Violet Chachki, fresh off her win on RuPaul’s Drag Race seventh season, will be performing during NYC Pride at the Liberty Theatre for an event called “Night of 1000 Queens.”
The 23-year-old drag champion made quite a stir on the most recent season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” for both her edgy runway looks, affinity for kink and youthful wit.We spoke with Chachki to learn all about her plans for first NYC pride, what we can expect from her performance, and her thoughts on modern gay culture.
What do you have planned for your first gay pride in New York City?
Poppers and anal. That’s what I’m hoping for. I really love Pride events! I’ve been doing Pride events this whole month. It’s amazing to go out and see the crowds of people and see queer people in numbers and I think it shows a lot of strength that everyone is just in one central location … For New York, specifically, I’m excited to go out. I’m excited to go out as a boy afterwards and do some nightlife. I’ve heard it gets pretty insane.
Tell us about “Night of 1000 Queens.”
I’m super excited just to work with those other girls. I haven’t worked with a lot of them yet. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. I think the fans expect a really good show. I mean, that is like primetime drag: It’s Courtney [Act], Detox , Alyssa [Edwards], Sharon [Needles], Raja, Pandora [Boxx] and the top three from this season, me, Pearl and Ginger Minj. I’m really excited to be backstage with all of them and get to actually hang out.
Can we expect to see any of your aerial silk dancing?
I have [the silks] with me and I have a routine that I can do but it really just depends on what the club says. I’m just taking it one day at a time at this point. I’m really trying to do [aerial] more and get more experience but as far as like insurance and safety goes there’s like certain requirements … so I don’t know yet, I don’t really know what the venue is like.
Are there differences between drag scenes in NYC and Atlanta?
The biggest difference in the drag scenes is that Atlanta is really competitive. There’s a ton of drag queens and there’s only maybe three venues. Working gigs is very competitive. Where in New York nothing is competitive, there’s an oversaturation of everything — boys are not competitive, there’s always gonna be cute boys, there’s always gonna be another coffee shop, there’s always gonna be another restaurant, there’s always gonna be an abundance of whatever you need, and that includes gigs, that includes venues, that includes drag stuff.
I think everyone in Atlanta is more on the hustle and trying to be on their s– because if you’re not on point then you’re not gonna get work.
What role has Kink played in your life?
I worked in one of largest [BDSM] dungeons in the southeast in drag, primarily doing “forced feminization,” which is basically taking a straight dude and putting him up in drag as a form of humiliation, as a form of subversive dom.
I worked under a dominatrix and helped her dress up these dudes and parade them around as a kink of theirs which I think is amazing. It’s really cool to see the role reversal and have the masculine businessman be demasculinized and paraded around. It’s actually an amazing thing to be a part of. There was no actual sex involved. I think people have a misconception about dominatrix and dungeons and BDSM. A good mistress never actually has sex with her clients.
We’ve read you identify as genderqueer. Can you explain to our readers what that means to you?
It can be really confusing and it is still confusing to me sometimes. For me, gender doesn’t really exist in my eyes. Sometimes I feel more masculine; sometimes I feel more feminine. Sometimes I cannot wait to put my makeup on; sometimes I can’t wait to take it off. It is really just that I fall somewhere in between and it changes from day to day. I don’t really get caught up in the verbiage of it.
Does drag culture still have the same influence on mainstream culture?
I definitely think so. I think it changes from generation to generation. It’s been going on for a long time, you know, the whole gay culture having a heavy influence in pop culture, but I don’t think people realize that unless you know your gay history and a lot of young people don’t. I’ve said in other interviewsI’ve come to the realization that I’m becoming the “Divine” for a lot of younger kids because they don’t know about Divine. They don’t know about Del Mar, they don’t know about “Paris is Burning,” they don’t know about Candy Darling, they don’t know about all these historical gay references. All they really have to reference is Lady Gaga, Tumblr and “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Do you have a message for LGBTQ people our age?
Matt Lee is a Web producer for Metro New York. He writes about almost everything and anything. Talk to him (or yell at him) on Twitter so he doesn’t feel lonely@mattlee2669.
