I’m writing this newsletter on an airplane in advance of spending the weekend at RuPaul’s DragCon in Los Angeles. Which means that by the time you read this, I’ll be traipsing through a wonderland-fever-dream of a convention center while being surrounded by queer folks of all colors and drag queens of every shape and size.
*Happy sigh*
In case you’ve never seen it, RuPaul’s Drag Race is a reality TV competition show where drag queens battle it out in challenges, runways, and lip syncs for the chance to be named America’s Next Drag Superstar. At this point, there have been fourteen regular seasons, six All Stars seasons (with a seventh premiering this week), and nearly a dozen international offshoots. Or at least that’s the kind of description you’d find for the show on Wikipedia.
What that blurb doesn’t capture, however, is what Drag Race means to the queer community in general and to me, specifically.
Fourteen months ago, I was barely even aware of Drag Race’s existence. Now, I’ve seen literally hundreds of episodes, I’ve attended multiple events with queens from the show, I do a Drag Race pool with friends to predict the top queens of each season, and I’m making the pilgrimage to DragCon. Which begs the question: what’s so special about Drag Race that I decided to eat, sleep, and breathe it for the past year? And to answer that, I need to take you back to the Shohreh of spring 2021.
Last spring, I was in a completely different place in my life. My divorce had only just been finalized, and I was still sharing a house with my ex-spouse as I searched for a place of my own. I was grieving the end of a ten-year relationship and my life as I knew it, while also trying to figure out my own identity and sexuality. I was . . . a hot mess of a human.
As I desperately tried to keep my head above water, one of the only things that made me feel somewhat okay was consuming queer media. Books, TV shows, movies, podcasts, you name it. I was certainly thirsty for queer community, which, in the middle of a pandemic, wasn’t easily accessible in real life. But even more so, I wanted to know that my future—my unmistakably queer future—could still be beautiful. I was looking for assurance that there would be love and joy ahead and that someday my insides wouldn’t hurt so much.
I doubt any piece of queer media could have offered me definitive proof I’d be alright, but damn if Drag Race didn’t come close.
After finishing Schitt’s Creek (picture me high AF, crying in the bathtub over David and Patrick’s relationship) and learning about ballroom culture from watching Pose, Drag Race felt like a natural next step. The number of seasons was overwhelming, though, so I reached out to a friend who was a fan of the show to get her opinion on where to start. My friend provided me with her recommendations, thinking I might watch a season or two. Little did she know, I would become a massive fan and have now seen more episodes than she has.
From the get-go, I was completely mesmerized. Putting aside the sometimes-problematic nature of RuPaul the person and parts of the show's own history (an important conversation for another day), Drag Race remains a glittering amalgamation of queer and trans representation and culture, titans of drag talent, and, of course, comedic and dramatic gold.
I have cried more times than I can count as I’ve listened to queens tell the stories of what it took for them to accept themselves and live their truths, even when people in their lives refused to love and support them for it.
My eyes have shone bright and determined as I’ve watched queens share their joy, help one another, push the bounds of queer creativity, and rebel against the oppressive expectations of cisheteronormativity.
I have felt my heart swell with pride at getting to see parts of myself in queens like Jackie Cox, a fellow half-Persian queer person, and Victoria Scone, a lesbian woman like me, featured on the show.
And yes, I have also shouted "Slayyyyy, bitch!" at my TV screen with the best of them, absorbing the makeup and fashion of the show and figuring out how to use bits and pieces of it for my own aesthetic.
In some of my lowest moments, Drag Race showed me what my life could be if I kept moving forward, one step at a time.
When I felt like I was all on my own, I had the humor of Jinkx Monsoon, the tough love of Michelle Visage, the drive of Alaska, the cunning (and rosy complexion) of Sasha Velour, and the resilience of Shea Couleé to keep me company. And as I’m writing this over 31,000 feet in the air, on my way to enjoy an extremely queer weekend with my girlfriend, I can honestly say that I’m living the kind of life I was dreaming of when I started watching Drag Race initially.
Maybe none of the queens will ever know the impact they had on me as I made the arduous journey to this place of freedom, but I, for one, will never forget.
Queerly yours,
Shohreh
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