PHOSPHENES

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICO KARTEL | FASHION AND STORY BY ISRAEL MEJIA

LEIOMY MALDONADO IS STARTING TO GET IRRITABLE. I really can’t blame her, because I am too. It’s been a long, humid day, and our mouths have been masked for hours. We are in a studio on one of those eerily abandoned streets in Brooklyn, nearing the end of our shoot for this story. I remind her that we have one more shot before we can all go back to our mask-free homes. She takes a deep breath, lowers herself to the ground, seduces the camera and just like that, we’re back in business.

TRUTH BE TOLD, once you get to know Leiomy and the life that has led her to this moment, you would come to understand that anyone who can survive what she has, can endure anything. But keep in mind, she is only made of flesh and blood like you and I, therefore allowed to feel whatever emotion she is going through. In order to truly familiarize yourself with her, you have to look beyond what you see on your screen. 

Beyond the virtuoso Ballroom performances on YouTube ( 5 Elements of Vogue; Hand Performance, Catwalk, Duckwalk, Spins and Dips, and Floor Performances); beyond the exquisite costumes worn on HBO Max’s “Legendary”; and beyond the her impeccable reputation as a worldwide Ballroom pioneer and icon, she manages to stay true to herself. If you can just peek past all of the aforementioned, you will find a woman who is constantly making herself laugh, and spending as much time as she can with her grandmother.

IT MAKES SENSE that Leiomy commanded the attention of everyone when she stepped foot into the restaurant where we met for lunch. She is tall and lean, her Afro-Puerto Rican heritage has blessed her with flawless skin and beautiful complexion, and she also happens to be rocking a head full of beautiful locked braids. Besides myself and another patron, there were only three others who made up the restaurant staff. But whether it were only five of us in total, or hundreds in an electric Ballroom, everyone would instinctively turn their attention to Leiomy. 

She tells me about a trip she took to Puerto Rico with her brother when she was six years old. Her father had sent them to visit their extended family on the island for the first time. What was meant to be a relaxing vacation on the beach and under the sun turned out to be anything but. She and her brother were sent to spend their entire time locked up in a bedroom away from everyone else, their cold reception sending a clear message that they were not considered part of the family. “That was a horrible trip,” she tells me. “They didn’t care about us.” She relays this memory in order to explain that during her youth, she never felt that anyone paid attention to her. It was on this same trip that she already was self-aware enough to begin to understand her truth, which would only bring a wave of attention not just from her family.

“I was around maybe five or six, maybe even before that,” she explains. “It wasn’t until right before my teen years that I realized that I was able to live my dream.” She is quick to express that instead of fear or panic, she felt unbridled happiness. Due to the private grievances she had by then quietly collected at a young age, she understood she would have to quietly take a moment to allow herself to feel the emotions of the fact that she was a woman of trans experience.

While most children spend their youth blissfully unaware of the consequences of their own actions, including those that might reverberate beyond the safety of their home, Leiomy was always aware of her personal responsibilities connected to the world at large. At the age of seven she had to unceremoniously pivot to the role of her father’s keeper when he was diagnosed with HIV. Soon after, she found herself nursing him in her grandmother’s living room after being taken in by her. She initially assumed that her role as caregiver would be short-lived, but her grandmother was quick to dispossess her of that childish thought. 

“Up until the age of thirteen, I didn’t have a life of my own. Every day after school, I would have to come home and take care of my dad. I didn’t have time to go outside,” she confesses. “It was tough.”

And then came her breakthrough appearance on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew in 2009.

“LEIOMY, YOUR BEHAVIOR — c’mon, it’s unacceptable! … You always have to remember your truth, you were born a man and you are becoming a woman. If you’re going to become a woman, act like a lady. Don’t be a bird,” intensely expressed Reality TV personality Lil Mama to a then twenty-two year old Leiomy. Leiomy had been a contestant on the fourth season back in 2009, and also happened to be the first-ever openly transgender woman on the show. She competed as a member of the Vogue Evolution team composed of four other contestants, including friend and Legendary co-judge and emcee, Deshaun Wesely. If you watch the cringey video clip floating around YouTube, you’ll notice that despite the transphobic comments hurled at her, her expression doesn’t belie a hint of anger. If anything the video captures an expression of bemused annoyance. Painted across her face is the realization that yet again she found herself being critiqued by those who don’t know what they’re talking about. 

