Miyonnee: All right! Ballroom Portrait Series take 1! Eyyyyy!

[Laughing]

Miyonnee: Okay so, what’s your name, your pronouns, the category you walk, and how long you’ve been in Ballroom?

Shydyna Lanvin: Hi, I am the Legendary Shydyna Lanvin, Midwest Mother of the house of Lanvin. I am doing pretty well.

Miyonnee: Your pronouns? And the category you walk—

Shydyna Lanvin: My pronouns are she/her, and I am legendary for Fem Queen Sex Siren.

Miyonnee: Yes.

[Laughing]

Miyonnee: And if you would like to elaborate for the people what Sex Siren is, like how do y’all rate that category?

Shydyna Lanvin: Sex Siren is just where—really what it is, who can set the most sirens off with their sex appeal. Different categories call for different ways of you to display their sexuality. Whether it’s nudity, or whether it’s clothed, or effects. I am legendary in all.

Miyonnee: Period. I know that’s right, sister. And she is.

Okay so with that being said, I would like to know what community do you come from, like what—how your upbringing, what led you to be who you are as a healer of our community and a leader of the community?

Shydyna Lanvin: Well, I come from the streets—

Miyonnee: Period.

Shydyna Lanvin: I’ve been in the LGBT scene in St. Louis since I was 13 years old. I went to my first ball when I was 13. I transitioned when I was 15, and being in the streets while transitioning, my chosen family was the family that aided in raising me. And of course that tied into the Ballroom scene.

And Ballroom for me was always the underground Hollywood, because when I came up, the girls weren’t really making it ... mainstream as much as it is now. So Ballroom for me was always that safe space where I can come and be creative around equally or more creative people than me—and again, in a safe space.

Miyonnee: Okay. Well thank you so much for sharing that! So what’s your Cinderella story, like how did you get to the ball?

Shydyna Lanvin: Well like I said, I come from the streets. I come from being homeless, I come from living in shelters and things like that. So for me, Ballroom was ... again, an escape avenue. When I was 15 I ran away from home to transition, and I expected a lot of friends and family members to assist me in my living situations and that didn’t really happen until my chosen family chose to pick up the slack. And Ballroom was just our own—our Olympic game that we couldn’t wait for, like so many different categories, so many different beautiful people from so many different walks of life. Just seeing all of that fabulousness on display made me want to be a part of it. So, that’s my Cinderella story.

Miyonnee: Absolutely. Gracie, do you have any questions you want to ask, or ... ?

Grace: I guess ... maybe I’m curious about, like, how you found your chosen family? Or how they found you?

Shydyna Lanvin: Um, so I was ... like ... I was always in trouble, when I was growing up. [Laughs] So I had a caseworker at Hopewell, and my mother was trying to find different activities that she could get me into that would keep me out of the streets and hood, and you know, help me figure out who I was and having support and stuff like that. And then support groups was a really big thing, like 2006, 2005, and at the time they were having a support group called TensTen at Project Arc in the Central West End.

So rewinding, my biological sister on my father’s side worked at a teenage “day care” that I was attending. She was the first person I had came out to in the sixth grade. She was like “oh, well I know this gay guy that I’ve been friends with that I want to introduce you to.” And I’m an introvert and a shy person. Like I can be extroverted at times, but I’m really like an introvert and I like being in my own space. So when she brought this gay man there, like, to the daycare to meet me, I didn’t—I shut down and froze up and didn’t really talk.

So speed it back up, my mom had registered me to attend Tuesday Night Crew at Project ARC, and Joel ended up being one of the facilitators there. And he was like “oh I know you, Angelique introduced me to you!” and I was like, “oh yeah, aight, nice to meet you!”

And he was like—he wanted me to attend this social justice camp called Anytown, through NCCJ. And my mother was not having it. So I told him to slip the application through my mailbox so I could pretend that one of my counselors was wanting me to go.

[Laughing]

Shydyna Lanvin: And he slipped it in my mailbox and called my momma phone, to tell me—’cause I wasn’t supposed to be on the phone at the time—to tell me he put the application under the door. And my momma answered the phone—

[Laughing]

Shydyna Lanvin: —and was like, “What the fuck you mean, you putting applications under the door? Who the fuck is this?”

[Laughing]

Shydyna Lanvin: And so then he had to have this whole spiel and speech about who he was, and services that he provided, to guarantee her that he was not a pedophile. And she wanted to get rid of me anyway—not like that, but ... got tired, you know, I was always getting suspended and stuff. And she was like “okay, you can go.”

And I went to NCCJ in Jefferson Cit—uh, Anytown, in Jefferson City. And he was facilitating there, and we created a bond and cried ... Long story.

Grace: Wow.

Miyonnee: Beautiful story. So, to sum—for me now, I feel like to sum it up ... where do you see Shydyna Lanvin in the next ten years?

Shydyna Lanvin: Um ... Shydyna Lanvin is going to become an international household name. I am looking forward to getting some stamps on my passport now that Ballroom is international. I want—I want different countries and regions to thoroughly see Shydyna, live-action.

Miyonnee: Yes!

Grace: Fuck yeah!

Miyonnee: Absolutely. And with that being said—[Grace,] do you got anything else you wanna know or ask?

Grace: I guess just like—how do you see your involvement in Ballroom and your larger community, like, coming together?

Shydyna Lanvin: Ballroom is always a safe space, the safe haven where people can come and be their creative and intuitive self. And of course a lot of our LGBTQ youth are homeless or at risk, and the Ballroom community bridges the gap between different age ranges and people from different backgrounds to show different safe spaces and that’s how we create our [community].

Grace: Awesome. And—do you just have like a day job, that you do?

Shydyna Lanvin: Um, yes. I work at the Community Wellness Project during the day, and I am a shadow chaser by night.

Miyonnee: Okay. [Laughs]

Grace: Incredible.

[Laughing]

Grace: Fuck yeah.

Miyonnee: I love it. Thank you so much Shydyna, we really appreciate it. Thank you for coming and participating, thank you for the interview, absolutely.

Grace: Thank you!

Miyonnee: And that concludes the interview! [clapping] Yay!