Maxine LaQueene is not here to make anyone comfortable. For her, drag is more than performance—it’s resistance. It’s standing up to a world that would rather pretend trans and queer people don’t exist. “Trans people have existed for centuries,” she says bluntly. “Just because we’re out of sight doesn’t mean we’re out of mind.” In an era where drag and gender identity are under relentless attack, Maxine exposes the contradictions in the rhetoric used against her community. “You can’t police whether a child is at a drag show or not. Meanwhile, they’re doing nothing about gun reform. It’s hypocrisy.” Maxine doesn’t shy away from tough conversations, nor does she sugarcoat her expectations: if you enjoy queer art, you need to show up for the people creating it. “We are not a commodity for your entertainment.” Her message is clear: drag isn’t just art—it’s survival, it’s activism, and it’s a reminder that the fight for visibility is far from over.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Drag performer, trans community, queer community, gender identification, transsexual, drag queen, legislation, Texas Senate Bill 12, drag shows, advocacy, misinformation, political developments, affordable therapy, community leader, education.

SPEAKERS

Maxine LaQueene, Night Owl Therapy

Night Owl Therapy

I'll ask you questions, anything you're not comfortable with answering, like that's okay. We can skip over it.

Maxine LaQueene

No, I'm happy to answer everything, baby.

Night Owl Therapy

Maxine, thank you so much for meeting with me today on such short notice.

Maxine LaQueene

Of course.

Night Owl Therapy

For those who aren't aware of who you are in the community, what would you say is your role in Austin? Tell us a little bit about your background?

Maxine LaQueene

Yeah, of course. So, I would say my role in Austin, in the community, well, there's a lot of things. Honestly, I try to be somebody who does a little bit of everything. So not just a drag performer, but, you know, a fierce advocate for the trans community and the queer community, and to kind of be a bridge between different parts of our community. You know, like I said, I don't really fit into one place. At least I try not to, because I feel like that limits our representation, if we just stick to what parameters we are set to. I really try to do a little bit of everything. I try to be a community leader. I try to be an educator, especially right now, with as much misinformation and blatant attacks on not just trans people, but all minorities. It feels like we're being heavily watched and honestly attacked just for our existence. So sometimes you have to educate. So, I try to do everything you know, an educator, a performer, an advocate.

Night Owl Therapy

Speaking of education, could you let our readers know a little bit about what is the difference between a trans gender transsexual and a drag queen?

Maxine LaQueene

Oh, absolutely. So, I'm going to use scientific terminology. I'm not using terminology that our administration is trying to procure others into believing. I'm going to use the facts. When you're speaking about somebody who is transgender, the word gender that has to do with their gender identification, not the sex that they were born with. So, for someone who is transgender, that's somebody who does not identify with the gender that they were given at birth. That can be somebody who is trans feminine, you know, somebody who doesn't agree with the masculine presenting gender. So then, when you talk about transsexual that has "sex" in it, so that's based on more biological and less psychological. I always say gender is psychological. Gender has to do with how we identify ourselves in the brain. Transsexual, that's more. That's going to be more medical that's going to be more those in the trans community tend to identify as transsexual are usually older, you know, 40s and 50s, and that's because that's of sex. So, somebody who identifies as a transsexual woman is somebody who will more than likely go under, you know, the medical procedures to change the sex that they were born with, not so much the gender you know, not so much again, not so much psychological. That's more biological and more physical, and then a drag queen has nothing to do with either of those. So, drag is a self expression. It is an art form. So, a drag queen is, in my mind, this is how I define it, a drag queen is anybody who let me, let me think about how I want to word it. A drag queen is somebody who presents feminine. But what's the word here? You know, I the form exaggerates the divine feminine. The Queen role in drag is a feminine role. So, I always say, you know an entertainer who participates in the art form of drag, you know, when they present feminine and and female and Queen and royalty, very much, what I do that's feminine, that's divine feminine. That's the Goddess. You know, we have drag kings. We have drag things. We have drag entertainers. You know, people that put on drag, which is just, you know, an exaggeration of, you know, everyday human clothes, everyday mentality. It's, it's an exaggeration, it's a hyperbole. Does that make sense? That makes

Night Owl Therapy

So, would you say, then the drag, the legislation against drag is different than legislation against transgender persons? 

Maxine LaQueene

Well, the problem is that legislation and lawmakers are trying to group drag with being trans, or everyone who does drag is therefore, you know, a transperson, transsexual, transvestite, whatever you want to categorize that as, and they're not. That's not, no, that's not the case. I mean, I know of plenty of drag entertainers, drag queen specifically, who identify as men outside of drag. They dress in drag. They exaggerate the feminine, right? They their art form is feminine. It is for them. You know, that's their gender expression through drag. But that doesn't make them trans. That's just, again, a form of expression.

Night Owl Therapy

What is the legislation that is causing hardship within Texas as far as drag is concerned.

