anessa was a revolutionary at any and all cost, for better or worse.
Some people have ambitions. They dream of a better world for themselves and for others. Vanessa saw people like Harvey Milk and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose pursuits toward progress were cut short while fighting with peace, and I don’t believe she intended to let progress be slow or silenced. She became a force too difficult to ignore and impossible to quiet.

If that meant stealing a horse to escape a convent and riding home along the 405 freeway, so be it. If it meant arrest during a protest, confronting corruption, risking reputation, comfort, or safety; then she accepted the consequences.

If that meant cradling the head of an overdosing Pride attendee on a port-o-potty floor all night, she was there. She provided employment opportunities to parolees through partnerships with organizations like Beacon House, helping people relearn life beyond gang affiliations and addiction. She offered shelter to women and children escaping domestic violence and helped people find treatment for addiction.

Personally, Vanessa taught me fearlessness in adversity and not backing down when fighting for what you believe is right.
Her definition of “right” was driven by intention. If the goal was equality- if Gay rights simply became rights- then she saw very little as unjust in the pursuit.
Her philosophy often felt like this: oppressed people could rarely inflict greater harm than what oppression had already inflicted upon them. Wrongdoing was measured against the wrongdoing being fought. 

Her swagger overtook rooms. She commanded attention naturally. Leadership came honestly to her, and with it came power.
At times, I think the power and the fight consumed her. There was an anger she carried, perhaps resentment toward those who hadn’t endured the same battles but benefited from them. I believe she fought so hard, for so long, that eventually she stopped distinguishing between enemies and loved ones. Friends, family, colleagues... everyone could become part of the battle.
That made her difficult to love at times, when she wasn’t intentionally creating distance. But I also think she believed soldiers did not deserve softness in the same way others did. Maybe that is exactly why she protected society’s most vulnerable people with such force.

I will never hold Vanessa in anything other than honest regard.
I know the hurt she caused. I know the bridges she burned. I know the pain many feel in her wake, including myself. This is not a "praise after death" situation. But I think some of that pain exists because many of us were once favored in her light, and losing proximity to someone like her leaves a complicated grief.
People are polarized by Vanessa because Vanessa was polarizing.
She was a Robin Hood. A naughty nun. Suspicious Sue. She did tremendous good in the world and hurt people along the way. At times, she utilized people as players in larger missions. Yet somehow, while in her orbit, she made you feel lucky to have a role.

Something she taught me that few people know: she recognized my ability to influence people in similar ways and warned me to be careful. To understand the responsibility that comes with making people believe in you. To lead without causing the same damage she sometimes caused. To use influence and still care for people afterward. Maybe she couldn’t always do that herself. But she acknowledged it. And she imparted those lessons onto others. Hard as they were, they are lessons I understand more clearly now.

Maybe that is what Vanessa changed most. Not politics alone. Not festivals alone. Not organizations. She helped make it possible for people who were once expected to hide; during AIDS, during discrimination, during years when simply existing publicly as LGBTQ+ invited danger, to take up space without apology. Long Beach Pride did not become what it is because people waited patiently for acceptance. People like Vanessa forced visibility. They fought city resistance, public hostility, fear, grief, and loss. They cared for dying friends, housed vulnerable people, created communities where there was none, and demanded that those on the margins be seen.

The effects of people like Vanessa are difficult to measure because they live in ordinary things now: A parade route, resources for addicts, protections, chosen family, a young person feeling safer being themselves than they would have decades earlier. 

I think that is why opinions on Vanessa are so strong. Love her or struggle with her, most agree on one thing:
The world she leaves behind is not the same world she entered.