The International Drag Day is an annual event on July 16 that aims to celebrate and recognize the Drag art all around the world. [1]
The International Drag Day was founded by Adam Stewart in 2009 through his fan page for Drag queens on Facebook, [2] with a main objective to provide Drag artists with the space to expose their creativity and culture in a proper way. [1] In an interview Guidetogay.com, Adam describes the event saying:
"International Drag Day is a day where all around the world on every gay scene we take this opportunity to celebrate and thank the drag artists that add so much to gay life and culture. This is the reason I launched this concept. I saw that there was no such day or event on an international platform in which we celebrated drag artists." [2]
In 2017's edition, the BBC's weatherman Owain Wyn Evans gives drag queen-themed forecast and pays tribute to drag queens and RuPaul's Drag Race as a way to show support for the celebration. [3]
In addition to the artistic shows and performances, the event hosts discussions and debates about the Drag artists rights and situation in different countries, the role of the Drag community in the LGBT movement, feminism and other topics by sharing experiences from daily life. [4]
Guidetogay.com was the main media partner for the annual celebration back in 2009 as one of its biggest channels to communicate the concept and spread it worldwide.
Feast of Fun, the Chicago based talk show, helped promoting the event also by ensuring a podcast where Fausto Fernós, Marc Felion and the drag queen Elysse Giovani discuss the activities held.
In Australia, the Stonewall Hotel was a big logistic partner for one of the editions and hosted a huge event to celebrate the day. [2]
Also in Australia, local LGBTIQ+ publication, A Modern Gay's Guide [5] covered the activities happening across the Pacific to support and celebrate, including the aforementioned Stonewall Hotel event. [2]
A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and have been a part of gay culture.
Sylvia Rivera was an American gay liberation and transgender rights activist who was also a noted community worker in New York. Rivera, who identified as a drag queen for most of her life and later as a transgender person, participated in demonstrations with the Gay Liberation Front.
An AFAB queen, diva queen or hyper queen is a drag queen who is a woman, or a non-binary person who was assigned female at birth. These performers are generally indistinguishable from the more common male or transgender female drag queens in artistic style and techniques.
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. The largest pride parade and the largest pride event in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June, and carries spiritual and historical significance for the worldwide LGBTQIA+ community and its advocates. Entertainer Madonna stated in 2024, "Aside from my birthday, New York Pride is the most important day of the year." The route through Lower Manhattan traverses south on Fifth Avenue, through Greenwich Village, passing the Stonewall National Monument, site of the June 1969 riots that launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
In gay slang, queen is a term used to refer to a flamboyant or effeminate gay man. The term can either be pejorative or celebrated as a type of self-identification.
Atlanta Pride, also colloquially called the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival, is a week-long annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) pride festival held in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1971, it is one of the oldest and largest pride festivals in the United States. According to the Atlanta Pride Committee, as of 2017, attendance had continually grown to around 300,000. Originally held in June, Atlanta Pride has been held in October every year since 2008, typically on a weekend closest to National Coming Out Day.
Nea Marshall Kudi Ngwa, better known by his stage name BeBe Zahara Benet, is a Cameroonian-American drag performer, television personality, and musician best known for winning the first season of the reality-television drag competition RuPaul's Drag Race in 2009. In 2018, he returned as a surprise contestant for the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars, placing in the top four.
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Miz Cracker is the stage name of Maxwell Elias Heller, an American drag queen and television personality. He is best known for placing fifth on the tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race and for being a runner-up on the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars.
Owain Wyn Evans is a Welsh broadcaster and drummer. He is a BBC Radio 2 DJ and TV presenter, and previously a weather presenter on BBC Look North, North West Tonight and BBC Breakfast. Evans is also a regular item presenter for the television magazine and chat show programme The One Show.
Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was a series of LGBTQ events and celebrations in June 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots. It was also the first time WorldPride was held in the United States. Held primarily in the metropolitan New York City area, the theme for the celebrations and educational events was "Millions of moments of Pride." The celebration was the largest LGBTQ event in history, with an official estimate of 5 million attending Pride weekend in Manhattan alone, with an estimated 4 million in attendance at the NYC Pride March. The twelve-hour parade included 150,000 pre-registered participants among 695 groups.
Reclaim Pride Coalition is a coalition of LGBT groups and individuals that initially gathered in New York City in 2019 to create the Queer Liberation March in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots and to protest the commercialization of LGBT Pride events. The following year, in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, the coalition organized the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives & Against Police Brutality.
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The New York City Drag March, or NYC Drag March, is an annual drag protest and visibility march taking place in June, the traditional LGBTQ pride month in New York City. Organized to coincide ahead of the NYC Pride March, both demonstrations commemorate the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn, widely considered the pivotal event sparking the gay liberation movement, and the modern fight for LGBTQ rights.
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