What is it like to break into drag in the age of drag bans?

For nine years, Steffen has worked in a Denver library hosting storytime events for children. As a “very openly gay person”, as he describes himself, he’s seen Drag Storytime events come and go. But it wasn’t until he got into drag himself just over a year ago — using she/her pronouns under the name Pony — that he considered combining the two passions. 

But as 2022 pressed on and 2023 brought an even heavier influx of anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-drag bills, Steffen confronted a mounting feeling of discomfort about possibly leading a Drag Queen Story Time event.

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Juicy Garland tweeted from the event, “Golly, I didn’t order those.”

Despite the increasingly alarming attacks on the long-standing queer art form, drag scenes around the country are flourishing. Give Instagram a tap and a collection of new and seasoned drag performers are easily at your fingertips in any given city.

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As a new performer and long-time drag fan, Pony joins many other baby queens today setting off on a new and unfamiliar journey, made all the more challenging with the increased right-wing attacks on LGBTQ+ folks and drag queens in particular.

“That would be probably the scariest thing I have experienced is just the realization that if some of these parents found out that I did drag, they would be horrified, and that is brand new to the last year,” Pony told LGBTQ Nation. “I never in a million years would’ve been worried about that before this year.” 

While it may be an unprecedented time to enter the drag scene, opportunities for performers are abundant, especially as we collectively put the quarantine era of digital drag into the rearview. 

How baby queens typically get their bearings 

No matter one’s experience level with costuming, performance or makeup, seasoned drag performers say examining their own abilities and local scene was a needed first step to pursuing drag. 

For many performers, simply attending drag shows and getting a solid lay of the land is enough. West Hollywood-based queen Kyra Jeté has performed drag publicly since 2018. She attended drag competitions in Pomona nearly every weekend before she turned 21, with some “boy makeup” experience under her belt.

“Drag makeup was different, but once I started tackling that, it was kind of trial-and-error and figuring out what works for me and my face,” she said. “Then once I figured that out, it was like a walk in the park.”

She started out in the Pomona competitions she frequented and, once she was of age, expanded to West Hollywood, Long Beach, Palm Springs and Silver Lake as she continued networking and getting more comfortable with her own persona.

Chicago-based Derry Queen was involved in the Windy City’s comedy scene before she pursued drag. Teammates in her sketch team had other ventures, so she similarly sought to carve her own path. As someone with experience in comedy and performance, drag came to mind. 

Derry was less familiar with the drag scene, calling it “very intimidating” from an outside perspective. She didn’t have any makeup experience going in, either, and she spent her 2018 tax return to buy her initial haul of makeup. From there, she experimented with online tutorials, found the cheapest products that would still do the job and took note of where she might have to bite the bullet and shell out some extra dollars.

For the first eight months or so, she stuck to drag within the comedy scene, admitting that she “looked f**king terrible… like absolute garbage” at the start. However, her comedy and performance were top-notch and well-received, giving her the confidence to branch out.

“I was so nervous, like so nervous. And not immediately, but very soon after I started doing it, people really liked what I was doing. I won a couple of competitions and it was really cool,” she said.

Calli Coquette jumped into the Cleveland drag scene just eight months ago, after practicing drag makeup, costuming and performance on her own for four years. She already had a basis for her image and execution; it was just a matter of finally doing it.

She attended as many shows as possible in drag and introduced herself to performers, all the while marketing her new persona on social media. After establishing relationships with a number of performers week after week, she connected with one queen who asked her to be part of her 2022 Christmas show, her first public performance.

“I went from having zero shows to having two shows in back-to-back weeks,” Calli said. “… From then on, I did do a couple open stages to get my name out there more, but mostly it was just showing up, trying to introduce myself and messaging hosts like, ‘Hey, I’d love to be a part of this.”

Another fresh performer and self-professed “costume gay,” Pony was already plenty familiar with creating looks and said she taught herself drag during the pandemic. “And by that, I mean I probably got into drag like 10 times during the pandemic,” she said. She was entrenched in Season 13 of Drag Race at the time and said the context of COVID gave her the courage to pursue the path she had considered for years prior.

Simply being part of the greater Denver community created her path into drag. A regular at a local coffee shop and bakery, she became chummy with the owner and eventually worked on a concept for a drag show, which featured her and two other baby queens in their first show in May 2022. The rest is history.

“It was awesome,” Pony said. “We got to plan everything. It was such a privileged experience because we were given creative control. And I think that having done drag for a year now, that’s crazy.”

