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Throughout the country and across the globe, many young transgender and non-binary people struggle with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, due in part to societal and legislative mistreatment. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published earlier this year reveals that nearly 2% of high school students in the United States identify as transgender. Despite this growing statistic, conditions for transgender youth continue to be perilous: young transgender and non-binary students are often bullied in school and 35% have attempted suicide, according to the CDC report.

In this climate, bolstering the mental health of transgender youth is more important than ever. While it’s often seen as a form of expression or entertainment, performing drag can also act as way cope not just with negative societal pressures for queer people, but as a boon to mental health.

Drag is a tradition with a long and rich history for the LGBTQ community and beyond. While drag performances have risen in mainstream popularity lately, it has been a tradition in different forms for at least more than 100 years. Recently there has also been a spike in the popularity of drag culture among young transgender people, as performances are put up on college campuses and in queer youth groups across the country. For some young transgender people who are too often forced to conform to the limits of binary gender in an academic or social setting, performing drag can provide a space to express themselves fully and unashamedly, taking on a new wardrobe, name, and even identity in order to transcend the boundaries gender and radically pursue joy.

Here’s what seven transgender or non-binary young people have to say about what performing in drag means to them and how it impacts their mental health.

Oliver Hugh, 20

They/Them

Madison, WI

My first drag performance was Pride Prom at UW-Madison in 2018, my sophomore year of college. I had recently come out as non-binary and was experimenting with my gender expression, so drag seemed like a natural step for me to continue that exploration. I ordered a top hat, dug out the makeup that I had hidden away from my femme days, and searched endlessly for makeup and dance tutorials. In my research, I discovered that cis[gender] gay white men dominated the scene as drag queens, and there was little information or guidance about other ways to do drag. I shifted my focus to learning about the history of drag and what it meant to be a drag performer. I realized that in order to give the best performance that I could, I didn’t need to be great at makeup, costumes, or dancing — those things would all come with time. What I could control, and what I put my energy into, was creating a persona that was an authentic representation and celebration of my experiences with my body and gender. Empathy is the most important tool at our disposal, and drag has given me the platform to tell my story in an empowering way. It has taught me to defy expectations, own my decisions, and balance confidence with humility. What drag has helped me accomplish in terms of my mental health has been better than years of therapy; when I’m on stage, I am fully myself — good, bad, and everything in between. I am human, I am flawed, and I am enough.

Credit: Andrew Topel

Miss Taijen, 20

Any pronoun

Vassar College