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Yes, Chappell Roan is a drag queen—and yes, women can do drag
Chappell Roan performing 'Pink Pony Club' on 'Saturday Night Live.'
Chappell Roan's stint as the musical guest of Saturday Night Live has started an online discourse between people questioning whether or not she's a drag queen.
For the past year, Chappell Roan has been organically becoming one of the biggest pop stars in the world with the success of her pop-perfect debut album, The Rise and Fall of the Midwest Princess; her standout live sets at music festivals such as Bonnaroo, Coachella, and Lollapalooza; the explosive success of "Good Luck, Babe!" as a new queer anthem; and her televised performances at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the 2024 Music Video Awards, and Saturday Night Live.
This year, Roan was also honored at the 2024 Out100 as a "Disruptor" and received praise from RuPaul's Drag Race season 15 winner Sasha Colby.
"Chappell Roan's music is a bold, vulnerable, yet fearless expression of unapologetic authenticity and true talent," Sasha Colby told Out, "serving as a reminder that the voices and stories of the LGBTQ+ community inspire us all to live courageously and unapologetically."
Alas, Roan's appearance as the musical guest in the Monday, November 4 episode of SNL still opened the floodgates to a ridiculous discourse filled with comments that could be interpreted as being hateful, dismissive, ill-informed, and/or disrespectful.
Post by @theonecrazykidView on Threads
While Roan has been overwhelmingly praised for her Saturday Night Live debut, there are always people who will find something negative to say. Unfortunately, for Roan, this trend of overly criticizing pop stars for everything they say and do has been even worse, particularly for such an up-and-coming artist.
One particular Threads post shared on Sunday, November 3 has been standing out for asking if Roan is a drag queen or is "just trying to emulate drag culture." Threads original poster @theonecrazykid wrote:
"As someone not familiar with Chappell Roan, aside from hearing a couple of her songs that are popular with my 16 yr olds, I have a question. I saw her on SNL last night - is she a drag queen? Or is she just trying to emulate drag culture?"
At face level, this Threads post could've just been an earnest, genuine question that a (very) misinformed parent asked in order to learn more. However, a swarm of negative comments quickly dominated the replies section and revealed that the original poster apparently had no idea cisgender women could do female-presenting drag. Moreover, many vicious responses criticizing Roan just went unchecked for a long time.
Thankfully, some people have now been engaging in the replies section to defend Roan, clap back at certain questionable remarks, and answer a few seemingly well-meaning "questions." With all that back and forth, this Threads post has reached 212,000 views as of this writing.
No, Chappell Roan isn't straight; she identifies as a lesbian.
In March 2023, the singer — whose real name is Kayleigh — discussed her queer awakening in an interview with Teen Vogue, explaining that Chappell Roan is "the outlet for Kayleigh's fantasies, the fantasies of a queer girl who grew up in the kind of Christian conservatism that shapes a whole town."
Roan subsequently updated fans on her sexual orientation while performing at a concert in June 2024 — during Pride Month, of all the months! "Some sh*t changed," the pop star declared. "But, b*tch, I hope you're happy, 'cause I'm a lesbian now!"
Yes, Chappell Roan is a drag queen who has been expressing herself through this art form for many years. Even before she was famous, Roan deliberately chose to feature local drag artists in many of her concerts — a practice that she still follows to this day.
Through various different interviews, performances, references, and connections, Roan has immersed herself in drag culture as she grew her career as a pop star. In case you still didn't know this: singers can be drag artists. In fact, there are several of them all around the world, in and outside hit TV shows like RuPaul's Drag Race.
Roan is a cisgender woman whose artistry involves music and drag. She's also been officially adopted by Sasha Colby as her drag mother — which prompted Colby to introduce Roan's first-ever performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Cisgender women can absolutely do drag, and that means any drag! Though we understand that some people still think of drag as "men presenting as women" (or "women presenting as men"), those standards and ideals are just generally more popular, or commonly accepted, in mainstream media. However, that's never been a rule set in stone.
Drag has existed as an art form since the early days of performance art for an audience. And while many drag performers have treated drag as an opportunity to express themselves in a different gender, that is just one genre and interpretation within a much larger umbrella.
