How drag performers in rural America are fighting back

In a small community center on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, a crowd of people are gathered, packed around a makeshift stage set up on one side of a tiny room.

As the sun sets, the Texas heat swallows the room whole, but the crowd doesn’t seem to mind. While they buzz with murmurs and excitement, songs blare from the speakers on either side of the stage. The feeling of anticipation in the room is almost palpable, for the show is about to begin.

Meanwhile, in a backroom just off the side of the community center, there’s a different feeling taking hold. As they look in the mirror, applying finishing touches and gluing on false eyelashes, Ffire Stone has just minutes before they’re due on stage.

They complete their makeup and step into their six-inch pleaser heels. Stone is fighting back the pre-performance jitters. With one earbud in, Stone practices lip synching to the words of a RuPaul song playing in their ear.

Stone is just one of a handful of drag artists getting ready to perform in a drag charity show taking place in the Austin metropolitan area. The proceeds of the show will go to organizations in the surrounding area that benefit the city’s queer and transgender community.

While the center is packed with people there to celebrate the art of drag, that loving sentiment isn’t shared by everyone in the region. In recent years, anti-drag proponents have been fighting hard to limit drag performances in Texas, and across the country.

In September, a federal judge struck down a Texas law centered on drag performers in the state. Signed by the state’s Republican Governor Gregg Abbott, Senate Bill 12 effectively targeted drag artists and performances, but was deemed unconstitutional for its violation of individuals’ free speech rights.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union tracked over 500 similar proposed anti-LGBTQ bills from across 47 states. Dozens of these bills specifically targeted drag performances, much like the charity show starring Stone.

Despite the fears of their “sacred art form” being doused by political turmoil, Stone said they’re using this attention to fight back.

“We have to fight fire with fire, we have to confront these things head on—we cannot allow them to marginalize us,” Stone said. “As long as we allow [anti-drag proponents] to continue doing this to fringe parts of our community, then they're going to start coming for the whole.”

With one final glance into the dimly lit mirror, Stone turns for the door and steps out into the spotlight, ready to give a show no one would soon forget. For Stone, this performance isn’t just about putting on glitz and glam and lip synching to catchy songs.

It’s about fighting to ensure a better future for tomorrow’s drag artists.

Stone grew up in a rural town in Central Texas, raised by Evangelical, Southern Pentecoastal parents.

While conversations of gender and sexuality weren’t commonplace in their early life, Stone said they knew they were “different.” They didn’t like playing the part of a boy, refusuing to participate in Boy Scouts and the “dirty, outdoor stuff.”

“I never liked the boy things. I always wanted to play Barbies and have an easy bake oven and play pretty, pretty princess,” Stone said.

After coming out as gay to their parents, Stone was kicked out and forced to find a means of living on their own. That’s where drag came in.

An avid lover of theatre and all things girly, Stone said they stumbled onto the art of drag. With the help of their new found family and friends, Stone was introduced to what little examples of drag there was in popular media at the time, like Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar and Pink Flamingoes.

From there, Stone began performing in drag themself, eventually turning the performances into a steady living. Working as a drag performer in the early 2000’s wasn’t easy though, Stone said.

“When I first started, nobody knew what drag was. Most of the gay community either loved it or hated it,” Stone said.

After several years of struggling to make ends meet, Stone eventually climbed their way to the top of the ladder and began devleopping shows in the Austin area and beyond. Soon, these shows became hits, and Stone became one of the top drag performers in the region.

Shortly after Stone’s success took off though, a new TV show was about to take the world by storm and shake things up for the drag community.

RuPaul’s Drag Race, now a global phenomenon, brought the little known world of drag into the homes of “everyday” Americans. It showcased what it meant to be a drag performer in America, and it instantly became a hit. With the success of the show came a new spotlight on the art of drag, and a plethora of people wanting a chance in the limelight.

“In some ways, it was really great, and then in some ways, it was really terrible,” Stone said. “It went from being that I was one of ten regularly working drag entertainers in the city of Austin, to there being a new drag brunch and a new drag show popping up every day of the week.”

Eventually, Stone started to do drag less and less, until one day they decided to retire from the scene and start over. While Stone said the oversaturation of drag wasn’t what made them quit, they said it did become frustrating to be an “older” performer in a world of younger queens who were captivating audiences with “flashier costumes and routines.”

Stone decided to go back to school to obtain a degree in education. Now, Stone works primarily as a middle school theatre educator. However, they continue to be involved in the drag scene through charity events and select performances.

While Stone is no longer a full-time drag performer, they said they can’t help but notice the alarming growth of anti-drag hate and legislation that’s emerged in recent years.

Whether from right-wing politicans, such as Abbott, or from locals that have protested drag shows in Austin and smaller, more rural communities in Texas, Stone said hateful rhetoric has become almost unavoidable for drag performers across the country.

In Bastrop, Texas, a small town about 30 miles south of Austin, Stone said they’ve seen how drag performers and drag shows are often pushed out by hate groups in the area. Last year, Stone said people began contacting establishments where drag shows were happening and making threatening statements. It became so bad that many businesses cancelled their shows completely.

The hate for drag has been manifesting for years, Stone said, but recently it’s continued to escalate into real, present harm for drag artists. Whether through protests, legislation or physical acts of aggression and violence, the hate for drag these days will only continue to get worse if people don’t fight back, Stone said.

For performers in rural areas especially, Stone said these communities are often left without the type of large community and protections that performers in larger cities have.

