Part of what makes Chicago’s drag king scene stand out is the breadth of styles among performers, Luc Ami said.
“It’s being a lot more normalized to have kings alongside queens in shows and it’s making the scene very exciting.” Credit: Provided Tenderoni (front) poses with the all-king cast from January’s “Boys 2 Men” competition backstage during a “Saturday Night Drag Show.” ‘Drag kings, quings and things’ “It’s exciting to see a lot more kings now to the point where you’re not going to be the only king in a competition and fight against people who don’t understand your art,” Luc Ami said. Even “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which has taken drag to mainstream heights, excludes drag kings from its competition.īut the scene is still flourishing in Chicago, where drag kings are pushing the limits of what’s deemed valuable on drag stages while creating more opportunities for kings to come up within the scene. Opportunities for drag kings can still be sparse, with bookings in shows going mostly to drag queens. “A lot of kings started drag during quarantine because there was access to a lot more drag with it being digital, and now they’re all coming out into the scene and physically into bars.” “Drag kings are booming in Chicago, with so many entering the scene these past few years, which has been a really beautiful and exciting thing,” said Luc Ami, a masculine-leaning drag performer who started in 2016.
Pb is one of many drag kings - performance artists who take on masculine-leaning drag personas - who have burst into Chicago’s nightlife in recent years. “I have been slowly coming out as trans over the years, and then I did drag and realized it’s time for me to fess up that I’m kind of a guy.” Credit: Provided/Cori Blck Every drag king competing in or watching the first “Boyz 2 Men” competition posed for a group photo after the show. “Doing drag literally cracked me open,” pb said. Since creating that first drag king mug, pb has claimed “they” and “he” as their pronouns and flourished within Chicago’s drag scene, performing digitally during the height of the pandemic and on stages across the city after bars reopened. CHICAGO - Local artist pb discovered their drag king persona and gender identity on a whim, doing their makeup with friends during a digital drag show.Īfter four hours of painting their face, pb discovered their drag king alter ego and a sense of “gender euphoria,” a state of bliss that trans and gender-nonconforming people feel when their gender expression aligns with their identity.
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