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"I perform, I host, I'm a bouncer, and I read books to children in drag. Yes, I'm the one you see protesters so frightened of while they hoist their ignorant and hateful signs high outside of libraries.

The extreme right-wing groups who constantly attack 2SLGBTQIA+ people are not spewing any different rhetoric than they did in the 80's. They once used the AIDS epidemic to vilify, persecute, and exterminate the queer community. Now, using drag as an excuse, they're saying the same thing. 'Drag performers are sexualizing and grooming children' is code for 'Queer people should not exist.'

And they say as much.

Their protest signs and hateful speeches are riddled with Bible quotes threatening to throw us into the sea under the guise of 'protecting the children.' But we aren't the ones harming children. I'm not just talking about the pedophile priests; conversion therapy kills gay kids. Kids in homophobic or transphobic families without safe spaces in which to exist simply don't survive as long, and often die by suicide before they've even had a chance to live. That is a fact, and it's a harrowing one.

I didn't feel safe to come out as a lesbian until I was an adult. And I didn't have the language or understanding of myself to come out as trans - specifically, genderqueer and transmasculine - until I was in my 40's. I have never felt more myself than I do when I'm in drag, and through practicing the art of drag, I've come to know and love myself better than ever before. Drag is how I celebrate who I am... ALL of who I am. That's why creating safe spaces for youth in the queer community is such an important focus of my activism. 

The extreme right-wing can tantrum all they want. They will never change the fact that I exist, I deserve to exist, I will continue to exist, and I will never stop creating safe spaces for youth to explore and discover who they are inside and out. I create the spaces I needed for myself as a child, and through it, I grow as well."