Hi, my name is Astrud Aurelia – I am 22 years old. I identified as genderqueer at the moment but that seems to be currently evolving and shifting and because of that I do not have any preferred pronouns at the moment. With that I do lean towards she/her especially when I’m in drag but when I’m out of drag I don’t mind he/him but there are still so many people who refer to me as she/her. I’m cool with all of it. My sexual orientation is generally male I have yet to be attracted to a cisgender woman. At least it’s been a very very long time since I have but I’m open to all of it.

Q: Were there any signs or feelings in your childhood?

A: Yes, there were so many signs. Growing up there were those pictures of me (5+ years old) in dresses. I would just beg my mother to buy me, any ice skating or princess dresses at the Disney story. I always thought they were cute my whole life but there was a certain age where I kind of decided mainly for myself that that wasn’t something that I could be taken seriously doing. I couldn’t put on a dress and have people think of me as a mentally stable, sane person.

It kept me from pursuing those things for a long time and I think I sort of took that passion that I had for design, clothing and fashion and moved it elsewhere. I found a lot of comfort in video games and I found comfort in powerful female characters that I connected to in those video games. During those early years, I was really into designing characters and thought I wanted to be a video game concept artist so I was drawing all these women in their crazy fantasy sci-fi armor, weapons and outfits. I didn’t realize it at the time but what I was really doing was fashion design.

Q: When did you start questioning your gender? Was there an age, place or event? 

A: I would say that moment was when I really started doing drag. This is when I able to reflect on my life up to this point and I realized it was deeper than that.

Q:  How did you learn about genderqueer?

A: I had some friends who went by they/them pronouns in high school. I got to learn through my friends who identified as non-binary what that meant and adapted my language to the new pronouns. I think this is the first time I got a well-rounded perspective on this topic.

I personally didn’t relate to the specific struggles they were going through. When I started to identify as gay there wasn’t a moment where I made a big facebook status or sat everyone down and came out. It was harder coming out to myself, let along with everyone else. I didn’t feel the same way about genderqueer. As I started to learn more about drag I would fold in some of these elements into my everyday life or my “boy self”. I found myself looking for things like different hairstyles to try and further feminize myself. These moments specifically were really empowering for me.

Q: Can you tell me about the first time you cross-dressed in public? Drag experience or not?

A:  The first time I went out in drag, I was convinced that people weren’t going to like me. Since I had such strong opinions on fashion, references and music even before I was involved in the drag community. I really thought that Phoenix AZ was not such a cultural mecca or fashion place and they were going to be like who the f*** is this b**** and why is she not doing Ariana Grande? I was so shocked to find that people really connected with my experience and that people immediately took me for somebody who was unique. This truly wasn’t something that I’m incredibly grateful for.

Q: Was your first drag night out pushed by a friend? Did someone go with you?  

A: No, I went completely by myself. I was in kind of a dark place in my life. I was going to school for musical performance. I was playing jazz and upright bass. I really felt disconnected from the jazz performers, I found they didn’t really appreciate my queer aesthetic. I literally ran into a queen, that was competing, at a Goodwill shopping for heels. I asked this tall man if he too was looking for heels as well and if he was a drag queen. He was and proceeded to invite me to do a drag competition. Do the next Season I did. He beat me on that one but then I won the next one. 

It was kind of a drag queen boot camp. They had us do two different performances every Tuesday night for 8 weeks and that’s a lot of pressure to put on somebody who is just starting drag. I would go out every Tuesday night with two new full complete looks and do two full complete new lip syncs. It really kicked my a** and pushed me to improve fast.

Q: What is the first makeup item you remember wearing? 

A:  I used to do a lot of musical theater and we had to do makeup. Even if you were a boy you had to like put on light makeup just to make your faces more visible on stage. One time I was playing the role of a dog and had to do a full painted face and I always thought that was fun. But overall the makeup we did didn’t grab me. It wasn’t until I started doing drag that I realized how much makeup can transform your face into a whole new thing and that power of transformation is what initially interested me. I was so fascinated with the technicality of it all. 

Q: Tell me about coming out?

A: The first time I had homoerotic experiences when in kindergarten and like really young. I think I held onto those memories as negative ones. These things were something I was ashamed of, which I  pushed those to the back of my mind. It seemed to me like everyone made up excuses for it like: everyone goes through during puberty like it is just experimenting, everyone is trying things. I love gay people but that is not me – I would say “I’m straight”.

I had a friend in 8th grade who I met that I was so attracted to, like desperately in love with that it forced me to confront my feelings because every time that I was with this person I just wanted to break down and start crying. I am still shattered from this experience. He was my first crush and I think he is the guy that my type comes from. Gradually the branches have spread out and now I’m into all different types of guys but they all kind of come back to like his physical strengths. 

I am a person who faces my struggles by talking about them. I start slow and tell one person about it and then think about it. I will have another conversation and then think about it again, etc. I process things by speaking it out loud. So I think the first person I told was this girl in my math class, I said I think I might be into a guy. This girl was like – “that’s great!” The more people I talked to, the more I confronted it and the more I was okay with it. I definitely feel like I didn’t have to come out because of that I didn’t have to like make a grand entrance to the world because I sort of tiptoed my way into it. For many people, they jump into the pool from the deep end, in full force. I was like one little toe at a time, then down the steps and into the shallow end of the pool. I waited for my body to warm up before going further. It made it good in some ways because people didn’t really have to question me. They were just like oh yeah Astrid is into guys. Unfortunately, things never work out with that guy, he was really flirtatious but it played my mind really badly. Things like being around me and saying, yeah I think I’m probably bi when I’m obviously infatuated with him.

My parents are cool with it for the most part. My mom loves drag. I got her into watching RuPaul’s Drag Race and she always asks me if I’ve watched the last episode? Most of the time my reply is, I am sorry mom I am 2 weeks behind. She used to come out to all my shows at first, but now I perform too often. It was a little bit different about me being gay, overall I am pretty privilege for the reactions that I got from my friends and family. I didn’t have to deal with any extreme levels of homophobia because I’ve been queer/flamboyant my whole life. People were not surprised when I started doing drag, they’re like oh yeah obviously you do drag and of course, you’re great at it. It really felt like I found what I was meant to do. Everything I had been creating my whole life just collided into this perfect set of skills for my drag career. 

Q: Is there a Father figure in your life? 

A: Yeah, I have a stepfather. We do not have the greatest relationship. He is kind of part of my contribution to some of my gender dysphoria. I mean he definitely pushed a more masculine perspective onto me for a long time. I didn’t really connect with him and I am still mad at him to this day. I used to mow the lawn and I was really asthmatic so I would stop to get some water while gaining back control of my breathing. He would yell at me to just man up and get out there and get it done. He didn’t literally mean “man up” but that’s what the phrase means. I remember thinking why would anyone say that to anybody? I did all kinds of masculine things growing up like play sports. These things were always a struggle for me (not that I wasn’t good at them). Except for soccer, I was awful at soccer. I always got put on the boy’s team and I just didn’t want to be on the boy’s team. I would question why I wasn’t allowed to be on the girl’s team because that’s where I felt like I should have been.

I did tap class once and I was only in tap lessons for a week. I was the only boy in the taproom and yet they made me wear a different costume and made me learn different choreography. I had to be a different character than the rest of the group. All I could think is why can’t I just be one of the girls? We all have tap shoes, we all have feet. I think it’s part of the reason why I started gravitating to different art forms that didn’t focus on gender division. At least we are allowed to do the same things we can be in the same cello class with all of the female cellists playing the cello. I can be with everybody else, the same thing with piano, even my percussion drum teacher was a woman. 

Q: Has there been an adjustment period for your friends with things like how you doll yourself up?

A: As much as a lot of my friends were really supportive of me doing all this drag stuff, a lot of my friends just didn’t get it. It was not like they didn’t support me, for example, a lot of male friends are not interested in drag. I still love them and I want to hang out with them but it is hard because I am doing drag all the time.

Q: Has there been any other Milestones or goals in the process that have made you feel more confident and comfortable with yourself?

A: Yes, there are a couple of those. In May I won the Boulet brothers Dragula World competition, so if you know anything about Dragula, it is a TV show that celebrates alternative drag based on the three pendants of Glamour, Filth, and Horror it’s sort of an anti Drag Race. It’s fundamentally supposed to be an alternative option for people who want to experience drag in the reality TV world. So I competed during Dragcon weekend. My drag mother Dahli was on season 2 so I thought I should try. I didn’t expect to win, I know a lot of the Dragula girls and they all showed me a lot of support. I went in saying, let’s just hang out and see where it goes. Within a few hours, I was in the top 20 and then the top 10. Out of nowhere, I was in the top 3. When that moment happened I was like wait a second, I could win this whole competition and I ended up destroying it. I completely killed it! I won $1000 and special consideration on season 3 of Dragula. That has been a huge platform for me.

I am incredibly thankful for it and others because that competition has completely transformed my life. I dropped out of school because I wanted to do drag more and I felt that school was limiting me. I am glad that I did because since then I have been flown out to San Francisco, New York, LA, Boston and have had the opportunity to see the country. I have more of these things coming up this month as well.

Q: Do you currently have anything that you consider offensive? 

A: I would have to say that the man up thing that I spoke on earlier was a very degrading, confusing thing for me since childhood. I still really hold on to that. There were other things like getting called all the generic stuff in high school. I was called f*****, Skittles, etc. I was so set on being straight at the time, an obvious coping mechanism, that my defense when they called me these names, was to respond with f** you I’m straight.

It was hard when I came out because I almost felt that I was validating these people who had bullied me when I was younger. All those times I remember crying thinking, wow they were right the whole time. All those people who made fun of me were right. Which made me thinking, what else do I not know about myself? What other things are really constructions in my mind, from things that have been predetermined in my environment/society I grew up in?

Q: What are some of the struggles you faced in public with gender identity?

A: My experience being visibly genderqueer has been limited to mostly safeish spaces. I still go into the convenience stores to grab a drink and fill up gas in my car, when I am in drag. I definitely project a lot of high amounts of confidence, even when I walk into a place because I’m so afraid of being harassed. I like people to know I’m not to mess with me when I walk in the door, they know you mean business when you stomp in there.

Q: Have there been any incidents where you have been a victim of a hate crime? 

A: No, I have not had any incidents where I was a victim of any hate crime. I’m very lucky. If I know I am going to an area where it might be unsafe, I will always ask someone to go with me. Have someone walk with you – it is easy to start taking your safety for granted when you go through long periods of time where you are not harassed. Especially if you’re in a liberal place, Like I spend a lot of time downtown where these communities are more accepting and I walk into those places confident. I don’t really believe there is such a thing as a safe space. I think it’s kind of a deceptive and an evil word because you can’t have a safe space unless that’s space is heavily monitored and has limited access.

Q: So what’s next for you?

A: I have so many goals and plans. As I mentioned before I’m a professional musician so I am writing, recording, and producing music. I play in a band called HYPERBOLE and we are putting out an album in March, I play the drums. It is Soul, jazz, fusion, indie rock, and Madness band.  Then I also have my own solo project music. I play the upright bass and lead the group. I’ll be doing a lot of traveling this year. I have some other things, but I got to keep some things under wraps for now. 

Q: If you were given the opportunity to tell your younger self one word of advice, what would it be? 

A: I would tell myself that you have to follow your gut. Your instincts are what’s going to make you successful when you’re older. You can’t let anybody tell you what they think you’re supposed to do, because every time that you do that, it doesn’t work out for you. If it doesn’t work out, that’s okay because you are stronger and you are open to trying new things. Do not put that dress away. 

Q: What was the one message you would give to little boys and girls that are going through similar situations?

A: You know everybody’s experience on gender and sexuality is completely different. I really would say you have to go with your instincts, you can’t be afraid of yourself. Do not be afraid of who you are and don’t be afraid of having a conversation with yourself. Look in a mirror and talk to yourself, talk to God, talk to a good friend or whoever you need to talk to. But again at the end of the day, it’s not your friend that’s going to make you who you are. It’s you. Pep talk yourself, I can only get you this far.