CAROLINE SAVOIE | Staff Writer
CarolineLSavoie@gmail.com
Every hair on my body stands at attention. A wave of chills electrifies my skin, from my scalp to the soles of my feet. Gisele Xtravaganza, mother of the House of Xtravaganza, is “ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta”ing as her children vogue and walk and pose across the floor in preparation for an upcoming ball.
Their joy is undeniable. Their confidence is jaw-dropping. And their nerve — well, their nerve is ancestral.
That’s what sends a buzzing sensation through my body any and every time I watch ballroom performers: The nerve of these people! The absolute audacity and gumption that has survived generations and persists in the unapologetically, ecstatically queer.
With every hair flick, performers say, “I am here.” Every rock of their hips says, “I have always been here.” And a sharp look shot at the audience declares a white-hot prayer: “I will always be here.”
Gisele joined the House of Xtravaganza in 1999. Now, Gisele isn’t only the mother of the House of Xtravaganza. She’s the great-granddaughter of Venus Pellagatti Xtravaganza, a woman whose appearance in Jenny Livingston’s 1991 film Paris is Burning marked a turning point in my journey as a queer woman.
“As I get to the 10-minute mark of I’m Your Venus, Netflix’s 2025 documentary about Venus’s family and friends searching for answers about the end of her life, I’m filled with the same inspiration and devastation I was when I found out Venus was murdered.
Someone killed her and left her body in a hotel room on Dec. 21, 1988, in New York, NY. She died before her rise to stardom in Paris is Burning, Livingston’s groundbreaking documentary about queer culture in New York City.
Venus was 23 years old when she was killed. Her murder has never been solved.
“I never got to meet her, but I feel her,” Giselle says in the new Netflix documentary.
That sentiment rings true for me and for millions of other queer people who were enamored by Venus’s authenticity and idyllic aspirations for her future, a future that never came to fruition.
The film follows her brothers — John, Joe, and Louie Pallegatti — along with members of the House of Xtravaganza as they search for long-awaited justice.
The brothers reckon with how they treated their sister when she was alive. And, for the first time, the public hears a confession from a man jailed on an unrelated rape charge — a confession that casts a new light on her murder.
“Venus’ body was found at the Fulton Hotel; she was under a mattress. There was a plaid scarf tied around her neck, tightly,” attorney Jim Walden reads in the documentary. “She clearly had ligature marks around her wrists. That confirms she was bound before she was murdered.”
Walden said the police interviewed a housekeeper and other hotel employees.
“The bottom line is, as of the time of the murder, there were no live suspects and so the trail could’ve gone cold there,” he said.
It did go cold. But in I’m Your Venus, we see the trail warming again. With help from a legal team spearheaded by Walden and attorney Deanna Paul, the Pallegattis and House of Xtravaganza ask the New York Police Department to reopen the investigation.
Every queer person I know seems to remember when they saw Paris is Burning for the first time. As a Gen Z queer lady, it has become painfully clear to me that while our generation’s LGBTQ+ population is bigger than any other generation’s, according to the Human Rights Campaign, our knowledge of queer history is often limited to RuPaul’s Drag Race (no shade).
I recently found myself explaining Stonewall to a 17-year-old baby gay. Her eyes lit up with fear and pain and inspiration and admiration for those who literally fought for her right to be openly bisexual more than 50 years later. She’d never thought about it before.
So many of us haven’t had to think about it before. Our generation inherited this gift that was fought and paid for with blood and death and grief and an insatiable desire to love and be loved.
We passively accepted this inheritance, and post-2015, many of us foolishly assumed that our right to love was safe from those who use hate to divide us.
But as we’re seeing in real time, the same hate that left Venus dead under a dirty mattress in a New York hotel room is wrapping its thick, black tendrils around our communities — around our local, state and national governments — once again.
Venus’s story is one in a line of millions of stories of LGBTQ+ people who came before her and after her. And as I’ve learned since watching Livingston’s Paris is Burningalone in my living room on a weekday afternoon, her account is one of millions documented about our LGBTQ+ siblings.
I am continuously humbled as I learn more about our history from filmmakers, artists, photographers, journalists, poets, activists, authors and elders.
I offer a special bit of gratitude to David Taffet, who has spent his life memorializing our community with style and unwavering devotion. I learn more from you every day.
And our Dallas Voice editor, Tammye Nash, who graciously answered my mid-afternoon cold call and listened to me tearfully recount my first experience with Paris is Burning. Thank you for sharing your memories with me.
Social and political pendulums have, do and always will swing. And as the unshakable confidence and absolute nerve of the ballroom scene reminds us, we are still here.
We have always been here.
And we will always be here.