SPOKANE — On Nov. 1, President-elect Donald Trump stood in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum and vowed to his supporters to “get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools.”
Just over a week later, one of Spokane’s own was crowned the first Black Latina Miss Trans USA in a ballroom just 450 feet away from that very arena.
There’s an old adage about sunlight breaking through a storm that might aptly describe North Central High School alumna Beyoncé Black St. James’ experience as she earned the top spot in the Trans USA National Pageant a few Sundays ago.
St. James, which is the drag stage name Beyoncé Nieves performs under, said Sunday’s crowning was the culmination of years of hard work as an advocate and pageant contestant. It was also vindication, after competing last year as Washington state’s representative and falling just short.
The honor reigns supreme among her more than 35 pageant wins over the years, she said.
“To be able to come to a national title that’s recognized all over the world, and to be the first Afro Latina to ever win this pageant, and to be able to stand up for the people: It’s an honor in itself,” St. James said.
Overseen by a nonprofit with the same name, the competition provides a space for trans men, women and nonbinary people to participate in the American pastime of pageantry.
Contestants represent a state and compete via the personal interview, on-stage question and answer, swimsuit, formal attire and state-themed costume categories.
For the latter, St. James wore an emerald green feathered headdress, matching lipstick and tasseled arm bands to bring the Starbucks Coffee logo to life.
“Starbucks originated in Washington state, and now it’s all over the world,” St. James said. “I used that as my platform: Just like Starbucks, I will be your next Miss Trans USA, and I will be all over the world if given a chance.”
The scores across all categories are combined and evaluated consistent with pageant industry standards to determine the winner of the Miss, Mr. and gender-nonbinary Mx titles.
While most pageants center around talent or appearance, Trans USA is meant to be a celebration of the contestants’ as whole people, who are encouraged to come as they are, said Trans USA Pageantry National Director Dylan Drobish. St. James happens to be a career drag performer, but the pageant is in no way tied to the performance art, nor is it a requirement for entry.
Activism and charity take center stage at the competition and the months that follow the resulting coronations. Each contestant partners with a local nonprofit, and upon winning, the reigning court receives generous support from the pageant organization in working for their respective charities and other advocacy efforts, Drobish said.
“Their mission for the entire year is really to work with the charity and promote their platform, and to work within the community and be there as that voice for trans youth, and other trans people, as they are traveling around,” Drobish said.
It’s equal parts a light-hearted competition and national conference for community advocates, as time is specifically set aside for contestants to network, swap experiences and collaborate on various efforts to uplift the LGBTQ+ community, Drobish said.
“A lot of people this year have especially said that being able to access spaces they’ve never been before and meet people and hear their stories that they’ve never been able to hear before, has really helped them in their personal growth, and that’s really the idea,” Drobish said. “Our advocacy-based organization really focuses on developing these leaders in the community.”
Drobish has known St. James for years as they’ve crossed paths in the pageantry community, and he said he can’t imagine a better fit to serve as Miss Trans USA.
“She’s a fighter and a champion for folks that need protecting,” Drobish said. “It’s interesting times, but I think she can rise to that challenge.”
Finding what went missing
The 2024 Trans USA Pageant happened in a ballroom in Milwaukee. Participants began arriving as news broke of former President Trump’s successful bid for a new term.
“That was something for me that I was worried about,” Drobish said. “How would I have to approach this? Would people be in the mood to even be able to do something like this, just with all of that heaviness and fear they might be feeling?”
Trump, like many prominent GOP figures, made his opposition to transgender rights a central part of his campaign this year. Republican candidates and committees spent more than $65 million for a barrage of television ads centered around transgender issues nationwide this election season, as reported by the New York Times.
Since Trump’s re-election, LGBTQ crisis hotlines have been inundated with calls. The Trevor Project, which offers a hotline for LGBTQ+ youth struggling with thoughts of depression, self-harm or suicide, saw a 700% increase in calls, texts and online messages compared to the weeks ahead of Election Day, as reported by The 19th.
The misleading and disparaging rhetoric has led to more than just fear.
Harassment and violence against transgender Americans has also been on the rise in recent years, with the FBI reporting 2,936 hate crimes related to sexual orientation and gender-identity bias in 2023, a nearly 9% increase from the year before. Black transgender women disproportionately face fatal incidents of violence, making up more than half of the 41 trans and gender nonconforming homicide victims in 2022 .
In 2019, St. James had her own harrowing experience with harassment after a video of her performing a burlesque dance at a conference for a Seattle conference on homelessness went viral.
St. James was invited to the King County “Decolonizing our Collective Work” conference, KHQ reported at the time, to bring awareness to the challenges and share her experience assisting transgender women of color, who can be particularly vulnerable to homelessness, discrimination and violence.
Organizers vetted the performance ahead of time, St. James said. Still, the lack of clear messaging on the conference’s programs led to many surprised attendees, which in turn led to scandalous news coverage and ensuing character attacks, threats of violence and release of personal information online as the story got international media attention.
St. James said she lost her job at the time after repeated visits from white nationalists and others seeking to harm her, and eventually had to move into a new home.
“It was a hard time, a very hard time,” St. James said.
The mood at the pageant’s welcome mixer in Milwaukee the day after the election was markedly better than Drobish had feared.
