Ponyboi’s Instagram

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Six years ago today, @norayouadora and I went on o

Six years ago today, @norayouadora and I went on our first date after flirting on Tinder all through Xmas. The first thing I said to her in person was “You smell good,” and somehow that and all my other awkward moments didn’t weird her out. We ate empanadas at a cute cafe and drank fancy cocktails at a tarot-themed bar, and everything about Nora sent me deeper by the second. Have you heard her speak? She’s brilliant and hilarious and sounds like a phone sex operator. Have you seen her style? A true artist painting on an already gorgeous canvas. She has more talents than I can count, and it just so happens she’s as weird as I am. I fell hard, which was terrifying since we lived 800 miles apart. Hundreds of FaceTime dates and 150K miles on my car later, we’re still loving on each other as fiercely as ever. Nora took a gigantic risk by moving to Memphis nearly two years ago while we were still very much in quarantine. Ain’t no one saying it’s been an easy transition, but why would it be? We are two complicated, scrappy people who are fumbling our way through the unknown, and lawd lemme tell you—we both got lots of strong convictions. I love that about us. Nora keeps me honest with myself, and she’s stood by me through the massive change and growth I’ve been experiencing these past couple of years. All the while, she’s been cobbling together a new life in a new town in a post-apocalyptic world. She’s so damn brave and compassionate, and so so easy to love…even when we’re having a miscommunication or disagreement 😜

This week, we lost the frozen pipe lottery, and a water-logged ceiling collapsed over Nora’s office while we were visiting family 12 hours away (see last pic). Thanks to the kindness and swift action of @aphrohoops, @missamariiee, and our neighbors (on Christmas, no less!), our house is salvageable, and many of Nora’s things are saved. We still got tons of work ahead of us, but tonight, we’re gonna take a break to celebrate all the love that surrounds us through thick and thin.

I’m so damn lucky to ride these roads with my pardner, the one and only Nora/NoNo/Ennis/Sir/Love of My Life 🙌😍🥰💒

Get yr ho ho ho on with the AFABulous crew this Mo

Get yr ho ho ho on with the AFABulous crew this Monday at Lamplighter, and then stay for @hunblun’s Lip Sync Assassins. It’s gonna be a sexy, silly, wild slay ride, y’all!

Had a gay ol time galavanting thru the Botanic Gar

Had a gay ol time galavanting thru the Botanic Garden’s pretty lights with @belab319 @norayouadora and Sierra ✨💖✨

Woooo boi look at all these sexy guys!!! ❤️‍

Woooo boi look at all these sexy guys!!! ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 I’m taking my horse n pony show on the road the road this weekend for my first ever gig in Arkansas, an all-kings show hosted by @lordofcakes69 aka Jake Adams. Come see us on Saturday at Godsey’s in Jonesboro, and only for a $5 cover at that. LET’S GOOOOO! 🤘🤠

Nbd but @norayouadora and I just got pinned as Fri

Nbd but @norayouadora and I just got pinned as Friends of @hoistmemphis for winning their body worship contest. You can go on and use your imagination to fill in the details 😜

I had such a blast playing Rapidash and a Pokémon

I had such a blast playing Rapidash and a Pokémon card scammer at last night’s Poke Ball! Thank you to @thebarbiewyre for giving me a fun way to spend my first dragiversary! And what an extra yummy treat to get to perform alongside @theladypluto and @catdollyrick again ❤️‍🔥

Pics and vids courtesy of my darlin @norayouadora, and the Pokémon card heist jacket is a repurposed piece that @fairy_spit wore at AFABulous

Holy moly my first dragiversary is Friday! Speakin

I’m up in Minneapolis presenting a nerdy paper o

I’m up in Minneapolis presenting a nerdy paper on grief, queer kinship, and lesbian vampires, and I snuck away for a cold walk down to the Mississippi River, my lifeline between here and Memphis. Thinking of you, Lisa Michaels, and how fluidly you could shift between full speed ahead and quiet reflection. I feel you constantly, but that doesn’t keep me from missing you boo. Love is big and exquisite and hard. 💜

Last night’s AFABulous show was everything and m

Last night’s AFABulous show was everything and more thanks to these talented artists, a killer audience, a stellar venue, and a dream cohost, @pollypopjoy. I adore working alongside so many brilliant, creative people, and I’m so grateful for @thehitonecafe, one of the strongest supporters of queer performance art in Memphis. As Lisa Michaels would say, Memphis is queer as fuck.

AFABulous will be back again with a mini xxxmas show at @lamplighterloungememphis on 12/19, and then we’ll be at the Hi Tone for another full show on 1/22. Come on out and play!

G’morning just here to post some @norayouadora a

G’morning just here to post some @norayouadora appreciation pics bc I’m a lucky boi and I know it

We might be falling back into longer nights this w

We might be falling back into longer nights this weekend, but AFABulous: A Glowing Revue is here to light your way. ✨💖✨ Come on out to @thehitonecafe this Sunday to support these luminary talents! Doors open at 7, and the show will start right around 8 (like, for real). The first 50 guests will receive a special gift with admission 💝

The sexy, hilarious, brilliant @pollypopjoy and I have joined forces to produce a show that celebrates the diverse creative paths taken by folks who have the shared experience of being labeled one kinda way when they were born. AFABulous features men, women, NBs, and gender hackers of all types, and we’re so freaking excited to make this show a staple of the Memphis drag and burlesque scene. Each show will include performers you know and love as well as one debut number from a newcomer to the scene. This month, we welcome Captain Gemini (@shiloh_road), who was born out of the bosom of the great capricious mind of our collective pleasures and is here to welcome you aboard a grand adventure of eclectic mystery. You don’t wanna miss this yummy, dazzling show!

