By: Christian Sarna
Rain Dove, androgynous model and activist, went from homelessness to international success.
My name is Rain Dove and my pronouns are just a sound,” Dove said. “You can use whatever you want. You can use she, it, one, they. I don’t really care. I just want to hear good intentions.”
Dove has appeared in both menswear and womenswear shows, in Vogue, Elle and Cosmopolitan and has appeared on Calvin Klein and Victoria’s Secret runways. Dove has no preference of pronouns, but most of the people in attendance referred to Dove with the gender neutral pronouns they/them.
Students might have been initially intimidated by the model, towering over most of the crowd at six feet, two inches and wearing a bright neon-pink shirt emblazoned with cats, but Dove proved to be a relatable and down-to-earth figure seeking to do good.
Facing a lack of familial support for their attraction to women, Dove left home at an early age and joined what they believed to be the Conservation Corps. In reality, they had joined a Wildland Fire team.
Dove identified as a butch lesbian at the time and was mistakenly read as a man by the other firefighters. Dove decided to fly under the radar for a day, but that day turned into 11 months.
“I had to think, did I want to be the ugly girl again,” Dove said. “Do I really want to be on the bottom of the pecking order?”
While on a fire, Dove and two crewmates were involved in a life-threatening accident. As the only “man” not facing immediately fatal injuries, Dove was left behind by the first rescue helicopter so that a female crewmate could be airlifted. While Dove would have gladly given up their space on the helicopter to save their crewmate, the lack of choice they were given led them to a realization.
“Men, we ask them to take lives, and we ask them to give their life in a life or death situation,” Dove said. “Because men give and take lives; men control lives.”
Dove left the fire crew after this event and began using their ability to pass as male or female to their advantage, depending on situation. This approach worked out for a while, but Dove found it exhausting.
“I ended up having to constantly contort myself into what other people wanted,” Dove said. “I kind of gave up on myself.”
Around this time, Dove became homeless. They lived in their car and in bathrooms and panhandled for food.
One day, overcome by hunger, Dove went to a dollar store and used the last of their money to buy a trowel,
gloves, and a pair of clippers. They went door-to-door and asked to trim bushes and trees for a few dollars.
This freelance gardening blossomed into a business called the Midnight Gardeners. Dove used the business to earn a scholarship to UC-Berkeley and received a degree in bioengineering and genetic studies.
Then, Dove lost a bet over a football game and was forced to attend a model casting call. They arrived and
were told they had shown up a day early. When they came back the next day, Dove was mistakenly cast in a men’s underwear show. Instead of correcting the casting director and leaving, they chose to walk the runway anyway.
The show sparked interest in Dove, but even with that initial interest from the industry, they were not an instant success. They moved to New York and signed with an agency but were still facing poverty.
“My very first runway show, I was in Vogue,” Dove said. “I was reading this on my super cracked phone in the basement of a Planet Fitness in the shower stall.”
After a difficult year, Dove decided to give up on the industry. They took one last event as a bartender and met a journalist who wanted to publish their story. The story went viral.
Dove gained hundreds of thousands of social media followers, received interest from major campaigns and met people like Ellen and Oprah. Dove expressed gratitude
toward the power of the internet.
“For the first time ever, we’re being heard,” Dove said. “We’re raising up people who had never been risen up before.”
At the end of their speech, Dove came down from the stage and spoke with nearly every audience member
individually. They helped formulate plans with several students to help them achieve their goals. One student they spoke with was Joy Deatherage, a junior communications major and nontraditional student, who hoped to do public speaking about her writing in the future.
“It was very insightful,” Deatherage said. “I appreciated the fact that the real message was, ‘be true to yourself.’”
Deatherage said that the event exceeded her
expectations.
Dove passed around their personal cell phone and let members of the audience promote whatever they wanted on Dove’s Instagram story. Dove had over 300,000 followers at the time. They also announced that they would be donating 20 percent of their speaker fee back to an individual or organization on campus that was working towards positive change.
“You have no idea, maybe, where you’re going in the end,” Dove said. “But the fact that you care at all means that you are the most reliable source for good to prevail on this planet.”