From Saguaro Blooms to Rainbow Hues: Why Tucson is a Desert Inspiration for the LGBTQ+ Community

When many think of acceptance and celebration of queer culture, Tucson isn’t usually on the top of many lists. However, at just two hours away by direct flight from Denver, the desert city is home to thriving LGBTQ+ business, art, and educational opportunities. It’s also home to the Trans Studies Research Center at the University of Arizona’s LGBTQ+ Institute.

The burgeoning Tucson community is like that of the desert after a spring rain: beautiful and promising.

Mel Dominquez is a force of nature. As soon as you meet them you know your life has been changed for the better. Founder of the Galeria Milotera (which loosely translates to news reporter/neighborhood spot to be informed. It can also mean rollicking or fastidious, which is a perfect description of the space and mission statement), Mel is originally from East LA and came to Tucson in 2007.

Opening Milotera with their wife, the space is for local artists to gather and exchange ideas with like-minded people. Beyond being a muralist, Mel is a community organizer. They commission other artists to create murals in the neighborhood, but they also volunteer to feed seniors and helped create a library on wheels (with free COVID tests, books, sanitizers, seeds to plant in gardens, and coloring books for kids), amongst many other undertakings. Mel’s heart is felt throughout the community.

“You don’t have to wait to make a change,” explains Mel. And that change is growing. Mel is working to tackle housing, partner people with mentors to start businesses, encourage youth to put down their phones and talk to one another, and teach people how to take ownership of their own lives. Tucson’s LGBTQ+ people recognize Mel as a community engagement specialist beyond their artwork.

“The morning I got busted coming in late from doing graffiti one night by my mom she said to me ‘Mel, do you want to pay the city, or do you want the city to pay you?’ That was the lightbulb that went off for me.” Now they are the resident artist at Tucson Tamale Company, and the dividends and hard work are paying off. It’s a far cry from a building tagger in the dead of night.

A visual documentarian, Mel is inspired by the confluence of people in Tucson. They take inspiration from Frida Kahlo, childhood cartoons, and local mythology to craft bright and narrative work, telling a story while moving eyes around the piece, no matter the medium.

“Staying playful and supporting the community are extremely important to me,” Mel says. “I don’t care if people know who I am or what I’ve done. I’m working towards the cultural integrity of this beautiful community.”

The Splinter Collective is another part of Tucson’s beautiful LGBTQ+ community. It’s a welcoming space that is home to incredible ideas, cooperative activation, and enablement. Focusing on events, art curation and performance, housing justice, and aid, Splinter Collective has three incredible Co-Directors, two of whom I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing in the 1920s warehouse.

Nat Brewster Nguyen became acquainted with Splinter Collective in 2008 as a performing artist. Touring the space, we visit the art-bespeckled green room that is home to many a memory (and a few left-behind props and wigs) as we discuss their story.

Wandering by the circus studio, Nat explains the non-hierarchical structure of the non-profit. The queer space is there to hear marginalized voices. Moving from LA to Tucson, Nat had the opportunity to buy the building, which had nine studio spaces in 2019. Closing the real estate deal in January 2020 with the help of crowdfunding, Splinter was on the precipice of its next metamorphosis before the pandemic hit.

But like a butterfly unfurling its wings, no matter the hardships, Splinter Collective continued that mission of hearing the unheard and homelessness advocacy. The collective is located near shelters, soup kitchens, and a Salvation Army in the neighborhood.

During lockdown, the police cleared a local park, and an encampment of 80 people found themselves at Splinter Collective’s front door and parking lot. Harnessing the mission of the collective and staying true to the character of the place, Nat was able to move 40 of the 80 individuals into hotel accommodations for a month.

We stop in a gallery space (Galeria Mitotera) where Nat’s work is currently on display: Love Letters Leave No Trace: Memento Mori (The White Shoot). Here Nat’s daughter is the focus of an ongoing photographic art project. Co-Director Sam Bloom joins us and I learn about Sam’s unapologetic Blackness, take on body image, and utilization of sewing and textile art to reparent himself.

Sam also has two children, which motivates them for the future and serves their passion for sharing practices in textile artworks and processes with the community.

