The Birdhouse – a warehouse converted into a performance space in Vancouver – is bustling with drag performers on the overcast day, September 24, 2024. The crowd is sparkly and filled with laughter as around twenty of Vancouver’s drag kings and even a visiting drag king from Toronto chat and occasionally step away to have their photos taken with Ray McEachern and Dayna in the Tiny Dog Studio, holding a sign saying “long live kings”. I stand amongst drag kings I idolize, tempering down feelings of imposter syndrome. As I look around, I see performers with perfectly contoured muscles, long dramatic coats, and sky-high platform shoes, boots and high heels. The event was organized by the LONG LIVE KINGS collective consisting of SKIM, Jei, Percy Pegg and Velvet Ryder, celebrating a year of the drag show King Sized. The conversation is jovial as people meet each other for the first time or make jokes with friends. The sounds echo throughout the warehouse as heels click-clack against the concrete ground of the Birdhouse. Overhead hangs the sculpture in honour of King Fisher made by SKIM. A deep blue bird with yellow accents; the favourite bird of King Fisher and his namesake. King Sized exists in part as a memorial for him. Throughout the joy of the evening, it is also a space of honouring King Fisher.

The performers are moved outside, the slight hint of the sunset peaking through the clouds. Each performer is given a closeup where they show off their makeup and outfit. The crowd of kings cheer on each other as the camera zooms in on each individual. The final shot is taken as a drone flies up and away; coming down and doing a few more takes, flying up again. Afterwards, some of the kings go off to get dinner at a nearby restaurant, still in drag, exciting the patrons of said restaurant.

The BOOK DRAG KINGS video features a multitude of Vancouver’s best drag kings. In a sense of defiance to shows often only having one drag king in the cast of a drag show, the video showcases how many drag performers are in the city. The video cuts between closeup shots of the drag kings and a zoom out shot showcasing the group of kings as a whole. Near the end of the video, additional cuts of a close up of the BOOK DRAG KINGS sign are added on until the cuts stop as the video concludes in a slow zoom out to an aeriel shot of the group of drag kings. The music is intense, creating a slow build up of tension as more and more kings are featured in the video before breaking the tension along with the crowd shot of all the performers.

This video is a performance of how drag is a form of play and how, according to performance scholar Richard Schechner… “[p]lay gives people a chance to temporarily experience the taboo, the excessive, and the risky” (Schechner, 2020, 122). All the drag kings in the video have makeup and costumes that play with concepts of masculinity in ways of glamour, horror and opulence. The video can fulfil all seven aspects of performance identified by Schechner, those being “to entertain, to create beauty, to mark or change identity, to make or foster community, to heal, to teach or persuade, to deal with the sacred and the demonic” (Schechner, 2020, 19). The media of a video posted on social media is a form of entertainment, the showcasing of drag kings highlights the beauty of drag, drag kinging can be a space to explore gender and sexual identity, the video is a celebration of drag kings as a community within a community, King Sized as a whole has been a process of healing as it has its origins in grief, the video is a call on for the wider drag community to expand their ideas of drag to be beyond the conventional feminine, and certain kings in the video invoke sacred and demonic aesthetics such as SKIM and Anya Anomaly’s monstrous drag, and Velvet Ryder’s angelic drag. The video and the coinciding photo series documenting each individual king is a performance with a message. A simple one that bears repeating. To book drag kings. The video is a celebration of the art of drag kinging and brings attention to the underrepresentation of drag kings when thinking of drag as a whole.

Why No Kings?

The obvious answer is that there is currently no Rupaul’s Drag Race equivalent for drag kings as time of writing this essay. Kings have been featured on shows like Dragula and Call Me Mother, but in general, drag kings receive less exposure than drag queens. There is a misconception that drag kings are not as interesting as drag queens. SKIM has talked about how people have tokenized him with backhanded compliments like “[y]ou were really good for a Drag King” and “It was so unexpected!” (skimisking, 2023). These comments expose a lack of engagement with drag kings and how some people assume that there is a hierarchy to drag, with kinging seen as a lesser form of drag when compared to drag queens.

