.All That Glitters on the Drag Queen Scene

A wet and gray Tuesday afternoon set the tableau for a routine city council meeting. Outside the chamber doors, however, waited a queen so vibrant and colorful that the room would illuminate in her wake.

Woo Woo Monroe, a San Jose-based drag performer who is currently enjoying her moment in the spotlight, sashayed into a room of suits and ties, a contrast in her silky jungle-print gown and pink wig. She took her place behind a microphone facing the public with the council at her back. She sang the first verse of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Am What I Am” before presenting a statement about the importance of acceptance and individuality. 

“When you live in a world where you cannot express your true self, you become a prisoner,” she said, addressing the current anti-drag and trans backlash sweeping the country. “It is wrong to try and suppress people who are only trying to live a life of authenticity.”

Monroe wrapped with the last of “I Am What I Am” before exiting and receiving an ovation for her performance. March 21 marked the first time that a drag performer presented at a San Jose city council meeting, having been invited by councilmember Omar Torres.

“Because drag has become such a popular thing, people are clamoring for it,” Monroe says. “People want the sparkles and the dancing. Drag lends itself to an affordable live performance for people seeking entertainment.”

In truth, there’s an infectious positivity that surrounds this colorful group of people. A dazzling air of drag-itude that shines even brighter than their sequined gowns.

“Styling drag queens is a whirlwind of sequins, feathers and sequined feathers, where gender norms are shattered and the most audacious fantasies become a tangible reality,” says Sonia Le, owner of Cosmo Chic and the Cedar Room’s Queen Bingo fashion designer. “The energy in the dressing room is electric with laughter, music and glitter. In that space, art is not just created; it is experienced.”

Let’s address the pink elephant in the room, especially with bans on public drag performances being signed into law in Florida and Tennessee, and companies like Bud Light experiencing cancel-culture confusion. Despite this, there’s a thriving community of people lifting each other up in creative and campy ways that have never been done before.

Shedding a little light on the scene preceding this year’s Silicon Valley Pride festivities, let’s dive in, bitches!

New Engagements

Step aside conventional drag shows, there are new Queens in town. From brunches to flea markets to story time and beyond, the drag scene has expanded from the stage and runway into more engaging community events.

“There is a growing interest in drag brunches,” says Silicon Valley Pride’s chief marketing officer, Saldy Suriben. “Our SoFA Market brunch has been growing. If you asked me in 2017 and 2018 how many people we had, I would say between 10 to 15 people. Now we get about 75 to 80 attendees.”

The first hosts were KaiKai Bee Michaels and Rock M. Sakura, but once Sakura was cast in season 12 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, she passed along the gig to Alpha Andromeda and Jackie Layshun, according to Suriben. “RuPaul’s Drag Race really helped give exposure to the drag community,” says Suriben.

Fun fact! RuPaul reigned her queendom in San Jose for 1998’s Pride, adorned in a pink and black zebra leotard with a black handkerchief hem. “Ru took me there in 1998 and again on last week’s runway,” wrote IsSheGonnaJump regarding the outfit on r/RuPaulsDragRace’s Reddit chat four years ago. “Baby me saw this pink tiger when Ru elevated San Jose Pride in 1998.”

Suriben mentions Silicon Valley Pride as being the first group hosting drag brunch in the South Bay and San Jose areas. “We’re grateful that new venues and drag opportunities are coming to the South Bay so folks don’t have to travel all the way to San Francisco to attend,” he says. “The reason that we host them is to build community and try to maintain year-round events.”

Another regular event open to the public and highlighting drag culture, is the roving Drag Alleys Flea Market. 

“This is a great way to serve the community and come together to sell items at lower prices,” says Drag Alley attendee, Hedy Aecha. “The flea market is open to everyone and is a great way for sisters to support each other.”

Pam Cakes, another performer and coordinator of the Drag Alley Flea Market, saw a need for a more consistent pop-up shop in the community, so then decided to make it a quarterly event. 

“This is our third one ever, and we have a full vendor list,” says Cakes. “We have space for 24 vendors who offer everything from clothes and wigs to services by manicurists and barbers. Sometimes we have live music, too.”

Monroe, a vendor at the time, presented highly discounted merchandise from their own closet collection while describing what it was like to be a part of the Weakest Link’s “Drag Extravaganza!” in June. “It was an amazing experience, and all the other queens were super sweet. I felt like a rockstar all day long!” they said.

Other events around the valley include Campbell’s Cedar Room weekly Wednesday night Queen Bingo, and simultaneously a drag trivia event called What the Blank?! at Renegades bar. 