It’s acknowledged that her time on the show and her experience with some of her teammates during filming was not positive. “That show was tough, because for me, I never have been a person who wants to use my transness as a handicap or anything like that.” She goes on to explain that her scenes were edited in order to come off as difficult, since she wasn’t willing to be the ‘transgender dancer,’ but instead asserted herself as an “artist who happens to be of the trans experience.”

SHE DID NOT JUST JOIN the Ballroom community for fame and money, as she observes others do, but started her journey because through the movement of the dances she realized she was able to express emotions and feelings that she “didn’t have to talk about.” 

“It took a very long time, blood, sweat and tears,” she tells me. 

She can easily tell you the exact location where she started practicing her movements: her grandmother’s living room. 

“To her that was a crazy dance, she thought I was doing [an] exorcism or something — you know Spanish people are very dramatic,” she jokes. To see how far she’s come from practicing in her family’s uptown Bronx apartment living room, to now appearing on television in living rooms across the world, is a testament to her own determination and perseverance within the Ballroom community.

She has been mentored by many who are now recognized in their own right as Ballroom Legends, and has been a part of a couple of Houses, which is how she built her own extended family. She experienced homelessness until she was thirty, and it was her fellow Ballroom family that fed, housed and uplifted her. A nine-to-five was never her thing, so she would depend on the cash prizes from the competitions to literally survive. While her peers would compete for the applause and fame, she did it because she genuinely loved it, and because she needed the money — point blank. 

“It was a win-win for me, as opposed to other people. They’re looking at it as a way of gaining popularity in the Ballroom scene or feeling like ‘someone’ — I didn’t care about that.”

Despite the camaraderie, she often found pushback from some, though not all, of her peers. Looking back, she understands that the reason she is where she is now and those who doubted her aren’t, is because she has something that many people don’t.

“I’m so proud of myself. It’s crazy, because for a very long time, I didn’t realize what people hated so much about me. Or what they were so jealous of, until I realized it was my confidence, right?” Even on her lowest days she learned to never show weakness. 

“I had to fight through all that negativity or that shade and all the bullshit that people threw at me just because they didn’t want to see me win, and I have to realize that it’s more their issue. That’s a problem they have … an issue within themselves.” She laughs and acknowledges that of course there were times when she did get a “little crazy” and “snatched a few wigs off,” but her occasional edge proved to be a survival instinct, which she’s now grateful and celebrated for.

WHEN TALKING ABOUT her most well-known television role as of yet, panel judge on Legendary, out of her fellow co-judges, recording artist Megan Thee Stallion, actress Jameela Jamil, stylist and “Image Architect” Law Roach, only herself and emcee Daushaun Wesley have the authentic background to speak on the Ballroom world they are critiquing. She sees the show as a reward for all of the work she’s put in. When I ask her if she is comfortable with essentially having become the face of Ballroom on an international level because of the popularity of the show, she tells me she’s very comfortable with that outcome. She describes herself as being the perfect representative and “gatekeeper,” and adds that she wants to make sure certain people don’t tarnish the history of Ballroom culture, which is predominantly composed of Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ individuals. Its rich history, according to the book Trans Bodies, Trans Selves  by Dr. Genny Beemyn, dates back to the 1880s and 1890s. Because she’s not dancing for the money, she knows she’s not exploiting the community that has been fighting hard to be seen, accepted and respected. “I want the world to fall in love with the artistry, to fall in love with the culture, to fall in love with the storylines. I want people to actually see the community as human beings.” 

She firmly states she is not here for the gimmicks and doesn’t feel pressured or overwhelmed; she is part of the culture and will protect it from whomever may want to cause its reputation harm, or use Ballroom culture and its vivid history to make a quick buck, or refer to Voguing as just “the gay dance.”

HAVING SUCH HIGH STANDARDS is what led her to appear in Rihanna’s “Savage x Fenty Show Vol. 3” this past September. She appreciated that Rihanna really cared not just about Leiomy as an artist, but genuinely understood and respected her. The goal is to respect Ballroom culture and represent it properly, and who better than Leiomy?

