Marcie Chase On The New York Ball Scene
Chase grew up in the Virgin Islands where she says “transgender was not on the tip of anybody’s tongue.” Eventually she moved to New York, where she became part of the city’s legendary 90s ball culture. Chase’s cousin, William Nesbitt Jr., started the House of La’Viticus, one of the many groups that formed around the ball scene. This is how she came to know activist luminaries such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. She has worked in healthcare for over ten years as a nurse, and recently became a surgical technician.
As told to Andy Wright
One night [Marsha P. Johnson] and I went to a predominantly lesbian club called the Pandora’s Box. And there I was, about to pay our way to go into the club, and the lesbian at the door said to me that she would let me in but she would not let Marsha P. in.
Marsha P. said to me, “It’s so funny how people in society treat a dog better than they treat a human.” [She told me] I could go into the club and she would just walk the streets. And I said to her, “If you’re not going in, I’m not going in either.” So we walked the streets most of the night.
The House of La’Viticus was an informal refuge.
Any time I would go to my cousin’s house, there might 18, 19, 20 gay men of color laying all over his living room floor. For me, it was a community center. Somebody was always coming, somebody was always going.
It was a space to go and create, to just be, to exist…[When] we were getting ready for the ball, I was the one doing the feathers and the beads. I got so much burn on my fingers from the hot glue gun, because in the balls, it was always feathers and beads and boas and all this kind of stuff.
It didn’t matter if the high heels Marcie and others procured for performances were too small. Her cousin “would poke holes with an ice pick and he would put strings through it so that they can lace the heels to their feet if the shoes that we got could not fit them and taught these girls to walk the balls from our house. And that’s ingenuity, that is creativity.”
It was just a wonderful experience. I have a little button with a picture of Marsha P. Johnson. It’s one of my most prized possessions, because the hat that she was wearing, she made at the dinner table at William’s house. She would get little artificial birds and hot-glue it to a sequined dress of hers. She was a little bit eclectic in her own way, but no stranger than the next person. No matter where she was, she loved me… [But even with all the things Marsha did for the community] gay men did not have respect for her. The gay men had no respect for Sylvia, nor Marsha P. Johnson, and it’s so sad.
I am so happy that I had that experience. I learned to be accountable and responsible for the part I play in moving our agendas further and becoming visible.
Chase, who was formerly incarcerated, wants to start an organization that will help trans women transitioning out of the penal system.
Transgender women going into the penal system that might be HIV-positive are open to a lot of abuse. They shouldn’t be in that setting. I myself having experienced being incarcerated and being HIV-positive and being a trans woman and being a trans woman of color — you couldn’t even imagine how dehumanizing that experience was. So I’m hoping that I can create that [organization], because once returning to society, there isn’t really a network for employment or to regain decent housing and the appropriate healthcare. Navigating that post-incarceration for a trans person of color is ten times as difficult.
Throughout her life, Chase has pushed back against expectations.
It’s about me — you’re not going to erase me. All my life, you have been telling me I am not supposed to exist, I’m not going to have children, I’m not going to be educated, I’m not going to be employable. I’m not going to be — all the nots! All the nots were not my nots — it was their nots.
Read more personal accounts of the trans activism movement.
Interview by Andy Wright. Parts were omitted for clarity and brevity.
