Hot Wheelz

“Definitely the more harsher ones. How we're all sexual predators and all those harmful narratives. Also, the biggest one for me is that only men can do drag. It's only female impersonators.. I don't believe that at all. I think it's more than that. I think it's almost a way you take it and become something higher than you are. And I think it's just something very powerful. And it could be for everyone of all sexualities of all and all genders.
It’s also funny to me, because I've seen sexual media forever, throughout the media, especially through the straight heterosexual media, like you grow up watching this all the time. Even at a young age. Like, why is it different when it comes to drag? It’s hypocritical.”

“There's so many aspects to it. I don't know, I feel like just embracing who
you are. And being more. There's so many aspects to it, like the outfit. The look in general, the performance, the dancing, the lip syncing, the facial movements, the makeup, the hair, even the head pieces, it's just it all comes together. You almost have to have like a bunch of these different skills to do it. And I think it brought together all of the things that I absolutely love into one thing, and that's what makes it art.”

“I was very scared when I first entered the drag scene because you hear like all like the scary stories of the drama of like, people not accepting AFAB performers; so like assigned female at birth performers. And so I was like, very nervous. And then everybody just welcomed me with such open arms and I wasn't expecting it at all. Like there has been some hesitancy, some fears, especially with certain individuals. But like the circle I've grown in this community that has tried to push towards accessibilities, who has tried to push towards letting all genders explore the art of drag is just phenomenal, because I know it's not often you see it in other cities. So I'm very thankful. I'm very thankful for the people in my life that have helped me grow here and for the future of drag. I'm in this collective called carnival of C*nt. We are a bunch of afab/trans performers. We put on performances at this cool place called Co-Lab . And it's fully accessible, which is not typical here in Edmonton. Edmonton. Most places in Edmonton aren't accessible for me. And so this was my dream. I had written in my notes. Within a year, I want to find a venue to create a drag show that's fully accessible, and I managed to do it before the year and I'm so proud of that fact. It was like such a big deal for me. So I'm really hoping that pushes towards more accessibility for our community,


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“It's been almost 10 years of chronic illness. So, when I was 13, I got chest pain and it was really, really bad.. And it slowly got worse over the years and developed into full body pain. And it makes it really hard to walk sometimes and move. Especially breathing. Breathing is something I can never take for granted because it's very difficult to do for me. And I'm always saying to never take breathing for granted. I ended up in a wheelchair within five years of my chronic illness. That's been an adventure so I've experienced both invisible illness and visible. Both are very difficult to navigate. I do believe the wheelchair has helped me be able to do things that I couldn't. I definitely couldn't do drag without my wheelchair. That's just facts like it would be too difficult on me. I was diagnosed with this really long, complicated genetic disorder called Alpha One antitrypsin deficiency. It's basically, we all have this thing called Alpha ones in our body, and they protect us from our white blood cells. So like, say, a disease or anything comes into your lungs, our
white blood cells try to fight it off, try to get rid of it, but they won't stop, they will not stop. So they'll keep eating at your lungs, and alpha one stop that they kill them off. So if you don't have enough Alpha ones, the white blood cells will start eating your lungs even more. Which is very scary. I wasn't expecting it at all. They say that there's no cure and there isn’t anything I could do about it until it gets worse, basically. So I have to wait. It's a waiting game for me. So I was like, drag. Let's do it before it gets worse before my breathing is awful. Yeah, so it's, it's been a very tough journey for me but I'm still working on it.

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