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Raquel Willis is talking drag. She doesn’t get to much these days, busy as she is crisscrossing the country in her new role as executive editor of Out magazine ― the first trans person to hold the role. But Willis, a proud black queer activist from Atlanta, credits her experiences of drag performance and the tight-knit LGBTQ+ community in college with granting her permission to feel comfortable in her skin and unlocking her authenticity.

And reflecting on the vibrant Atlanta scene has her animated.

“What I learned in that space was that we all need opportunities to play around with gender and let some of that steam off around the expectations that we have with it,” Willis told me of her experience with Southern drag, a community that she says is defined by its more gritty grassroots foundations. “Drag is at an interesting place. I think about it kind of like how when hip-hop went pop in the ’90s. It’s pop culture, mainstream now, and I also think that people have their reservations about that.”




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Klina introduces the Demo for Democracy in Westminster opposite the Houses of Parliament, demanding PR by 2021. Woooo! for everyone who wants Proportional Representation!
Credit: Bill Thisdell, Videographer
www.youtube.com/channel/UCpIqK42VTDXnpCV2Ra3bVLg