RuPaul’s Transphobic Comments Stirs Communi-tea

Earlier this month, world-famous drag queen and host of VH1’s “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, made comments that appeared in an interview of The Guardian and faced immediate and intense backlash from the community he proclaims to represent and be a part of.

RuPaul’s comments were in response on how a transgender women can be a drag queen. “…It’s an interesting area. Peppermint didn’t get breast implants until after she left our show; she was identifying as a woman, but she hadn’t really transitioned.” The Guardian interviewer then asked if he would accept a queen who has already transitioned and this is where the backlash sets its core.  “Probably not. You can identify as a woman and say you’re transitioning, but it changes once you start changing your body. It takes on a different thing; it changes the whole concept of what we’re doing. We’ve had some girls who’ve had some injections in the face and maybe a little bit in the butt here and there, but they haven’t transitioned.”

After The Guardian’s article was published, social media took to tearing apart both the article and RuPaul. Many viewers of Drag Race along with trans individuals and even previous constants of the show began to voice their opinion and take their sides on the opposition. Some responses were angry or sad, and quite a few of them voiced their disappointment and hurt towards RuPaul. Some went to explain why his comments were transphobic.

In the early days of drag, the key goal was for gay cisgender men to be able to walk out in the street at daytime without be harassed or assaulted by others. Afterwards, it turned into the Harlem Ball Scene which was vaguely the same, but consisted of underground balls where people would “walk”, or compete, in various categories for prizes. In a simplified sense, this all led to the drag scene we have today, but many of those Harlem queens were not just gay men, they were transgender women. In fact, those women were the ones that helped shaped the drag scene into what it has become today.

With this said, RuPaul was very much in the wrong for making the comments he did, and presuming he has knowledge of the Ball scene (which he most likely does since throughout Drag Race history he has quoted various lines from the Harlem Ball Scene documentary, “Paris is Burning”). So what did he do in response to the hate? He posted a tweet:

“You can take performance enhancing drugs and still be an athlete, just not in the Olympics,” he said in the tweet.

This, of course, only led to more criticism for actually comparing doping to a transgender person’s transitioning, even with the community-wide fact that many drag queens go under plastic surgery to enhance their drag illusion. Afterwards, RuPaul sent out another tweet, this time with an average apology that simply stated he understood the hurt he caused and pointed out the heroes of the trans community to be his teachers. His following tweet mentioned that all Drag Race casts for is charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent and attached was the artwork of a Art Institute of Chicago student for train landscapes? The assumption was that he meant to choose a corresponding LGBT+ flag, but just the sheer fact that he attached not even a LGBT flag does not make the situation better.

So now, weeks later, many have looked away as the winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” Season 3 was recently crowned and “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 10 has begun, but some have not forgotten what was said by RuPaul, and I personally hope it’s not forgotten, because there is a lot he’ll have to learn if Ru is truly going to be one of the main voices for the drag community.