Happy Queer Xmas! I had a whirlwind Saturday that

Happy Queer Xmas! I had a whirlwind Saturday that began in Boston with my nephew Marco the Pumpkin Prince (+ @eheying & Omar 💕) and ended in Memphis with a post-masquerade Lyft ride adventure (ask me later) with some baddies I love. Thank you to @aphrohoops for snapping the only pics I have of ringleader @norayouadora and her adoring bratty tiger. Nora and I finally had a chance to carve our pumpkins yesterday, and tonight, we feast on all the candy we’ll have leftover from the trick or treaters who never came (because they never come…but we still buy the 208 count pack of the good shit every year).

May your Monday be spookier and sillier than usual!

Thanks for these sweet pics from Cooper Young Porc

Thanks for these sweet pics from Cooper Young Porch Fest, @thejordanvoyage — and thanks to my nephew and sister @eheying for being ridiculously adorable

Don’t mind us…

Happy National Coming Out Day! I’m constantly co

Happy National Coming Out Day! I’m constantly coming out to myself and others again and again. As Octavia Butler teaches us in Parable of the Sower, God is Change 🐛

These days, I identify as genderqueer, queer, transmasculine, lesbian, and sometimes bi. It took trailblazers like Leslie Feinberg to make me realize I could hold all of these pieces simultaneously and fluidly. I know my experience as an AFAB person who was socialized as a girl/woman has shaped me in ways both I’m both conscious of and not, and that it continues to mediate my access to power, agency, respect, and community—I will always fight for AFAB people, femmes, trans women, and sissies. Misogyny runs deeper than we know.

I’m also a drag cowpunk, and Ponyboi is both me and a dream. I see gender as a language, so why not make art with it! (Oh and come see the AFABulous show I’m hosting with @boomzapkapow next month 💁🏻😘). I use he/they pronouns in drag, though Ponyboi is a girly boi for sure. In the rest of my life, I’m still using she/he/they pronouns, and I feel especially seen when people move between them when they talk about me. In bodily news, I started taking a low dose of T this September, and so far, it feels very very right in ways I both expected and didn’t.

Coming out can be feel (and be) all-consuming, exhausting, and even life-threatening, so I’m never one to judge another person’s relationship to visibility. I know that at many points in my life, including recently, I’ve needed time and space to create my own sense of community and safety before I was ready to talk about my gender and sexuality with people beyond a trusted few. I am here because of everyone who fought for space before me and everyone who continues to support and love me now, so I try to be that community, that trusted person, and that kernel of courage for someone else whenever I can. Sometimes I have to fake it till I make it, but these days, confidence, courage, vulnerability, and openness are (very) gradually becoming my norms. Much love to y’all, wherever your journey is taking you. I’m here for you, just as so so many of you have been for me. 💜

#whatwouldlisado #nationalcomingoutday #localdrag

Come horse around with me this week at tonight’s

Come horse around with me this week at tonight’s Flashbacks show, hosted by @angel_fartz, and Thursday’s Circus Bezerkus, hosted by @thebarbiewyre. Rumor has it that Ennis Envy (@norayouadora) will be making a special appearance on Thursday! 😁

Elle est une modele 🤩😍

Elle est une modele
🤩😍

If you try to shut us down, WE’LL JUST GET LOUDE

If you try to shut us down, WE’LL JUST GET LOUDER! I love queer and trans Memphis, and I love everyone who came out yesterday in support of the Drag March. We will always show up for us even when those in more “respectable” positions of power don’t. Those bigots who shut down our drag show last week will not get the last word, because guess what: we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re really fucking powerful ❤️‍🔥

I’m eternally grateful to @memphistranslove for mobilizing and organizing this protest, and to @drwpkrrr for taking these glorious pics.

Despite the mercury retrograde of it all, it’s b

Despite the mercury retrograde of it all, it’s been a pretty damn good month for writing. I got to spend some time in Eureka Springs at the Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow, working on a short story that, thanks to the wisdom and encouragement of @rebeccarotert, I’m now envisioning as part of a novel. I’m also so thankful for new friendships with the other writers in residence—@carynmirriamgoldberg and George—and for memories of wooded fairy paths and vintage penis signs. And because it was too damn good not to Gram, I’m throwing in a pic of a delicious meal made by my brother @dweberj during my quick trip to KC to see him, @luminenancy, @annebanan714, and @amarchael.

And in other exciting news, I published my first short story as Ponyboi with @focusmidsouth (see my Insta story for link), and my Dorothy Allison/sexy archives article that’s forthcoming in Signs was shortlisted for their yearly award for outstanding feminist scholarship. I sure am a lucky a grateful boi
✨💖✨

Welp, the bigots got what they wanted last night.

Welp, the bigots got what they wanted last night. I was invited to step in at the MoSH drag show for a performer who couldn’t make it, and 10 minutes before we were set to go on, we were ordered to pack up as quickly as possible because the show had been shut down. The bitter irony of it all is that this was a family-friendly closing event for a months long exhibit celebrating queer history in Memphis. It breaks my heart to think what kind of message this decision sent all the kids in attendance.

We still got a lotta work to do, y’all. Keep showing up and showing out to protect our right to queer joy.

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