An unprecedented time for drag artists

Among the array of challenges new drag performers face, those in the U.S. must also navigate the increasingly alarming messaging from the right surrounding drag as a predatory or inherently sexual art form, along with the myriad bans emerging throughout the country and the harmful rhetoric that comes with them.

Calli said that she has personally not had any bad experiences, nor has she ever felt in danger, but she recalled a recent incident that occurred in Chardon, Ohio, when someone threw a Molotov cocktail at a church set to host a Drag Queen Story Hour. It was just about 15 minutes from her home in Perry, Ohio. Calli knew performers at the show and said that moment put the current state of things into perspective.

“It was very real, to sort of be like, ‘Oh, this is happening, like, realistically, somebody that I went to school with, or one of the parents of somebody I went to school with, probably could have done that.’ I don’t know who did it, but it’s not out of the realm of possibilities, and that’s definitely scary.”

She hopes that this era will create a “fearless attitude” in herself and other new performers to hone their craft and creativity.

“We’re not going anywhere,” she said. “Even if tomorrow, drag is banned in Ohio, I can still post from my living room. Right now, I think that even posting myself in drag is a political statement. Going and doing these shows is a political statement… Just taking all of that, putting it all out on the stage, I think it’s going to form a lot of creativity. And I’m excited to see what it brings.”

Pony said that it’s been “surreal and bizarre” to start drag the same year that anti-drag sentiment and legislation ramped up to such an extreme degree. She always looks toward the people who have been doing drag for a long time for hope and encouragement, adding that the context is important when having these conversations. 

“Many, many people are still really new to drag, and I want those people to have the best exposure possible from the beginning,” Pony said. “It’s the opposite of what [drag opponents are] saying. It’s like total love and joy.”

After the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs last November, she approached library management to propose a Drag Queen Story Time event in response to the tragedy. The event has yet to launch, and Pony admitted it’s been slow moving, but she said it felt wrong not to offer herself up in the moment, even though it also had her reckoning with the reality of the current climate. 

“I’m happy to participate,” Pony said, “because the opposite is just to be scared and be manipulated, I think.”

Words of wisdom from seasoned queens

Drag artists and drag scenes as a whole are not a monolith. Each performer and region faces specific trials and triumphs, but there is also a sense of unity among drag communities around the country and the world. While anything goes, and even the same city may have a number of unique drag communities, performers shared many common sentiments for drag newbies.

Kyra harped on the importance of pushing her own limits, to be better than she was the day before. She often went back and revisited performances to decide what she didn’t like or could be improved upon, quickly making those changes before the next show. Ultimately, she said new artists should be unafraid and proudly embody their drag persona.

“Don’t be intimidated. Just go out there with the confidence that encouraged you to start doing drag, take that same energy and put it toward your performance. Always look for ways to improve. Never get comfortable,” she said.

Thinking about what she would change about her own path, Derry said she would tell her previous self to shake off the nerves, be less uptight and hypercritical of herself. While confidence is important, Derry cautioned new performers not to take things too far.

“I don’t know how to say this politely,” she laughed. “Know your boundaries, like don’t be weird.”

She referenced new performers and younger folks who act entitled or rude out of the gate.

“Like, ‘Girl, I’m the next thing,’ and I’m like, ‘You need to calm down.’ Enjoy the experience. Take in the community that people have built around you and go from there. And brush your teeth, smell good, you know, don’t be weird and put in the work as well.”

Pony similarly encouraged new performers to be aware of the space they take up, how much space they should take up and the space others hold.

“If you are respectful about how much space you take up, you’re gonna make friends, you’re gonna make allies and you’re gonna have a good time.”

Additionally, she said that it’s important for new performers to reflect on who their community is.

“Drag can be kind of lonely for a lot of people,” Pony said. “Who are you doing drag for? A lot of people do drag for themselves, and that’s like the most empowering thing ever, but also, is there anyone else you’re doing drag for?”

Calli said that she wouldn’t see the consistent booking she does today if she didn’t push past her discomfort of approaching new people and talking to them. 

“When I really started getting performances and shows was when I would actually go up and talk to people, strike up a conversation… Don’t be afraid to do that.”

Similarly, she referenced that initially owning your drag look out in public can be an intimidating barrier to cross. Once she actually did so, she realized that most people either didn’t care or would compliment the looks. Eliminating these fears, she said, allows performers to focus on simply having fun and putting on a good show.

“Whether you have never done drag makeup before, or costumed, or danced in your life, or you are a seasoned performer who is just transforming your performance skills into drag — People, no matter what, if they are good and kind people, will see your efforts and recognize that you can grow and you have potential no matter what.”