For years, 'Drag Race' was gay people's best kept secret. When I started doing drag, people didn't know anything about it. Look at it now: it's like it's gone from black and white to IMAX.
We encrypt 'Drag Race' with the secret language that kept gay people linked for many years before the '80s.
When I started in 'Drag Race,' I didn't know anything about drag - my makeup was a mess, my hair was a mess, but I love what I was doing.
'Drag Race' doesn't claim to represent drag as a whole. 'Drag Race' is a reality show. If you see real drag shows, we just do drag and respect each other's art and who your real identity is - name, gender, hair color, anything.
I want to do something that is not just a pastiche of drag that's come before but is really authentically me. I try to tune out all the drag that's out there and tap into the drag that I was doing when I was a little kid - when I didn't even know the word 'queer' or that gay people were out there.
The way I've always looked at drag has been a little bit different maybe than other people because the drag community that I started doing drag in is full of trans people and women and people of various educational backgrounds, of different ages.
To me, drag is about doing whatever you want, and nobody says anything. And 'Drag Race' is about doing what you're told and having it evaluated. I hate being judged.
I was doing drag as just a hobby on the weekends to let my hair down. I never thought of drag was going to be my career and what I would be doing for the rest of my life. Once I made it onto 'Drag Race,' I'm like, 'Oh, OK - this is my calling.
I love that drag is political. For me, one of the reasons I started doing drag was reading about how in the past, drag performers were able to organize the queer community and move us forward.
A lot of racism going on in the world right now. Who's more racist? Black people or white people? Black people. You know why? 'Cuz we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people.
Drag Race' was, like, my outlet and finally being able to see myself in television and that was through Manila Luzon, who was a 'Drag Race' contestant. Manila was the first Asian queer person that I ever saw on mainstream media and 'Drag Race' really did that for me.
People pull from drag culture because drag artists are - it's the ultimate art form and it's the last underdog art form. I mean, even clowns have college, you know what I mean? Drag queens, you have to learn drag from another drag queen.
My experience started in the gay nightlife/drag life. I was just as consumed in ignorance about what is offensive to transpeople because at that time I hadn't found myself. I was living as a drag performer only.
I hope that people look at Brooklyn as kind of a drag utopia, because that's what it's been in my experience - all genders and bodies and ages doing drag.
It was like I have always had big dreams for my drag aspirations, and I talked myself into doing 'Drag Race.' I'm like, take a chance.
There are some amazing people around who can tell stories about drag from the '60s and in New York, like the amazing club kid drag. About drag from around the world. So people should be asking questions and listening to stories.
I've loved the RuPaul model of drag, where you're an amazing drag queen, you're a smart and savvy business person, and you use those together to keep drag at the forefront of what people are talking about.