Strolling outside, Splinter Collective is definitely a space I’m looking forward to seeing activated with an event. An outdoor bar, courtyard, and muralled walls make for an aesthetically interesting space that also imbues the power of community and action.

Lupita Tineo is another figure in Tucson’s LGBTQ+ community who is taking action to support others. I was absolutely squirming with excitement to meet her at her space Yolia Botanica.

Yolia (YO-leeah) comes from the Nahuatl word, “Teyolia,” which represents one of the two basic spiritual components of human beings. They’re located in the heart and represent vital force and conscience. Yolia, however, means, “life purpose, prosperity and heartfelt actions that give life meaning.”

“I find my Yolia to be helping my community reconnect to their lineage and find peace with our ancestor’s practices,” Lupita explains with a disarming smile.

“Bruja” is also a word of reclamation for Lupita, “We have always existed and it wasn’t until the European inquisition that all Black and Brown brujas and witches worldwide were brutalized for their ancestral practices. We are fighters of oppressive systems, we are midwives, herbalists, mothers, and professionals alike. We believe in taking back the power of divine Matriarchy,” Lupita says.

Taking on this fighting spirit, Lupita vocalizes against the systems of oppression she has personally experienced, such as migration trauma, being “undocumented,” religiously oppressed, fear of her queerness, lack of healthcare and education, medical trauma, and thoughts of suicide.

“I’ve had to look back to my roots, my culture, my aunts, my grandparents, my memories, and how to find the desire to live to find meaning in my existence,” Lupita says. “My knowledge, information, opinions, and thoughts have been shaped by hidden indigenous practices all around my family. Due to religious concepts and restrictions, I didn’t recognize them as such, and that is why I am a Bruja: Reclamation.”

Lupita didn’t feel the necessity to come out before June 2023 as she was married (to her husband) and had children. She did come to the understanding that it was important for her inner child work—to give acknowledgment, validation, support, and liberation to a part of herself that she hadn’t received before.

“It was beautiful to see how many people were inspired and shared similar stories to mine. I absolutely love the LGBTQ+ community we have [here in Tucson], because we are safe,” Lupita says.

Offering limpias at the botanica, the experience is a very personal, vulnerable, and powerful session that provides people with a protected space of release and alignment. “A prayer is nothing more than a tangible petition,” Lupita says as she shows me how to anoint a candle with the oil of Saint Michael and a healing energy ritual powder. “Be careful, he shows up!” she says with a grin.

When I asked Lupita if she had anything she wanted readers to know, she offered this powerful message: “In July 2018, I had a suicidal breakdown and I believe I was carried by my ancestors to make it out of that situation. I didn’t want to die, I was just exhausted from living. Something so beautiful and unexplainable got me out of that hole and the deepest part of my journey began. I kept choosing myself, even though I didn’t understand what was coming or if I deserved good things. I lived in complete fear and intimidation. Most days I still have to fight these old feelings. But ultimately, I had to choose to switch the lens I had on life and I turned the lens of punishment into the lens of opportunity and the doors have not stopped opening since. My mother always said, ‘Lupita, the world changes when YOU change’ and I understand now that it was my perspective that I needed to change. Please, friends, don’t give up on yourselves.”

The LGBTQ+ community of Tucson is truly a community; the day-to-day work and showing up for one another is tangible and an inspiring example of how individuals can come together and genuinely care for and about one another. Even as a visitor from Denver, I was welcomed with open arms, an authentic sense of hospitality, and a glimpse into a bright future ahead for us all with the hard work being done.

Sidebar:

Where to stay:

Hacienda del Sol is a reimagined history “girls only” retreat, now a sprawling hotel overlooking the mountains beyond.

Where to eat:

BATA near Downtown Tucson is a must-try while in the city. Order the malawach house-made bread with labne yogurt dip. You won’t be disappointed.

Grab a fluffernutter pastry or raspberry pistachio Dossant at Prep & Pastry.

Not to miss:

Visit Mel at Galeria Milotera, 1802 S 4 th Ave Tucson

Visit Splinter Collective at 901 N 13 th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85705

Visit Lupita at Yolia Botanica, 2210 S 6th Ave, SUITE 8, South Tucson, Arizona 85713