“It was kind of the opposite: everybody laughing, having a great time, and kind of forgetting the outside world for a minute,” Drobish said. “And it really helped me, to see that they didn’t feel isolated, that they could be in a space, healing together and growing together, right after something that happened that was really difficult.”
St. James, choking back tears, said the connections she made at last year’s pageant had such an impact on her life that it was one of the things she was most excited to return to .
The late nights spent huddled in a hotel room, drinking wine and sharing lived experiences of all stripes is as cathartic as it is enjoyable, she said.
“Being in a place where we’re loved and appreciated and we’re valued and we’re not looked down upon, we don’t look different, we’re just treated like regular, normal people: it’s the most beautiful experience I’ve ever experienced in my life,” St. James said. “Other than my fiancé asking me to marry him.”
St. James said the experience and the relationships she’s continued to develop over the past two years have given her a sense of support she hasn’t felt since her mother died in 2017.
“I have been missing that love, that unconditional love that only a mother gives to her child; I’ve been missing that,” St. James said. “And when I came to Trans USA, it felt like I received that love back again. It was just so emotional to just be valued and loved, and it was beautiful to share a light with everyone.”
‘Doing exactly what I need to do’
A Brooklyn, New York, transplant, St. James has called Spokane home since the early ‘90s, when her mother moved her out West to be closer to her grandmother.
She attended North Central High School, but graduated from Bancroft High School. At around 16 years old, St. James got connected with the Odyssey Youth Movement, a resource center for Spokane’s LGBTQ+ youth. It was at the center she first began exploring her gender identity and passion for performance.
“I’ve always felt different, but I just didn’t know how to express myself in a way that made sense,” St. James said.
That is, until she watched the 1995 cult classic “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar” and fell in love with drag.
“I knew that I was destined to do drag shows,” St. James said. “It made more sense to dress up and entertain and be the person in the spotlight and just make people feel happy and loved and appreciated, and also inspire them for greatness.”
In between performing at drag events throughout the Pacific Northwest, including those hosted by downtown club The Globe, St. James spends most of her time working with the Seattle-based nonprofit The Lavender Rights Project, which advocates for and safeguards the rights of Black, gender-diverse and intersex communities.
The nonprofit was one of St. James’ sponsors and her partner charity for the pageant, in addition to providing legal and social support to St. James amidst the fallout related to her Seattle conference performance.
Much of her focus is on assisting homeless people in accessing the resources they need, with a particular focus on trans individuals, who can be particularly vulnerable to homelessness due to housing and employment discrimination. One of the highlights of her work with her sponsoring charity is the grant funding she’s helped secure to continue that work, she said.
“So many people have worked so hard to help me be the best me, and I love the way that I’m able to pay them back by bringing awareness to our community, volunteering, helping other people,” St. James said.
St. James has also served as an ambassador for the HIV prevention medication PrEP, works with the Pacific Islander LGBTQ advocacy group UTOPIA Seattle and is heavily involved in the charity work of the Imperial Sovereign Court of Spokane, the local chapter of a nonprofit.
The court’s reigning Empress, Crystal Marché, said St. James will do a wonderful job in her new platform advocating for the LGBTQ community nationally, and especially in the Lilac City.
“Beyoncé is a very driven individual,” Marché said. “I believe that she never takes the word ‘no’; she’s always striving to go above and beyond. She also comes from a place of visibility where a lot of trans women of color don’t really get that.”
In the coming year, St. James has a laundry list of issues she wants to focus on, including violence against trans people and the broader LGBTQ community, housing and employment inequity, and the large proportion of LGBTQ youth struggling with their mental health. LGBTQ teens are four times more likely to make a suicide attempt than their peers, according to recent research from The Trevor Project.
“Sometimes it may seem like we’re not going to make it, and no one cares for us, and no one loves us, and no one appreciates us, and we feel lost and empty and feel like we’re invisible,” St. James said. “But we’re not invisible. There’s other people that are just like you, feeling the same way, and we’re here for you.”
St. James said she plans to meet with elected representatives and community leaders across the country to secure allies to gain traction on those issues, including with Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown and recently appointed Spokane Police Chief Kevin Hall on how to better serve the LGTBQ community.
She’s also working with the pageantry nonprofit’s team to help draft legislation that would apply harsher penalties for hate crimes, similar to Washington’s own newly enacted law.
“We’re going to do everything we can to try to keep us safe, because that’s the main point,” St. James said. “We need to be visual more than ever, and everyone needs to know that we’re not going nowhere.”
St. James will have local help in her efforts, from the sovereign court, as well as Spokane Pride Director Matthew Danielson. Danielson said he believes some of the fear and trepidation about the incoming presidential administration will translate into more fierce advocacy and a stronger sense of community.
“I know we have a wonderful community here, and we just need to organize and take care of each other a little bit,” Danielson said.
“Our organizations are going to have more money coming in, I think our organizations are going to have more people coming in and I think our organizations are going to be more all-inclusive,” Marché added.
St. James said she looks forward to getting to work in her new role, but for now, she’s still soaking in the honor.
It feels amazing that her years of hard work in the advocacy and pageant realms paid off, St. James said, and that it feels like a rebuttal to the years of “not feeling like I’m in the right body, feeling like I’m not enough, feeling like I’m not valid, feeling like the community sees me as disposable, feeling unsafe, feeling like I can’t go make a difference in this world or work hard for a change.”
“It was just all valid this past weekend that I am doing exactly what I need to do, and I’m destined for it,” she said.
