[ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ [ Electronic dance music pulses ] [ Cheering ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -♪ Werk, werk, werk, werk ♪ ♪ Grind, grind, grind, grind ♪ ♪ Werk, werk, werk, werk ♪ ♪ All my life, life, life, life ♪ ♪ Werk, werk, werk, werk ♪ ♪ Grind, grind, grind, grind ♪ -Rat holes, rat holes, rat holes.

This is probably the butchest that you'll ever see me when I'm at work, like, without makeup.

This is just who I am every day, like, shoes, every day, every day, every day.

Hair every day, every day, every day.

My nails aren't done now because two nails broke, but we're gonna fix that.

My name is Mermaid Garçon.

I was born in Brooklyn, but I've lived in Long Island my entire life.

I work for the New York City Department of Health.

Oh, yeah, there's a big one over there.

And I feel like my coworkers are so cool.

Last year, they came up to me just randomly, and they just said, like, "So, what are your pronouns?"

And I was like, "She."

"Okay.

She."

-Beautiful, Mermaid.

-Thank you.

When I was growing up, it was either you were a male or a female.

And in the gay community, you were either gay, bi, or trans.

There was, like, nothing in between.

I feel like, yes, I was born a male, but I have so much feminine energy inside of me.

I don't -- I don't want to be this or that.

This individual that is here before you now took a very long time.

I've always told people I feel like, in the world, everybody has a twin.

You might not meet them, but there's somebody in this world that's literally just like you.

[ Siren wailing in distance ] -My name is Milan Garçon.

I am from Cleveland, Ohio, born and raised.

I always knew that I wasn't a boy, didn't want to be identified as a boy.

The first time I knew was "Freaky Friday."

When "Freaky Friday" came out with Lindsay Lohan, baby, I said, "You could wake up -- You could go to sleep and wake up a different person?

All you gotta do is see a shooting star?"

I was looking at shooting stars every night, like, "Gotta find one, gotta find one."

[ Camera beeping ] But then they went back.

So I'm like, "I don't want to be a girl all the time.

No, no, no, I don't want to -- I don't want be a girl, but I want to be able to experience the things that I want to experience, which are things that only girls are supposed to experience."

Before "nonbinary" was the word of the decade, [chuckles] I would just always say, "I'm just me.

I'm just me.

I'm -- I'm an entity.

I'm an experience."

[ Laughing ] That's what I would always say.

[ Camera beeping ] It was really tough growing up in Cleveland being very feminine as a young person, knowing that that wasn't gonna gain a positive response.

So it was a lot of closeting myself.

-Thank you, Milan.

-Thank you!

But I'm a hustler at heart.

You keep the hustle going.

I moved myself to New York.

I'm a media correspondent and a model.

And when I think of me in New York, I don't think that I would be where I'm at without my sister.

-So, whenever I explain to people how me and Milan met, they do not believe that we met only four years ago.

I see this individual walk on stage, low-cut Caesar, but they had a beat mug.

-When I saw her come in with, like, this 50 inches of hair, like, literally almost to the floor, and she's so tall, I'm just like, "Who is this lady?

But she is fab."

-So, we're sitting there, and we're eating pizza.

Love the pizza.

-I just looked at her, and I said, "What's your name?"

And she was like, "Mermaid, what's yours?"

And I was like, "Milan."

-And she looked at me, and she said, "So, what's your favorite part of your body?"

And I literally said, "Well, honestly, it would be my legs and my stomach."

And she said, "That's crazy 'cause mine is my stomach and my legs."

-And she just, like, grabbed my hand.

She was like, "You're riding with me."

And then once I got in Mermaid's car, I always tell the joke, I never got out.

[ Laughs ] So... -"Oh, you're Milan.

I'm Mermaid.

MnM.

That would be a cute hashtag."

And it became a hashtag.

[ Squeals ] [ Electronic music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -And we got it.

Traffic!

[ Laughter ] -Twiggy said, "And we got it.

Traffic!"

[ Siren wailing ] -We instantly saw something in the other person that we knew was inside of us, but we hadn't brought it out yet.

My sister, Mermaid, she was really, like, that person that grabbed my hand and was like, "I'mma show you the ropes."

And I didn't realize that I was doing that for her when it came to, like, expression and wearing whatever you wanted and doing whatever you wanted, saying whatever you wanted, Like, we kind of gave to each other in that sense.

-This is the second one?

-Oh, the second one, no shade, is tea.

