In the past five years, drag – formerly defined as “dressing in the clothes of the opposite sex”, but now meaning so much more – has permeated many unexpected parts of culture: from office Christmas parties to EastEnders’ recent Pride episode, it is now as popular a British pastime as, say, brunch or football. In fact, drag brunches are a thing (lip-syncing with your poached eggs, anyone?) and the first time I went to a RuPaul’s Drag Race viewing party, a phenomenon where crowds of people convene in bars to watch the US drag reality show together, I thought: “Finally! A sport for us gay people!”

From Europe’s biggest festival of drag, DragWorld UK, which takes place in London this month, to long-running Drag Race judge Michelle Visage being revealed as a contestant on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, it is fair to say that drag culture has become entertainment for straight and LGBTQ people alike. Australian drag queen Karen from Finance puts it well in the introduction to her drag-cabaret Yummy: “Raise your hand if you’ve never seen a drag show before. Welcome to the 21st century, arseholes.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest RuPaul’s Drag Race. Photograph: Logotv

Technically speaking, we have been doing drag in Britain since Shakespeare’s day, when social mores meant that women were not allowed to act, so men exaggeratedly took on female roles. The phrase “drag queen” was coined in the 19th century from the British slang Polari, used by gay men in London’s theatre community. At some point during all of this, drag was exported to the US (there is evidence of African-American drag queens partying in Washington DC in the 1800s), and during the late 20th century the popularity of drag in the UK and the US ran fairly parallel. In Britain, there was the infamous late-80s drag club Kinky Gerlinky, among others, as well as Lily Savage on 90s TV. The US, meanwhile, had the downtown New York drag scene of the notorious Pyramid Club, from which emerged RuPaul Andre Charles, a black Atlanta drag queen with a razor-sharp tongue.

So at what point did drag move from niche to mainstream concern? It was TV production company World of Wonder that first put RuPaul’s TV show Drag Race on screens in 2009, leading to the show enveloping popular culture during its 11 seasons (and being partly responsible for why so many people use words such as “fierce”, “werk” and “shade”). Drag Race pits a host of hopeful drag queens against one another to complete challenges (example: fashion a high-glamour look out of scraps of material) and “lip sync for their lives” until there is one triumphant queen remaining. Britain might have a longer relationship with drag than the US, but it was Drag Race that made it a global monolith: the show has been exported to more than 70 countries, cited as an influence for the diverse artworks forming the 2017 Whitney Biennial, and is the career-maker of a huge list of world-famous drag alumni.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sink the Pink. Photograph: Sink the Pink

Inevitably, with the rise of Drag Race came the rise of drag in the UK. As London performance artist Scottee puts it in the 2015 “frockumentary” Dressed As a Girl: “The scene’s fucked up. Everyone’s got this feeling that there’s only one golden ticket,” referring to the number of new queens vying for the limelight. In Britain, the drag-infused NYC Downlow space at Glastonbury had existed since 2007 and the drag-themed club night Sink the Pink since 2008, but with Drag Race’s success, both exploded in popularity, encouraging festivals such as Lovebox and Bestival to put a swarm of drag queens on to their lineups, while the team behind Sink the Pink started their own festival Mighty Hoopla. Suddenly, straight people were coming to gay spaces to see drag, but drag was moving out of gay spaces too, even into convention centres (DragWorld UK, essentially ComicCon for drag fans, has been held at Kensington Olympia since 2017).

Given how far-reaching the Drag Race franchise is in 2019, as well as the commercialisation and Disneyfication of drag in general, the show has been met with an inevitable backlash, with critics claiming it is too competitive, fake, and reduces gay people to catty stereotypes. London drag queen the Nightbus sees both sides: “It feels like it’s made for straight people, which is good in a way because it helps people understand an element of how queer people think about gender, but the casting isn’t that diverse and the depictions of us are one-dimensional.”

Not helping matters here were RuPaul’s comments insinuating that drag is only really successful when done by men, or when he referred to “the dichotomy of the trans movement versus the drag movement”, as though there can be no crossover or nuance, as though trans people are pandering to gender norms, while drag is inherently subversive.

Drag has reached its apex, but also a critical moment: how will it evolve, become more inclusive? Perhaps the answer will come from the newer drag TV offerings. Drag SOS is a touching makeover show where drag queens induct unlikely suspects into the world of drag for a confidence boost, lending their makeup and fashion expertise Queer Eye-style. On top of that, this October, the anticipated RuPaul’s Drag Race UK will arrive, with a brilliantly bizarre lineup of judges including Michaela Coel, Geri Halliwell, Andrew Garfield, Graham Norton and Alan Carr as 10 UK-based drag queens compete for the crown.

Whether Drag Race UK will offer yet another glossy version of drag that centres mostly on gay men dressing as women, or something more innovative and fresh, remains to be seen. But across Britain, many less sanitised and more inclusive drag performances can still be found, where people aren’t lip-syncing for their life per se, but for love – and a little bit of money.