Drag by Day, Drag by Night: 7 Performers on the Art of Self-Presentation

I’ve always experienced drag as a double life—basically Clark Kent going to The Daily Planet, except I have a mustache and not a pair of glasses. I started performing regularly in 2016, which is about the same time that I became a working adult, so I’ve always had to find the balance between having a more conventional job and doing drag. I’d pack my makeup and look to go to the gig after work, and not get home until 5:00 a.m.

What drew me to drag was more the performance than the gender transformation, so at first the persona was an afterthought. Once I left college, I thought about making Maxxx a rocker type of guy, because that’s the kind of masculinity that seems fun both to perform and for an audience to watch. Now I’m at the point where I feel my most authentic self as Maxxx. I recently came out as a lesbian, and stepping into the masculinity that can come with being a dyke is something that has been really empowering for me. There’s a lot of overlap with Maxxx there, too.

A few months ago, I left the company I was working at for seven years and started a new job. When I started going to the office, in Chelsea, I noticed how stylish people are, so that had me wondering what I wanted my day drag to be. I want to present myself as professional and trustworthy, but in a way that reflects my personality, so that if there’s other queer people at the office they look at me and know. I look at Maxxx and look at my inspirations—Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jimmy Hendricks—and just take the loose button-down shirts and tight striped pants and put them together. That’s what people do every day, anyway: build something based on what they want to look like and what they want to communicate.

A lot of people brush drag kings to the side. Our understanding as a society is that women are for looking at, and masculinity and men aren’t necessarily interesting or entertaining. But it’s nice to use drag to change those perspectives. Drag is at its best when it doesn’t play by the rules.

Dev Doee—Part Time Creative Director, Full Time Diva

I identify as trans-femme, and I’ve always been very gender-expansive and fluid. I’ve always done drag one way or another, even without knowing it: I used to be a dancer and actor, and as a performer I would often wear wigs and makeup. When the pandemic hit, I wanted to commit to drag and learn the craft and become part of the community. I did a competition in Brooklyn called “Are You the Next Diva?” with a friend of mine and we won.

My style is inspired by video game characters and divas. I love women who toe the lines of gender and are the badass, fighter type, so I like tomboy fashion. Sometimes we complicate and pervert what drag is, but it’s really creating the most influential, creative, and authentic version of yourself in that moment, and we all strive for that. Everyone can and should do drag—people who don’t express themselves through their presentation do a disservice to themselves.

I work at the Ali Forney Center, which supports homeless LGBTQ+ youth. I lead the creative agency, so I do a lot of programming for galas and events, run social media, and anything creative. It’s a queer space, so my drag is very celebrated and uplifted. When we did this shoot, it turned into a Dev meet-and-greet—I took photos with everyone in the office, and some people didn’t even realize it was me. With drag and transness under attack, it’s really incredible to be in an affirming space that values what I do, because a lot of people don’t have that.

As someone who was growing up queer and didn’t always know that I was queer and trans, I needed people to look to who lived authentically, spoke their mind, and lived in their truth. In a lot of ways, just existing, just going to the gig with a smile on my face and showing people that this life can be beautiful and joyful, is an important form of protest and even education. We are human beings. Drag is an art form that can look and feel so many different ways.

Babylon from the Haus of Gods…and that One NYC Hospital

A few years ago, my friends asked me if I was on a TV show and didn’t tell them—and it was because they thought I looked like this queen on Drag Race (who really I look nothing like!). That’s when I started watching the show, and I thought it looked fun. So I bought a little shake-and-go wig, some makeup, and tried out drag for the first time. I looked gross, but the feeling was great. I’ve been doing it ever since.

Babylon is very “Alien Superstar,” unlike my personal style, which is very muted and more about basics. When I’m out of drag, my mind races a lot. Drag has become a way of coping with my anxiety. Over time, I’ve come to feel more like myself outside of drag. I’ve felt pressure as a drag queen to conform to specific female beauty standards while also trying to exist as a boy outside of drag. That pressure was making me not okay, so I’ve stepped back a little to find myself and my comfort, and translate that back into my drag. My mustache stays on, for example, and now I like to play up both the masculine and the feminine energy.

My day job is extremely boring. I’m a designer for a hospital, and my work is always very clean and simple, and usually based on templates. This is why when I’m stoning or doing drag, I go full in to create something entirely new. I enjoy the politics of corporate life, because it’s like drag in its own way. The way you dress for work, the way you act in that space, it’s a fun little game for me. I guess that’s why, to an extent, I think everything really is drag because it’s less about putting on a wig and makeup, and more about looking the part and fulfilling the assignment. We all do that when we dress for work to play that part.

Meet Your Photographer, Necklace—AKA Nicholas Needham

My work revolves around queer stories, and I very often take photos of drag performers. I love to get to work with these people to create universes, and something I really take pride in is that the photos often feel like the way they want to be seen. Doing drag versus taking images of it is very different. I am a completely different person in a wig than I am in a baseball cap holding a camera, and I’m usually in hyper masculine boy drag when I’m shooting. But what doing both has taught me is to be mindful and aware of how my talent feels. I know what it’s like to walk around the street in drag, and it doesn’t always make me the most comfortable. I like to always keep that in mind and communicate with my talent.

I’m such a big believer in the idea that everything is drag. I love to perform masculinity in my day drag, for example. I love putting on a baseball hat, soccer shorts, and some garbage truck t-shirt. Last year I went to a party at the Brooklyn Museum, and I showed up in a white tank top, gray sweatpants with boxers showing, sneakers, and a Yankees cap. That’s head-to-toe drag for me too.

It’s been a scary time to be around. There’s so much fear in our community, and it’s all rightfully placed. I think the point of the things we do like drag or performing is that they are joyful. My work is about spreading joy and showing people, queer people, in the way they deserve to be seen: as beautiful, dignified, talented stars. I think the more of us who aren’t afraid to use their voices to say that, the better off we’ll be. All the queer people I know, we just spend all of our time building each other up. We love each other so deeply and are constantly looking to create family, community, and opportunities for each other. There’s this whole narrative that we’re secretly trying to tear down society, but we’re just trying to build it.