Maya | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Alex Mathew Kerala, India |
Alex Mathew, popularly known as Maya the Drag Queen or Mayamma [1] [2] is a drag queen from India. [3] [4] Alex started performing drag in 2014 at Jagriti, The Humming Tree, and gave many performances at Rangashankara, Opus and Alliance Franciase among others. [5] Alex is also an actor, singer, motivational speaker and a corporate employee. [6]
Alex was born and raised in Thiruvananthapuram. [7] Alex is one of the early drag artist of India who started performing drag in the city of Bangalore. [8] Mathew acknowledged he was queer in September 2014, and credits his mother for the courage to do so. [9] He was inspired by RuPaul and Bianca Del Rio. [2] He has promoted local cultural identity in the drag art form, performed in many places in India, given multiple TEDx talks, and conducting workshops. [1] Prasad Bidapa did a photo shoot with him in 2017. [3] As an activist, Mathew engages in the issues of gender and feminism. [9] [10] He has performed at live events, and hosted the talk show Chaaya with Maya, crediting Keshav Suri for the support to be Maya. [11]
Talking about the relationship with Bengaluru as a city of drag Alex said "“I had dressed up as Nagavalli (a character from the Malayalam movie Manichitrathazhu) for a fancy dress competition. The intention was not to win a prize; I just wanted to express my feminity.” Now, having been part of Bengaluru’s drag scene for about a decade, Bangalore has been very open to outsiders as well as new experiences.”. [12] Alex believed that the repealing of 377 was one of the key moment for kickstarting drag in India, Alex said "“We had very few people attending before. But post that, we saw an influx of crowds. Now people know that there are people like us. There is awareness,” he says when asked about the boom of Indian drag. [13]
Alex Methodology of drag is driven from the Indian pop culture and current politics of the society, Alex Said "I started performing drag in September 2014. The reason I started doing it was because it was fun, the idea of dressing up and entertaining people. But around that time, there was a 4-year-old girl child who was raped here in Bengaluru. Keeping this and Nirbhaya in my mind, I felt I had to make a change when it comes to individualism, gender equality, and feminism. In my own way. That’s when I created Mayamma, the drag queen, who is from Kuttanad. I started including messages in my performance and people liked it," [14] Alex Inaugurated a pride cafe in Bengaluru in Jan2023. [15]
Alex as Maya has been featured in a French documentary by Nickie Doll titled The Queer Explorer.
Alex came [16] out his family in a couple of months since his first performance. Speaking about his experience to come out to his mother Alex said "That day, my mother gave away the sari reluctantly because she couldn't approve of my drag identity," says Mathew, an artist manager who lives in the southern city of Bangalore. "Now she packs my suitcase whenever I step out of the city for performance. It took her three years to accept my drag identity and understand that I perform in a sari to break the gender stereotypes in this patriarchal world." [17]
Alex has faced a lot of discrimination due to their Malayali accent, he was trolled and subjected to bullying due to the same. Alex said " I admired my Malayali accent. And that’s when I came across this movie called Mrs. Doubtfire. Also, the Indianized version in Bollywood is Chachi 420. So that’s when I was like, if Robin Williams and Kamal Hassan can dress up as a woman I can do too. That’s how I started. After my first performance as Maya, I came out of the closet, as a queer man. Through Drag, I could express my femininity, and accentuate it a lot more on stage. It is a form of entertainment, it’s also some form of expression. And that is something which not many people from the LGBTQIA+ community have the chance to do." [18] [19]
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.
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.
India has a long and ancient tradition of culture associated with the LGBTQ community, with many aspects that differ markedly from modern liberal western culture.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of non-heterosexual conforming people of South Asian ancestry, who may identify as LGBTIQGNC, men who have sex with men, or related culturally-specific identities such as Hijra, Aravani, Thirunangaigal, Khwajasara, Kothi, Thirunambigal, Jogappa, Jogatha, or Shiva Shakti. The recorded history traces back at least two millennia.
Bangalore is a multicultural city and has experienced a dramatic social and cultural change with the advent of the liberalization and expansion of the information technology and business process outsourcing industries in India. With much expatriate population in the city, Bangalore is slightly more relaxed.
Hyderabad is a conservative city when it comes to LGBT rights, compared to other Indian Metros. But since it slowly started becoming the second IT-capital after Bangalore, there has been a continuous influx of people of all cultures from across India. In the past few years, there has been some increase in LGBT activism in Hyderabad, including pride marches of 2013 and 2014. Slowly, Top MNCs have been introducing LGBT friendly policies in their Hyderabad offices.
