAUN KHAN: A lot of people's birth certificates in ballroom are signed by the House of Khan.
ABBY STUCKRATH: King O is one of the many.
KING O: The House of Khan was very a very, not do it yourself type house, but they supported you, but they wanted you to also put in the work, you know? So I learned a lot on my own, but I learned a lot because they were very disciplined like, tough love. It's like, you get it, or you don't.
[Chill music plays]
ABBY STUCKRATH: The ballroom scene is always changing. New houses come. Old houses go, but there’s one thing that remains true: the DMV is an epicenter for talent. While there might not be many ‘native’ D.C. houses, their legacy and impact remains strong. The House of Khan just hit their 40 year anniversary. The House of Allure’s D.C. contingent is smaller now, but mighty. The House of Mugler has created a strong family tree, having birthed the House of Garcon and the House of Balenciaga. Many of the houses now have international branches–houses in Paris and Germany.
RAYCEEN PENDARVIS: You see our lingo, our fashion on television. When you listen to all the girls and Housewives, they all sound like the ‘girls.’ So I mean, you look at how ballroom has become so mainstream now that it's become this global brand, but it took time, and it built itself up to where it is today.
[Chill music fades out]
ABBY STUCKRATH: No matter how mainstream and international ballroom becomes, it will always be rooted in the foundation created all the way back in the 1800s with William Dorsey Swann–a haven for the ostracized, a place to celebrate, compete, mourn, and love.
MC: Do it in the name of…do it in the name of Boom! Do it in the name of…Do it in the name of Boom!
[ball sounds fade into background]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Kirk Pressley, aka MC Boom Boom’s celebration of life ball was a heartfelt testament to the sense of family that is at the center of ballroom. All of the shade, the wrestling, and rivalry became background noise. In that moment, at that ball, what was important, what was essential, was to uplift the life and lasting impact of Boom’s leadership and talent. That’s what ballroom is all about: using the magic of competition to unite a community once left behind in the mainstream. So when we discuss the history of ballroom and its houses in D.C., it’s vital to remember that the glitz and glamour of the scene may be what drew people in, but it’s not what made everyone stay.
BALLROOM AUDIENCE: We outside, we love you Kirk! Mwah!
We love you!
We movin and shaking!
[Ball sounds and voices fade out]
[QTDP theme music fades in]
ABBY STUCKRATH: Hey, baby, we’re so glad you’re here, and thanks for listening until the end of the episode.
Don’t you worry, we promise we won’t leave you hanging for too long. Next week, we’ll be sharing some snapshots of Queer house parties. From soirees for Black women attending Howard in the early 1900s to D&D nights to COVID-concious house parties, and more tune in next week to learn how homes have allowed folks to create spaces that cater to individuality, joy, safety, and freedom.
We want to thank the Rainbow History Project, the DC Public Library, and the countless other academics and historians, whether featured in these episodes or not, who helped inspire and guide us through this process.
And, of course, shout out to the rest of the QTDP team, Julia, Andrew, Ellie, and Mads for making this podcast happen.
You can find a transcript for this, and every episode, on our website at queeringthedistrictpodcast.com and linked below in the episode notes.
If you want to learn more and stay up to date on all things Queering the District Podcast, follow our social media pages at, you guessed it, @queeringthedistrictpodcast! You don’t want to miss exclusive interview clips, juicy voicemails, and bi-weekly spotlights.
Have a story to share? Do you think we missed something? Give us a call, and bare it all after the beep at 202-753-6570.
If you’re still with us, as always, we finish every episode with a Phi-Phi voicemail left by a local Queer. For this week’s voicemail we head back to 2001…
[QTDP theme music fades out]
VOICEMAIL: This had to be 2001/ 2002. Nations Nightclub after Youth Pride, and I had worked Youth Pride like for the first time. It was a really really fantastic moment, and I danced with somebody. And I will never find them again, but it was a very magical moment. And I celebrate that, yay. Word to our Queer city, and the Queer love that is present and always has been present in our city. Long live D.C.
