Queer Joy Interview #18: Nwoah Tayem
"My dream is to be on Sesame Street"- Nwoah, artist, filmmaker, and part-time clown.
In this interview I met with Nwoah Tayem (they/them/he/em) in Nacogdoches, TX on 10/17/25 to talk about their work as an artist, and life in East Texas. Check out their work here!
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- Carolina (she/her)
“I am a Queer artist; I love being able to express the Queer Black experience in a lot of things that I make and create. One of my favorite art forms is through film and writing- I feel like those are two very powerful forms of expression that can transcend certain emotions.
Growing up being Black, especially being African, my parents are immigrants from Cameroon, being black was not something that my parents wanted to embrace very much. When I moved out of my parents house after I graduated high school I started to become more in touch with embracing and loving who I am as a black person. I went and visited my relative in Cameroon for the first time a couple of years ago. I saw who I was and where I came from and over time I’ve been learning to embrace and be proud of being black.
I’ve started embracing my more masc side and it’s been a switch that just hasn’t turned off. I feel more comfortable with myself, with being androgynous and leaning to a more masc, a more boyish side. I’m still on that journey, trying to figure out what works best for me, trying out new pronouns, figuring out what names make me the most comfortable, and continuing to find myself. I think for now, a label on both my sexuality and identity is just best summed up by Queer.
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As far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be a clown. I thought it would be a good side job and a nice volunteer thing; and I make puppets. My dream is to one day be on Sesame Street. I went online, did some research, practiced makeup, made my puppet, and was like “okay, I’m gonna be a clown now” I started being a clown and the rest is history; I’m just a clown now.
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Queer joy means looking in the mirror and seeing the person I’ve wanted to see since I was a kid. Queer joy feels like being in touch with yourself so deeply that you always knew this is who you are, but realizing it over and over with each step you take within your journey.
I recently got back a photo that was taken at the Tyler Film Festival. It was the last day of the festival, so I decided to do a little bit of drag. I gave myself a blue beard, and I’m wearing a skirt. I remember when I got this picture, I looked at it and was like “yep, this is who I want to be. This is who I want to be seen as going forward”. It’s definitely a photo that sparks that joy within me.
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The last thing that I want to say, mainly for whoever reads this, is that you are better off spending your life being the person that you want to be rather than being something for other people. You may lose people in the process of accepting yourself as a Queer person, but there are always people, and I’ve been shown time and time again, there’s always people who will want to love you and want to accept you for who you are. Even though the world fucking sucks right now and there’s only so much we can do, there’s always people who want to be there and help.”
-Nwoah (they/them/he/em)
