“There was this huge pink elephant in the room,” Stoole, 36, told me in early August over Zoom. “I want to see Black people deciding who gets to come in and who gets to make the money,” Shea Couleé told protesters in June. Those present remember it as a moment when the floodgates opened. Jo MaMa, a drag performer who organized the march and led it dressed in a powder-blue blazer, spoke last and called out one key figure in Chicago drag by name: T Rex (formerly Trannika Rex), the 32-year-old white queen who hosted, booked, and managed shows at Berlin and Roscoe’s Tavern - including Berlin’s hugely popular Saturday night Drag Matinee - and was widely considered a gatekeeper for the city’s drag scene. … I want to see Black people deciding who gets to come in and who gets to make the money.” And I’m not just talking about to wipe up your drinks. Y’all need to hire Black people in your bars. I should not have to stand here on a loudspeaker and ask you for fucking permission to walk through the door. Shea Couleé, a Black star of the Chicago drag scene who rose to national prominence on season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, took the microphone: “We built this. Many things were at a boil: COVID-19 had shut down the bars that the drag community performs in and calls home the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor had brought lifetimes of frustration to a bursting point the racism that had been festering in Boystown from its inception was being called out, with people speaking louder about what they saw as racist policing and a racist vibe among bar patrons and staff and just to be a queer person of color in 2020 was inherently stressful. “I refuse to be quiet,” she said, “because I’ve never felt peace a day of my life.” When she removed the mask onstage at the corner of Halsted and Grace, it was to address an assembled crowd of thousands, the attendees of June 14’s Drag March for Change, people who’d been walking in the heat and chanting, “White silence is white violence!” and “Black lives matter!” and “Trans lives matter!” Her anger was pointed and eloquent.
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Lucy Stoole was wrapped in a flowing rainbow poncho, her hair in Afro puffs, a pink facemask covering her beard. Benjamin Bradshaw, photographed in September, three months after accusations of racism and unfair hiring upended her career (Shea Couleé) VH1 (Lucy Stoole) Guys and Queens Photography (The Vixen) Adam Ouahmane (T Rex) Dennis Elliot
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Above:At left, Shea Couleé, Lucy Stoole, and the Vixen at right, T Rex, a.k.a.