**note: this conversation took place during a time when my guest, Hyacinth, was going by a different name. As the iconic Drag Queen RuPaul says, "You're born naked and the rest is drag."  Queer community has a lot to teach itself. Born out of a struggle to claim the right to exist, queer expression, community-building, and love becomes acts of resistance to oppression. Friendly City Safe Space is Harrisonburg's first community center for LGBTQ+ people and aspiring allies. The spirit and practice of the space is all about crafting resonance. Creating a space where we can practice being curious about each other's exploration of how we want to express our sense of self to the world. Self expression is an unspoken language of self-definition, spoken in the way we choose to present ourselves to the world. Creating space for joy, play, and community is how Daniel Bellerose and the folks at Friendly City Safe Space try to nurture liberating self-expression. Challenging the tendency to reduce queer work to putting bandaids on how hard it is to be a queer person is also part of their work. Instead, they are asking the question: how can we be bright, vibrant, and playful in our commitment to being our authentic selves in the world, and creating the empowering space for others to do the same? Conversation Outline:  -what is safe space all about? (00:00) -the origin story: how it all started (5:00) -how does holding intentional space for queer community and allies benefit everyone (11:00) -the real binary: queerness as a radical challenge to patriarchy (13:20) -the power of witnessing experimentation (16:30) -trans liberation work and icons (19:25) ancient queer mythology (28:25) What queer community can teach itself (35:03) Title quote: RuPaul: American Queen of Drag https://rupaul.com/ Honorable mentions: Alok V Menon: American writer, performance artist, and gender nonconforming media figure. https://www.alokvmenon.com/ Alexis Pauline Gumbs: writer, independent scholar, poet, activist and educator based in Durham, North Carolina Ocean Vuong: Vietnamese American poet, essayist and novelist. Author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous https://www.oceanvuong.com/ Contact FCSS: [email protected]; https://friendlycitysafespace.org/