00:04When I'm in drag, it's really empowering.
00:09I tend to act with a lot more confidence.
00:12There are quite a few of us in the community.
00:14When we do meet, we're all really supportive of each other,
00:16and it'll feel like a kindred spirit.
00:18Every female drag queen I've met has just been wonderful, crazy, super fun.
00:22We're just like a load of queer people being weird.
00:25You know, everybody performs their gender,
00:27especially in terms of being women.
00:29You perform every day as a woman.
00:31I think when I'm in drag, I'm trying to kind of exercise
00:34having an entitlement to the space that I'm in
00:37and commanding people to kind of like look at me
00:40and be in awe of me.
00:42It's powerful.
00:48My name's Victoria Sin.
00:50I grew up in a kind of traditional Chinese family.
00:54My brother, they told him he was like the strong one,
00:56you know, go to university and get a good job
00:59and take care of his family.
01:01And I was told, you know, the emphasis was more on
01:03making sure that I was kind of suitable for a good husband.
01:08I eventually kind of like, you know, came out
01:10and we would go to these drag shows, which I really loved.
01:14I remember the first time I went to a drag show
01:17and I just remember thinking like it was the most amazing thing
01:21because it was the first time that I had really seen
01:23this really empowered embodiment of femininity.
01:27But it was kind of very traditional drag.
01:29You know, like men dressing as women, being very glamorous
01:31and powerful, which I really love.
01:33And I just thought like, you know, shit, I want to be that
01:35in charge of my own kind of like femininity.
01:38You know, how can I do that?
01:39Reading about gender theory and queer theory
01:41has really made me kind of hyper aware.
01:43After I read Gender Trouble, it totally changed the way
01:47that I thought about the world
01:48and how everything is kind of like gender coded
01:50and how our ideas of what a man are
01:53and what a woman are totally constructed.
01:55So I started looking at drag as a way
01:58to break down these things myself.
02:01Doing drag is just kind of like another tool that we can use.
02:04You are basically kind of like a gender clown.
02:07It's about parodying these kind of like cultural constructs
02:10that we have, which is maybe destabilizing
02:12like how we think about gender.
02:15In terms of the terminology of like bio queens or faux queens,
02:19I think it's like totally bullshit.
02:21I think it's a way of othering women who do drag
02:24or want to participate in your typical gay bar.
02:27If you presented them with a female drag queen,
02:30they just wouldn't think it was legitimate.
02:34I think the worst misogyny that I've encountered
02:36has been in gay spaces, basically looking me in the eye
02:40and telling me, you know, I hate you because you're a woman
02:42and this is not your space and you don't belong here, you know.
02:46The community of women who do drag, you know,
02:49I've always got an eye on all of these women.
02:59Tonight is the first time I've ever performed drag ever.
03:02I've been dressing up in drag for about a year now, really.
03:06I've been wanting to perform but not sure if I could.
03:08I'm really nervous, I'll be honest with you.
03:10I'm Epi and I'm a drag queen.
03:13I was always drawn to drag queens since I was a little girl.
03:16But I've always loved funny drag queens.
03:18That's what I've always liked about it.
03:20Me and my flatmate Carl started going to a lot of drag events in Camden
03:24and that was about going there dressed up.
03:27See, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs.
03:29I don't do anything like that.
03:30I feel like going out and getting dressed up is really exciting for me.
03:34It's a way of expressing myself.
03:35I'm just messing about with what my gender is.
03:38Like, I don't really care about being a boy or a girl.
03:41It's just almost being alien or something.
03:43Like, I don't want to sexualise myself.
03:46It's just looking like something otherworldly, really.
03:49People might assume that I'm a guy just because I'm dressed like a drag queen.
03:52But I don't mind that because I don't think my gender should matter.
03:55It's not like we have to ask permission to do anything.
03:58We just go ahead and do it.
04:00As I get to know these women more, I kind of only want to see more.
04:04We all know each other, we all like each other's, you know, posts on social media.
04:08We have a community.
04:10The Virgin Extravaganza invited me to perform.
04:12I incorporate logos and stuff.
04:14Brand hijacking the logo and sort of wanting to do something funny.
04:18They'd always have themes.
04:19The theme was big, so I went to big savings.
04:21I'm feeling really nervous.
04:29Moving right along with the show, ladies and gentlemen, we have something very, very special.
04:35The Virgin that you are about to experience right now is a performance Virgin.
04:40Okay?
04:40Her makeup skills are like hashtag out of this world.
04:44Seriously?
04:44The one.
04:46The only.
04:47The one.
04:48Eppie!
04:52You know where I'm going, baby.
04:55I want to go to Tesco.
04:57And I want to go say it's please.
04:59There's only one pay.
05:01I'm not sure for pleasure.
05:07Give it up for Eppie!
05:13My name is Lolo Brau, and I am a neo-drag performer.
05:18I grew up in a school run by nuns, and we were brought up to be ladies.
05:23My teachers were extremely like, sit like a lady, be like a lady.
05:26So if anything, it prepared me for drag like nothing else.
05:29At Central School of Speech and Drama, I fell in love with this idea of playing with gender and performance
05:33and really challenging people with comedy, which became particularly exciting and fun.
05:36And I just fell in love with the dramatics of it.
05:39For me, Lolo is separate to me.
05:41And I feel that it is a hyper version of myself and what I, I suppose, aspire to be.
05:47And it's a much more dominant version of myself.
05:49I have faced many men telling me what I can't and can do.
05:53In drag in particular, I have had punters on stage find out that I'm a woman halfway through.
05:58They will refuse to listen to anything I say after that.
06:02Bio Queen and Faux Queen are terms that annoy me a little bit, because Faux Queen, I don't
06:07like to be told in my title that I am false.
06:10Bio Girl, I can understand.
06:12It sounds a bit more like a superhero than anything else to be honest.
06:14It sounds like I've got some kind of radiation biohazard suit on and I'm going to run through
06:17the city going, I've got a vagina and it's all super fun.
06:20However, I reject those terms.
06:22I just accept the term drag queen.
06:23Drag isn't necessarily a man dressing as a woman anymore.
06:26It's become an art form.
06:27It's become a culture.
06:28And women have a place in that as much as anything.
06:31I really make a point when I'm going out in drag to surround myself with friends and
06:36to be going into a queer space.
06:40All my performances were extremely facial and everything was focused on physicality.
06:45That's how I express things.
06:57Everybody has in them elements of masculinity and femininity.
07:01Femininity does not belong to women and it doesn't belong to men either.
07:06The boundaries of gender have changed so much and it's really snowballing now.
07:10We're all like transgender, queer, like rather than being male or female.
07:15We're just a person who's expressing themselves.
07:18I am here.
07:19I am who I am and I'll be who I am and I should be accepted.
07:23It is an art form.
07:25Anybody can perform any gender.
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