Searching for Trans Belonging in Puerto Vallarta

I am not demanding that these cultures change to accommodate me, to be clear. Every niche is for someone, even if that someone isn’t me. And as cringeworthy as I often find cis gay and lesbian cultures, there are a few things that I admire about them. The hedonistic sexual freedom of queer men, the intoxicating intimacy that can develop between queer women at the drop of a hat — these are beautiful experiences in their own right.

But what would it look like to have a vacation getaway where I, and everyone else who falls in-between, could fully engage in both, fucking and falling in love and everything else, too? What kind of new social and sexual possibilities could we imagine beyond the scripts that have so far defined gay travel culture? What would it take for me to let my anxieties about being trans in America melt away and revel in the warmth of sunlight on my bare body?

The moments on the trip that I felt closest to that freedom emerged almost at random. One of the items on the itinerary was a rooftop drag brunch; as it turned out, it was mostly a ballroom brunch. The performers in Puerto Vallarta’s first kiki house, the Kiki House of Paradise, twirled, dipped, and vogued across the rooftop, while pointedly contextualizing the history of ballroom as an art form originated by Black and brown trans girls.

The best part, though, came after the planned performance was over. As the rooftop party wound down, the DJ continued to spin, playing “Let’s Have a Kiki,” which led to another impromptu performance from the dancers. One of my travel mates whom I had befriended engaged in a dance battle of his own with his boyfriend in the center of the floor, egged on by the thwacking of fans and raucous gay screaming. Surrounded by queers of color and feeling welcomed, if only for the duration of a song, I felt the ease that I had been searching for the whole trip.

The following night — the final evening before I flew home — I felt slightly delirious as I wandered around Zona Romántica with my new dance floor pals. The group had gone on a walking tour of Puerto Vallarta’s central neighborhood in the morning, and had marched in the parade immediately afterward. We were all worn out. But it was Pride. At the very least, I wanted to see the sights (and get one last plate of tacos). On some streets, the sights were largely indistinguishable from those you might find in West Hollywood or Hell’s Kitchen, which at this point, I had come to expect.

But throughout the night, we ran into two of the House of Paradise members, who embraced us as though we were old friends even though we had only met yesterday. We snuck into a technically ticketed area of the neighborhood to find ourselves surrounded by throngs of people crowded around a stage, drunkenly, adoringly singing along with an older diva in Spanish. I didn’t understand a single word, and for once, I felt the beauty of a joy in which I could not partake. Every niche is for someone, after all.

The trip to Puerto Vallarta may not have been the opportunity for boundless rest and relaxation that I had imagined it would be. Thrust out of my little Brooklyn bubble, it was a first-person reminder that the world at large is not exactly a trans utopia. But it was also a lesson in the crafty perseverance of queerness, even amid a harrowing time for trans rights. Those spontaneous moments of liberation — impromptu dance battles, cruising a stranger you’ll never see again, the electric jolt of eye contact with someone else who looks like you — can never be stolen, only found.

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