It’s safe to say that kids are growing up in a much different world today than they did even 20 years ago. However, kids haven’t actually changed much. They want and do the same sorts of things they’ve always wanted. They just get to do more and different things than they used to.
What’s more, some kids have figured out who they are earlier than ever. When I was 10, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, but at that time, there was a whole lot of wiggle room. And I couldn’t have told you what I wanted for lunch, let alone who I was as a person.
Not so much Desmond Napoles. Where some kids want to dress as superheroes, he’d rather dress in drag.
Even from an early age, Desmond had an extra bit of fabulous in his step.
He and his mom can recall him wrapping himself up in her towels and strutting around the house in her heels. Desmond’s affinity for girls’ things did have her wondering if maybe he was trans.
“When he was younger, we thought that maybe he was trans because of his strong preference for girls’ toys and wearing girls’ clothes.”
“And even then we thought, well if that’s the case, maybe we should just let that alone and not discourage it,” she told Out . “Also, we thought, maybe it’s just a phase and it would change , but then once he started telling us that he had crushes on boys and that he thought he could be gay, that was like, Okay, that’s alright .”
And so, all his life, Desmond has embraced his joy for flamboyance and drag, and he’s become something of an inspiration online, where he’s known as Desmond is Amazing.
No surprise, he’s a big fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race , but he has his own following as well, with more than 7,000 followers on Instagram. Much of that following started after a video of him in drag at the 2015 NYC Pride Parade was shared online. Two years later, he got to cut the ribbon alongside none other than RuPaul to open the 2017 NYC DragCon.
Fans have sent some wonderfully inspiring messages thanks to Desmond’s determination to live life on his own terms.
His mom says that “on Instagram, there’s a lot of younger followers and we get messages that he’s really inspiring to them. We get messages from people, like in Colombia, saying, We’re not allowed to be outwardly [in] drag or gay and it means a lot to see somebody that is.”
And so Desmond has tried to help other kids like himself, starting up the “Haus of Amazing.”
He describes it as a “positive, encouraging, and safe online community for all drag kids to connect with one another.”
The idea grew out of both those messages and online friendships with other kids into drag.
“There’s a lot of them, really. They chat a lot, too, back and forth, and like each other’s pictures. I think that’s really positive, too,” his mom says .
Desmond definitely has a supportive attitude for other, equally fabulous kids, saying that “People should be able to be free and let themselves express how they want, whenever they want. Let them be [his or herself], and if you don’t like how people are, you don’t like yourself.”
Of course, his mom still has very genuine worries about it all. “It’s very scary as a parent because you always have that in the back of your mind, that your child could be bullied or even attacked for who they are. And you just try your best to protect them and look out for them, but always in the back of your mind is danger.”
And she’s right to worry, because not everybody is as positive as Desmond is, and his “Haus of Amazing” idea has drawn some controversy.
But Desmond and his mom fight back, as they did with an Instagram post addressing the “Haters” online. And there’s no reason to think that Desmond will lose his determination anytime soon!
h/t: Out
