CutCommunityHeroes: 30-year-old model, community organizer, nightlife fixture, and ballroom mother Gia Love has already lived many lives, but the one she found over the pandemic-tinged past year and a half made her reconsider her definition of self-care
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Courtesy of DDPRO, Photographer Eve Harlowe. Gia Love is a city girl through and through.
For Love, the celebratory gathering was an extension of the affection she feels toward Black trans women and an intentional example of how others can give them their flowers while they’re here to receive them. “We can do activism, we can take it to the streets, but we can also celebrate and have fun,” Love says. “I’m on that mic, I’m uplifting the girls, letting them know this event is for them and their time to shine.
There’s a calm attached to Love’s words as she recaps the things that have led her to where she is. Her words are breezy, self-assured, and thoughtful. It’s the sound of finally both feeling and seeing that who you’ve always wanted to be is exactly who you are today. It’s undeniable, it’s magical, it’s — divine alignment?
As alignment tends to go, what was once a fantasy is now the reality for Love. Her growing résumé includes an appearance on the groundbreaking TV series Pose, beauty ads in Target stores, campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger and Parade, and closing Chromat x Tourmaline’s spring-summer 2022 New York Fashion Week show, which debuted a line of swimwear crafted for wide-ranging body comfort and for femmes having the option not to tuck while serving a beach look.
What was most overwhelming about the ordeal, she tells me, was the reaction people had after she shared the attack publicly, not the attack itself. “Because what happened, quite frankly, is normal,” she says. Many people still conflate fame and visibility with safety and adequate resources. In reality, being on the front lines with a large platform has often made Black trans women even more susceptible to mistreatment.
The ways in which her community has shown up for Love — from the success of the cookout to the outpouring of support after the attack — have been a blessing. They have nudged her into a more vulnerable space than she’s accustomed to, she says, and affirmed the importance of giving others the opportunity to show up for her.
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