In a world ruled by Queens, what is it like to be a king? A Drag King, that is. With reality shows like RuPaul’s drag race skyrocketing the art of drag into the popular consciousness over the last decade and a half, drag queens seem to be everywhere, but what about the kings?

Drag Kings, as the name suggests, are typically cisgender women, transgender men or non-binary individuals who perform in masculine drag. Drag is commonly defined as the art of heightened gender performance, but for the vast majority of people, the first association is with Drag Queens as opposed to Kings. Many drag shows will be mostly queens on the bill, with maybe one King performing if you’re lucky- and you would be lucky! Though there may not be as many Drag kings on the scene, Kings typically bring an entirely different flavour to their performances. “I am yet to watch a drag show where I think ‘Wow, this isn’t entertaining’” says aspiring Drag King, Count Strapula.

For kings, being creative and clever about expressing masculinity is half the fun and a whole challenge of its own. In the same way that a masculine presenting person wearing a skirt is still socially considered more subversive than a feminine person wearing trousers, Queens are often assumed to be more sensational or entertaining than Kings. But hold the fuck up, that is not inherently the case. From unhinged bits about Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual development to the most suave lip synchs you’ll ever see, you never know what you’re going to get with kings, but you know it’ll be brilliant.
Strapula explained why Drag in a masculine form was more appealing to him as a performer; “As someone who’s AFAB (assigned female at birth), it feels a lot more experimental- I wasn’t looking for something that was subversive to a crowd, I was looking for something that was subversive to me.”. Count Strapula also emphasized that though there’s far less representation of drag kings in the media, both the drag community and LGBTQ+ community are incredibly supportive of Drag Kings. He says he’s never encountered any explicit bias towards Kings and that every Drag Queen they’ve spoken to about entering the New Zealand drag scene has spoken to them with as much care, support, and respect as they would to an aspiring Queen.

Kings are certainly on the rise, with Drag Kings coming out on top of TV Drag competition shows such as Landon Cider on Dragula (Season 3) and Hugo Grrrl on Aotearoa’s own House of Drag (Season 1). King of Drag is also set to become the first reality TV competition show featuring only Drag Kings later this year. Despite this, RuPaul’s Drag Race has yet to cast any Drag Kings on the show, a controversial and highly debated choice. Some say that it would be unfair to kings to shove them into a preexisting show which is designed for Queens, while others insist that because Drag Race is the most popular Drag TV show by far, they have a responsibility to represent more than one form of drag, such as Kings.

Moral of the story? Support local drag and support drag kings so that hopefully, we see just as many Kings celebrated and successful as we do Drag Queens, because both are brilliantly talented and wickedly funny. And RuPaul? Maybe it’s time to get a King-centered spinoff…