Cisgender women can be drag queens. Cisgender men can be drag kings. Trans people can do drag, too. And if you go a bit deeper, you'll find various drag entertainers who aren't even defined by any gender constructs. On The Boulet Brothers' Dragula, for instance, many contestants refer to themselves as drag monsters, which supersedes any gender marker.
Victoria Scone, cast in the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, became the first-ever cisgender woman to compete in the franchise (as a drag queen). In 2023, the first-ever season of Drag Race Germany crowned Pandora Nox, who became the franchise's first-ever cisgender woman to win the show.
Considering that gender is not a binary, any kind of person can do any kind of drag without necessarily having to assign labels to the persona that emerges from an artistic expression.
Chappell Roan sang "Pink Pony Club" during her first performance on SNL, which is one of the most popular songs from The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
In a few words, the "Pink Pony Club" lyrics tell the story of a girl from the Midwest visiting a gay club in Los Angeles and finding herself (as well as a community) in that glamorous, welcoming, and safe space. Even though Roan doesn't reference The Abbey in the lyrics, she's gone on record to say that she was inspired by that particular gay club when writing "Pink Pony Club."
The second performance delivered by Chappell Roan on SNL was "The Giver," a brand-new song that still doesn't have a set release date announced by the singer. The song, which took fans completely by surprise, has a country quality to it and includes pretty straightforward lyrics that further evidence Roan's queer identity.
According to an interview from October 2024 with producer Dan Nigro for The New York Times, "The Giver" is one of the songs they've worked on for Roan's upcoming sophomore album.
The Giver
― Chappell Roan – The Giver
The lyrics to "The Giver" by Chappell Roan reaffirm the pop star's queerness and explore her experiences being the "giver," a.k.a. the "top," of a sexual encounter.
"The Goner" lyrics include verses like, "I know the boys may need a map, but I can close my eyes and have you wrapped around my fingers like that." The song's chorus goes, "You ain't got to tell me; it's just in my nature. So, take it like a taker, 'cause baby, I'm a giver. Ain't no need to help me, 'cause baby I deliver… ain't no country boy quitter. I get the job done. I get the job done."
The song also has an iconic bridge where Roan issues a fair warning to any guys trying to compete with her. "All you country boys saying you know how to treat a woman right?" she teases. "Only a woman knows how to treat a woman right. She gets the job done!"
The full lyrics to "The Giver" are already available on Genius.
Chappell Roan's second studio album is expected to drop in 2025. As of this writing, however, there's still no clear timeline for that project to be released. But we do have clues!
Given that she's still going to campaign with songs from The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess at award shows, it is unlikely for Roan's next project to be released before the 2025 Grammy Awards. It would actually make sense for her to announce the title and release date of that sophomore album during the Grammy Awards, as many artists have done in the past.
In September 2024, Bowen Yang did a sketch during the Weekend Update segment of Saturday Night Live where he impersonated the world-famous hippo Moo Deng. During the sketch, Moo Deng (as played by Yang) complained about becoming too famous and used references that sounded similar to things Chappell Roan had said during her videos discussing her struggles with fame and success.
Certain fans took issue with the sketch and interpreted that Yang — and Saturday Night Live itself — were "making fun" of Roan. However, that wasn't the case at all. The comedian promptly shut down those accusations, and it didn't take long for different publications — such as Out — to report on several statements from Yang declaring himself a fan of Chappell Roan and saying that it is absolutely fair for her to be delineating certain boundaries with her fans.
As this Saturday, November 2 episode of SNL came to an end, Yang and Roan stood right in front holding hands together and exchanging friendly looks between them. Many viewers felt that this was a lovely moment between two queer people on a TV show that is almost entirely populated by straight performers.
Moreover, fans who knew about these accusations involving Yang and Roan felt like this moment officially buried the hatchet for anyone who might still be under the impression that they didn't have a lovely relationship as queer peers in showbiz.
You can listen to Chappell Roan's debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, on all music streaming platforms.
Bernardo Sim is the deputy editor of Out, as well as a writer and content creator. Born in Brazil, he currently lives in South Florida. You can follow him on Instagram at @bernardosim.
Bernardo Sim is the deputy editor of Out, as well as a writer and content creator. Born in Brazil, he currently lives in South Florida. You can follow him on Instagram at @bernardosim.