It is assumed that since masculinity in the mainstream is used to oppress others via patriarchy and the enforcement of male dominance that a performance of masculinity is complicit in or celebrates certain ideas of hegemonic masculinity (Basiliere, 2019, 979). In the video, there are drag kings who inhabit a multitude of different kinds of masculinities from perspectives beyond the idea of hegemonic masculinity. Drag kings in Vancouver encompass many different gender identities. Some are non-binary, trans, women, men; just like drag queening, drag kinging is not limited to any specific gender. As such “[w]hen drag kings perform masculinity with bodies that are explicitly marked as not hegemonically masculine, they are not celebrating the norms of masculine dominance” (Basiliere, 2019, 999) but rather are a challenge to patriarchy itself by removing masculinity from perceived binaries and hierarchies. The outfits of all the drag kings in the video reveals different ways of expressing masculinity beyond hegemonic ideas of masculinity. The kings take inspiration from their cultures, some express their sexuality, others horror and monstrosity, and some in gentlemanliness expressed by dapper attire. The sheer amount of different kings in the video challenges hegemonic masculinity because it shows that there is no singular correct way to be masculine. While drag kings have been less visible than drag queens, their invisibility exposes the possibility of how drag kings can inform how we interact with drag and gender as a whole. LONG LIVE KINGS project shows how the process of increasing the visibility of drag kings can be a process that creates spaces for more queer people.

Why We Need (more) Drag Kings

Drag kings are not a novel concept. Drag King have existed long before drag was widely televised. Male impersonation has existed in many capacities and differing contexts. Pictured to the right is Vesta Tilley a British male impersonator from 1895 and pictured below is the Takarazuka Revue, an all female musical theatre group where women played both male and female characters.

Drag kinging has also coincided with drag queens in the more contemporary drag era as well. Starting in 1996, a group of lesbians formed the Mambo Drag Kings in Montreal (Ayoup and Podmore, 2003, 52). According to Colleen Ayoup and Julie Podmore, the MDKs were accepted within queer spaces “such as within a drag show or during a lesbian-dominated event, the MDKs have been well received (if not admired) by gay men in the audience [however in] gay male spaces where masculinity dominates and is eroticised, […] they do not always fit the bill” (Ayoup and Podmore, 2003, 62). There is a sense of discomfort when performing within spaces certain spaces like those identified by MDKs (Ayoup and Podmore, 2023, 62). SKIM has discussed online as to how being the only drag king in a drag show is exhausting as the spaces can be unwelcoming to drag kings (skimisking, 2023). These accounts from both MDKs and SKIM reveal how certain queer people like transgender, non-binary and lesbian individuals are not always included in spaces thought of as queer.

Queerness encompasses many gender and sexual identities, and the LONG LIVE KINGS project helps create spaces for parts of the queer community that may receive less space. The LONG LIVE KINGS project is a demand, making sure kings are properly included when thinking of drag spaces. By demanding that drag shows consistently have more than one drag king on cast, it ensures that the work of education and keeping spaces safe for drag kings is not placed onto one person (skimisking, 2023) and allows drag kings to not feel isolated. The space has often been inclusive of lesbians with SKIM often declairing “I love lesbians” on the microphone at King Sized. Drag kinging is not new but treating it as such shows how drag kings do not have the visibility they deserve. By having more drag kings, it ensures that more people can engage with them, as drag kinging offers an important introspective on gender and masculinity.

The lack of space for drag kings identified by the project is a symptom of a wider issue. Drag kings often unpack masculinity in a way that “North American mainstream society is not only less familiar and less comfortable seeing women claim a masculine subject position, but also less willing to see masculinity be deconstructed and exposed as a performance” (Ayoup and Podmore, 2003, 64). This is rooted in the naturalization of hegemonic masculinity. Being raised under patriarchy, masculinity is seen as a norm and naturally deserving of positions of power. Drag kinging is a direct challenge to hegemonic masculinity as it “challenges the hierarchical social order of gendered practices” (Anzani et al., 2022, 541) by revealing the constructed nature of masculinity. This aversion to the deconstruction of masculinity performed by drag kings highlights the need for more drag kings as“[d]rag kings’ ability to view gender from various standpoints enables them to alter meanings and expectations of what it means to be a man, woman, or something in between” (Baker and Kelly, 2016, 49).

