San Francisco drag icon Heklina — named after the Icelandic volcano Hekla — became known for her notorious drag shows in the city, now known as Mother. Including “everything from lowbrow trash to highbrow performance art,” Heklina has taken her shows around the world. She has been the subject of three documentaries, appeared on E!, The Daily Show, and Good Morning America, among others, as well as in the Scissor Sisters music video for “Filthy Gorgeous.” Heklina co-owns the Oasis cabaret in San Francisco, which regularly features drag performers from Drag Race and beyond. She and Peaches Christ regularly work together, and you can see them in “Mommie Queerest,” a stage play of the film Mommie Dearest, at the Oasis later this month.

BibleGirl

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Self-described “internet reality trash” and “Kween of Meme,” raconteur and drag queen BibleGirl is also the founder of DragQueenMerch.com. Inspired by the internet culture that developed in the days of MySpace, she founded the site after leveraging her online fame, and now partners with Hot Topic to sell merch from your favorite queens (Ru Girls and not) in their stores. BibleGirl created a video game, “BibleGirl’s Big Apple” to promote her work as well, and she stars in the lyric video for pop singer Allie X’s “Casanova.”

DragQueenMerch.com has been a regular presence at DragCon, and BibleGirl keeps coming back because “you just can't keep a good business bitch down!” she says. Not to mention it thrills her to meet parents who bring their children to the event. “Being able to level with adults who may not be familiar with or even sure how to react towards drag is really important to me, as is hearing a broad range of journey-to-acceptance stories for families who have queer kids. I personally feel that any amount of conversation with adults who are new to the drag lifestyle can help grant perspective and normalize the craft, or help set the stage for dialogue down the road for parents and kids at the very least.”

Elyssa Goodman is a New York-based writer and photographer. Her work has appeared in VICE, Billboard, Vogue, Vanity Fair, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, ELLE, and now, very happily, them. If you’re in New York, feel free to visit her monthly Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading Series.

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