What makes this anti-drag hate far worse in Stone’s eyes though are the impacts it has beyond the drag community. Much of the legislation being written and passed is kept purposefully broad so it encompasses people who dress and present as the gender they weren’t born as. For trans people, this often means they become targeted under anti-drag legislation as well.

“Once they get rid of drag queens and trans people, then they're going to be coming for marriage equality, and public spaces that are queer and gay,” Stone said. “[Banning drag] is the first step in the process — We have to be vigilant, we have to be fighting it head on, we cannot ignore that it's happening.”

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A protestor at the drag march holds a sign mimicking the popular quote RuPaul says at the end of each episode when she sends a contestant home, "Sashay Away" (Colton Lucas)

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Hand-written messages of endearment for the art of drag are hung on a board at the drag march event (Colton Lucas)

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A protestor holds a sign posing the question of what happens to people who dress up for Halloween, will they be arrested too if drag is banned? (Colton Lucas)

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Drag king Saadiq Malik performs a Punjabi remix of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." (Colton Lucas)

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Former drag race contestant Kerri Colby delivers a moving lipsynch performance. (Colton Lucas)

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After several speeches made in the West Hollywood park, protestors began to march down Santa Monica Blvd. (Colton Lucas)

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Many protestors brought handmade signs with poignant messages about recent anti-drag hate. (Colton Lucas)

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"Drag is not a crime" was an overarching sentiment at the Drag March, and was a lasting message when it concluded. (Colton Lucas)

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For Christopher Hall, the influx of anti-drag hate he saw happening around him lit a fire within to fight back.

Hall, who goes by Miss Nature in drag, grew up in Florence, Arizona, and has been a drag queen for over a decade. Hall often performs in small communities across the state. He was recently in the Arizona Pride Tour, a state-wide drag touring group that aimed to bring drag shows to rural communities in Arizona.

Giving back to the queer and trans community has always been a focus for Hall, who said he’s seen the way drag gives back in so many ways to folks in rural America. While on the Arizona Pride Tour, Hall said the group made lasting connections at several stops with people who wanted to start LGBTQ+ advocacy groups in their towns. While this has empowered people to bring inclusivity into their rural communities, Hall also said it brought out a lot of hate and anger.

While trying to obtain permits and licenses to perform in Cottonwood, Arizona, Hall said a local church lobbied at city council meetings to cancel the event and prevent the tour from performing there. While the show was eventually approved, Hall said it didn’t stop people from showing up to protest. Some even showed up with guns, he said.

Despite the vitriol some people have toward the art of drag, Hall said its more important now than ever to continuing doing these shows in rural areas. As long as people show up and show out, it slowly chips away at all the anti-drag hate.

Carmela Latte was another featured performer in the Arizona Pride Tour. While many of the shows were huge successes, she said just seeing the way some people showed so much hatred toward a couple of drag queens was jarring.

“It really made me realize the reason why I was there and the reason why I had to continue,” Latte said. “I have the privilege as someone who doesn't live in Cottonwood to go home after that event, but there are many individuals that that’s where they live, they have to experience that every day.”

At one show on the tour, the Proud Boys even showed up and were protesting for the entire event, Latte said. However, even with all the hate surrounding the event, most of the shows were sold-out and communitiy members showed up in troves. Latte said that’s part of the “power of drag” — as much as it can divide, it can ultimately unite people even more.

While Latte said she’s relatively newer to drag, she was inspired by seeing how people in rural communities have come together to support the tour and support drag. As long as people continue to advocate for and support drag’s place in the queer and trans community, drag will be there to support them, she said.

Lyric, an L.A. based drag queen and seamstress, said while drag has secured a permanent space in most metropolitan areas, it’s at risk of being wiped out in rural communities with the rise of anti-drag legislation. For performers in these areas, she said they often have to experience anti-drag hate at its most extreme, and without the support that performers in big cities often have.

Anti-drag legislation will affect everyone, Lyric said, but those in rural America will face the brunt of it. It’s because of this that queer and trans people need to center rural communities in discussions more often and continue advocating for rural drag artists.

Small-town drag coming under attack may seem like a minor battle for the community, but, Stone said, it plays a much larger role in the erasure of drag as a whole.

In many states where anti-drag legislation is at it’s peak, rural politicians in state and national Congressional halls are at the forefront of the anti-drag movement. Stone said these politicians are attempting to limit drag outside of metropolitan areas in order to “control it from spreading beyond.”

One example is Marjorie Taylor Greene, Stone said. Though she’s living in the relatively small community of Rome, Georgia, she’s been at the forefront of anti-drag opposition. Stone said drag queens in Rome have often been verbally assaulted because of Greene’s resistence to drag performers in the town.

Stone said it’s only going to get worse for performers in even smaller towns with homophobic legislators that don’t have the national coverage that Greene does. They said drag supporters in these towns that don’t have nearly as much media coverage are going to have to fight twice as hard to fight back.

However, there’s a silver lining in it all, Stone said.

Queer and trans people are everywhere. At the end of the day, while anti-drag and anti-queer hate seems to be growing, the community and its allies continues to grow larger by the day. Stone said everyone, not just drag artists, have the power to stop the hate if they continue to advocate for equitable legislation on both the local and national level.

“It goes back to the Field of Dreams — if you build it, they will come, but if you stomp it into the ground, then everyone's afraid to come and no one will talk about it and that's what they're doing,” Stone said.

As long as people in rural America continue to fight alongside drag performers, queer and trans spaces will continue to flourish.