“The whole reason that I started drag bingo years ago – yes, because it’s fun – was as a response to Trump marginalizing everyone,” says Lora Young, founder and director of Queen Bingo. “It was during the thick of all that, and I decided to demonstrate diversity in Campbell as a response.”

Barbie, booze and bingo, bitches! “We’re reclaiming the word bitch and we want to make you fabulous,” stated one of the eight co-hosts of Queen Bingo, GiGi La Rue Michaels. “Everybody’s welcome here!”

That particular Wednesday preceded the opening of the Barbie movie, so all the queens were dressed as variations of Barbie. And yes, there was a Ken. “I’m the Craigslist Ken Doll,” laughed DJ Chip Deville as he introduced himself, wig proudly disheveled, to the crowd. “Now that you’re here, you are all part of the same family. All our last names are Bitches!”

Two of the Queen Bingo performers host another show later on Wednesday at Splash. It’s Latinx and not confined to the stage. “We don’t just have a drag show, we offer a space to share ideas, express yourself and engage with people,” said one of the hosts, Silvanna Danniels. “There are many ways to do an art form. We host magicians, comedians and other types of performers.”

“You don’t have to do drag to be a part of our community,” added the show’s other host, Niya La Rey. “We support by giving people a platform, an outlet to express themselves and work.”

What the Blank?! at Renegades also occurs Wednesday evenings, featuring one drag performer who works the relaxed, diverse crowd. An attendee might expect movie clips, music videos and moderately tough trivia questions about pop culture topics.

Come as You Are

It would be a disservice not to talk about the lavish costumes and persona presented while performing drag. A drag queen or king, in its Oxford definition, refers to a performer “who adopts a flamboyant or parodic feminine” – or masculine in the case of kings – “persona, with glamorous or exaggerated costumes and makeup.”

Even the word “drag” has much speculation deriving from actors’ dresses dragging behind them along the floor, and holds as much mystery as the question of where drag originated – many theories point to Ancient Greece and the Shakespearean age of all male “players.”

Queen Bingo fashion designer, Sonia Le, admits that her inspiration is drawn from the paradoxical nature of drag culture. “The process of styling a drag queen is an exhilarating dance of collaboration and trust. It is not only about creating visually striking ensembles but also about understanding their personalities and bringing their inner essence to life through fashion,” she says. 

“Every look I create is a celebration of individuality, where glamor meets theatricality, and the extraordinary embraces the mundane.” The sheer existence of the performances illustrate a robust satire rooted in the very nature of its conception. Enter that of the Kings and Queens.

“There are more drag kings out there, but they don’t get the same spotlight as drag queens do,” Monroe says. “We just had the first ever Draggie awards last month, and there were no drag kings nominated.”

“There have been drag kings, it’s just not seen as a spotlight,” drag king performer Havok Von Doom told BuzzFeed in 2014, which appears to be the same almost a decade later. “It’s still a man’s world, in a way, even though they’re dressed as women.”

In the video, “The Making of a King” by Nicole Miyahara, four women underwent a drag king makeover, despite some hesitation that fluctuated from worrying about being hotter as a male, to where to put their boobs. At the end of the video, all of them professed that they loved the experience.

Here’s a good place to differentiate between people who perform drag and those who identify as transgender. Transgender folks live their lives like cisgender folks, whereas at the end of the day a drag performer goes home and sheds their drag character. Drag is a style of flamboyant performance and transgender is a form of regular identity.

Storytime performer Vera maintained a bright and colorful, child-friendly demeanor, much like a zebra who had been illustrated by the 90s artist Lisa Frank, while they read Worm Loves Worm and The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish at Fremont Library’s first-ever storytime last month. 

“Story hour is really beautiful and allows the kids to see themselves in the stories,” they said. “I do this for the kiddos. Storytime performers really want to create a safe, welcoming and loving space for families, everyone.”

“It was a lot of fun and our son had a great time,” said Fremont parents, Ram and Bhavna. “The event was really well-organized and when the performer took out the props for a dance party at the end, that was great.”

Fremont Library staff were prepared for anything as the police waited quietly in the corner of the parking. Cindy Chadwick, county librarian, prepared her staff with security and communication plans.

“Last year, a subgroup from the Proud Boys community came to the San Lorenzo library and were shouting, which terrified the children,” said Chadwick, who fielded some 20 to 30 phone calls the 24 hours leading up to the drag story hour. “We want to turn this around and really work with the people in our community to represent all groups. If I get a message and someone wants me to call them back, then I call them back.”

