In RuPaul Charles’ 1995 autobiography, published in the early days of his fame, the star wrote, “You can call me he. You can call me she. You can call me Regis and Kathie Lee; I don’t care! Just as long as you call me.” (via Distractify). This flexible attitude toward gender and presentation is also evident in the star’s Twitter bio; “You’re born naked & the rest is drag.”
To further confirm RuPaul’s fluid use of pronouns, when a fan wrote that they were upset by news outlets gendering RuPaul with male pronouns, the star tweeted, “If the intention is love, I don’t give a sh*t about pronouns. We are everything & nothing at all.”
Despite these comments, when an interviewer asked if he would allow trans women to compete on “Drag race” RuPaul told The Guardian that it was unlikely for the show to cast a trans woman who had undergone a physical transition. Fans felt the statement disrespected the identity of trans women.
The host also shared, “Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it because at its core it’s a social statement and a big f-you to male-dominated culture. So for men to do it, it’s really punk rock, because it’s a real rejection of masculinity.” The star seemed to fear that this cultural subversion would be lost if the dichotomy between the hyper-feminine presentation and a traditionally masculine actor was not evident, thereby reinforcing the gender binary the show was made to disrupt.
