Part of the ABC News, “Good Morning America” project, Protecting Pride: Resilience After Tragedy.

Edited: Melanie Schmitz

Authored: Kiara Alfonseca

Video: Faith Bernstein, Will Linendoll, Asher May-Corsini

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Jancarlos Del Valle, who is typically reserved, was cheering along to a Club Q drag performance in Colorado Springs, Colorado, one night, when he caught the attention of fellow bar patron James Slaugh.

“Oh, he’s actually cute,” Slaugh remembers thinking.

The two traded glances throughout the night before Slaugh’s friend eventually dragged him over to Del Valle to introduce them to each other.

They spent the rest of the night talking until the bar closed. The two shared a kiss that night — Del Valle’s first ever, he says — with drag queens cheering them on.

The two men were previously closeted for years — Slaugh is an ex-Mormon and Del Valle is an ex-Jehovah’s witness. Together, they’ve found comfort in their queerness.

The two can now regularly be found draped in rainbow accessories, holding up dollar bills at drag shows.

“There’s this energy to Jancarlos, especially when we go out to shows involving the queer community and things that I just never felt connected to. There was that level of energy that he brought that I finally was able to feel comfortable with myself,” said Slaugh.

Club Q is also where Wyatt Kent, who doubles as a drag queen named Potted Plant, met the love of his life.

Kent and Club Q bartender Daniel Aston met when Kent walked into Club Q to perform on the club’s stage for the first time a few years ago. Aston helped him find his way to the dressing room.

Kent told ABC News that about a week after he began his stint as a Club Q drag queen, “another queen turned to me and said, ‘So what do you think of Daniel?’ I was like, ‘I’m gonna marry that man.'”

The two would sit on the couch talking for hours, Kent said. Aston would write Kent poems and Kent would encourage Aston to look at the clouds and see what images they could conjure up together.

Club Q is where they all say they found love.

It’s also where Del Valle and Slaugh were shot in a November 2022 mass shooting that left five people dead, including Aston.

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Read more at Good Morning America.

Photo by Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash