I’m a Christian Musician in Drag—the Olympics Opening Ceremony Was Perfect

Of course, there has been a controversy and much gnashing of teeth about the drag queens who appeared during the Olympics opening ceremony. Of course, because religious conservatives are always looking to kick and malign the LGBTQ community—in the last few years drag queens and trans people have provided a particular focus for their cruelty and prejudice.

But putting aside the ceremony tableau wasn't a depiction of the Last Supper at all but a depiction of a celebration with Dionysus, and putting aside the fact that da Vinci’s painting has been satirized and parodied hundreds of other times without this level of indignation, and putting aside the likelihood that da Vinci himself was queer, there is nothing about a depiction of a Biblical scene with drag queens, queer folks, fat people, and youth that inherently mocks the faith.

We all belong at the table of communion, every single one of us. It was a beautiful display, and the ire of a certain bitter sect of Christianity just shows how small, petulant, and, frankly, useless the God they believe in is.

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Conservative Christians are simply going to have to get used to the fact that they are not the only ones who follow the way of Jesus. I am a drag queen who writes and performs original Christian music. Over the past year, I have played over 40 different Christian churches across the U.S.—in full drag—singing my songs about queer faith, queer joy, queer resilience, and the place that queer people rightfully hold in the church.

I grew up among well-meaning evangelicals in the Bible Belt. I was “saved” at the age of 5. Baptized at the age of 12. Went to Christian school, Christian college, and started working for a megachurch as a worship leader in my early 20s. I helped start 2 different churches in California. I’ve also been kicked out of a couple when they learned I was gay—even though I was, at the time, committed to being single and celibate. (Thank God those days are over.)

Through it all, my faith has remained an ever-present and important part of my life, even as my understanding has evolved and expanded as I studied Scripture and learned from other faith leaders who have a very different take on what the Bible actually says about queer people. (Spoiler alert: it’s not the condemnation evangelicals would have you believe.)

We—meaning Christians who also happen to be queer—are everywhere, as are our allies. Every single time I’ve brought my drag, art, and music into a church community—from Baptist churches in Virginia and Massachusetts to Presbyterian congregations in Iowa and North Carolina to Methodist sanctuaries in Maryland and Washington—the experience is transformative and transcendent. These faith communities are working to undo decades of harm committed by the religious right.

By centering queer voices, and in particular by inviting a drag performer into their houses of worship, they are sending a clear message that they won't stand by while a bastardized and belittled version of faith sucks up all the air in the room with its endless outrage and self-centeredness. In contrast, my shows in churches have been some of the most healing, joyful experiences of my life, and I know it's true for people in attendance too. After every single show, there’s a receiving line of people—just one of many rituals a church service and a drag show have in common—and every person I talk to and take a photo with reaffirms that I’m exactly where the divine wants me: reminding queer people that they are worthy, loved, and no less sacred than any other human.

I was raised in a very fundamentalist evangelical household and culture that did its damnedest to prevent me from “turning out gay,” but no amount of that kind of grooming and indoctrination could change who I am, who God made me to be.

I was a worship and music leader in churches for 22 years before I started experimenting with drag at the beginning of the pandemic. I never imagined it would lead to a whole second act in my life, a new job, and a new ministry, to borrow some churchy language. Drag is deeply spiritual work for me, just as much as it is joyful work. It's how I practice my spirituality, how I connect to other people, and how I bring my little bit of heaven here on earth. Evangelicals can play the victim all they want, scapegoat us, and try to make us the enemy of their God, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have as much access to the divine as they do. I’m living proof of that.

My shows have been threatened a few times online, and a handful of protesters with signs and bullhorns have shown up at churches where I was playing. I take it as a badge of honor, and just another way to draw attention to the much-needed work of inclusion in the American church.

When a district attorney in East Tennessee threatened to shut down Blount Pride where I was headlining last year, the pride organizers and I joined together to file a lawsuit against him with the ACLU of Tennessee. We won a temporary restraining order that allowed our Pride event to go on, but now that a Sixth Circuit court has upheld Tennessee’s drag ban, our case may soon become relevant again.

I’ve also been supporting a nonprofit called Campaign for Southern Equality while on the road this year. During Pride month, my audiences raised nearly $5,000 to support their work to protect and assist families in southern states where bans have been passed on best-practice medical care for trans youth. Performing in drag is as much a spiritual act for me as a robed priest delivering sacraments is to him. My religious practice and my freedom of speech are both at stake, and I won't stop until they are protected for everyone nationwide.

To watch the voices of hate and condemnation rouse to condemn the drag performers in Paris is all too familiar. For bigoted minds like these, it is antithetical that queer people have any relationship to faith; instead of seeing a work of art or a performance, they willfully misread in order to condemn. They profess to worship a loving God, even as they invoke God’s name to exclude and denigrate.

Well, if queer people have proven anything throughout recent decades, it’s that we are not afraid of a fight when the welfare of our community is at stake. In this case, we also have the backing of plenty of affirming, inclusive, God-fearing Christians around the world. The Christ that I know is so much better than the snowflake deity evangelicals are always trying to defend. And unfortunately for them, they don’t get to set the pace for all of us, and they definitely don’t get to gate-keep an entire 2,000-year-old faith.

Bravo, the Olympics, and Vive La France!