-It's all drag.

Literally, I wore this for a ball in Atlanta.

This was another ball in Atlanta.

This was a ball in Philly.

Oh, my God, I loved this one.

Before her, I wasn't wearing makeup.

I felt like, if I wore makeup, then people would expect me to transition, and that wasn't the path that I wanted.

But she made me feel comfortable, like, "No, girl, just because you're wearing makeup and wearing heels and hair and stuff, that's not what we want to do.

That's not who we are."

That was "Pretty Lady."

-"Pretty Little Liars"?

-No, "Pretty --" "Pretty Woman."

-I never seen that movie.

-Gimme, gimme.

Showing your age.

Showing my age!

-[ Laughs ] -Never saw "Pretty Woman"?!

Gosh!

The year 2018, that is when I met House of Garçon.

And after I was luckily inducted in, it was magic after that.

-Haylo!

-The girls are here.

-The girls are here.

-The girls are here, girl.

Hi, sister.

How are you?

-Mwah!

-A ballroom house is a group of people, Black and brown LGBTQ+ people, that find refuge with each other and really push each other to be their best selves in and out of ballroom.

That is -- That is a house.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Mwah.

How are you?

-Good.

-To me, the Garçon house is bangy sophistication.

We are full of love.

Behind closed doors, we are just your average Black family having a good time.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Sodas?

-Yeah, there's some ginger ale.

-That's my hiding spot.

Don't -- -Oh, wow!

I took that right on out.

That's so funny.

-Don't even -- Don't even -- Don't even go there.

-That is so funny!

-Don't even go there.

-Sister, would you like a Pepsi?

-I didn't know we were hiding soda.

Please, I would never go.

I would never go there.

-Wow.

-Get the onions.

Get the scallions.

-I got the scallion and tomatoes behind you, but you want onions, too?

Aren't scallions onions?

-When people express, like, where they're from, I'm super excited to say that I'm West Indian.

Especially with my family.

We are very family-oriented.

I feel like that's a Caribbean thing.

-I could probably do stewed chicken before I could do curry.

-Well, curry's a little bit more technical.

-Curry is, like, technical.

It's like a day before, it's the day of, it's the after prep.

-I was an only child until I met my sister Milan.

Now that I've found my sibling and we literally live together, it's amazing.

-We live together in the house that she was born and raised in.

This is, like, her mom's house.

They got a pool here, so I was like, "Yeah, what's the rent?

I'm moving on in."

-And then my mom secretly is obsessed with it.

-I'm a way better baker.

I can bake you anything.

All of my pies.

"She".

All of my pies.

[ Laughs ] -No, it's -- Yes, yes.

[ Indistinct conversations ] Before, she thought that, "Maybe it's just you that's like that in the world."

But now she sees, like, "No, there's, like, other people like you, and there's somebody who's just like you."

-Ooh, yes.

-Hi.

I'm Mermaid.

-Hi.

I'm Milan.

And we walk -- -And we are MnM.

No, girl.

-Sorry.

-We walk... -Butch Queen in Drags runway.

-Drags runway.

-For the legendary house of... Comme des Garçons.

-Comme des Garçons.

When I joined the ballroom scene, I saw very quickly that the categories were gendered.

Knock, knock.

-In ballroom, I walk the category which is called Butch Queen in Drag runway.

That category is pretty much a Butch Queen, which is a male figure, or a male, who can be female-presenting, turn it on, and become a drag queen, which is who I am naturally.

-Brain surgery, ha.

You've seen nothing like this.

All right, you all, so we are on our way to the ball!

-Absolutely.

Bye, Auntie!

-Let's go!

-Ladies and gentlemen, once again, we want to welcome you to the Unity Ball!

We are going in this order.

Please be ready.

The first is Schoolboy, then Pretty Boy, then Thug, then Executive, then Butch Queen in Drags, then Femme Queen... -Go ahead, go ahead.

[ Indistinct conversations ] [ Up-tempo music playing ] [ Laughter ] -I define drag as... feeling your essence.

-Let's go.

Mermaid!

Hervé Léger.

[ House music plays ] ♪♪ [ Cheering ] ♪♪ Hervé Léger stays!

♪♪ -When I think about drag queens, I always had this idea that they were strong men who were portraying women.

And that's kind of like an image that was put in my head, but there are many different types of drag queens.

-Keep the beat going!

Let's go, ladies!

♪♪ -Anybody can do drag.

