I love 'Threepenny Opera'; I was exposed to it as a little kid because my parents, my mom and my dad, had bonded, when they were dating, over 'Threepenny Opera' and introduced it to me, a child, who could barely understand it. But I immediately gravitated even from that early age.
Drag is literally so ancient that it predates modern understanding of gender, of transness, of queerness. Drag predates modern ideas of gender, of theater at all. Drag predates the word 'drag' itself.
I love biting off way more than I can chew, and that's a great motivator because it forces me to rise to the occasion.
We need to talk about representation for queer people in the media and also in law. And there's a long history of drag queens leading those discussions in marches on the street and even in bars going back to the time of Stonewall and before.
People started bringing their own personal work to 'Nightgowns,' and that's really when it started to become a really distinctive show.
Trans women, trans men, AFAB - which is assigned female at birth - and non-binary performers, but especially trans women of color, have been doing drag for literal centuries and deserve to be equally represented and celebrated alongside cis men.
When I was in high school, I used to beg my teachers to let me create films and plays instead of writing essays. I think they were at least happy I was excited about school.
I grew up in this house of intellectuals, and for me, it wasn't, like, a negative thing. And what I've discovered is, for a lot of people, it is. But I think knowing history, liking to talk about ideas - like, I just genuinely like to geek out and go on these intellectual thought journeys.
Taking care of your mental health is important, and being able to model that for queer people who are out there every day dealing with their own struggles is very significant.
As a drag performer, my identity exists in music, art, and fashion, not in any one 'language' of gender or 'appearance.'
At the end of the day, I just love drag so much that it's not enough for me to be a successful drag queen. I want to do right by my drag community as a whole... creating opportunities for other performers, documenting and uplifting amazing drag, and generally just contributing a lot of love and respect to our fabulous little world!
The loss of my mom really inspired me to go to a place with my performances that were emotionally honest, and I found that audiences really responded to that. People need to see heartbreak transformed into beauty.
I want to follow in RuPaul's footsteps, which is that combination of not just personal stardom but to really transform myself into a producer of drag. That's the way to make a lasting impact on the world of drag and... to make actual differences in the queer community. I think there's no better model for that than RuPaul.