PRIDE

FERNANDO RODRIGUEZ

My mom walked in, and I was like, “What?!” It took a while to process that it was her. I was like, “That’s my mom. That’s my mom!”

Before she moved, I was always with her because I was the youngest. I would go to rehearsal with her, and during city festivals in the Philippines, I would be on my mom’s float, running around and throwing candies at people. It was like a big old Pride Parade for the entire city!

[Once] my mom made me take a ballroom workshop. The guy who was leading the workshop was like, “You should compete!” But I wanted to be my mom: I wanted to do all the fancy twirls, and I wanted to be lifted. The male counterpart was so boring, you just hold onto her, spin her, dip her—when I saw that, I was like, “No, this is not for me.”