Love is love is love

Last weekend was the annual Utah Pride Festival, a program put on by the Utah Pride Center. Utah Pride has a lot of events and activities throughout those few days, you have the festival itself with live music, Princess Kennedy’s roof top party at the Green Pig, Club Trayngles Steak Fry, the Sunday Parade, workshops and discussion groups, and all the drag shows a person can ever ask for.

This week I performed in one show and attended the Parade in drag as, Trixie Belmont, I was in drag for two days, other drag queens didn’t have it as easy as me. My close friend, Sister Molly Mormon was in drag for five days in a row, either performing, hosting shows, or being in the parade. There were conversations on the best way to get sleep and do drag, some queens sleep in their makeup so they do not have to wake up at 5:00am to reapply all the makeup again, some will find ways to cut corners on the makeup so they can save time. It can take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours for a drag queen to get ready.

It takes a lot more than cover girl to cover boy.

If you’re like Molly Mormon and in drag for five days, Pride weekend can take it out of you, not only does it take so long to get ready and be on point all weekend, but they also come up with different concepts on the different days throughout Pride, for example, the theme this year was Get Salty, so the drag performers for the parade where in that theme, the night before they were performing in a totally different look (depending on what they were performing).  

It’s a lot of work to do the makeup, style the wigs, make the outfits, and perform all weekend long. Why do we exhaust our self for this one weekend? Because love is love, we drag performers put ourselves through all this to express our love for the community, to come together as a community in all our variety, to show the progress we have made since the Stonewall days. I feel honored and grateful every time I get into drag, there were people who fought and died for the right for me to express myself, just like voting, I feel I need to exercise that right when I can.

Being in drag during this weekend is about showing that gender expression is fluid just like sexuality. The goal is to educate the community, that underneath the sexuality, the gender expression, and all the wigs and makeup, we are all the same; gay, straight, white, black, tall, fat, skinny, brown, male, female, Mormon, Catholic, and everything in between, we are all human beings seeking love, truth, beauty, and connection with each other.

With all the expression that one sees in the Pride festivities, the glitter, the wigs, the makeup, the temporary rainbow tattoos, the gender blending, the drag, and the everyday. With all the vast amount of people that attend from all backgrounds we come together in one common goal. Love. To express love, to share love, to give love, and to receive love.

Hair, wigs, and makeup, these are just tools to express yourself. Drag performers fought for freedom of self-expression, exercise that right to express yourself and above all to love yourself. That’s why we do what we do, to express love for ourselves, the community, and the craft that we do.

Below are photos of this past weekend, we have Sister Molly Mormon in the pink wig and again in the popcorn, Gemma Nigh as the rainbow, Anne Ominus, Sonnei caught performing on the stage, and myself Trixie Belomont as the Morton Salt Girl.

Express yourself, be yourself. Love always,

DJH