Can women also do drag? Meet the ‘Riot Queens’

When you think of drag queen, the first image that comes to mind is that of a man playing with femininity, right? Body fillers, feminine costumes, make-up and exaggerated wigs. But who said that the art of being drag is restricted to men? All over the world – and also in Brazil – women have used drag to express themselves. And thinking about femininity as a drag queen can lead to a lot of reflection.

There wasn’t a moment when Letícia suddenly realized she was sure she was going to do drag. A year after creating her character, Vlada Vitrova, even today she feels she has a certain way to go in this regard – in terms of acceptance of what she does. The 27-year-old questioned for a long time if she should or even could do that. “There are a lot of drag men who try to corner them,” she says. “But for these people, I turn my head.”

Along with Pamella Sapphic, Ginger Moon, Lekisha Glam, Manoon Toppins, Cherry Pop, Milka, Greta Dubois and Maddie Killa, Vlada is part of the collective “riot queens“, which brings together women from Brazil who do drag. In addition to helping each other, they also openly debate their ideas and performances. “We also ended up being a reference for women who want to start riding”, says Bruna Tieme, who brings drag to life. ginger moon🇧🇷

Today they are a collective, but each one got to know the drag universe individually – and in their own time. Until very recently, for example, one of the lady queens of the collective knew nothing of this world.

“I knew the drag queens I saw on Silvio Santos’ show, from ‘A Praça é Nossa’”, jokes Mari Piovezan, the Manoon Toppins🇧🇷 “Until a friend of mine started watching RuPaul’s Drag Race and told me that there was going to be a show by one of the contestants, Sharon Needles”. After seeing a queen live, her life was never the same. As with Vlada, however, it took her a while before she could “authorize” herself to be a female drag.

Mom I want to be drag

It took a “little push” for Mari to understand that it could be Manoon. In a workshop of Ikaro Kadoshi, drag queen and makeup artist, she started to open up. “He started talking more about what it was like to be drag, what drag involved,” she recalls. “He said there was no such thing as ‘can it be a woman?’, ‘It has to be a man’, ‘it has to be gay’. It was at that moment that I said, ‘oh my god i need to do this🇧🇷

As for Ginger Moon, the inspiration also came from within Riot Queens itself. Another drag from the group, Cherry Pop, drew his attention. “She IS a fat woman in drag, I think it’s pretty awesome,” she says. “Even more being burlesque”. Very connected to the arts, Ginger found in drag what she still lacked in theater and dance.

know yourself

For Manoon, makeup was not only a gateway to the drag world, but also to self-discovery. 🇧🇷It’s so much time looking at yourself in the mirror that you end up having a greater connection with yourself“, he opines. “I got to know myself better – I didn’t know many things about my face, eyes, nose”.

At the time she started to assemble herself, she was in doubt about the course she was taking in college. “I was in a very tense moment, having high crises, I thought ‘what a waste of time, what am I doing with my life?’”, she reports. “Drag was a motivation, in addition to helping me to de-stress”. Today, she is even considering pursuing a career as a makeup artist.

Beyond the career issue, however, something all the queens remark on is the strength that drag has brought to their images of themselves. “I see my body and my face in a different way,” says Vlada. “I don’t feel the need to be dressed up all the time to feel pretty when I go out, for example. I relaxed a lot more with these things”. And we could even imagine the opposite, right?

Ride up, woman!

They receive several messages from women who want to, but are afraid to do drag. “They write to me saying ‘I don’t do it because I’m afraid, I don’t know how men will react, I don’t know if I can’”, says Vlada. “Imagine the number of women who live with this doubt! It’s not even a matter of law, it’s just a matter of common sense that people need to have”.

For Manoon, always leaving this specific performance of femininity in the hands of men makes them represent women in a satirical way – which can end up being a synonym of contempt for some women. Precisely for this reason, it defends their presence (whether cis or trans women) in this environment. “Women have their place, no one will order them, they have power over themselves”, she defends. In the last edition of RuPaul’s Drag Race, for the first time an openly trans contestant – Peppermint – took part in the competition. She went all the way, and finished in second place.

In addition to helping women’s self-esteem and re-signifying a specific type of femininity, doing drag for them also has another essential aspect – which, deep down, should even be obvious: the fun🇧🇷 “I couldn’t express myself well, even though I was an actress and a dancer,” says Ginger Moon. “Today, I feel like that has totally changed for me. Drag makes me totally happy.”

“I don’t think there are any rules for doing drag”, defends Vlada. “But if it did, it would be that you have to be having fun. That’s how I feel, happy.”

drag glossary

• drag queen – person, male or female, who performs femininity
• drag king – person, male or female, who performs masculinity
• lady queen – term used to give prominence and strength to women who perform this femininity performance
• “Faux” queen – pejorative term, referring to female drag queens as “fake” queens
• “Bio” queen – a term that excludes trans women, as women who perform drag are spoken of as “biologically aligned” with performance.
• drag queer – person, male or female, whose performance does not involve notions of masculinity or femininity