Good As You is a support and social group for LGBTQ people and others questioning their gender and sexuality in Bangalore. It started in 1994 and is one of the longest surviving groups that advocates equal rights for homosexuals and other gender and sexual minorities in Bangalore.
Sandhya Mendonca is an Indian writer, author, biographer, editor and publisher. Born in Bengaluru (Bangalore) in the state of Karnataka, India, she gained a BA in Economics, Political Science & Sociology from St. Joseph's College of Arts & Science and an MA in Political Science specialising in International Relations from Bangalore University. She has a Diploma in Public Relations from the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. She lives in Bengaluru.
Anwesh Kumar Sahoo is an Indian artist, blogger, writer, model, actor and a TEDx speaker. He was crowned Mr. Gay World India 2016, becoming the youngest winner of the crown at the age of 20. He represented India at the Mr. Gay World 2016 pageant held in Malta, Europe and made it to the Top 12. He is a recipient of the Troy Perry Award for compassionate activism, making him the first Indian to be honored with the award. He's a graduate in Electronics and Communication Engineering from IIIT Delhi, and secured a Master of Design degree from NIFT, New Delhi in 2020. Anwesh went on to work for Aristocrat Gaming as a Technical Artist, and is now pursuing a Master of Science at University College Cork.
Bengaluru Namma Pride March is a queer pride march that is held annually in the city of Bengaluru in Karnataka, India, since 2008. The march is organised by a coalition called Coalition for Sex Workers and Sexuality Minority Rights (CSMR). The pride march is preceded by a month of queer related events and activities.
Chennai International Queer Film Festival is a three-day LGBT- event that usually takes places on the last weekend of July as a part of the city's pride events. The main organizers are SAATHII and Orinam in partnership with Goethe-Institut, Chennai. The other volunteers include various community groups and NGOs, including Nirangal, East-West Center for Counselling, and RIOV. The last day is usually performances along with a panel discussion, usually to discuss and bring out the challenges faced by community members.
Venus Nadya Oshun, known professionally as Aja Miyake-Mugler or better mononymously as Aja, is an American rapper, reality television personality and drag queen best known for competing on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race and on the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars.
Akkai Padmashali is an Indian transgender activist, motivational speaker, and singer. For her work in activism, she has received the Rajyotsava Prashasti, the second highest civilian honor of the state of Karnataka, and an honorary doctorate from the Indian Virtual University for Peace and Education. She is also the first transgender person in Karnataka to register their marriage.
Kareem Khubchandani is a researcher, performance artist, and organizer. Khubchandani's research, teaching, and performance exists at the intersections between queer nightlife, global politics, ethnography, South Asian diaspora, and drag. Khubchandani performs in drag as LaWhore Vagistan, who interweaves storytelling, standup comedy, body art, theater, and digital media.
Sheldon Orlando McIntosh, known professionally as Tynomi Banks, is a Canadian drag queen. A staple of Toronto's queer nightlife scene since the 2010s, Tynomi Banks performed in drag for over a decade before competing on the first season of the reality competition television series Canada's Drag Race (2020) and later the second season of Canada's Drag Race: Canada vs. the World (2024).
Amrou Al-Kadhi is a British-Iraqi writer, drag performer, and filmmaker whose work primarily focuses on queer identity, cultural representation and racial politics. Al-Kadhi made a cameo appearance in the 2021 Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) film Venom: Let There Be Carnage as a temporary host of the title character.
Patruni Sastry, popularly known as Patruni Chidananda Sastry or Suffocated art Specimen is a Expressionist dancer, performance artist, visual artist, model and drag queen.
Ivanka Das is an Indian actress, dancer, choreographer, and model. She is known for her participation in the Indian reality television show Dance Deewane, the films Haddi and Ghoomer, as well as the Netflix series Bombay Begums.
Flawless Shade is the stage name of Tajh Jordan, an American drag performer and make-up artist based in Portland, Oregon. A former Miss Gay Oregon, Flawless Shade has been featured in campaigns by Adidas, GLAAD, and Top Level Design.
Prateek Sachdeva, better known as Betta Naan Stop, is an Indian drag queen, model, and dancer from India. Betta is the mainstream drag artist in the Indian LGBT Community. Prateek is one of the headliner performers at Lalit Group's Queer nightlife club chain, Kittysu.
 | This Indian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
