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Multiple Drag Race alumni have called out RuPaul for the “conscious exclusion” of transgender queens from the cast of the show’s 12th season.
RuPaul’s Drag Race unveiled the 13 queens who will compete in the new season on VH1.
After the cast reveal, Drag Race alum Detox took to Twitter to congratulate the new contestants while relaying strong words for RuPaul and his show.
“To @RuPaulsDragRace: Enough with the feigned inclusivity. Time to start putting your money where your mouth is. #AllDragIsValid,” they wrote in a tweet. In response to a follower who said they were “done with the political correction [sic],” Detox said in a separate tweet,
“It’s not about political correctness*, it’s about the conscious exclusion of an integral part of the drag community. I wouldn’t be where I am if it weren’t for the trans performers that took me under their wings, and they deserve the same kinds of opportunities.”
Carmen Carrera, a drag performer and model who came out as trans after she appeared on the third season of Drag Race, also blasted RuPaul on Twitter.
“For someone to consciously block the truth of trans performers and the progression of our movement all because [sic] the public at large doesn’t know any better is just a cruel and evil use of power,” they wrote.
“RuPaul is the Hitler, false prophet, anti-Christ of the LGBTQ community.”
Many of their followers replied saying that comparing RuPaul to Hitler was insensitive, with one user writing: “To compare someone to H*tler is not only disrespectful to that person, but for the communities that suffered and were MURDERED underneath him.”
The diversity in Drag Race’s casting choices — particularly around the inclusion of drag kings, as well as trans, AFAB, and nonbinary performers — has been a point of criticism among fans for years.
But scrutiny has heightened since RuPaul stated in an 2018 Guardian interview that he probably wouldn’t allow trans queens to participate on the show if they had already begun to medically transition, and implied that “bio queens” (cisgender female drag queens) had no place in drag. “Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it, because at its core it’s a social statement and a big f-you to male-dominated culture,” he said.
“So for men to do it, it’s really punk rock, because it’s a real rejection of masculinity.”
The comments were a shock to many, considering that they were made just a few months after the airing of season nine, where openly trans queen Peppermint placed runner-up.
In the Guardian interview, Ru implied that Peppermint was allowed to be on the show because she did not yet undergo a gender affirming surgery. “Peppermint didn’t get breast implants until after she left our show; she was identifying as a woman, but she hadn’t really transitioned,” he told The Guardian.
Many fans, including season nine winner Sasha Velour, pointed out that trans and nonbinary performers have been doing drag “for centuries.”
After the comments sparked intense backlash online, RuPaul apologized the next day with a tweet. “Each morning I pray to set aside everything I THINK I know, so I may have an open mind and a new experience,” he wrote. “I understand and regret the hurt I have caused.
The trans community are heroes of our shared LGBTQ movement.” He then shared another tweet, ostensibly with the intention of posting the trans flag, but instead with a painting called Train Landscape.
RuPaul on Twitter
Gillian Branstetter on Twitter
In the history of RuPaul’s Drag Race and its spin-off series All Stars, there have only been a handful of openly trans contestants.
Season five’s Monica Beverly Hillz was the first contestant to come out as trans on the show, while season nine’s Peppermint came out prior to the show, and Gia Gunn competed on All Stars season four after coming out as trans following her initial season six appearance.
Other alumni who have come out as trans following their season taping include Sonique, Stacy Layne Matthews, and Kenya Michaels, among others.
Season 3 contestant, Carmen Carrera, has become one of the biggest success stories post show, having modeled for Victoria’s Secret and gone on to fame in a different realm of entertainment:
As herself- an identity she could not embody on his show. While other past contestants have gone on to worldwide fame, Carrera had to do it on her own terms and outside the ‘RuSphere’ that typically propels post show careers. Since then, she has vocally opposed the dismissive and insensitive culture RuPaul has created towards Transgender women via his titular show.
In particular, Carrera opposed the use of the words “She-Male” and “******” in key parts of the series segments, stating that they were slurs which compromised the dignity of the Transgender community and were counter-intuitive to progress, even damaging to developing minds that consumed the content of the show, receiving it as a sort of gay gospel. She was right.
In the aftermath of her speaking out against the show that was becoming a mainstream behemoth, she received immediate backlash from the gay, straight and Cisgender community. She was called a traitor, ungrateful, attacked viciously on social media by people hurling transphobic abuse at her.
The ire of the Rupaul fandom had been stoked against her. The company that produces the show, World of Wonder, allegedly claimed they were distancing themselves from the language deemed appropriate by Rupaul.
However, the language changed in future seasons as a direct result of Carrera’s actively refusing to sit in complicity to the degradation of Trans people- who are just as valid and important as gay and lesbian viewers. Consequentially, Carrera was excommunicated from RuPaul’s star-making machine as he fired back:
Season 3 contestant, Carmen Carrera, has become one of the biggest success stories post show, having modeled for Victoria’s Secret and gone on to fame in a different realm of entertainment: As herself- an identity she could not embody on his show. While other past contestants have gone on to worldwide fame, Carrera had to do it on her own terms and outside the ‘RuSphere’ that typically propels post show careers. Since then, "); background-size: 1px 1px; background-position: 0px calc(1em + 1px);">she has vocally opposed the dismissive and insensitive culture RuPaul has created towards Transgender women via his titular show. In particular, Carrera opposed the use of the words “She-Male” and “******” in key parts of the series segments, stating that they were slurs which compromised the dignity of the Transgender community and were counter-intuitive to progress, even damaging to developing minds that consumed the content of the show, receiving it as a sort of gay gospel. She was right.
In the aftermath of her speaking out against the show that was becoming a mainstream behemoth, she received immediate backlash from the gay, straight and Cisgender community.
She was called a traitor, ungrateful, attacked viciously on social media by people hurling transphobic abuse at her.
The ire of the Rupaul fandom had been stoked against her. The company that produces the show, World of Wonder, allegedly claimed they were distancing themselves from the language deemed appropriate by Rupaul.
However, the language changed in future seasons as a direct result of Carrera’s actively refusing to sit in complicity to the degradation of Trans people- who are just as valid and important as gay and lesbian viewers. Consequentially, Carrera was excommunicated from RuPaul’s star-making machine as he fired back: