“That's wild that I’m now canon,” Sasha Colby says sitting before me. “It's so crazy!” She’s in head-to-toe Gucci, because of course she is, and she’s on a no sleep-bus-club-'nother club-'nother club-plane-next place press tour following her 38 years in-the-making crowning on the 15th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
According to her, this was all all by design — not just the win, but the timing of said win. After all, many wondered what had taken her and the show fifteen seasons to link up.
“I always think in decades,” she explains. “At 8, I knew I was queer. At 18, I transitioned. At 28, I won Miss Continental. Now, at 38, I won Drag Race. I'm really good at these decades. That's a blessing.” (Asked what she wants from 48: “EGOT,” she says with the kind of audacious laugh that is the aural equivalent of a wink of the eye.) There’s something all-knowing about her response. Suddenly, I’m running through the casting rolodex in my head, figuring we conquer Broadway first; Auntie Mame in Mame? No, she’s too young. Louise in Gypsy? Too old. Velma Kelly in Chicago? Yes, but she wouldn’t be Tony-eligible as a replacement. Back to the drawing board.
There’s a dignified stillness to Sasha Colby despite her stage persona being known for high-octane, leave-it-all-on-the-floor emotional excretion. “As a dancer who always needs to move, I’m now trying to perfect my stillness, too,” she explains. Not that I’m on the judging panel, but from my vantage point: perfection achieved.
I first had the privilege of watching Sasha perform Yebba’s “My Mind” in 2018 at Sasha Velour’s “Nightgowns” performance. I was warned about her in advance; told to prepare myself emotionally for what Colby was known to do. I prepared for splits, kicks and reveals. I got nothing of the sort. Instead, I was treated to Colby ringing dry her sponge of emotions and — in what is her most powerful gift, if I may say — conjuring a sense of healing for herself and for those of us watching.
So you are currently in the thick of the thing — the thing being winning this past season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Sometimes I interview someone who is known for something but they’re in an “off” beat, but you are in an “on” beat, and extremely so. When you zoom out of it all, how are you feeling in this moment when everyone wants your attention? Everyone’s giving you a lot of energy; how are you receiving that energy?
It's a lot of energy to take on. Can you imagine huge stars like Beyoncé with all that energy coming to them at all times? You have to definitely — I pulled away. I didn't go on my phone for the first two days after I won. Or social media for those first two days, because I just wanted to not get caught up in the congratulations; I needed it personal for me because it was a personal goal — although it was a big win for a lot of people in the community. But I just needed some perspective and to just walk around with my friends, get brunch and just be a human, because really, before the win, it's been like two years of preparing, doing [Drag Race], sitting on the fact that I can’t talk about it, all these things. And now it was just that relief. So [I needed] that moment, before the inevitable of being on that phone and lost to it.
I can imagine! I want to know when you first discovered Drag Race, because it’s been on for 15 years now and I know you're a fan of the show in addition to now being a winner of the show; you are a fan of the thing that you are now a part of the iconography of.
I watched from the first season. I remember the first episode of the first season with [guest judge] Bob Mackie. I was like, “This is the one!” It was great. I knew Nina Flowers because she would do [Miss] Continental. I knew her and loved her. And watching the stars being made for 14 seasons — my [drag] daughter [Kerri Colby] included (what a star!) — I'm so glad I get to be part of it now. It feels great.
You mention the pageant Miss Continental, which you are also a winner of. We hear a lot about the pageants on Drag Race because a lot of the girls that come on the show have previously competed in pageants in the past, but I don't think a lot of people actually know what the pageants entail.
Let's talk about it! I would kind of sum it up as Drag Race but in one night. So usually there's a bunch of categories; for Continental, there’s swimsuit, evening gown and talent. You have an interview section where you do group interviews with five other contestants to the judges board before you actually do the competition aspect. And then it gets narrowed down to the top five, and then you get an on-stage question and answer and then the best girl wins. It's based off of Miss America, Miss Universe — all those quintessential cis things that we weren't allowed to participate in so we made it our own. Especially Continental, for me, was very attractive because it was very trans-forward. So many trans girls had won, so it just affirmed what I already knew about myself being trans and then wanting to be a performer and really, a kid from Hawaii that probably would never be able to get out of Hawaii. But thank goodness for my queerness and my drag. Back when there was no Drag Race, you had to run a pageant in order to get a booking, in order to be a working drag queen, so that was the perfect jumping-off point.
How did you first discover the world of pageants, even before you knew you wanted to participate?
I already loved Miss Universe. I remember, as a little one, watching Brooke Lee, who was Miss Hawaii and then won Miss USA and then Miss Universe. I remember watching it with boys at a sleepover and I'm just, like, living. [Laughs] Like, “I’m watching this for different reasons.” But as far as the drag pageants, Hawaii was really big with Continental. They loved the Continental system and the legends that it made. So me and my best friend would have — in VHS times, for real VHS — the Best of Monica Munro, Volumes One and Two. It was grainy, and we would watch it religiously. It fed us. We would collect all these Continental tapes and watch them every year. A lot of the Hawaii girls would have Continental viewing parties, so we would have a big party and watch the game. [Laughs]
I feel like so many of us have these moments in our youth when we're watching something and we maybe see ourselves in it; we see the possibility of a world bigger than the world we're currently occupying — that’s the power of media. And going back to what you were saying, you are now part of the iconography of drag. You are a part of that media that some young person will now consume and the world that they existed in; they can now understand that world to be bigger, brighter and more beautiful. And back then, we didn’t have HD; we were watching grainy shit! What was it that you saw in those tapes?
With Monica, she was and is unapologetically confident. I've never seen a performer stare you down in your eyes and lipsync to you. It could be very disarming and very uncomfortable, almost, because she's just captivating. She actually gave me some very good advice which is to “park and bark” — very along the lines of that. I was working with Monica and Mimi and all the girls at The Baton from when I was 23 to 28, and I was dancing like crazy. We were doing three shows a night, five nights a week. I was going off, and they were like, “Okay, you're great. Love it, but cut it in half.” [Monica] said, “Understand the power of the silence of the music.” But now I'm, like, crying in a ballad; being a stripper. [Laughs]
It reminds me of when I read Barbara Walters' Audition; she sort of gave her rules of how to interview and she was really big on the pause after the person first answers the question, which is similar to what you're saying about that silence because in that silence, something will come. Someone will make the first move; someone will try and occupy that space in some way, and something interesting will come up.
Space to breathe.
Absolutely. Going back to young Sasha: What were you like as a child?
Obnoxious! [Laughs] I’m the baby, so there's different perspectives. I felt very shy, very to myself, ultrafemme. My siblings might think I was the baby and got everything — like, the favorite, but everyone thinks the other person is the favorite. I think I was really just always in my sister's heels. The whole photo album of me as a kid is me getting in my sister's clothes; in the heels, in drag, so this was not a surprise. It shouldn’t have been a surprise when I told them. [Laughs] I’d like to keep it on, please!
I just saw a video that my brother and sister-in-law shared of their 6-year-old son in heels, and it was just done with such joy and it made me really proud. It wasn’t like they were doing anything; they were just letting their child be their child. It’s not that we shouldn’t applaud it, but applauding it makes it seem like it’s some grand act and I think it's just the bare minimum of what you should do. Whether or not that's going to change the course of his life — who's to know? But I'm glad that possibility is there.
That's what we all need. All of our allies are our friends that know us and they have these kids that they're in charge of, and that's all they need to do: just create other allies. That's all you can do: just push it forward. Maybe you can’t be at every protest or every march, but you can do that to make kids that are more accepting.
Absolutely. There are so many times I look back at moments from early on in my life where the shame was first built up by others — whether it be classmates, siblings, what have you.
All projections. Alllllll projections.
Exactly. If we can actively dismantle that…
And just don’t be afraid to stay yourself and not self-edit because you don't want to be standing out — you should stand out! You shouldn't be so miserable and want to make me miserable. [Laughs] Put on a heel!
Without question! What was the media that you discovered as a kid that sort of introduced you to show business?
