Black Queer Community Sends O’Shae Sibley Home in Vogue

Feature photo of Qween Jean at O’Shae Sibley’s “Vogue as an Act of Resistance” Memorial Ball via Spencer Platt/Getty Images

It’s been over a week, and I have not stopped thinking about O’Shae Sibley. No matter where I am, what I’m doing, his name has echoed in each movement. I show up to work, I’m thinking about O’Shae Sibley. When my eyes blink from tiredness but my body won’t rest at the end of the day, it’s because I’m thinking about O’Shae Sibley. I’m feeling my sibling, grieving him. I imagine him full of light, with his loved ones, vogueing playfully to Beyoncé at a Brooklyn gas station before his life was ended in violence.

It’s a loop that I can’t stop replaying, how O’Shae could have just as easily been my chosen family. How O’Shae is my chosen family. Chosen together by our sexuality and race and Beyoncé, sure, but also by so much more. By stardust. By solidarity, backs against a wall fighting a world that was never carved for the majesty of our image. By love.

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On Friday, Black Trans Liberation (founded by Qween Jean, who also spoke at the memorial) hosted a “Vogue as an Act of Resistance” Memorial Ball for O’Shae, along with Destination Tomorrow (an LGBTQ+ community center in The Bronx), Ballroom We Care Inc. (a advocacy and support organization focused on mental health in ballroom communities), the community organization House Lives Matter, and the New Pride Agenda (a nonprofit focused on LGBTQIA+ economic, health, and political justice needs in New York). The Caribbean Equality Project, Anti-Violence Project, and Glits Inc provided support. The Memorial Ball was hosted nearly a week after Sibley’s passing, at the same gas station where he lost his life.

On Saturday, the anniversary of his passing, the LGBT Center in Manhattan hosted a memorial at the Chelsea Piers, long known as a home and gathering place for Black, Latine, queer communities who wanted to be together, laugh, and yes, vogue (Sibley was a frequent visitor at Pier 46 trying out new dances, according to friends). They hoisted up orange balloons — orange has been reported as O’Shae’s favorite color — and released lanterns in his memory.

Across the country on the West Coast, author George M. Johnson sent up even more love, “With love from LA, Rest in power 🫶🏾🫶🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾”

From Coast to Coast we are celebrating the life of O’Shea Sibley. With love from LA, Rest in power 🫶🏾🫶🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/CdiEPtO8cS

— George M Johnson Garçon (@IamGMJohnson) August 5, 2023

Hundreds of mourners gathered on Friday at the Brooklyn gas station where O’Shae Sibley was fatally stabbed for expressing himself, for taking up space with his Black queer joy after a day at a beach celebrating a friend’s birthday, for voguing. And how they vogued for him. They chanted his name and marked the makeshift shrines made in his honor with their sweat.

Earlier that same day, his apparent attacker, a 17-year-old Brooklyn resident whose name has not been revealed, turned himself in to the authorities. He was charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon. But for the crowds gathered this weekend, it was about O’Shae.

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O’Shae started in ballroom as young person in his hometown of Philadelphia before moving to New York during the pandemic with the goal of making it as a professional dancer. He danced with the families House of Old Navy and House of D’Mure-Versailles. He could be found dancing at Pier 46 in Manhattan and 3 Dollar Bill in East Williamsburg, and already legend has it that you did not want to meet him on a dance floor — unless you were prepared to be eaten up.

O’Shae was known by his friends as a peacemaker in conflict, which is what he’d been doing after being taunted with homophobic rants the night that he died. Otis Peña, Sibley’s close friend who was with him in his final moments, hoping to stop O’Shae’s wound with his bare hands, said on the night of his Friday memorial that “Pioneers and icons of ballroom’s have come out to pay their respects to O’Shae tonight, and that’s beautiful.”

“Vogueing is the dance of our people. It’s a dance of rebellion created by us and for us.”

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We love you O’Shae Sibley. May you have peace and safety in the warmth of our embrace.

UNITED STATES -August 5: A vigil, march and rally in the West Village honoring the memory of O'Shae Sibley who was slain in Brooklyn, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023.

Photo by Jeff Bachner for NY Daily News via Getty Images