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This began as a social media post and turned into something longer. Sometimes stories insist on being told.
Last night I finished Season 1 of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars. It marked the end of a year-long journey through the franchise. Yes, friends, it’s true. I watched every single episode of Drag Race AND All Stars – 27 full seasons (!) – in one calendar year.
When I came out in 2016, I had absolutely no interest in drag. I couldn’t imagine the appeal of men dressing as women. (At least that’s how I understood it at the time.) The whole thing felt completely foreign to me. But then at a Pride party with some friends in 2017, I saw Sasha Velour’s iconic “So Emotional” lip sync vs. Shea Couleé, and I couldn’t help but recognize the power of her performance. Maybe drag was more than men dressing as women!
And then this past June, right in the middle of my Drag Race journey, I saw Sasha Velour perform her The Big Reveal Live show at Berkeley Rep. It was possibly my favorite live event of 2025 — and that’s saying something in a year that also included traveling to Los Angeles to see Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends! Seeing Sasha’s work in person, in a theater, made it unmistakably clear that what she does belongs in the realm of high art. It felt full-circle in the best way.
Over the years, I would see a clip on YouTube here or there, and by the end of last year, I would find myself cackling at Alyssa Edwards, Bianca Del Rio or Jinkx Monsoon’s astonishing wit and perfect timing, marveling at the jaw-dropping couture fashions of Violet Chachki or Raja, and even surprised by the athleticism and strength of someone like Jax or Denali. And clips of the best “Snatch Game” performances (where the queens do their best celebrity impersonations) would have me crying with laughter. I had to admit that there was a whole lot more to drag than men dressing as women. These were artists and performers operating at the highest level. But I still wasn’t particularly interested in watching an actual season of the show.
Last Christmas I even went to see Jinkx Monsoon and Ben DeLaCreme’s holiday show in San Francisco! DeLa had become another favorite of mine, and my friends and I had so much fun seeing them perform to a sold-out theater of enthusiastic fans.
Jinkx, who has come out as a trans woman, has gone on to be a rising star on Broadway, originating a role in last year’s successful Pirates! The Penzance Musical and stepping into the role of Mary Todd Lincoln in last year’s Tony-Award-nominated Best Play, Oh, Mary!
After the election last November, I was so discouraged. I remember feeling like all was lost, that all of the progress we queer people had seen over the past several years was on the verge of being stripped away by people who simply didn’t understand – or, worse, by people who DID understand and still intended our harm. Not to mention the very real threats to women, people of color – specifically immigrants, and other vulnerable communities. I felt paralyzed, and I was in desperate need of some hope and encouragement.
I happened to have downloaded RuPaul’s latest book, The House of Hidden Meanings, on Audible, and I really enjoyed it. I was reminded that we LGBTQIA+ people have been through difficult times before, and we have always met them with creativity, resilience, and joy. I was reminded that I have found a lot of comfort and encouragement from learning about our history and the powerful ways we have harnessed that potent mixture of anger and joy to bring about real, lasting change.
The RuPaul book got me curious about the history of drag. This is, after all, an art form that has existed long before Drag Race premiered in 2009. I watched ALL THREE documentaries about the Wigstock Festival founded by Lady Bunny, starting with a short film from 1987. Next up? The full 1995 documentary, featuring incredible performances from RuPaul, Lady Bunny, Lypsinka, Candis Cayne, and so many more.
After that, I had to take a short detour into Lypsinka. Honestly, y’all. She is a force of nature. And finally, I watched the Max documentary Wig from 2019, about Lady Bunny bringing the Wigstock Festival back one last time in 2018 for a new generation. And it’s a beautiful retelling of the history of Wigstock too.
Something about seeing all of that transgressive, joyful, angry energy on display through some of the most difficult years of the AIDS epidemic, long before my gay marriage was even a possibility made me feel more hopeful about what we were experiencing now. (Another powerful look back can be found in Lynne Gerber’s extraordinary podcast When We All Get To Heaven, about MCC San Francisco’s ministry during those same dark years.)
And earlier this month, Alejandro and I saw Jackie Beat at Oasis in San Francisco. Sitting in that room, laughing along with a crowd that knew exactly who she was and why she mattered, felt like touching a living thread of drag history, not preserved in a documentary, but still very much alive.
Okay, okay… I realized that it just might be time to watch a season of Drag Race. But where to begin? The internet said that Season 5 was a great place to start because it featured queens who have gone on to become some of the most legendary figures in Drag Race herstory… Jinkx, Alaska, Alyssa Edwards, and Roxxxy Andrews, for starters. I was hooked.
And so I just kept going. Being somewhat OCD-adjacent in the way I watch television, I knew I couldn’t just watch randomly, so I made a plan: I would watch every season chronologically according to air date. And while I was at it, I’d include the All Stars series as well. After I had watched up to the present (Drag Race S17 and All Stars S10), I would go back and catch Drag Race S1-S4 and All Stars S1.
It was fun to see the origin of so many catch phrases (“Not today, Satan!” “Miss Vanjie!” “Mama, Kudos for saying that, for spilling” “Back rolls?” and Alyssa’s famous tongue pop) and cultural moments too. And how have I not mentioned the Lip Sync for Your Life? Not only Sasha v. Shea, but Roxxxy v. Plastique Tiara, Dida Ritz v. The Princess… Each one an instant classic. And then there were the judges, the entrance looks, the mirror chats, the face cracks, and the heart of every episode: the runway.
And now I’ve seen all of it. Just in time to watch Season 18 with the rest of the world for the first time starting on Friday!
I’ve discovered that drag has a way of finding us in different seasons. I’d love to hear your Drag Race story – or your relationship to drag more broadly.
