By: Justin Oehler
Freelancer

From living in California to being a new kid in Portland, Poison Waters is fabulous and funny. She has been doing drag for almost thirty years and is as popular and vivacious as ever.

Poison Waters, according to her website, has had experience working with the Women’s Inter-community AIDS Resource and currently acts as camp director at a summer camp for kids who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Full of jokes and wisdom, she told it like it is. At the Out and Proud dinner on Jan. 3, Waters told the gathered crowd all about her early life as a quarter Mexican, a quarter Native American, and half black, gay boy.

As the keynote speaker for the dinner, she shared her experiences with the audience. When she moved to Portland, she said it was the blackest city she had ever lived in. She mentioned how much she enjoyed being surrounded by people of color at the dinner, saying she was excited not to be “the raisin in the rice patch.”

She came from a very supportive, diverse family and spoke on how lucky and happy she was to be in that situation. Yet, she knew she was “odd” for a long time and her mother and sister did too by telling her, “You know you gay, right?”

She shared worries that many people face, saying she felt like an alien waiting for the mother ship to come pick her back up. Feeling different and out of place, even when supported by family, is difficult, especially as a young person part of the LGBT*Q+ community.

However, Waters noted that, as she has gotten older, much the world has changed for the better with regards to the LGBT*Q+ community as well as People of Color (POC).

She was so pleased to see that young folks don’t need to go through what she saw back in her day. Her “intersectionality” was a popular topic of discussion for Waters.

She first wanted to become a drag queen and embrace the diversity of the gay community when her drag mother, Rosie Waters, inspired her to become her true, fabulous self.

She seems to have a joke for every occasion and never missed an opportunity to tell one. Even still she had moments of seriousness and during the show and gave valuable advice for young POC, Queer people, and drag queens.