Let me tell you, I am exhausted. It has been one wild weekend, chatting with drag queens and members from the LGBTQ+ community from across the globe, as Olympia London played host to DragWorld for the third year running. Hugely-influential names from the world of drag came together for a series of panels, catwalk performances and chances to get up close and personal, and I couldn't have been more excited to get the opportunity to chat with some of my favourite stars of RuPaul's Drag Race.
Whilst there was a lot of fun and games, I did ask three of the US queens to get political for a moment, and comment on the current climate in America, with Donald Trump at the White House. Here's what Shea Couleé, Jinkx Monsoon and Trinity the Tuck had to say...
Shea: "It’s so funny, because I feel like [the current right-wing political climate has] made drag bolder. Although we live in a country where we have this crazy President, who, very little people with any sense respect... It's nuts; there was actually recently a Councilwoman in Ohio who was blaming a lot of the bad things that have been happening in America on politically-charged drag queens, and to even think that we’re being brought up in a political conversation by people that are looked at as political figures is to me, an accomplishment in of itself, because it lets me know that those small-minded people Conservative people; what we do actually scares them. It makes them feel a certain kind of way, so I love it.
"We’re at the end of this political term, so we are really hopeful that we can vote him [Trump] out of office and get the shenanigans over with, and get the country back on track.
"Personally, I am rooting for Elizabeth Warren [to take the Democratic nominee and become President of the United States]; she’s a woman with a plan; she is someone that I trust; she is someone that has done sit-ins in Congress and has actually done protests in the building. She cares, and she has ideas and plans, and knows exactly what we need to dig us out of the hole that we’re in."
Jinkx: "I feel a lot of people are feeling really emboldened to be wilfully ignorant. I think that’s the worst kind of ignorance; when you know that your rhetoric is flawed but you cling to it out of fear, or out of conditioning or hatred, you know? So I feel like a lot of wilfully-ignorant people feel really strong right now, but all they’re doing is causing us to bolster our own defences. I do think the revolution is coming."
Trinity: "Absolutely [the political climate has changed], and not in a positive way. I feel like the political climate is super, super harsh right now. We have an administration that is very repressive, very negative; they’re changing things to turn back time. One positive thing I would say about America is, even though our government is awful right now, people in general have spoken out against what they feel is a horrible administration. They’re protesting and speaking up and I do think that in America, you’re gonna see a huge outpour of: ‘we want change’."
For more information on DragWorld, head to https://www.dragworld.co.uk/
Tagged in RuPaul's Drag Race