ORLANDO, Fla. – WKMG is once again hitting the road, this time to beautiful downtown Orlando. The city beautiful prides itself on being inclusive.
Lake Eola is where the pride parade ends and downtown is home to many LGBTQ+ organizations.
Darcel Stevens is an advocate for the gay community, a veteran, and a performer.
We caught up with Stevens at the 14th annual Orlando VA Pride Month celebration where he represented his company, Harmony Healthcare, and is an outreach coordinator.
The event honored LGBTQ+ veterans, and that’s a hat Stevens is honored to wear.
“I really love my military service. I’m very proud of my military service. Those were the most formative years of my life,” Stevens told News 6.
He served in the U.S. Army for four years, from 1978 to 1982, and did another four years with the National Guard.
“It taught me discipline. It taught me structure. It gave me lifelong friends,” Stevens said.
His time in the military was before he came out as a gay man. During that time, you were not allowed to be gay in the military.
“Oh no,” Stevens said. “In the active Army, if you even sniffed that you were gay, you were dishonorably discharged.”
Today Stevens also serves on the board of Come Out with Pride, which plans Orlando’s Pride events.
But what he is most known for is performing as “The” Darcel Stevens.
Stevens spent 27 years as the entertainment director of the Parliament House and reigned supreme as the quick-witted host and drag performer.
For years Stevens has hosted and emceed events around Central Florida and still performs regularly.
He even wowed the crowd at this year’s One Magical Weekend events, by plunging into the pool with full hair and makeup.
“Drag gave me an outlet to live vicariously through the music that I was hearing, and I could put on that persona,” Stevens said. “Drag has never been something sexual for me.”
This is why when Florida’s legislature passed the Protection of Children Act, which aimed to ban what Republicans called adult live performances, or drag shows, it struck a nerve, not only with Stevens, but also with the owner of Hamburger Mary’s in downtown Orlando, who ended up suing the state.
“As a drag queen, I felt very invisible. And I felt very helpless. And I come from a strong civil rights family,” he said.
Stevens did what came naturally. He rallied the troops, calling on hundreds of drag performers, from the Panhandle to the Keys, and their supporters, to go to Tallahassee and protest what critics called anti-LGBTQ legislation.
And they did.
“It was a very momentous, just empowering event,” Stevens said.
“I think out of all of that march, that is the one thing I’m most proud of,” Stevens said. “That it’s a new generation that’s going to have fighting drag queens, that while they may do drag in front of an audience, but by daytime watch out, watch out.”
A judge blocked what critics called the anti-drag law from taking effect and the U.S. Supreme Court refused the request to reinstate it.
Darcel Stevens served this country and is still fighting for his rights and the rights of others.
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