Photo Credit: Esther Siller
In 2023, Brownsville-based Esther Siller realized something during her retirement: there was a lack of spaces for lesbians in the RGV.
Before moving back to the Valley in 2022, Siller had been a member of a social group for lesbians in Dallas, and she decided to create a similar safe space at home called Chicas Happy Hour.
Every month on the 3rd Friday, wlw (women-who-love-women) and other gender identities who are attracted to women, meet up together at local venues, mostly in Cameron County for now.
“My goal is to make the Chicas Valley-wide, not just Brownsville,” Siller said.
Siller plans to soon seek two coordinators to help facilitate meetups in the Upper Valley.
Group members hang out bowling and going to movies together, and just celebrated Chicas’ 3rd anniversary this past Pride Month with a drag brunch and karaoke at aka Tabu Bar. Drag artists Luna Karr, Angelique K. Doll, and Elypsys slayed the show.
“We had a great time,” Siller said. “The food was wonderful; the drag queens were absolutely wonderful, and they were telling me they had a great time also performing.”
Besides coordinating Chicas, Siller keeps the queer community spirit going with the BTX Pride Alliance.
After the presidential administration passed mandates that restricted DEI government programs across the nation, the Brownsville City Task Force was dissolved and replaced with the ONE CITY Committee.
Siller had served on the task force since 2023. This past April, she talked with other LGBTQ+ community members and former taskforce members to form a volunteer committee that would function similarly to the taskforce, now known as the BTX Pride Alliance.
The alliance decided to begin with a flag-raising. Previously raised on city grounds, the alliance met up in early June at the supportive Bar-B to proudly hoist a rainbow flag. Unlike previous flag ceremonies, the alliance celebrated this special moment with a market featuring the RGV Bears, South Texas Equality Project, and the United Church of Christ RGV.
Other events the alliance hosted last month included a Pride Pub Crawl, Farmers’ Market, Lesbian Movie Night, and a march for the 10th anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub hate crime, where 49 lives were lost.
Cece Gonzalez, another alliance member, wrote the following, which Siller read after the march: “The tragedy reached a family right here in the Rio Grande Valley, as one of their loved ones was killed that night. Their lives should not be forgotten. Frank Hernandez Escalante, 27. Frankie was a Weslaco native and former cheer coach with the Valley All Stars. In 2014, he moved to Orlando, Florida, to pursue a career in retail with Calvin Klein.”
Pride Month may be over, but building community isn’t a month-long project. Siller sees both Chicas and the BTX Pride Alliance as long-term resources for LGBTQ+ folxs. Both groups often share other RGV-based events that are for the LGBTQ+ community and allies or connect attendees to other community organizations.
“That also shows our community that there are people out there that are definitely friendly to the community and who are our friends and who love us and accept us,” Siller said. “So I think it’s also helpful to those, especially the young people, who might feel that they’re hated, [or] that they don’t have anyone.”
One way to foster sustainable and long-lasting community change, according to Siller, is through intergenerational relationships. Siller believes younger volunteers and activists have new ideas, and older folx should continue (or start) to get involved in organizing spaces. All ages should be together in community, especially in lesbian spaces.
Many people are unaware that the L in “LGBTQ+” now comes first as a way to honor the lesbians who “stepped up to take care of the gay men who were dying of AIDS,” Siller points out as an example of lesbians leading community care efforts that may be forgotten.
“You can always count on us [lesbians] to step up and do what is needed, and hopefully, we can be a role model to the rest of the queer community, and that’s why I try to get more of the older lesbians to come out [and] meet the younger ones,” she said.
As Siller says, “My wish and my goal is that everybody comes together because we’re queer, whether you identify as gay or lesbian or bi or trans or nonbinary or any of the other [identities]. We are all queer.”
Siller’s colleague, Hector Ruiz (South Texas Equality Project’s president), was a former student of Siller during her one year of teaching. She even wrote him a letter of recommendation, and he now describes “his fav teacher” as an “amazing activist,” proving the RGV’s LGBTQ+ community is timelessly bonded with care.
