EXPLORING THE SPIRITUALITY OF DRAG +
EXPLORING THE SPIRITUALITY OF DRAG +
This is a live recording of the podcast Queerly Beloved featuring Wil Fisher interviewing Bonnie Violet, a trans femme genderqueer spiritual drag artist, identity doula and digital chaplain. She's also the host of the podcasts Drag & Spirituality and TranSpirit & Faith Leaders and the creator of the Drag & Spirituality Summit. Bonnie Violet shares her experience of strength and hope with HIV, recovering from drugs, alcohol, and sexual assault among other things in classrooms, community centers, churches, online and pretty much anywhere they’ll let her. As, a queer chaplain, she is present with people in death and dying to self by helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.
In this episode we discuss what ethereal drag means to her and what her journey was like to become Bonnie. We explore how a self-discovery journey is often a gradual step by step process but that it doesn’t occur like that in that moment. Bonnie shares how her living in her trans identity is a spiritual awakening and we talk about the concept of quote “God or whatever.” Bonnie also shares how when she was abusing Drugs and alcohol, it was actually a falling into grace and not a falling from grace. Towards the end of the episode, we talk about the spirituality of drag and the parallels of traditional religious performances with drag performances. We go on to explore how drag can be shamanic in its nature, inviting people into liminal space and inviting them to expand out of the gender binary.