You can be any gender you want to be.

You can be any gender that you gotta be.

You could do drag.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Walk!

Walk, bitch!

♪♪ [ Cheering ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -It feels really good walking balls because you're getting, like, that instant validation back from your peers that you may not get from the world outside of ballroom.

You know, you come out your whole life until one day it's just like, "I've arrived, darling!

And I do not have to come out to you anymore!"

-I have an energy that naturally exudes out of me.

It can be masculine, it can be feminine, really no boundaries.

And I just feel like nonbinary... it's open.

-But it's such a simple concept at the end of the day, where it's like, "I am going to be myself fully, no matter the boundaries, no matter the spectrum, no matter the binary."

No one's the same, so it can't be a binary in two genders.

That just -- The math isn't mathing, darling.

It's kinda like that moment of seeing somebody that is, like, the you that you see yourself being.

-We literally found each other.

-How lucky were we?

But you gotta be present, baby!

Luck will stare at you right in your face sometimes, but if you are not present in yourself, you know, realizing what's going on with you and the world around you, honey?

You'll miss it every time.

She's the twin that I was separated at birth somewhere in the dimensions, and we found each other.

You know, when you have a sister, you know, y'all feel like you can take over the world, period.

[ Heels clacking ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -This is NPR, National Public Radio.

-From studios at Montana State University Billings, this is KEMC and KBMC Bozeman, KECC Miles City, and KYPR Gillette.

♪♪ And a good Friday evening to you, and welcome to "Your Opinion, Please," where, for the next 30 minutes, approximately, we welcome your views and those of your neighbors on any subject that is on your mind that can be discussed in public, and, of course, you'll have to decide that because we can't advise you up front.

No prior restraint in this program.

♪♪ ♪♪ 657-2941 here in the Billings area, 1-800-441-2941 outside of Billings.

We have a caller from Livingston.

Livingston, good evening.

Bozeman, good evening.

We have a caller on the line from -- -Helena.

-Helena, good evening.

Miles City, good evening.

Glasgow, good evening.

Lewistown, good evening.

We have a caller on the line from the Shields River Valley.

Shields River Valley, good evening.

-Good evening.

I'm wondering what your listeners prefer, a, uh, president who lies about his sex life, or a president who lies about the reasons for invading another country.

-[ Laughs ] We really have to make that choice, huh?

-In order for us to continue using the Pledge of Allegiance, we need to change or delete any reference to God.

Uh, for example, we could say "one nation under many deities" as opposed to "one nation under God."

That way it would reflect our many different, diverse beliefs and our many different cultures... -Wouldn't that -- -...and it would still say that we are united.

-Wouldn't that just offend everybody, saying "under many deities"?

-Offend everybody?

-'Cause everybody believes that their own God is the one true, don't they?

-Oh, well, you know, that -- that's true.

That's true.

Well, then maybe what we do is just -- is just get -- I was trying to do this so that everybody would be, you know, happy, but maybe -- you know, I never thought of it that way.

-We could choose Jefferson's words and say, "under one God or no God."

-Well, that's true.

That might work, too.

-[ Chuckles ] -Helena, good evening.

-Hi, guys.

How you doing?

-Pretty well.

-So I called you guys some years back and asked you if you could help me figure out what in the heck poetry was... -Oh, my.

-...because I had, uh, been trying for years to, uh -- to figure out what poetry was, and based upon some suggestions that you guys had made, such as saying a whole lot with not very many words... -Yeah.

-...things like that.

I've been listening ever since and decided that that doesn't work, either.

-I have a question for the people.

Can a representative democracy survive in America with the ongoing effort to eliminate reflection and deliberation as part of the legislative, judicial, educational, and social aspects of our country?

Those two words increasingly are not part of the dialogue, "reflection" and "deliberation."

And I don't believe personally that it can survive without them.

-Thank you.

Good question.

People, think about that.

Deliberation and reflection.

I might amend his question.

In a nation of 300 million people approaching, can we talk about democracy or can we strive for accountability?

Is -- Is democracy a reasonable aspiration in a country of 300 million people as diverse as ours is?

-Since your previous caller asked about poetry, a friend e-mailed me a haiku, which was, "Letters dabbled.

Frame on page.

A picture.

Not too many, not too few."

-Mm.

Good.

-I'm -- I'm -- I'm more or less a Democrat, but mostly I'm -- I'm a free floater.

-Yeah, independent.

Sure.