Chadwick stands by the library’s vision statement of supporting the “kind connected human,” and creating a space for everyone, regardless of belief system or economic status. “We are literally open to all, and that means all,” she said.

Campbell held a drag storytime last year that was also met with a lot of protestors, according to Suriben from SV Pride. “It’s sad because we have such a tolerant community, but it felt like a lot of the protesters were from out of town,” he said. “We had security and were shouting ‘storytime’ just to filter out all the negativity. It’s a regular storytime and they’re just performing.”

To the south, Morgan Hill Mayor Mark Turner backed away a proposal to “review of the entertainment permit license and address some of the concerns around the adult cabaret shows, or show” after the move prompted backlash. Turner’s suggestion that such events be “screened from public view so that children under age…18 would not have view of those from public places” was voluntarily adopted by the Mexican restaurant Chacho’s, which has been presenting drag brunches at its downtown Morgan Hill location.

“If I’m told by our mayor that this has nothing to do with our LGBTQIA+ community or being anti-gay, I strongly disagree,” out and proud Morgan Hill Councilman Rene Spring responded in a letter to the Morgan Hill Times. “Such requests have become quite common lately across MAGA-lands, and they all follow the same scheme: calling such shows sexual in nature, or worse, and spreading other misinformation. ”

“Such requests… clearly are targeting members of our LGBTQIA+ community. They are about spreading misinformation, they are an attack on our transgender, nonbinary and gay community, and they could lead to even more attacks on drag artists and transgender youth, or our local LGBTQIA+ community at large,” Spring warned.

“Anti-drag and anti-transgender legislation calls us ‘groomers,’ but they’re grossly inaccurate,” says Monroe. “The vast majority of child abuse comes from a very different demographic than we represent. They think we can be a scapegoat.”

According to a 2022 report conducted by the Human Rights Campaign and Center for Countering Digital Hate, the “grooming” and “pedophile” slandering can be traced back to a mere 10 people tweeting 500 of the most hateful “grooming” posts over a matter of days. “Posts from these 10 people alone reached more than 48 million views, and the top 500 most influential ‘grooming’ tweets all together were seen 72 million times,” wrote a press release from the Human Rights Campaign on the topic.

“Performing drag allows our LGBTQ+ folks to be their authentic selves. We shouldn’t be making it illegal, we should be embracing it,” councilmember Torres addressed the city council last March.

“I think it’s important to show the visibility of the drag and trans communities throughout the country, especially right now when so much anti-drag and trans legislation is being passed across the country,” Monroe told the BAYMEC Community Foundation after the city council meeting. “The visibility only makes our allies want to stand up with us more and more frequently.”

The Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center in San Jose exists as an ally for the community, as well as maintaining its own fascinating history from its namesake. “Billy DeFrank saved up a bunch of money to help support the LGBTQ+ groups that were popping up after Stonewall,” says Gabrielle Antolovich, the center’s board president. “He performed drag in the 70s, but then died of a heart attack in the 80s and was sort of buried by the AIDS crisis. We brought him back last year with a mural.”

Said mural was met with a press conference and attended by the NAACP. “I commissioned an African-American artist out of San Francisco, and he loved the project,” Antolovich says. The mural features Billy DeFrank as both himself on the left, and his drag persona on the right.

It appears that more and more support groups and allies are popping up to lift voices of diversity and inclusion.

“Los Gatos has a lot of conservatives, and we even had a construction worker come and say that drag bingo changed his entire perspective on the drag community,” Queen Bingo director, Lora Young says. “He’s even made friends with some of the performers.”

A rainbow of controversy may surround this community, but they’ve made it known that they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. 

“It is a journey that forever leaves a mark on my heart, reminding me to find inspiration in the courage to be unapologetically yourself and embrace the beauty of diversity,” says Le.

“Please support your local drag performers!” Monroe encourages.

Regular drag events:

• Wednesdays at 7:30 pm – Queen Bingo located at the Cedar Room in the Pruneyard Shopping Center
• Wednesdays at 8 pm – What the Blank?!  located at Renegades bar, 501 W Taylor St, San Jose
• Sundays at 8:30 pm & 2 am – Illusions The Drag Queen Show located at 135 W San Carlos St, San Jose
• First Sunday of the month at 11 am – SV Pride’s Drag Brunch located at Sofa Market, 387 S 1st St, San Jose
• Every second Saturday at 9 pm – Cattle Call Drag Competition located at Renegades bar
• Every fourth Saturday at 9 pm – Woo Woo’s CIRQ-US located at Renegades bar