The Q Agenda | Favorite Moments from Season 9

Today on The Q Agenda, we are revisiting favorite moments from Season 9 so far.

Clinical psychologist Besty Spier tells how she got into treating addiction and what her current work looks like at Rainbow Hill Recovery. Actress-on-the-rise Miss Benny discusses how her own transition matched her character’s trans story arc on the show Glamorous. Beauty digital creator Alannized shares how he came out online, and drag queen Salina EsTitties talks about using her craft to overcome internalized prejudice.

When Betsy Spier came of age in the 1950s and 60s, being a lesbian was not culturally accepted. Without role models or resources, she struggled finding her place in the world. The sexual revolution of the 1970s changed things, and that’s when Spier came out. Drugs played a big part in her story.

“That’s one of the reasons I do the work I do today,” she goes on to say, “because it’s so near and dear to me.”

Her early adult years unfolded in gay ghettos and soulless restaurant jobs across Los Angeles. She frequented gay bars and took part in the feminist movement of the era.

When she got sober in 1985, unsure what she wanted with her life, she took to her bedroom side table. There, she had books on psychology and philosophy. In that moment, she pivoted.

“The funny thing about addiction is it’s all about isolation … and shame is attached to it,” she says. “Now you bring in … being [queer] and there is even more shame on top of it.”

In her work at Rainbow Hill Recovery, she works with patients to overcome their fears, their shame, to reignite passions that were lost in the name of substance.

“Find your tribe. Find people who you can talk with,” she says. “The more we can talk about it, the less we hide. We have to be visible. We have to be more visible than we’ve ever been.”

Actor Miss Benny grew up in a religious family in North Texas, so being visibly queer came with a complicated set of obstacles.

“[I would] wait until everyone’s asleep, close the door, do my make-up, wash it all off, go to church the next morning with, like, mascara smudges,” Miss Benny says on the show.

Miss Benny is a face reflective of that turning point. When she auditioned for Glamorous, she was told to be exactly who she was—and that’s how she landed the role. Of course it’s you, they told her. Finally, her time had come.

“I feel so much sense of celebration about myself now,” she says. “Filming the show and seeing that the queerness of these characters—and specifically, the trans storyline of Marco—is such a superpower that Marco has, and there’s never any explanation or justification.

Glamorous is a show grounded in comedy and circumstance. The trans narrative exists in-between. This way of telling queer stories not only normalizes queer life within all genres but makes these characters relatable for queer and non-queer audiences alike.

Growing up in Orange County, most of Alannized’s family and close friends knew he was gay. But when he decided to come out online in a make-up video to his 500 followers, he woke up with 50K new followers. He most literally turned into a beauty influencer overnight.

“What got reposted was never posted to get reposted,” Alannized says on the show. “It was my way to come out to the people who already followed me—because it was a picture [of me] with make-up.”

He had always watched his mom and sisters make themselves pretty with make-up and wanted to feel the same. So, he started playing around with different powders and colors. But at first, he did it in hiding because he didn’t want anyone to know he was gay.

“For a lot of years, I hid [being gay] because my dad was very machista. He was never machista toward me, but I remember him making comments that would make me feel uncomfortable. I would always be like: oh my god, if that’s how he thinks about, you know, people who are like me, what is he going to think of me?”

Alas, the more Alannized came into his identity, the more his career blossomed.

For many years, drag queen Salina EsTitties had trouble being proud of her Latinidad. What she saw on TV wasn’t reflective of her experience, so she pushed her heritage away. But, through drag performance, she powerfully took back her cultural identity.

“When I’m in drag, I totally transform. I become the diva I have inside of me,” she goes on to say.

For EsTitties, drag is a performance of her creative expression. The more she shows up on stage, the bolder her choices become. Through drag—through the outfits and the characters she embodies—she addresses and overcomes the internalized anti-Latino sentiments she harbored as a kid.

So when she got the call for RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, she showed up con confianza y poder.

“I went in there and I wore the Dickie skirt with the plaid shirt with the hoop earrings,” she says. “I went in there and I ate hot Cheetos, bitch, because that’s how I know my Latinos grew up, right, in high school, the ones who had my back and took care of me in class. That’s what I was representing. I was representing my cousins, my little sister, who’s a bad bitch. I showcased that on the runway.”

On tour, especially in small towns that lack diverse Latin communities, she shows up proud and fabulous. On social media, she engages with her fans directly. She even created a show called Elotería—a unique twist on a lotería game night enjoyed with elote.

Don’t miss this jam-packed episode of star-studded moments. Watch it on the LATV+ app.