Last Thursday, the Wayne State College Drag Show hosted a panel before the main event to let the audience ask questions about the LGBTQ+ community and get to know the performers.
“It was a good time,” said Caleb Hayden, president of PRIDE. “Individuals really got to tackle stigmas.”
This was Hayden’s third year of running the Drag Show, and he said he has learned a lot from the experience.
“The Drag Show is synonymous of PRIDE,” Hayden said.
Th Drag Show panel consisted of five queens and one king: Veronica Kennedy, Anastacia Shakers, Kahtya Tension, Avii Quinn, Atumn Quinn and Alex le Damage were the members. Avii Quinn is a WSC alum.
Each answered questions about stigmas and their personal lives that led them to be drag performers.
A member of the audience asked why all the male performers referred to each other only by their drag names.
“It’s all about respecting what gender people identify as,” Kennedy said.
Tension said that she had never even heard Veronica’s real name until the panel or seen her without her makeup on.
When the audience asked the panel how their families responded to their becoming part of the LGBTQ+ and drag communities, there was an array of differing responses.
“I come from a very conservative family, but they warmed up to it,” Shakers said.
Autumn Quinn had a similar response from her family, saying the majority of them were on board.
“They were almost too accepting. Some were not, which gave me a chance to educate them,” Autumn Quinn said.
Damage, who is a transgender male, had a very different response from his family.
“My family was not very accepting. There was a lot of negativity,” Damage said.
Damage said, though, that his mother has warmed up a little and actually introduced Damage as her son, something she hadn’t been able to do in the past.
The panel lasted just over an hour and Hayden was pleased with how the discussion went.
“The LGBT community is something I really love,” Hayden said. “The drag queens are at the forefront. They’re really ballsy, even if they tuck them up.”