During an acceptance speech at Them’s third annual Now Awards, Backspot star Devery Jacobs opened up about her journey to feel at home in the queer community, and spoke to the “safety and support” she has found along the way.
Jacobs — who uses she/they pronouns — accepted the award for Film & TV at a ceremony in Brooklyn held on June 10, honoring 11 LGBTQ+ people on the cutting edge of culture. Presenting the award was none other than Elliot Page, whose company Pageboy Productions helped bring Jacobs’ new queer cheerleading movie to life.
“It’s not often that you meet someone with such strength, determination, and kindness. Someone so committed to their art and their activism,” Page said. “I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to work with Devery, to get to know Devery, and I sincerely hope it’s the beginning of a long-lasting personal and professional relationship.”
Jacobs and Page embraced on stage after the introductory remarks, and when Jacobs took the mic, the first (very endearing) thing she said was, “Holy fuck, Elliot Page just said all that shit about me!”
The focus of Jacobs’ remarks was about the actor’s continually evolving relationship to their queerness, and their ever-evolving sense of pride in their identity. “I’ve known exactly who I am as a Mohawk person from day one,” they said. “But stepping into the queer community felt like I wasn’t entitled to a space here. I had come out too late in my life. I was too femme, too straight-passing, not white enough, not culturally queer enough, and I struggled with the concept of Pride. In my culture, humility is something that’s instilled in us from birth.”
However, Jacobs added that “through patience and slowly finding community — specifically Indigiqueer and Two-Spirit community,” she has been able to recognize herself, conceptualizing her queerness and Indigeneity as “intertwined and of each other.”
“I’m not saying that I have all the answers. I’m still figuring out my gender identity through a Kanien'kehá:ka lens and I still have so much homework to do inward and outward,” she said. “But I get to do that surrounded by safety and support — something that many of our queer, trans and Two-Spirit relatives don’t get to do.”
Jacobs named the late Nex Benedict as one of those examples, saying that the “nonbinary teen from the Choctaw Nation … should fucking be here today,” to applause from the crowd.
“I refuse to feel shame for being a part of this beautiful, ferocious and resilient community,” she said. “I am now unabashedly full of pride — pride for being Kanien'kehá:ka, pride for being queer — and there is still so much work left to do. Like Auntie Marsha P. Johnson said, no Pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
You can read our full Devery Jacobs cover story here.
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