RuPaul

"We’re all born naked and the rest is drag.” For RuPaul, this was certainly the case, spreading the art of drag - the performance of different forms of gender expression - to nearly every corner of the globe since the day they were born. 

Rising in the 80s through queer venues from Atlanta, Georgia to New York City, RuPaul started their drag career through gender-bending performances, playing with masculinity and femininity through groundbreaking work as a performer, model, actress and punk musician. 

RuPaul broke into the mainstream in the early 90s with The RuPaul Show on VH1 - the first talk show ever to have a drag queen as a host. In doing so, they merged together the proud drag traditions of politics, identity and entertainment. The show boldly tackled challenges which still impact us today, from race and feminism to LGBTQ+ rights, along with topics that were considered taboo at the time.

But it was 2008 that flung RuPaul into super-stardom, when they began production on RuPaul’s Drag Race, a reality TV competition pitting drag queens against one another for the title of America’s Next Drag Superstar. Since it started, the show has grown into a commercial and cultural smash, with series spanning the globe, countless spinoffs and dozens of awards. This queen’s conquests never cease, and in 2017, Ru was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. 

But even for trailblazers like RuPaul, life is a journey of lessons - and in all their playful treatment of gender, they have at times been reckless, using transphobic language loosely. We must remember that queer history and our acceptance today would not be without trans people and self-identifying drag queens like Marsha P. Johnson who led the way and kept us moving forward.

Drag, by its nature, strives to be on the right side of progress, and RuPaul’s ‘legendary children’ (the contestants of Drag Race) continue to teach lessons to all of us, through the show and their own artistry, about our history and the battles still being fought in our communities and for our rights. Queens who have graced RuPaul’s Drag Race have never shied away from keeping Ru in check, and have since led the charge for changes to both RuPaul’s shows and media empire, as well as Ru’s own views and words on and about trans people. 

There is of course one Ru-ism that has endured throughout his recent turbulent years – one that resonates both within our queer communities and beyond: “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else? (Can I get an amen?)”