Queer Quest Self Discovery Event Is Set For Early October In Chicago

Emily Esquivel, MA, LCPC, and Jessica Esquivel, B. Sci PhD, founders of Oyanova Enterprises. Photo provided by Oyanova Enterprises.
Emily Esquivel, MA, LCPC, and Jessica Esquivel, B. Sci PhD, founders of Oyanova Enterprises. Photo provided by Oyanova Enterprises.

Queer Quest Self Discovery Event Is Set For Early October In Chicago 

By Tia Carol Jones

Dr. Jessica Esquivel, B. Sci PhD, and her wife Emily Esquivel, Ma, LCPC, have been thinking about hosting an event that would infuse community, creativity and collective liberation.

As founders of Oyanova Enterprises, Jessica and Emily have created a collective that cultivates joy, justice and generational thriving for 2SLGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities, rooted in healing, culture and community power.

She said she and her wife have had isolating and othering experiences throughout their journeys as a physicist and a mental health therapist; being the only or one of few. She said it can be hard on someone’s mental health because it is hard to find spaces that validate and affirm those kinds of experiences and pour back into people, professionally and holistically.

Queer Quest: A Journey to Self-Discovery will take place from Saturday to Sunday, Oct. 11th through 12th, at the Center on Halsted, located at 3656 N. Halsted. The event is aimed at providing a safe space for 2SLGBTQIA+ Black and Brown professionals in STEAM and mental health fields.

Esquivel said the event sits at the intersection of queerness, mental health and STEAM. She said she is very intentional about infusing art into STEM for STEAM. As a particle physicist, she cannot communicate the science she does without some form of art for visualization of her work. Esquivel said that they have been able to raise more than $90,000 in the form of in-kind contributions from community organizations and small business owners, which has affirmed to them that a space like Queer Quest is necessary.

Esquivel described the event as an un-conference conference, where the attendees’ mental well-being is a priority. The Chicago Therapy Collective will be putting on panels and there will be a quantum-based escape room, so attendees can play and learn about quantum mechanics. There will also be a rest and regulation lounge where attendees are encouraged to rest. Biofeedback stations will give attendees real-time insights on how their nervous systems respond to meditation and mindfulness. She said it will be a space where attendees can breathe and tap into joy, using quantum mechanics as a framework for liberation.

“We’re prioritizing rest as resistance; we’re prioritizing joy and play. We will have workshops and session and presentations from people like Dr. Raquel Martin, who is well-known in the zeitgeist as a champion for Black women’s mental health,” Jessica Esquivel said.

Esquivel said that there is a connection between the un-binary of the universe and queer and marginalized people; and they are linked and intimately connected to the fabric of the universe and that they are not outliers. She said in the current climate, there is a narrative that queer and marginalized people do not belong and should be silenced.

She said she wants to use physics and quantum mechanics to combat and dispel that myth. She said she hopes people who attend the event know that the space was made specifically for them. She wants attendees to feel like they can bring all of themselves into the space.

“There are counterspaces that can be affirming of every aspect of their being, even in the STEAM world, even in the world of mental health; where for a lot of us marginalized people, feel like we’re the only or we are moving against the tide in our professional settings. There can be spaces where you can be a professional mental health expert, a professional scientist, and also queer and also Black and also Brown, and you don’t have to fracture who you are to fit into these spaces,” she said.

Esquivel said that the goal is to make the event as accessible as possible, she would like to see people also sponsor a spot. She said she wants the people who should be in the room to be in the room.

For more information about Queer Quest, visit queerquest2025.com.


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