From northern market town to drag queen show: a journey to find oneself

In the small town in the north where I grew up, winter was long and spring was slow to come. Even so, there was always something in the sky that made me feel warm and embraced. I used to jokingly refer to this place as the armpit of Lancashire, and although it wasn't exactly the scene from George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier, every time a young man looked in the mirror I always saw 'the most desolate, despairing look I've ever seen'. I was a broken freak who longed for a mask, always thinking that if I could just become someone else, all my problems would be solved and I would finally fit in. How wrong was I? As The RuPaulo Drag Queen Show shows, it's the freak inside that allows you to fix it.

This weekend, while I was decorating eggs for Easter, the queens were getting their makeup done on TV. They were dressed in glittering gowns and performing the "Ultimate Mouth Sync for the Crown". It was the final of the second season of RuPaul's Drag Queens UK and World. Since February, 11 international performers have been competing in the UK for the title of Queen of the World of Cows, in a sort of drag mini-Olympics, broadcast by the BBC. This year marks the first time the BBC has awarded a cash prize - a whopping £50,000 - in a glorious clowning celebration.

"I'm the best I've ever been. I feel like the ultimate evolutionary magical baby." said Tia Kofi, whose name comes from "Tea or Coffee?" She finished seventh in the first season. Much of the season is about her own "rudeness". Her appearance was mocked in season one and she was labeled a "Basic Baroness," but this year she has been revitalized. She's upgraded.

The punchline of the night - a cross-dressing term for something shocking - was Aussie Hannah Conda beating out Filipino runner Marina Summers in her first lip-sync performance of Anastacia's "I 'm Outta Love' with Anastacia, beating Filipino frontrunner Marina Summers in her first lip-sync performance. "It was the most authentic I've been in years," Kanda said. "I've always found cross-dressing to be therapeutic for me. A place to live outside the box. It has saved my life many times." Fashion giant La Grande Dame was beaten by joke-loving Tia Kofi in Booty Luv's 'Boogie 2night', and Tia Kofi then beat Hannah Conda in Kylie Minogue's 'Your Disco Needs You' to win £50,000, a crown and a scepter. "It means the world to me," she says. "To go from basic baroness to queen of the mother-tower world is crazy. I realized I'm much stronger than I thought ...... I've done it. I've won."

Some curmudgeons might say that drag queen shows are visual stabilizers with no meaning or culture. But the Greeks, people in Elizabeth's time also wore drag, and people in Victoria's time are said to have coined the term. The rise of right-wing forces around the world means that resistance is under attack. Now, there are concerns that 'drag storytimes' - where drag queens read storybooks to children - are out of place. But as Glaad CEO and president Sarah Kate Ellis told the Guardian, "If you've seen My Fair Lady, you've seen resistance, and it doesn't affect anyone negatively." Not to mention mimes, or (rest in peace) Lily Savage.

We need it more than ever.2023 Research published in Conversation found that the RuPaulo Drag Queen Show helps to destigmatize the LGBTQ+ community when they are under attack. Watching The Drag Queen Show, I felt a commonality with others who have been attacked, sexually assaulted, bullied and abused. In the most recent season, La Grande Dame talked about how she had to leave her home at the age of 14 and immediately 'become an adult'. The Queens often discuss their HIV status, or how they had to get out of their homes. Drag does save lives.

Just last week, Republicans in the U.S. Congress pushed through an amendment that would make it effectively illegal to fly the Pride flag over U.S. embassies. In England and Wales, homophobic hate crimes have surged by 1,121 TP3T in the last five years, and last year alone, hate crimes against transgender people increased by 1,111 TP3T.In divisive times, when we're creating more boundaries between us, a drag queen show is like a rainbow flag in plain sight.

Max Wallis is a writer and poet.

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