Local Queen Candace Persuasian Takes The BSU Stage!
As spring break gets closer and closer, students are getting excited about Bristaco’s Bucket List events, one of the most popular of which is the drag show! This year, we have a national queen, local queens, and newly added, a student queen! One of the local queens from Boston, Candace Persuasian (she/her), sat for an interview with The Comment!
Candace Persuasian, a trans woman and drag queen, has been doing drag for about seven years. She describes her drag as “pretty, sparkly” and “anything pink.” She takes a lot of inspiration from the talent and artistry of artists like Beyonce and Doja Cat. However, her trans identity is also an inspiration, as she explained that during performances she tends “to make sure that my message around “trans is beautiful” is displayed or shared.” She was also the recipient of the Gunner Scott Trans Excellence Award in 2022.
When speaking about her trans identity in relation to her drag, Candace expressed that “drag has definitely helped me open up the conversation about transness before I transitioned…I think once I started to do drag I kind of faced, like, all the internalized transphobia, homophobia, and like, femmephobia…drag has definitely allowed me to share a lot of art with a message, such as making sure that people are aware that you can be trans or you can be any gender you want and still do drag and still have fun with it.” While this is an important part of her drag, she’s passionate about the subject in her personal life as well.
“I was formally employed at Mass General Hospital as a trans health coordinator, which pretty much means I was the bridge between primary care at Mass General in our trans health department,” reminisced Candace. She continued, explaining that “a lot of…the healthcare system is such a gatekeeping system for trans bodies, so having someone like me who is a part of that community, helping other people from my community…it is important for us to have that because then you have someone who just understands you and understands your experience.”
As a local queen, Candace performs in and around Boston!
“The Boston drag scene is very diverse. We have an abundance of different drag performers. Shout out to, like, traditional drag, like the glamour, like what we think of when we think of drag queens, but we also have an amazing community of drag kings, nonbinary performers, and people who- I don’t want to say alternative cause it seems like it’s negative, but people who venture out into different things and who find their own drag.” said Candace.
Despite that, Candace continued to say that Boston is not a night-life city anymore, which can be a detriment to drag performers. While she believes that Boston is more of a “brunch city” now, there are still queer night venues throughout the greater Boston area, and that “there’s drag in every single pocket of Massachusetts.”
You can find Candace @candacepersuasian on Instagram and in the RSU Auditorium on March 23rd!