Maxine LaQueene

So, the problem with legislation that we're seeing, you know, we saw two years ago, and we're seeing it again with regards to drag performers, it affects trans people even more because word, the wording, it's always the wording, it's how they write these bills. And a lot of these bills relate those who engage in drag as somebody who is engaging in an identity that does not fit the one that they were given at birth. So, the identity, the sex that matches your birth certificate, does not line up with how drag entertainers express themselves. Okay, I'm I was born male at birth, right? I don't identify as male, so the problem with legislation is that if you don't identify with the sex that you were given at birth, this law will affect you. You can be persecuted; therefore, you can be attacked, and all that negativity that comes from it doesn't just affect drag, and that's where you find a lot of overlap between the drag community and the trans community. We have to fight together because, you know, some people might not even realize these bills that target the drag community also affects trans people.

Night Owl Therapy

So, I wanted to just draw from a recent experience I had with a book club. We're reading a book called "Mad Honey" that talks a lot about trans issues. And in it, the protagonist asked a character, who is an older trans person, several questions to better understand their experience. The protagonist was met with hostility. The trans person said, "It's not my job to educate you". So, what I would ask is, what do you think of that interaction, and how would you have handled it?

Maxine LaQueene

I agree it's not my job to educate every single person in America. You can understand it is very clear the difference between somebody who is uneducated, but wants to learn, versus somebody who is ignorant and does not care to be educated. I always say ignorant can be fixed, stupidity cannot. So, when you come across somebody, and they're saying it's not my job to educate you, I agree with that sentiment, because I would lose my mind if I had to be the educator for every single person. That's not to say that as a trans community leader, if you will, I kind of take on that role, because I have the wherewithal and I have the intuition to be able to have these conversations. So, I'm happy to speak with others and educate them. But that's not every trans person. That's not everyone's existence. Everyone's not comfortable being physically and and publicly, loud and proud. Does that make sense? 

Night Owl Therapy

Yes. They say once you met one trans person, you've met one trans person. 

Maxine LaQueene

Exactly. So, I always tell people, you can't make sweeping accusations for an entire community based on one person's opinion.

Night Owl Therapy 

So, what would you say to people, to a person who is trying to advocate for you and just doesn't know where to start?

Maxine LaQueene

Well, we have these lovely little things called cellular devices. Many smartphones that have this thing called Google. So, I always tell people before you start asking ignorant questions, or if you have a question, and you're not sure to ask because you don't know if it's disrespectful or not, I would ask Google first. It's not difficult. Like I said, we all have smartphones. You can get on your smartphone and look up how to acknowledge somebody who's trans. You can look up how to use pronouns for somebody. It begins with you. I'm not here to educate everybody, but I'm happy to do so after you've taken the initiative to begin that journey yourself, it's not a difficult thing to use social media and Google and websites to begin your own advocacy work. I've had conversations with people that have said, "I'm new to being a political advocate", or "I'm new to advocacy work... I want to show up for the trans community, but I just don't know how to." I always say, we have resources, dozens of resources, available. You know, Equality Texas, Educational Network of Texas, has resources for people to educate themselves, even at the simplest level, and that allows them the opportunity to open that door to conversations. If you say, "Well, I don't know anything," and therefore that's it. Well, then nothing's gonna happen. You're not going to learn. You know, trans community leaders and advocates aren't going to want to work with you, because you're not open to learning. Does that make sense? That makes sense. So, how have recent political developments such as President Trump's executive orders defining gender strictly as male or female, impacted your experience the past few days as a drag performer? It's kind of funny. So, after they signed this order, the White House administration put out an official document...and I find right wing conservatives, their own incompetence will be their own undoing... They go to define male sex and female sex at conception, you know, defined by the sperm or the egg cell... But right at conception, we're all female, like we're all physically female, then through development in utero is when the the ovaries will drop and become testes, but we all start as female like as a gamete in utero. And it's hilarious, because this is the whole thing about science versus opinion. If you look at science and how humans are developed and how that works, it's them shooting themselves in the foot. Does that make sense? Look into it yourself. Google it. I tell everyone. I just told my father and my mom this last night on the phone. They were like, "So are you a boy again?" No, that's not how that works, no. And just because our administration doesn't want to acknowledge trans people again doesn't mean we don't exist. Trans people have existed --for centuries. We have been repressed --for centuries. People have ignored our existence, but just because it's out of sight does not mean it is out of mind. Thank you for sharing that. In light of Texas Senate Bill 12, which aims to restrict certain drag performances, how do you foresee the future drag shows and their acceptance in Austin? It's not going to stop. They tried doing this two years ago, Senate Bill 14. They tried doing the exact same thing that they're doing now. They're trying to ban drag in Texas, where minors are present, but they've added to this one, this one, they've said you can basically...it's like bounty hunting, if you will. So should a show happen with a minor present, people will then have the right to report that and and a lawsuit would be underway, and a fine for that drag performance could be upwards of $5,000, but how do you police this? It goes against the Constitution. Yet again, you're you're taking away self expression, because that's what drag is. It is expression. It is work. We got that Bill blocked two years ago. I have no doubt in my mind this one will get blocked again, because it is still unconstitutional. You can't police whether a child is at a drag show or not. What you can do is communicate with the parent and allow them the control of whether or not their kid goes to a show. How would you say the Austin drag scene differs from others in Texas or across the country? Well, Austin is the capital of Texas, so we have to be vigilant, and we have to be on the front line. And I think drag in Austin represents that, because we are the first line of education of fighting back against tyranny and anti trans legislation. So, a lot of my friends who are drag entertainers are politically activated. They are educated on what is happening. And I find, when we show up to legislation, we show up to the capital and we show up to a rally and get our community together, Austin is the quickest to show up because we're local, because we're the capital of Texas, so we have to be the first ones to get information out for other entertainers in different parts of the state to show up as well. That's how drag should be in Austin.