Ooh! I wanted to be on The Mickey Mouse Club, Kids Incorporated — all that. I aged myself right there! [Laughs] I remember those, and that just gave me theater kid; you could be a kid and be on a show, so that was always just in my head. It was already planted that I needed to be in show business.
And here you are! With Mickey Mouse Club, was Britney getting your attention? Was Christina getting your attention?
Justin was getting my attention. [Laughs]
I know that’s right! You’re talking about Justin, but have you seen those videos that are recirculating right now (because of Barbie) of Ryan Gosling dancing as a kid?
[Justin] got my attention; Ryan kept my attention. [Laughs] Like, “I’m listening!”
So, back to our discussion of Miss Continental and pageants: How old were you when you first entered and got your feet wet in that scene?
Well, you have to be 21 to run, so I was 20 when I did the [preliminary round], and by the time of finals in Chicago, I was just 21 for a month, so I just made it in. So from 21 to 28 was my Continental time. I ran four times and the fourth time was the charm. All within seven years; it was wild.
That's 20. So let's say 16, 17, 18-year-old Sasha: What did you want to be at that point? What did you think life held for you?
I'd just discovered dance. I was just discovering what a trans person is. So I was more so trying to get this all together before I could even think, “What is a dream that I want?” So it was really 17, fighting hormones and sneaking them; 18, graduate; 19, I have boobs. And it was just [everything I could do] to feel affirmed as quickly as possible — which is what every trans person wants, but I don't necessarily recommend. Take your time. It's not a rush. We're in transition — all of us, all the time. But those were the years of life I would call the second trans adolescence; we have two times that we mature. We mature as adolescents, and then we have this trans adolescence as adults. So everything just kind of gets fine-tuned.
What about seeking out resources? We came up at a time when you couldn't Google everything, and I kind of think it gave us a grit in seeking things out more; you had to really fight for knowledge about things, in a way. And it's wonderful that we have access to all these things now, but I appreciate the fact that you used to have to really want it. So we know a world in which it didn't exist and we benefit from the world it exists in now, but at the time, how did you find out about everything? How did you seek out other trans people at that time?
Well, it was through dance, actually, that I met my drag mom and the trans women that shaped me at an early age. I never had a picture of what a trans person looked like until I met trans women that were beautiful inside and out and had jobs and passions and careers and relationships. Just knowing that it wasn't this scary, dark thing allowed me to really embrace it, and then I realized really quickly, “That's why I'm so shy and cut off: I don't feel comfortable in my own skin.” Luckily, in Hawaii, there was a doctor who would do pro bono work for a lot of people who didn't have insurance that came from the Philippines and for people who didn't have any medical care. On Fridays and Saturdays, he would close his office up and just have it for the trans girls and he would administer shots. So you would go there with your $20 and get your “fish food” and all the girls are lined up. We all knew [this doctor] well. [Laughs]
I remember meeting my first group of other queer people and that paradigm shift in knowing that I wasn’t the only one; because again, going back to before the Internet, there was a time for me when I thought, “I’m the only one and something must have glitched when they were making me,” and then all of a sudden, as you were describing with your drag mother, you meet other queer people and they're beautiful inside and out and they’re living great lives. Do you remember when you first met other trans people?
I went to my first drag show while I was still in high school, so it was like an 18 and over club; they had a revue. And so we went and I was 17 and I just kind of snuck in and watched my first drag show. It was mostly trans performers, and I always say it's like those teen movies where they open the door for the gymnasium and it’s like [the angels are singing] — it felt like that; like smoke and glowing light, and it just all made sense. It was like Can’t Hardly Wait with Jennifer Love Hewitt and that hair.
Love that movie! Now, you mention that competitive nature, but the interesting thing is everyone that I talk to about you stress how kind you are. I don’t know if dichotomy is the word, but it seems like you’re a fierce competitor who recognizes that the competition takes place on stage and is still this warm, loving force when in the dressing room with the girls. Were you always that way? Did you hone that? Because not everyone's like that.