Drag kinging brings in more flexibility around queerness and for some can be an exploration into gender. SKIM has expressed how drag kinging has been a way for Romi Kim – SKIM’s name out of drag – to explore masculinity, as SKIM uses he/him pronouns while Romi Kim identifies as a non-binary lesbian and uses they/them pronouns. Masculinity needs to be deconstructed as hegemonic masculinity has done harm to not just the queer community but beyond as well. Trying to force people to fit into certain constructed gendered expectations creates a hierarchy with certain constructions of gender being above others, which can be used to oppress others. By showing the multitude of different drag kings in Vancouver, the LONG LIVE KINGS project shows the multiple different ways masculinity is being performed, allowing for a more inclusive idea of masculinity and gender as a whole.

How Long Live Kings Effectively Communicates the Need for Drag Kings

The Long Live Kings collective consisting of SKIM, Percy Pegg and Jei So has been the driving force behind the BOOK DRAG KINGS project along with producing the show King Sized. These projects have been a call on for the wider drag community to consider drag kings as equals in the drag world and does so in a practice that allows for anger and grief, but also joy and celebration, making a well-balanced and robust movement. By using performance to showcase drag kings, this continues the practice of how “[a]s a queer leisure activity, drag performances straddle [a] divide, oscillating between the dual functions of bringing people together in a community and setting out political goals for those convened” (Barnett and Johnson, 2017, 691). By bringing so many drag kings together, the project and King Sized, empowers drag kings. Instead of kings being booked individually and separate from each other, King Sized has brought drag kings together and shows how “doing drag in a group with an oppositional collective identity, feminist political commitment, and practices can harness drag’s disruptive power” (Shapiro, 2007, 267) as more drag shows around Vancouver platform drag kings. These projects have brought drag kings around Vancouver together fostering a sense of community and support.

There is a sense of anger and grief in the BOOK DRAG KINGS video with the choice of music. The expressing of anger shows how drag can be positioned to both entertain and express an important message. Anger can be exhausting as “those of us who experience rage most acutely and frequently are also often those of us impacted by the politics of communal exclusion” (Malatino, 2021, 838) leading to burn out. The grief is held by the performers as King Sized and the BOOK DRAG KINGS project exist as a result of Jayme Andrews who performed as King Fisher’s passing in 2023. The Long Live Kings collective has effectively used anger and grief alongside joy to “[amplify] the voices of underrepresented drag artists, turning grief into a movement for equality and solidarity” (skimisking et al., 2025). The project is a precise use of anger and thus is a critique of queer spaces in Vancouver and beyond in a way that does not involve infighting as it primes the viewer to listen to the content without becoming defensive (Lorde, 1981, 5). This is in contrast as to how in the past, Vancouver’s queer scene has an issue of call-outs which make it difficult to plan events as shaming and disposability can be tiring (Stillwagon and Ghaziani, 2019, 888). The video and photo series does not engage in call-outs that shame past actions but rather provides practices to make effective changes for the future. The Long Live Kings collective has created an effective performance that highlights the importance of drag kings in a way that fosters solidarity rather than furthers the division it fights against by expressing anger and grief, but using it to fuel drag and create spaces of joy and healing.

Conclusion: Book Drag Kings!

The work that the Long Live Kings collective has been doing has been inspiring because it brings to the forefront the political potentials of drag kings. By expanding ideas of drag and forging connections, Long Live Kings has created a strong, supportive fan base that has already impacted Vancouver’s drag scene and is currently working on a video series about drag kings to spread their message on a global scale. The series is set to release in June 2025. The BOOK DRAG KING video and photo series project then can be seen both as a celebration of how far we have come in the past year and the beginning of expanding ideas beyond the local to make an impact on the global scale. Drag kings have always been an important part of drag culture, and platforming them helps ensure the fight for queer liberation is one that includes everyone. This project has its origins in grief with the loss of King Fisher and in his memory is a movement created to honour drag kings like him.

References

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