Building a Queer Community IRL with Daniela Cabada
"I knew I was queer in some way and I knew that I was creative, but now I am a queer, creative Latina. And that's at the forefront of who I am."
G: Thanks so much for joining us! I think all of our subscribers are gonna be really excited to hear about you, your story, and the really cool projects that you work on. So, to kick us off, will you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi, I’m Daniela Cabada. I’m 25, currently living in Chicago, but I am originally from Mexico, right on the border with California. I grew up there till I was seven and then moved to San Diego, so I spent most of my life in California and then made my way to the Midwest to go to Notre Dame, Indiana which is a big life change from the regions in California that I lived in that were predominantly Mexican. And then I moved to a predominantly white institution and I was like, ‘Oh, white people are a thing- Wow’
I studied economics and political science there, then moved to Chicago after college and went straight into my career as a consultant. Three and a half years later, I'm looking to pivot into a more creative industry. I took a leave of absence earlier this year from work and focused on a creative endeavor that was inspiring to me, and I started Lez Get Together. I've had two big events and one yoga class for it. I also went on a month-long yoga retreat, and now I'm at a point in my life and career where I'm looking to pivot.
H: What was that process like of deciding to let go of that corporate path of life and pivot to something more creative?
I'm still working on trying to accept it. Before this I was like, ‘Should I not have quit? Should I have waited until I was actually making a livelihood out of something else?’ I am very scared. It's very scary. I was living very comfortably. But it really didn't challenge me in the ways that I looked to be challenged. You get used to a level of comfort that I didn't have growing up, and so this is even more scary emotionally for me as well. But you know what? I have full confidence in myself that I'll figure it out. I don't know whether Lez Get Together will be full-time right now, but it does give me some information in the things that I placed a lot of value in. It sparked a passion that I didn't know was there for such a long time. I was just doing tasks and work without any passion to be candid. And with Lez Get Together, I suddenly wanted to put my whole being into something and I haven't felt that way ever.
G: Do you have any advice for people that are going through something similar to you or are considering quitting their job to pursue a passion project?
I would say take as much time off as you can if you are able to. The job that you have might have a sabbatical or leave of absence program, so you're not fully quitting and separating, but you have time to think about what you wanna do, what drives you, what inspires you. I had two and a half months on leave, and once those two and a half months hit, I was like ‘I kinda don't wanna go back.’ If you are in a place where you have some flexibility with your job, take time off. Having some downtime was really helpful for me.
G: Was there a point where you knew the idea of Lez Get Together had to come to fruition? Can you tell us a little bit about how it started?
I knew I wanted to start something of my own for the queer community and for myself in December. I had some challenging times with my family and felt very alone. I was also into the sober-curious movement and was thinking ‘Damn, I wanna build a queer family, like that kind of family that you see in the movies.’
I grew up not knowing any queer people, so literally my queer experience was via television and media. I wanted to build a really cool friend group, a queer family, and I wanted to facilitate that for other people. So that was kind of what I was thinking of in December, early January. Then I took some time off of work just because I needed downtime to understand myself and work through things in my life.
And this is the moment that I describe as the impetus and the catalyst of Lez Get Together: I went out to a Chicago lesbian bar, Dorthy, and I met two queer women there, very platonically. We got burgers after and we weren't really drinking that much. It was really based on connection and friendship. So then I filmed a TikTok about it and described this night because it brought me so much joy. It got 30,000 views and people in the comment section were like, ‘Wow, I wish I could just do that.’ Or, ‘Wow, I wish there was a space for me to go and I wish that space wasn't a bar’ and people just really resonated with my feeling of wanting something more community based, less so alcohol-focused and I felt a little bit less lonely. Like this isn't just something that I need and want, this is something that other people in the queer community want as well. So I started on January 29th and I think I started my leave on the 17th of January. I worked on it for two weeks, solidified the logo, the message, and then made a little TikTok publicity, which got me all the traction.
I started getting a following on Instagram, found a venue on gigster.com and put some money aside on my credit card, charged everything on it, and I was like, ‘Let's hope I break even.’ And I did. 150 people showed up to the event.
G: Can you describe what you do at Lez Get Together?
Lez Get Together is a queer collective focused on curating sapphic connections. Sapphic is an umbrella term. It was very intentional that I picked that word to describe Lez Get Together because it's an umbrella term that encompasses people identifying as lesbian, bisexual women, queer, non-binary, asexual, pansexual. The list goes on. But the reason for that was I wanted to pick a term that was very inclusionary of other folks that identify with the loving-women gay experience.
H: Where are you seeing taking this project?
I talked to Grace a little bit about this, but I would love to do pop-ups nationally and have a good solid crew going and do a road trip throughout the US. Do little non-alcoholic queer popups in different cities and bring Lez Get Together to different places.
G: With all of this promotion of your event, being on live TV talking about this, do you think that your younger self would've been surprised?
For sure. My younger self was closeted. My younger self didn't know who the hell she was. My younger self was not confident. She did not put herself out there. She was, and this is making me emotional again, learning and taking it one step at a time and trying to figure the different intersections of her identity.
And now, yes, I knew I was queer in some way and I knew that I was creative, but now I am a queer, creative Latina. And that's at the forefront of who I am. I know that I'm charming and charismatic and I love myself, so why wouldn't people love me? And if people don't like me, that's okay too because I can be annoying. But honestly, your loss ‘cause I'm pretty fun to have around.
I'd be surprised to see myself now.
Rapid Fire
G: What is something that you've learned about yourself recently that you're excited about?
I need a lot more downtime than I thought. I thought that I was a social butterfly and I am, but I'm really excited to have understood that the social butterfly needs alone time. And a lot of self-care now, especially with so many changes and pivoting in my life. I need even more time to just create a cozy environment for myself, especially also because I'm not drinking anymore.
G: What are you most excited about being a new yoga teacher?
Honestly, just using what I learned to create a practice that suits me individually and my own needs. Like today, before this interview, I was really freaking out about not having a job and like, ‘Oh my gosh, I need to apply to so many jobs. I'm unemployed, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ And I was like, okay, take some of those deep, yummy breaths that you learned during your yoga training, the abdominal breathing, and then do the really rough sighs when you just let it all go. So I'm mostly selfishly excited for those.
H: Our final question is, and take this however you want, what is something that you think people need to hear right now?
It's really not that serious.
I mean, take this with a grain of salt, cuz some things are really serious, right? So I'm talking about individual actions that you can dictate yourself. I'm not talking about institutional harm on people because that's serious and kind of out of our control. I'm talking about things happening and your surroundings that you're dictating and have enough agency and control over. It's really not that serious.
H: Amen.
And I have to remind myself every freaking hour of the day.
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