Night Owl Therapy

How can you how do you address misconceptions about drag culture that might be perpetuated by political figures or media outlets?

Maxine LaQueene

You gotta take it with a grain of salt. They're they're not speaking based on fact. They are trying to perpetuate fact based on opinion. And that's not the case. That's not drag. That's not the truth that that we create, that's not the truth that we show people in our performances. Drag is an art form. Drag is self love. Drag is being able to look adversity in the face and say, "This is who I am. This is me. No matter what you say or what you do, I know my truth". And so, for me, I when I starting this year off with seeing what's gonna happen, we see the foundation being laid out for more negativity to be thrown at our community. And what I do is I get online, I post what I have to post, I educate, I inform the people around me, and then I turn it off, and I log off. I turn my notifications on all social media apps off. I only check what's happening when I'm online, and that's to protect my peace. If I just lived chronically online and saw every headline of what people are saying about queer people, about minorities, about black people, brown people, immigrants, everything. If I saw all of that, I'd lose my mind. Everybody would. This is not a healthy world that we're living in. We're living in a world, in a country that is run by people who are creating headlines for attention. If we were worried about the collective human population, instead of Trump and his inauguration, talking about the US policy will be that there is only one gender for male and one gender for female, and that's it. I'm more worried about, well, what about the fires in LA? What are you doing to stop those or to stop them from happening in the future? You know? What steps are you taking to actually care about Americans and those who've lost their lives, or immigrant families being deported even though they are documented, you know what I mean, right? It's clearly hypocrisy. It's hypocritical to watch them say we care about children in front of drag queens, but we're not doing anything about gun reform. And there have been how many shootings already this year, right? Like its hypocrisy is what we're watching. So, you have to take it with a grain of salt. We have to develop a thick skin, because all they want is for us to respond or to retaliate or to call them out on their hypocrisy, so they can say, "Oh, look at the liberals. Look at the Democrats. Look, how they're treating us. Look, they're so mean. They're treating us differently." How dare they, when in reality, they're the ones causing the problem. You can only worry about yourself. You can only worry about your circle of influence. If you worry about what's happening in the world all day every day, you're going to lose your mind, right?

Night Owl Therapy

So, what would you say to your own community about what they can do to take care of themselves? 

Maxine LaQueene

Therapy. Log off.

Night Owl Therapy

We have $40 therapy here for y'all.

Maxine LaQueene

Exactly. Affordable therapy. I know plenty of resources for affordable therapy, if not free. For those who can't afford it, log off. Don't watch the headlines all day every day. You're just going to make it worse for yourself. Take time to say, I know what's happening in the world, but now I'm going to worry about myself. I'm going to protect my peace. I noticed sometimes in some of your your shows, you say "Fuck Greg Abbott". Given the divisiveness of the climate, do you feel like you might potentially be alienating potential advocates? Oh, I mean, I have different ways of getting people to speak up, and the most important thing when I tell people say "drag is not a crime, trans lives matter, black lives matter. Fuck Greg Abbott, fuck Donald Trump," all those things. The reason that I'm doing that is to see if I can physically watch my audience at a show and see those who are confident in being an advocate, not just having a good time at a show. I've had people at at my brunches on Saturday. I've had people that are having a great time, and they're, you know, boomers, they're the older generations having a great time. And then the second I say all right now everybody say, "Fuck Donald Trump". They've gotten up and left, and I've said, "Good riddance," because I don't need you at my show. You don't get the advantage of queer art if you are not going to show up to fight for that. You don't get to experience the joy of drag if you are not going to show up to fight for that community. We are not a commodity that is just here for your entertainment. So, you would ask, does it alienate anybody? If it does, that's on them. That's not on me. All I'm doing is giving people the chance to speak up for my community, and if you do, I praise you and I thank you for doing. If you're too afraid to say trans lives matter, or say fuck Donald Trump, that lets me know where that person's character is, if that makes sense., it doesn't have to be a Donald Trump. What I want the takeaway for the reasoning that I say this at my shows is that it gives people the opportunity to be an advocate themselves.