The French drag queen Nicky Doll at a Hollywood premiere in December 2025. MONICA SCHIPPER/GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP
To go further
Can a subculture become popular without compromising its values? In 1888, William Dorsey Swann, a freed slave and the first “queen of drag,” was sentenced to ten months in prison for organizing one of the first underground “balls” in the U.S. capital, where people dressed up extravagantly. Over a century and a half later, in 2024, Nicky Doll, Paloma, and Piche, stars of the reality TV show “Drag Race France” (France 2), were honored during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games.
Shows, corporate seminars, team building activities, bingo games, children’s story readings… Drag has now become mainstream entertainment, integrated into pop culture. Not without causing a reactionary moral panic, fueled by transphobia, from the right and far-right.
