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Victor Valencia made a name for himself more than a decade ago when he built furniture for clients in New York. When he came to Tucson, he knew he wanted to do something different.
Inspired to move to Tucson because of the folx who would later open Splinter Collective, Victor knew what it was like to work in the trade industry. He knew how inaccessible — and how uncomfortable — the trades are for women, queer, trans and femme-of-center people (WQTF).
“The first time I met TC (Tolbert), we both bonded on not only being trans but making things,” Victor says. “He was making cutting boards at the time and he had just started on his journey of making. He’s a poet and he would infuse his words in his work. He and I just bonded on that and also the love for our people and how we can give back. He asked me pretty much immediately if I would open a shop with him.”
At first, Victor’s answer was no. He had an open shop in New York and knew how much work it was to maintain.
“But a few months later, I lost my housing. Somebody bought it sight unseen and my little (personal) shop was there so I had to look for a shop. I realized how hard it was in Tucson to find a shop as a stranger. I didn’t know anybody,” Victor says. “And then I just kept thinking about it. I’ve been in this industry. I know how to do stuff and still, the doors were closed.”
Victor called TC back and in 2022, they started BOSS — Building Out Safer Spaces, where Victor now serves as executive director.
BOSS is a space for the WQTF community to learn and build together. It’s a safe space to learn how to use power tools for the first time, to build a bee house, to ask questions.
“I knew what it was like to fight for space, fight for skills, fight for getting in the door,” Victor says. “When I moved here, I realized there were less people — queer folx — doing the stuff that I was doing and it was because there was no access.”
“Tucson is a very mutual-aid forward, very community-centered space. Going from knowing what it was like before transition to now, I see the privilege that I have. How can I use that to open the doors for folx? How can I use that to pass on what I wish was passed onto me?” Victor says. “And also, at this time, this administration, this era that we’re in, it’s so important for queer folx and women to have that confidence to do things for ourselves.”
Victor loves to work with metal and reclaimed wood. He loves geometry. He’s always loved to tinker.
“I would follow my grandfather around and he would always tell me, ‘Go spend time with your grandmother. Go make some tortillas.’ That was cool and I have very fond memories of that, but it definitely left this craving for imagining something and making something,” Victor says.
He always found a way to learn. He remembers walking into a shop in Oakland, California and asking if they were hiring — even though he had very little experience. He remembers working for an all-women crew in Boston, where he learned a lot from his general contractor.
“Wherever I could, wherever someone said ‘maybe,’ I showed up,” Victor says.
Trades jobs have long been dominated by straight men. They’re the jobs with the fewest amount of women and likely even less queer people.
It’s the language, it’s the attitudes, it’s the overall lack of safety that make the queer community and people of marginalized genders feel unwelcome, uncomfortable and unprotected in trades careers. Victor mentions one example, when a woman came into BOSS after she was told elsewhere that she was not allowed to touch any of the men’s tools.
“I have friends who are queer trans and want to go into the trades and have had so much harassment that they’ve decided not to,” Victor says. “In white supremacy culture, you have to meet these marks and if you’re BIPOC, you have to meet them even more … It’s so daunting for folks and it feels like there are all these handicaps (given to you before you even start). Closing that off closes your opportunity to fix things for yourself, to even feel like you can do this for yourself. When you’re in a learning space, you don’t want to feel unsafe. You don’t want to feel like you’re behind or like you’re being pursued.”
BOSS offers guided workshops where the WQTF community can work on projects like building a shelf or a garden box. In just a few hours, students learn how to properly use a table saw or get tips on operating a drill. BOSS is also soft-launching open studio days, where students can work on whatever project they’d like — all alongside knowledgeable facilitators.
“Everywhere I go, when people learn that I’m a builder and do furniture, they’re like, ‘I want to do that. Will you teach me?’ … The reason it’s important for us is because when you have the ability to fix something, you feel the confidence, you feel a little bit safer, a little bit better, a little bit stronger,” Victor says. “When you can say, ‘I need this’ and you can actually make it for yourself — you need a table to sit at, to feel human, to eat at? And you can do that? It makes people feel a little bit calmer in this crazy world that they have the ability to make a positive change in their (own) world.”
“We all started with our hands. We did not start analyzing conversations. We were making fire, we were making tools. … When somebody is creative and they haven’t been creative (for a while), there’s this spark. It’s a sparkle people get. Right now, when people feel attacked, when they feel small, when they feel scared, when they feel like, ‘What is this world?’ we need (creativity). That is powerful resistance. I feel like, ‘Why do WQTF need this?’ — it’s because what else do we got?”
Victor hopes people leave the BOSS shop having learned truly whatever they wanted.
“What I really love is that they feel safe, that they feel held, that they feel like they can come back,” he says. “Like that first step was the most scary and intimidating, but now they feel like it’s theirs.”
And because Victor wants to remove as many barriers as possible, all of BOSS’ workshops are priced on a sliding scale.
“You can go to the community college but there’s so many things (you have to do) to get there, so I wanted to remove whatever I could, to be like, just show up,” Victor says. “It’s really important for folx who are women, queer, trans, femme-of-center to access this, but also I’m Mexican. I was not only told, ‘Go to the kitchen, that’s where you belong,’ but I was told, ‘That’s for boys’ and all these things. In my family, you didn’t do those things and we didn’t even have extra money to do those things. I didn’t do afterschool sports, I didn’t do band, I didn’t do any of that. If I can give a scholarship to somebody every time we do a workshop, hell yeah, I’m going to work hard to get that money.”
Victor hopes that people can leave BOSS with skills for their own personal use, but he also hopes they’re able to bring those skills to the workforce. BOSS has been able to help someone get their general contracting license, which Victor hopes will become a reality for more of the BOSS community.
“I was doing one-on-ones building out Splinter Collective’s thrift store so people would come in and they would help out and there was this one person who was like, ‘I don’t know if I can actually be here or if I’ll be any help because I’m the most unhandy queer’ — and now they’re taking gigs,” Victor says.
“Folx are constantly asking us, ‘Hey, do you have a referral for a plumber?’ because they don’t feel safe just calling anyone on the internet. They want someone who is within the community,” Victor says. “We have big dreams of making a directory and there’s nobody. There are barely a few people who are actually in the profession. Those people, if they’re out there and they’re reading this, I want them to call me.”
BOSS has also worked with Casa Mariposa and the Outlaw Project — both of which center the queer community — to remodel their buildings from plumbing and beyond.
“We want to take care of our community,” Victor says. “Our community is our family.”
Ways to get involved
- Attend a workshop.
- Donate financially.
- Donate a tool.
- Volunteer your time — BOSS needs facilitators and mentors to help share their skills with the community.
❤️ For more information, visit BOSS’ website and Instagram page. BOSS is located at 657 W. St. Marys Rd. C7.❤️
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