Backstage With Drag Queens Before HallowQueens 2023
Watch a video interview about what inspires them, why drag is important, and why they came from Portland to support the YWCA NCW
On Oct. 28 drag performers with the Diva Drag Brunch group got on stage at the Numerica PAC in Wenatchee for the YCWA NCW’s annual “HallowQueens” drag show and fundraiser.
I sat down with drag queens Jayla Rose, Lylac, Bougee Cherry, Jaxin Ryan and burlesque dancer Angelique DeVil backstage and interviewed them as they applied their makeup before the show.
We talked about who or what inspired them to get into drag, why the art form and creating safe spaces for performance art like theirs is important and why they support organizations like the YWCA NCW.
The YWCA’s mission is to eliminate racism, empower women and promote peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all it provides shelter for victims of domestic violence and/or homelessness in the Wenatchee Valley.
The queens donated half their tips earned during the performance to the YWCA NCW, and you can learn more about their individual stories in this video I produced.
I’d like to thank the YWCA NCW and the Diva Drag Brunch group for allowing me backstage while they prepared for the show, and the performers for their open, honest, thoughtful, and heartfelt responses to my questions.
Permit me, if you will, to step on my media soapbox for a minute
So much judgment, ire and spite has been directed at drag queens by politicos and partisan media outlets over the last few years and mainstream milquetoast outlets have done little to pull back the curtain and show the humanity of drag performers.
It has been nothing short of a miscarriage of journalism, in my opinion.
Instead of attempting to pierce the bubble of manufactured outrage and bring rational clarity where emotion and hyperbole have ruled unchallenged, reporters and editors from “legacy” media outlets have covered the “controversy” created by their partisan colleagues. And they have done so without ever considering how they themselves are being manipulated and played.
What’s worse is that by standing on the sidewalk and pointing cameras at the protestors and counter-protestors at events like these, as if that’s the story, “traditional” outlets have ceded ground to their competitors in the right-wing media and allowed bad-faith actors to set a narrative that often vilifies, scapegoats and targets individuals who are often members of more than one minority group. Rather than using their platforms to showcase the humanity of these performers, they simply play into the hands of their colleagues in the lapdog media, as well as their demagogic masters who profit by promoting division and hate.
Perhaps these decisions are borne of ineptitude, laziness or cowardice – or a mixture of all three. But by clinging to a facade of “non-biased” reporting (which has never and will never exist) reporters, editors, and producers from these “mainstream” outlets have allowed members of sexual and ethnic minorities to be targeted. The irony is that while these “traditional” media members have strived so hard to come off as “non-biased” and “non-political,” what they have done in reality is practically nothing to check the campaign of hate against the trans and LGBTQ+ community over the last two years.
Now I don’t expect to see reporters from such openly-partisan outlets like KPQ or NCWlife covering a drag show with thoroughness or thoughtfulness. But I don’t think it’s too much to expect at least one reporter from some other local outlet to show up to cover an event like this – especially since there have been more drag events in this region this year than ever before. There’s a burgeoning drag scene in what has been a traditionally very conservative community and there’s a story to be told there.
Their mediocrity is my opportunity I suppose, and I will continue to cover events like this, and people like these, who often go overlooked in North Central Washington.
Well said Dominic
This is refreshing! A great perspective on being genuine, inclusive, and not ashamed. Encourage ALL people to be themselves and encourage ALL others to be accepting. What a wonderfil world would that be? It simply shouldnt be hard!
I totally appreciate your frankness about the lack of coverage with this subject but many others. They must be afraid. But in that fear, they are complicit in the hate. Fyi, I dont listen to local radio and just cancelled my subscription to the World.