Over the last few years, drag culture has become more and more popular outside of the LGBTQ community - and a lot of that growth is down to RuPaul's Drag Race. The reality TV show, which pits a number of drag queens against one another in order to achieve a coveted $100,000 prize, has seen widespread success, and it's pretty much all down to Ru.
Unfortunately, the world-famous drag queen isn't always as inclusive and benevolent as he makes himself out to be on the show. In the past, a number of aspects of Drag Race had to be changed because they were considered transphobic (for instance, the pun "she-mail" was removed from the challenge announcements at the beginning of the episodes), and Ru has previously been called out by queens for not always practicing what he preaches.
Most recently, the self-professed supermodel of the world alienated a huge amount of his fans and followers when he said that transgender women should not do drag.
His comments came about in an interview with The Guardian, during which he was asked how a trans woman could be a drag queen. Ru then went on to reference Peppermint - a runner-up in last year's competition - who was out as a transwoman before she competed on the show.
"Peppermint didn’t get breast implants until after she left our show," he said, as if having breasts is the be-all and end-all of womanhood. "She was identifying as a woman, but she hadn’t really transitioned."
Ru was then asked whether he would accept a queen who had undergone gender reassignment surgery, to which he responded: "Probably not. You can identify as a woman and say you’re transitioning, but it changes once you start changing your body. It takes on a different thing; it changes the whole concept of what we’re doing."
Obviously, this was absolutely heartbreaking for many people to hear. Not only did his words imply that transwomen aren't women until they've had surgery, it also shows that he values cisgender men more than women, as he permits all of his male-identifying contestants to have cosmetic surgery.
To make matters worse, he then tried to apologize for his actions by tweeting what he believed to be the trans flag. Unfortunately, in another act of carelessness, he tweeted a green and yellow pattern, which is definitely not the recognized flag for transgender people.
He also issued a statement saying that - far from what the interview implied - he has an open mind and wants to learn from his mistakes.
"Each morning I pray to set aside everything I THINK I know, so I may have an open mind and a new experience. I understand and regret the hurt I have caused. The trans community are heroes of our shared LGBTQ movement. You are my teachers."
However, previous queens have called RuPaul out on Twitter for having said such an insensitive thing in the first place.
Hopefully, this whole incident will open Ru's - and a lot of other people's - eyes about the relationship between gender and drag, and the importance of being inclusive of transgender individuals in the LGBTQ community.
