Key points
- Drag was founded by trans women of color in New York City’s ballroom scene.
- A recent academic study found that drag was related to improved <a href="https://lumeamara.online/?p=4615" title="Record 1,319 public school teachers in Japan cite <a href="https://lumeamara.online/?p=4600" title="The Mental Health Cost of Harsh Immigration Policy – USCRI”>mental health as reasons for quitting”>mental health outcomes for trans women.
- Drag helps trans individuals to explore gender fluidity, find community, and experience gender affirmation.
This post was co-authored withAbigail Tessmer
Protests like Compton’s Cafeteria Riots and the Stonewall Uprising have become meaningful symbols of LGBTQ resistance against police harassment and violence. What is often left out of these stories, however, is the central role that Black and Brown trans women, femmes, and drag queens played in them. They faced the harshest police violence and were among the first to push back. Despite their leadership, many were excluded from mainstream LGBTQ+ activist groups and rewritten in the history they helped create. The irony is hard to miss: While white cisgender gay and lesbian individuals were gaining civil rights, gender-diverse people of color were stigmatized as “deviant others” in need of carceral interventions.
In response, Black and Brown trans women, femmes, and drag artists created their own spaces throughout the 1980s and 1990s. One of the most influential was the ballroom scene. These were gender-fluid spaces where drag performers formed “houses” of chosen families and competed against one another in a “ballroom” (usually a warehouse or abandoned space). Each ball was themed, requiring different types of dress and performance for categories that highlighted and celebrated femininity and queerness, with the hopes of “snatching” trophies and gaining status.
These ballroom houses—typically led by a trans woman or femme “mother”—were spaces that provided drag performers with what society often denied them: family, housing, support, guidance, and a sense of belonging. They were places where trans and gender-diverse people could survive, thrive, and celebrate one another
Drag Goes Mainstream
For years, Drag Race solely featured gay cis (and mostly white) men as female impersonators, with misogynistic and transphobic “jokes” as punchlines for multiple recurring bits. Facing backlash for refusing to include trans women on the cast, RuPaul doubled down on his stance in 2018, comparing trans women on Drag Race to athletes “doping themselves” in the Olympics. Although the franchise has become more inclusive, many continue to emphasize that drag’s roots run much deeper than a televised competition. World-renowned gender-bending queens like Sasha Velour remind us that trans women of color have been doing drag for “literal centuries” and deserve representation, recognition, and respect.
Drag as we know it was created from the aesthetics, style, and brilliant imaginations of trans women and femmes of color, and they continue to elevate drag spaces all over the world today. These spaces operate as safe havens for many trans and gender diverse individuals and have shown to promote gender affirmation, garner community support, and improve mental health outcomes (Rogers, 2018)
Why We Investigated Drag and Mental Health
When people hear the phrase “gender affirmation,” many think about medical care such as hormones or surgery. But gender affirmation can also occur in social and community settings. At its core, gender affirmation involves having one’s identity recognized, supported, and validated by others (Glynn et al., 2016)
The role of gender-affirming spaces like drag is especially relevant right now. At a time when trans people and drag artists are increasingly becoming targets of political manipulation and legislative restrictions, it’s worth asking what might be lost if these spaces disappear. Do drag spaces provide something meaningful for the health and well-being of trans people?
That question motivated our recent study published in The Journal of Creativity in Mental Health.We wanted to know whether drag could act as a form of gender affirmation. Given the deep historical connections between trans women and drag culture, we wondered: Does drag participation relate to better mental health outcomes for trans women? To explore this question, we used data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, the largest survey of trans people to-date with nearly 30,000 participants.
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What We Found
The results were striking
Compared to trans women who did not participate in drag, trans women who did participate in drag had significantly more positive mental health outcomes. And when compared to trans men and nonbinary drag performers, the positive effect of drag participation for trans women was more robust
Why might that be? We believe drag promotes mental wellness by creating opportunities for gender exploration, creativity, affirmation, and connection. Drag allows people to experiment with and express different aspects of themselves in environments that are often far more supportive than their everyday surroundings
For trans women who regularly encounter discrimination and violence (Tessmer and Worthen, 2025), drag spaces can offer something powerful: the freedom to explore gender without having to defend it. Through costumes, makeup, performance, fashion, and creativity, drag creates opportunities for self-expression that can foster confidence, joy, and ultimately, gender euphoria
And the impact doesn’t stop when the show ends! The confidence, support, and gender affirmation found in drag spaces can carry over into other parts of life as well
Why This Matters Right Now
Our findings suggest that drag is much more than a performance—it’s a mental health boost that should be valued as a legitimate mechanism for trans and gender-diverse individuals to creatively explore gender fluidity, find community, and experience gender affirmation
That makes ongoing attacks on drag and trans communities particularly concerning. Since 2020, anti-trans legislation has increased dramatically and efforts to restrict drag performances have gained traction in many states. These policies limit access to the very spaces that many rely on for community, expression, and safety
As researchers and activists, we encourage others to continue organizing, researching, and investing in queer and trans lives by attending drag shows and other events held by LGBTQ+ people, getting involved in political protests, citing and interacting with research written by and for queer and trans people, and creating safe spaces for queer and trans people
References
Glynn, T. R., Gamarel, K. E., Kahler, C. W., Iwamoto, M., Operario, D., Nemoto, T., & Gonsiorek, J. C. (2016). The role of gender affirmation in psychological well-being among transgender women. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, 3(3), 336–344
Rogers, B. A. (2018). Drag as a reStates. Gender & Society, 32(6), 889–910. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243218794865
Tessmer, A. and Worthen, M. G. F. 2025. “Transgender Realities: The Relationships between Transgender Visibility, Race, and Verbal, Physical, and Sexual Victimization.” Journal of Interpersonal Violencehttps://doi.org/10.1177/08862605251347648
Tessmer, A., Worthen, M.G.F., & Schleifer, C. (2025). Drag Participation and Trans Women’s Mental Health. The Journal of Creativity in Mental Health. 21(2), 192-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/15401383.2024.2448441
