Names of Sam Nordquist, Jiggly Caliente, Lady Chablis, and more added to Stonewall Wall of Honor
Names of seven transgender trailblazers were added to the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall Inn Thursday night.
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The Wall of Honor posthumously celebrates LGBTQ+ activists, artists, and others who played crucial roles in the LGBTQ+ rights movement. This year's inductees are all transgender at a time when trans Americans are under attack from the federal government and elsewhere. They were inducted by the National LGBTQ Task Force and the International Imperial Court Council.
'This year's focus on transgender trailblazers and changemakers underscores the importance of recognizing our history and the current climate for our trans siblings,' Cathy Renna, communications director for the Task Force, said in a press release. 'As we continue to fiercely battle against attacks on our trans and nonbinary communities, we are honored to uplift their legacies. Their courage inspires our ongoing fight for liberation, both within the Task Force family and across every queer advocacy organization.'
'In these times, when there are radical and extreme campaigns trying to erase our transgender community, the Imperial Courts and Task Force are reminding us all that transgender people have not only always been here, but have also been some of our community's most dedicated activists and leaders,' added Nicole Murray-Ramirez, founder of the Wall of Honor, a San Diego city commissioner, and titular head of the Imperial Court System. This year's honorees are Ruddy Martinez, Chilli Pepper, Lynn Conway, Alan L. Hart, Jiggly Caliente, the Lady Chablis, and Sam Nordquist.
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Martinez, a.k.a. 'Mami Ruddys,' was the matriarch of Puerto Rico's LGBTQ+ community and a pioneering drag artist, activist, and trans woman who, since the 1980s, opened her home to young queer people rejected by their families.
Chilli Pepper appeared on talk shows, including Phil Donahue's and Oprah Winfrey's, in the 1980s to discuss life as a trans woman and debunk harmful stereotypes about trans and queer people. She also was an activist for AIDS awareness.
Conway was an electrical engineer, computer scientist, and trans activist. While facing discrimination as a trans woman in her field, she created a simplified method of microchip design and helped develop the Very Large-Scale Integration design.
Hart, a physicist and writer, was among the first people to receive gender-affirming surgery and identify and live as a man. He attended medical school after the typhoid epidemic in 1912 and contributed to tuberculosis research.Jiggly Caliente, a.k.a. Bianca Castro-Arabejo, died at age 44 on April 27 of this year. The Filipino-American drag queen rose to fame in season 4 of RuPaul's Drag Race and also starred in the sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars. She was a resident judge of Drag Race Philippines and appeared in Pose as Veronica Ferocity.
The Lady Chablis, a performer in Savannah, Georgia, was portrayed in John Berendt's nonfiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which highlighted the city's underground nightlife scene and a scandalous murder. She played herself in the film based on the book. While publicizing the film, she charmed journalists and audiences with her charismatic presence.
Nordquist, a Black trans man from Minnesota, died in February in upstate New York after being tortured for more than a month. Seven people have been charged with first-degree murder in connection with his death. All have pleaded not guilty.
Nordquist's family attended the ceremony. 'We just wanted to thank everybody for acknowledging Sam and having Sam being honored on the wall,' his mother, Linda Nordquist, said at the event, according to TV station WHEC. 'There's no words to express how we're feeling.'
The Wall of Honor was inaugurated in 2019 with 50 names to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Each year, additional honorees are added, joining a living memorial of LGBTQ+ legends such as Leslie Jordan, Gloria Allen, Terrence McNally, Harvey Milk, James Baldwin, Keith Haring, José Sarria, Audre Lorde, Marsha P. Johnson, and Matthew Shepard.
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Names of Sam Nordquist, Jiggly Caliente, Lady Chablis, and more added to Stonewall Wall of Honor
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