-Well, not even truly independent, because there's a group that calls themselves independents.

-Oh, really?

Okay.

-And -- -They're not organized.

It's like Will Rogers once said, you know, "I'm not a member of any organized party.

I'm a Democrat."

-Oh, I like that.

[ Both laugh ] -Adlai Stevenson even came up better than that.

He said, "The Democrats fight like cats, but, fortunately, when the fight's over, there are more cats."

[ Both laugh ] -You read other things than I do.

[ Both laugh ] -People talk about, "Gee, I want to live in Montana, but I also want to get paid like I live in California."

Living as we do, and, in some sense, not seeing change take place is the only way that we're going to preserve our natural resources.

Salt Lake, Denver, all the places that I knew that used to be separated by 20 miles from town to town, now it's one contiguous urban sprawl.

-Yes.

-And, you know, living here in Bozeman, I live right next to a development where I've seen 400 acres go on houses just in the last six months.

The only way to preserve Montana is, really, to, in some ways, keep it in the dark ages.

-About a month ago, this lady called in, uh, who had -- had gotten some food poisoning, and, uh, I hope she's feeling better now.

Um, garlic helps, uh, if you do a lot of garlic if you suspect food poisoning.

-Garlic helps treat food poisoning?

-Oh, absolutely.

-Oh, that's good to know.

-Oh, my, yes.

-Hello.

I was just commenting from our, uh, would-be poet friend that he might, uh, really kind of like, uh, limericks more than poetry.

-Uh-huh.

You cooking outdoors tonight?

-Uh, going to be soon.

-Yeah, good, good.

-As soon as this little drizzle stops.

-Cause that's what I -- what's what I remember.

When you first called this program, you were usually barbecuing at the time, you know?

-Uh-huh, and then we'd float down the river and catch fish.

-That's right.

-Uh-huh.

You've actually had live trout caught on "Your Opinion, Please."

-[ Chuckles ] -In fact, I was one of your first callers on this show.

-You were.

-Going by when you started, and I believe it was 1997 or '98.

-Oh, my heavens.

Really?

That long?

-One of the first things you and me talked about was electric deregulation and the consequences we were going to have from this fleecing, but that isn't what I wanted to talk.

-The issues never change, do they?

-No, they never do.

-Montana, I think we call ourselves "The Treasure State," but the vast majority of Montanans don't realize that the main treasure left in this state that has not been plundered is intact natural landscapes... -Mm-hmm.

-...and public lands.

-Great Falls is growing.

Bozeman's growing.

Missoula.

Kalispell.

Every one of our cities is growing right now because people like to come here.

And with these tax rates that they put on, it's going to be one heck of a burden on the people that are building houses.

-The smoking ban has once again reared its ugly head.

-I'm a -- kind of a Republican person.

I support the president and all the Marines and Army and Navy and the Air Force.

-I was calling to talk about the current immigration situation and, uh, how it affects the workforce.

-We now have a bill that is going to be signed into law, which will declare, uh, harm to a fetus to be harm to a citizen or a person.

-Please explain to me why we got in this war in the first place.

-How angry do you get when you see that somebody is in court again for their sixth DUI?

That makes me damn angry.

-There's a lot of misinformation out there, and some of this misinformation is being put out there purposely.

-I had such a good day, being back in my classroom with my children, and I have enjoyed my profession so much today... ...and I wanted to thank you for making me stretch my mind.

I listen to you as often as I can.

Keep it up.

-Wanted to let you know that I had gotten a book on poetry, and I was reading it, and I would make a -- a good-faith effort to figure out what the hell poetr-- -Mm-hmm.

-I'm -- I'm sorry.

I can't say that on the air.

-You can't.

Yeah, you did already.

That's okay.

-Oh, I'm sorry.

What the heck poetry is.

What I'm hoping to do is to increase my own, um, knowledge of the world and never realized that poetry itself might be able to bring all that into focus.

-Yeah.

-So I'm having a lot of fun and -- -Good.

-And I'll be in touch.

-Thank you.

-I think the most, uh, crucial thing about being a human on the Earth is that you must remember we are completely interdependent, and, uh, part of the creation of this country had to do with recognizing that.

It is our collective duty to, uh, watch out for each other rather than swearing at each other and calling each other liberals or conservatives or whatever it is we happen to use as a pejorative.

-But it's so much fun.

[ Both chuckle ] -Good evening.

May I change the subject?

-Go ahead.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