Meet Cyren Romeo

We recently connected with Cyren Romeo and have shared our conversation below.

Cyren, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I was always different, and it was as if all the kids at school could sense I was not like them—despite how much I tried to fit in. I didn’t look like them – I was fat as a kid with an undiagnosed thyroid disorder. I was socially awkward and had intense special interests, and mostly felt comfortable with adults – which would take a decade and some to realize I had undiagnosed autism. I didn’t have crushes on boys and didn’t really feel like a girl or a boy but just myself – this would then be because I was queer and non binary. I had a deep desire to die as early as 8, which I would learn later in my life is chronic suicidal ideation and depression. And when my family fell into millions of dollars of debt due to the predatory credit lending crisis in the early 2000s, I realized as an eight-year-old that the American Dream was a fallacy. To make ends meet, I started to work every weekend for the family business, worked after school and homework every night to help my mom make merchandise for the weekend craft fairs, and had to grow up very early to ensure my brother didn’t have the same fate.

I share this context because my formative years radicalized me more than anything. And, in becoming radicalized very young, I both had to lose myself in becoming an adult early on and find myself again in my late 20’s. My purpose with my time on earth is to be a storyteller and a community weaver. I am dedicated to communicating the intricacies and nuances of living within a world that is not built with you in mind if you have ANY marginalized identities – and yet living authentically despite. Through my storytelling via my writing, educating, and art to the spaces I organize intentionally with relationship building and humility at the center, collectively we can build and demand a world that includes us rather than punishes us. My purpose is to be a collectively minded person whilst ensuring that no one – especially our youth – has to live in the shadows in order to survive. We have so much to learn from each other, and if I do anything, let my purpose be to educate others to learn and listen to those different than them and hold space for each other despite.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Since I learned how to string sentences together, I have been a writer and storyteller. I would write extensions, essentially fan fiction, of all the stories I read growing up, illustrate them, and bind them to read to my 3rd-grade class. So, writing has always been at my core. I also have had a strong love and dedication for community organizing since I was in high school. I traveled with my school district to advocate for more school funding, was a campus organizer when my college cut 28 programs and fired 23 professors, organized nationally and regionally for LGBTQ+ youth liberation movements in K-12 education, and locally, alongside BIPOC organizers during the peak of BLM, for a Free Palestine, and countless other movements. I have always wanted to marry my core as a storyteller with the dedication to organizing in community, for community, and by community.

So, for a few years, I volunteered to teach storytelling at a local queer and gender expansive youth retreat at Camp Unirondack in Upstate NY. One year, they lost their funding that ensured the Retreat was accessible for all youth. I knew how important the retreat was for youth and the lack of truly affirmative spaces for queer and gender expansive youth to gather – and with my background in the creative economy growing up and organizing large events – A Big Gay Market was born. We started as a garage sale in the only park in Albany that didn’t need a permit, and we raised $400. After that event, those who attended to vendors all said that we lacked truly intentional and affirmative spaces to gather in queer and gender expansive joy beyond Pride because you know, we exist beyond June!

With this feed back and lots of reflection, we had our first larger market in April 2023. We expanded to 70 vendors, had a free community area and kids’ tent, and raised over $1000 for Camp Unirondack’s Queer Youth Advocacy Retreat with close to 1K attendees! After this market, we added three additional dates in 2023 and collectively raised over $10K in the first year. Then, in 2024, we added 7 regional pop-up markets around the Capital Region in NY with local beneficiaries plus our four larger markets with Camp Unirondack’s Queer Youth Advocacy Retreat as the beneficiary. In the second year, we collectively raised a bit over $20K across all the markets! Now, in 2025, we have expanded to free Vendor Meet Ups, Communtiy Craft Days, applied for a grant for a Queer Youth Creative Mentorship Program, and expanding our reach to the Hudson Valley and Southern Tier of NYS.

The core mission of A Big Gay Market is to provide affirmative and intentional programming, markets, and pop-ups for queer and gender expansive community members, especially those with intersecting marginalized identities, to gather in queer & gender expansive joy for a cause. And we do that with humility, transparency, and community at the center. Growing up, I didn’t have many spaces that truly cared about me, and at A Big Gay Market – every person is held and cared for and supported no matter what. We can care for each other. We can gather in joy. We can create spaces that center and hold ALL and push out none.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I would say for me, it has been humility, care, and open + honest communication. I am a communicator you know? All storytellers are. I am also very autistic, so that also makes me more hyper aware of how I communicate with others and super sensitive to tone shift, being able to understand how I speak would sound to others, and being centered on I would communicate to others how I would want to. This all embodies that true care I have for others that can sometimes wear me down – but it is at the core of who I am. We all deserve care. We all are recognizing how care is politicized and a source of way we shame others who demand more care. So, being someone who centers care and can openly communicate what care looks like for the communities I organize for while also having the humility to admit where I lack and how I can do better is key. Especially as an organizer right now where we are all afraid and working from a place of urgency because everything is scary and a lot – being centered in those three tenets has been pivotal for me.

I would advise others that all you have at the end of the day are your values, your integrity, and your sense of self. How do you want to be treated? How do you want to be communicated with? What makes you feel safe? What does safety and care look like for you? Ask yourself the hard questions and be honest with yourself to transform your world and the world around you. Also, it’s okay to be wrong. We are all capable of harm. What differentiates you from being actively harmful and someone who has caused harm is how you grow and move forward from it. Especially coming from me as a white person, not everything is so personal. Not everything is an attack. Actively listen and keep pushing and show with your actions what you learn when you are called in. You are human, yes, and humans also have the beautiful ability to transform and evolve. You can too!

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

In July 2024, I was fired from my role of four years at a non-profit I loved because I was autistic. I spent the year leading up to that moment, after I told my boss my diagnosis and advocated for two accommodations, being harassed, recorded without my consent, and psychologically distressed. This would be the second time the minute I told an employer I had some sort of disability – I would be treated all of a sudden differently and less than. And, for a long time, especially since I have been working from a young age, all of my traditional jobs had such a power over me and my sense of self-worth. And, I felt that these random bosses who had the power of my financial stability over me, they could dictate and had more insight if I was worthy of being employed or if I had any talent.

When I was fired in July 2024, from the only job where all my members I worked on behalf of to our vendor partners, would constantly compliment me and my work, but my boss couldn’t stand me and would say horrible things about me – it clicked that it all didn’t matter. At the end of the day, my boss could say whatever she wanted about me but because she didn’t like her job – she had to blame someone else. And I was the convenient scapegoat. It didn’t matter that I did everything she wanted after our annual review in April. It didn’t matter if I changed all my clothes, which I did, to what she wanted. It didn’t matter if I kept trying to engage in small talk, going out of my way to check in with my colleagues if there were ways for us to collaborate more. It didn’t matter if I scored us a sponsorship or reworked an entire program. If she didn’t like me – that was it. And that’s what most jobs in America come down to.

So, all to say, I beg everyone to disinvest your energy from your traditional jobs. They do not have any power over your sense of worth, and even if you have to stay for financial security, always know you are better at your job than you will ever be given credit for. You are NOT your job. Your boss has NO power over your sense of self.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.abiggaymarket.com / www.cyrenromeo.com
• Instagram: @abiggaymarket / @cyrenromeo
• Facebook: A Big Gay Market
• Other: Blue Sky: @abiggaymarket / @cyrenromeo

Image Credits

Manon Productions LLC