Singer and performer Jinkx Monsoon has discussed their gender identity in a series of tweets, describing their frustration with the assumptions that are often made about the drag community.
Monsoon—who was the Season 5 winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race—wrote on Twitter: “Because this apparently needs to be repeated...I am male bodied, I prefer to identify as non-gendered/non-binary. I prefer They/Them.”
They write that they have “privately identified under the Trans umbrella” since their teenage years and came out as non-binary, non-gendered four years ago.
“For a long time I didn't think I needed to make my gender identity public info until I saw that I could be an advocate for our community,” Monsoon continued.
“I spoke out on a trans matter 4 years back, and someone encouraged me to come out, in an effort to enlighten. I did and I'm glad I did.
“I do not get upset when people use the wrong pronouns for me as long as it is not a malicious attack on my gender.
“I choose to educate rather than get upset. I choose to enlighten people rather than attack them.”
The Seattle-based Monsoon says they decided to make the public comments on Twitter after seeing “a lot of arguments online”.
“I've seen some discussions online about my being NB, and inevitably someone will respond with "no, he's a drag queen."
“The two are NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.”
The performer also noted that not all drag queens are cisgender males and “plenty of queens live under the Trans umbrella”.
“Stop making false assumptions- look into a person's identity preference before you go spouting off about them, showing your ignorance,” Monsoon wrote.
Former Drag Race contestants including Sonique, Carmen Carrerra, Stacy Layne Matthews, Kenya Michaels, Jiggly Caliente and Gia Gunn and have all come out as transgender.
Monica Beverly Hillz came out as trans during the Season 5 filming and more recently, Peppermint made history in Season 9 as the first openly transgender queen cast on the show.
