The lights are dimmed. The crowd that was screaming its lungs out a few minutes ago is now silent. Slowly, a drag queen makes her way onto the stage. As she enters, a familiar Bollywood tune plays. In her orange dress, the drag queen on stage begins lip-syncing to songs from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a movie I grew up watching countless times. I don’t know if it was the four shots of tequila I’d had earlier or the sheer joy of watching someone perform beautifully, but during her performance I was hit with a roller coaster of emotions and tears began to stream down my face. Her performance stirred a deeply buried memory in me — of myself, draped in the shawls of the women in my family, dancing to the iconic Bollywood tunes of legendary divas.

This is how I remember attending my first drag show in March of 2023 in Chicago, a place I have called home for the past two years. Since then, I have been a regular at the Bollywood drag shows organized by Jai Ho. Every two months, I pull the shiniest outfits out of my closet and hit the dance floor, watching queens and kings perform to songs that evoke a sense of nostalgia. And when I dance, I dance like no one is watching. My inner Helen comes out and I dance for the crowd, delighting them with my seductive moves while I plot another plan to get one of the gay guys to buy me a drink.

Aside from the drag shows, I had many firsts in Chicago. It was the first place where I kissed a man in public. Before that, my displays of love and affection were limited to OYO hotels in Kathmandu. I don’t even remember holding a man’s hand in public in Kathmandu because neither I nor the people I slept with dared to do so. From a very young age, we were taught by people who governed us that love happens in private. Bedrooms are the only places where you can express your love and longing. And even though that love was limited to heterosexuals. Queers could not express that love because it was unacceptable.

But here in Chicago, I didn’t have those moral police to regulate my actions — or at least they didn’t know me or my family’s address. So I started kissing guys in public, and I liked it. And then I kissed more. And more. And more of them. When I am not kissing them, I am holding their hands — in parks, at concerts, in museums. Sometimes I wonder when I became so daring. Have I changed, or is it the freedom of not knowing anyone that makes me do all the things I used to see English-speaking white guys do in movies and TV shows?

I vividly remember how many family members gasped when I wore mascara because it made my eyes more beautiful. Their reaction was similar when I wore mehendi on my hands — they didn’t like it. They treated me as if I had committed a crime. Public disapproval was also evident when strangers on the streets looked down at me when I wore something or did something unconventional. And if the looks weren’t enough to make me feel uncomfortable, silencing was a tool used to suppress my true self with the argument that I was too loud.

Now, here in Chicago, those memories have become distant. I am surrounded by many queer friends who get me. They don’t laugh at me, they laugh with me. They know my pain, my longings, and my desires. When I casually hook up with someone, I don’t have to explain why I did it. My morals aren’t questioned, and queerness isn’t defined by who I sleep with, but by how I treat others with respect and dignity and my politics. Nor am I regularly exhausted by having to explain why I feel a certain way and why I make certain choices in life. They have been on my heels and walked the ramp with their crowns held high. They know that being queer still isn’t easy. Thrones are more common than roses in your path. But they fight and inspire each other.

I had many firsts in Chicago that I will cherish forever. This is the first city where I became best friends with a Nepali gay man. This is the first city where I had dozens of queer friends from different parts of the world. This is also the first city where I have been with more than 50 queer people in a room, meeting them casually — not just to protest or rally. I wasn’t that lucky in Nepal because we had very few spaces for queer folks to hang out. In a country with a population of over 30 million, there’s hardly one or two queer bars. While more cultural and social events are emerging in the city, it still fails to accommodate the larger and more diverse queer population of the country. So most of us are forced to seek refuge in silence. In spaces where we could wear the cloak of invisibility. Attracting attention can still be life-threatening for some of us. Our families can disown and disprove us by forcing us to live a life we don’t want to live.

Growing up as an openly queer person, I had many suffocating experiences in Kathmandu. I couldn’t go out in the clothes I wanted to wear. I had to walk, talk, and present in a certain way and protect myself from all the unwanted attention. It was also easy to single me out because most of the time the rooms were surrounded by straight people. We were outnumbered by the mass of heterosexuals who imposed their values and beliefs on us, and if anyone dared not follow the system, we were harassed, attacked and silenced.

Here in Chicago, many of those barriers have been broken for me. I wear clothes that make me feel happy. I ride public transportation with my nails painted. I do what I want to do without worrying about the consequences of my harmless actions. And for this reason, Chicago will always be special, close to my heart, because it presented me with a possible future where I can live a dignified life as a queer person. Thank you, Chicago, for healing my years of oppression, trauma, and unhealed wounds that I have never spoken of. You have made me happy and safe. You made me confident in my queer body. You taught me how to wear heels and rock a skirt. Because of you, I am no longer timid and shy. I can finally breathe and be who I want to be.

I know this is a privilege not many of us get to enjoy. Living under the same roof or being constantly surrounded with people who want to censor and invalidate your queerness is difficult. The constant fear and threat that so many of my queer friends who are living in their home countries go through makes me emotional at times. They deserve to be happy in this life, too. They deserve to be kissed in parks and weddings and in concerts and train stations. They deserve to enjoy every bit of happiness there is in the world and to live a life like any other human being, not like a living corpse.

I hope that every queer person in the city finds their Chicago.

What this city has done to me, not even my hometown Kathmandu did that — it healed my queer soul. Chicago taught me that it’s not me, it’s them, the ones who can’t see me happy who are weird. It taught me that it’s okay to paint your nails, lip-sync to the female vocals of Bollywood songs, and kiss your loved ones in public.

Having said that, the city isn’t safe for all queer folks. There are still spaces where black and brown queer and trans folks are discriminated against. Not every bar will welcome you with open arms. You can experience isolation. You can still be attacked for being queer. Fortunately, I’ve been protected and haven’t experienced violence. My queerness has thrived in Chicago. I was lucky to find a community that made me feel seen and heard. That took me seriously. And I hope everyone finds that. May we all find our Chicagos, homes where we can be our truest selves and live lives of dignity.