The lack of bona fide inclusivity is what more often than not leads Leiomy to say no to certain brand collaborations. She mentions she’s not big on Pride campaigns, not because of absence of pride for herself or her community, but by reason in which she believes her trans identity deserves to be showcased year round, not just for the month of June. She refuses to be boxed in because she knows there are so many layers to her. She tells me, “Something about me is I don’t want to stay in that column of being a trans artist … I don’t run around screaming ‘I’m trans,’ the world already knows that,” she explains. “A lot of times people are successful out there, but they’re still in one box. I don’t want to be that. I’m so much more than that. And I know my worth, so I fight for that. I’m quick to say no, and I don’t care who it is.”

This strong sense of self-respect is what has sometimes led to heated exchanges on social media. In a tweet from this past August, she wrote:

“Some of y’all G.A.Y’s be trying it when comes to addressing me. I’m not your GF! Do not “miss thing” me and do not address me ass no “bitch” either. Learn some respect and stop trying to be cool with everybody! Know your place and warn your spot!!!”

When asked about her response to disparaging comments, she tells me that as humans we need to have boundaries, and as consumers of artists’ work, we need to have respect. 

“To me, fans, they’re fanatics. They don’t really care about you, they care about your work. And if that’s the case, then you can stay on YouTube, or when I post something go under those comments!” She continues, “I’m the type of person where if I don’t like how you speak to me, or how you address me, I’m gonna tell you about it. And if you feel offended, and you want to unfollow me, good riddance. And I mean that in the most positive way.” This is why she has dubbed her true loyal admirers the #LeiArmy, and admits she’s not afraid to lose fake followers. If you haven’t yet, follow her on her Instagram account @wond3rwoman1 where she goes on Instagram Live multiple times throughout the day. “My [Instagram] Lives are for the people who want to get to know me as a person. Period.”

LEIOMY HAS BEEN CALLED MANY NAMES throughout her career.“Amazon Mother,” “Amazon Leiomy,” those referring to her status as founder of the House of Amazon. She also famously goes by “Wonder Woman of Vogue.” Her tenacity has led to her completely reshaping the art of Voguing by creating and influencing an array of dancing and movement elements that have become part of Ballroom history. There is the “Leiomy Lolly” for one, which is a way of moving your hair when Voguing, and has been replicated by other artists such as Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, to just name a few. (I do not recommend you try it at home without doing a couple of neck stretches beforehand). But when it comes to what the future looks like for her, she already has ideas that only continue to expand.

There are her hybrid online and in-person dance classes she teaches. There is music, which she believes she can master, as she considers herself a talented singer. She has her hopes set on a few modeling campaigns, along with a documentary of her life. I mention to her that she should consider comedy as well, as she has a very quick-witted, smart and biting personality. But the most exciting career prospect she mentions is being an action star. She doesn’t want to be the damsel in distress, rather the one saving herself (and performing her own stunts). 

ALL ROADS LEAD TO HER grandmother’s living room. After the HIV diagnosis that changed Leiomy’s world, her father is still with us today. But the pendulum swung the other way, when recently, her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer.

 When I ask her if she is ever told by her family and loved ones that they are proud of her, she tells me two stories involving her grandmother. 

This past October her family were at her grandmother’s apartment for her 89th birthday party. They found themselves in the living room when suddenly her cousins were trying to convince Leiomy to Vogue.

“I’m like, what? I’m not doing that!” She laughs and rolls her eyes, “They were like, ‘But this is where you started!’ And I’m like, ‘Grandma, remember when you used to talk to them about me and be like, I’m crazy doing my dances?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, and look at you now. You’re everywhere.’ Like she was so proud of that.”

She also tells me that her grandmother rarely asks for anything from her, but at Leiomy’s encouragement last Christmas, she asked for a fireplace. “I was like what?!” she leans in with an expression of bewilderment, “But I got it for her. And when she received it, she called me and she’s like, ‘I’m the happiest woman on earth!’”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICO KARTEL @ BORN ARTISTS.

STYLING BY ISRAEL MEJIA.

CREATIVE DIRECTION BY SCOTT SHAPIRO.

HAIR BY RACHEL POLYCARPE.

MAKEUP BY MARCO CASTRO @ B&A REPS.

PRODUCTION BY PAIGE VITI C/O BORN ARTISTS.

PHOTO ASSISTANT: HANIF CASTLE.

STYLING ASSISTANT: MYRON HERNANDEZ

HAIR ASSISTANT: OLIVIA MAIREAD.

MAKEUP ASSISTANT: MITCH YOSHIDA.