Canada’s first (and only) drag wrestler Alice Starr is fighting mad…
Starr says that conservative’s current obsession with saying the LGBTQ community is on a mission of “indoctrination” is correct! She told told PinkNews,
If there’s anything that I’ve got an agenda on, it’s to make people love each other more. I’ve got opportunities within the wrestling world. There’s an obvious symbolism of fighting someone in that squared circle, where there is an opponent and there are hurdles.”
And oftentimes, that’s someone who dislikes your character or dislikes you personally, and the audience has to buy into that.
There’s no buying into what I’m doing. It is the truth when I’m wrestling.”
Starr wrestles in full drag using two art forms that are often thought of as artifices and putting oneself out there in this “really terrifying” climate for LGBTQ people and drag performers around the world.
What really motivates me is the fact that I have a son, and he’s so young and knowing that I want a world that he can grow up in, where he can be and do whatever he wants.
And if I can even be a small piece of the change that the world sees, then I’ve done my job, and I can deem this whole endeavour successful.”
Homegrown drag events aren’t just simple affairs anymore with the police climate in the US and Canada, where star calls home.
- A Canadian public library cancelled a family-friendly drag storytime event in March after staff received threats and hate online.
- In Ontario, drag performers were interrupted while singing nursery rhymes with kids and reading books to them by conservatives shouting bible passages.
- In April, Ontario New Democratic Party urged the government to create community safety zones to protect drag artists and LGBTQ+ people from harassment and intimidation at their performances.
Despite the terrifying situation, some wrestling fans’ first experience with a drag artist or queer person is a boost and a worry,
I’ve always been someone that loves to push back and be a little against the grain.
I quickly found out that the wrestling world is not only unforgiving, but it can be super scary because these people can see you as an outsider.
…now being in the wrestling world and being in front of people, I represent drag for the first time in their eyes. They’ve never seen a drag queen perform.
So there’s a certain sense of responsibility that is scary, but I also welcome it because someone has to do it.
Someone has to make a change in the wrestling world, and wrestling needs to be more inclusive. And I think this is a great opportunity to do it through storytelling.”
#WhatTheySaid Fight for your rights!
(via PinkNews)
