Can Trans Women be Drag Queens?

Is drag defined by a gay man who turns himself into a woman?

The evolution of drag points to a more nuanced definition.

In Shakespearean times, when women weren’t permitted to perform on stage, male actors dressed up as women to portray female characters in plays. In nineteenth century America, men took up crossdressing as a comedic tool in minstrel shows.

Them’s Samantha Riedel wrote:

“ … ‘female impersonation’ was one of the most commonplace ideas in Western performing arts; young boys played female roles as a matter of course, and nobody would have thought to question their sexuality or gender.”

But then drag got gay.

By the twentieth century, with the fall of Victorian values and the rise in civil rights, drag shows became a defining characteristic of gay nightlife. And the queens were more than just performers. They were local celebrities, advocates for equal rights, and unofficial symbols of the queer community.

Like any performance art, drag has been dramatic, funny, political, campy, and beautiful. Over the years, it has entertained diverse audiences and pushed social norms.

Drag, at its core, is a performance of gender expression.

From hyperfeminine to hypermasculine choices, drag performers specialize in fusing together bold gender characteristics on stage. And since there is no one way to express gender, drag performance is not limited to any one gender identity—before or after all the glam.

So, while most drag queens identify as gay men, straight men and trans women are part of the drag community, too.

What’s the difference between drag queens and trans women?

Unlike drag queens, who perform as fabulous parodies of women, trans women navigate the world as women. One is a job—a creative and entertaining job; the other is a gender identity—who you are and how you live your life.

In a 2015 article for Slate, drag queen and writer Miz Cracker delineates the difference.

“I know what it’s like to live in a society where people are persecuted for failing to look a certain way, or to adhere to certain norms … But there’s a problem: When I leave the house, I’m trying to pass as a female character for a few hours. When [a trans woman] leaves the house, she’s just trying to be herself, regardless of the judgments of others. I can avoid my troubles by switching careers. She cannot.”

A trans woman and a gay (or straight) man who does drag both share a consciousness for femininity. But, with the popularization of drag in mainstream entertainment, and without widespread compassion for the trans experience, people have improperly grouped together drag queens and trans women as one and the same.

In a 2023 Vulture piece, Gia Gunn—a drag queen who came out as a trans woman after competing on RuPaul’s Drag Race—opened up about this lack of nuanced understanding.

“Even now,” she says, “as we’re seeing in the media, trans people and drag queens are being all shoved into one category and all being treated the same, which is fine when it comes to a drag show but not when it comes to our rights and our livelihood.”

Though drag queens face drag bans and queer censorship laws, the foundational liberties of trans people are currently under attack. A conservative wave of anti-trans legislation has made it more difficult and, in some states, a criminal offense for trans citizens to receive gender-affirming care (Reuters). Reports show that trans individuals continue to be the targets of identity-driven violence and, in the worst situations, are even killed (ABC).

There are ways to change this narrative. On screen, better representation emboldens allies with a more nuanced understanding, emotionalizes and normalizes trans life, and empowers the next generation of trans individuals.

Ruby Bella Cruz, a trans contestant on Drag Latina Season 2, gives us insight in an exclusive interview with LATV in 2023.

“Being a trans woman, I get to wake up like this and I go home and go to bed like this, which is being myself, being who I am, and being true to myself,” she says. “Being a drag queen, or being a drag performer: it’s only for a couple hours. So, after the show ends, everything has to come off. Even though I’m taking [off] all this glam and I’m taking [off] all these costumes, I still have my body and it matches the inside of who I am.”

So trans women can perform as drag queens?

 It would be simpler if drag performance had a formula. Even RuPaul, who’s created a drag empire, has tried. In 2018, he told The Guardian he would “probably not” let trans women compete as queens on the show.

Why would a trailblazer of queer content in Hollywood exclude a whole faction of the queer community?

Maybe it was blatantly anti-trans. Maybe he feared that including trans queens would break the “man-turns-into-woman” formula he so successfully popularized. Maybe he didn’t feel America was ready to peel back another layer of drag performance.

Vulture quotes Laganja Estranja, who—like Gia Gunn—competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race and come out as a trans woman afterward.

“Ru was just doing what Ru did; he is a boy who transforms into a girl. That was his idea and the whole pitch behind the show,” she says. “I mean, you have to remember [Drag Race] started over a decade ago, and I don’t think people were ready to see trans individuals on TV. They weren’t really ready to see drag queens on TV.”

The evolution of drag performance is ever-changing and far from simple—on TV, on stage, in competitions. RuPaul has since included trans queens in the franchise. In Season 9, Peppermint became the first contestant to start the show as a trans woman, and she was not the last.

Drag Latina also features trans queens this season, like Ruby Bella Cruz, who speaks up about confronting trans stigma within the drag community.

“My transition was a very easy one. The hardest thing was being a drag queen first and then transitioning and being a trans woman … I already was a drag queen, but because I transitioned already, a lot of the doors were closed, saying that it was not fair for other performers that had to go through the whole entire process of being a man and turning into a woman—that I was already a woman.”

Watch the whole exclusive interview and get to know Ruby Bella Cruz!