How San Juan's Queer Scene Joined the Ricky Rosselló Protests With a Ball

Grounds for impeachment—based on offenses uncovered by the chat transcripts—had been found a day earlier by three attorneys commissioned by the president of Puerto Rico’s House of Representatives.

The chat scandal isn’t the whole story, though. It was a truckload of fuel unloaded on a fire already lit. On July 10, a day prior to the initial leak, federal agents arrested several members of Governor Rosselló’s administration on a total of 32 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and related charges. Demonstrations have occurred ‘round the clock since, and not only at La Fortaleza—the Governor’s Mansion in Old San Juan—but in towns across the archipelago.

Puerto Ricans protested in the standard methods, like bomba y plena (historical protest music), signs, chants, the banging of pots and pans (called a calderazo), but also in some new and unexpected ways. The people’s message, #RenunciaRicky, was delivered by boat and jet ski, via underwater divers, on ATVs, through yoga en masse, and on horseback.

Noting the prevalence of women and queer folks on the frontlines, Jadriam Casado “Malatuya,”23, and Villano Antillano decided to cement the fact with a protest-within-the-protest that would speak directly to queer issues.

From a single-digit group chat, the Haus rapidly grew to include more than 100. The call to participate in or attend the Resignation Ball, or La Renuncia Ball, was open to anyone belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Two medical students in the crowd said it was their only week off from school, and while the political revolution was calling, they’d debated attending—until they heard about La Renuncia Ball.

“This is a safer space to protest,” Edgardo Vargas, 26, said. “To be with your people, fighting for the same things.”

Félix Pérez, 25, added, “It’s important that we are present too, that we fight too—we are also part of el pueblo.”

“I think it’s really important that we did this,” Kaya Té said. “We didn’t know what would happen, we just knew we had to take up space. There’s a lot of things that need to be talked about regarding our needs and our safe spaces that aren’t being talked about in this big way. And we knew that this was a big opportunity to talk to other people and have other people see us manifesting ourselves in a happy way, against everything that’s happening.”

After the ball, those who were up for approaching the police barricades marched toward La Fortaleza as a group. Kaya Té took the megaphone, and was overjoyed when people they didn’t know began chanting in unison: “We actually got the big crowd, cis people and cis men, chanting with us. To hear a huge crowd around you screaming that they’re patas and putas was so fantastic,” they said.

For many Puerto Ricans, Roselló’s chat —which also included jokes about Hurricane María’s dead and threats to political opponents—was the last-straw revelation for a people already saddled by more than a decade of recession, government mismanagement, the effects of U.S. colonialism, and the 2017 crisis of Hurricane María. In the past few years, there’s been hundreds of public school closures, drastic drops in the public university system’s budget, cuts to pensions, and other austerity measures jointly rolled out by Puerto Rico’s government and the U.S.-appointed Fiscal Oversight and Management Board, installed in 2016 as a purported means of managing Puerto Rico’s $120 billion debt in bonds and pensions. Lest we forget the fact that nearly half the population lives in poverty and high rates of gender-based violence persist. Then there’s the 4,645 deaths of Hurricane Maria crisis, many of which, had the disaster been better managed, likely could have been avoided.

Additionally, a “religious liberty” bill that would allow government employees to deny service to citizens on the basis of religious object nearly became law in June (yes, they really did that during Pride Month).

Puerto Ricans are already calling for the renunciation of his successor, Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez. The movement for a better quality of life for all Puerto Ricans looks to be just beginning, and the Haus of Resistance continues. The chat remains not only a tool for organizing, but also way to collective ensure safety and self-care, to share resources like legal aid, and to keep everyone motivated for the long haul.

“This affects all of us,” Casado adds. “I want it to be clear and evident that the queer community is resisting and fighting.”

Jhoni Jackson is an Atlanta-born Cuban living her best pansexual, sober life as a freelance writer in San Juan, Puerto Rico.