I think it comes from dance again: All my core values and the way I maneuver is through my dance instructor; he just gave us really good work ethics. We were competing to get the center [spot] at dance. Everyone was fierce and you wanted to be fierce, but you also knew: It is what it is; the talent’s gonna show. So it was always a competitive vibe, but I always felt like, “I'm not competing against anyone. I'm literally challenging myself and the competition starts with me. It's for me to figure out, and you all should do the same and not compare, ‘cause really it's a matter of preference.” Any competition with a bunch of judges is just pandering to their preference and what they think. That's all it is. So if someone's taste isn’t yours, it's just — that's the score. You don't have to take it so seriously; just be the best you. That’s another thing: When I watched Monica Munro, she would sell it. Whatever ridiculousness she did, she sold it so you believed it and you bought it — no receipts, no returns.
How do you decompress after winning Miss Continental? You’ve just finished. You just won this pageant. What are you doing?
Glam off, smoking a huge blunt while my family or my friends are all making food. We had Hawaiian food later the next day, and everybody came over to the house. It's just this sense of relief, and it felt the same with Drag Race. It just felt like this calmness. Everyone is so excited around you and you’re just like Monica Geller; like, “I'm always the hostess,” and with everyone around you it’s like, “No, no. Don't leave!” I just want the energy around me but I'm completely exhausted. [Laughs]
On the topic of those meals: How are you in the kitchen? Are you cooking? If so, what are you cooking?
I love to prepare vegetables and meat — pretty basically. I grew up eating very Asian in Hawaii, so stir-fry and rice is good one for me. But I love anything. I used to bake a lot, and now I’m just baked. [Laughs]
So we talked about watching Drag Race Season One, which I love going back and watching.
Oh, it was the best. They didn’t know what they were doing! They were just like, “Go for it!” The personalities.
So at what point did you go from just watching Drag Race to saying, “This is something I want to be a part of”? As I’m sure you know, people were wanting you on the show forever. But as you've articulated in other interviews, you knew that when the time was right, it was going to happen. So Season 15 was the season you were meant to be on.
Yes, and I get it now, looking back: like, “Oh, this is why” because of everything that’s going on politically. My opportunity to be of the most use would be this season. Any other season would not have been as effective, I think.
So when you got the call that you were going to be on Drag Race Season 15, what were the first steps that had to be taken to prepare for the show? I know that a lot of us think about the glam — getting the outfits together and everything — but I'm talking more about the esoteric, in the sense of: What kind of mental prep were you doing in knowing that you were not only going to be on this competition show, you were going to be on reality TV — which is its own beast that you can't really prepare yourself for.
That was my whole motto: Prepare to not be prepared. Everyone knows that Sasha’s fierce and the fashion will be cute and she'll do all her hair whips, but is she funny? Can she act? Can she sew? All these other things. So I did a lot of work before, because I was just on this mental health journey and understanding life, trying to figure out the meaning of everything — especially after my father passed at 80. He committed suicide, so I was trying to make sense of that and where he went. And that's all religion and spirituality is: We have to find something that speaks to us that allows us to go to sleep at night and feel safe; stories to tell our kids. I was trying to find this because I had experiences of cult-like religion growing up, so I threw away all this religion, but then I realized spirituality is still a thing that I need as a human. So I was trying to figure out grief; trying to figure out how to take care of my family while they're grieving and being very reckless with their grief, and trying to be this calm in the storm. I'm just always fascinated with the human condition and what pushes people, especially with grief: It's just ripped away; your whole artifice is gone. Your real, true personality comes out — your fears. It's wild to see how people metabolize that and work it out. I just take control of everything; I'm like, “Let me plan the funeral.” And as a queer person, I've had trauma — we have trauma built into our lives, so I knew how to quickly react and fix, whereas my straight brothers and sisters were like, “I don't know how to plan a funeral.” So thank goodness I knew how to take the reins and they allowed me to, which made me feel of use to my family. I went from never being allowed to have a place in the conversation to being the one that people are looking to for advice, which was also healing for me and my family. So there was just a lot of real life that happened that made Drag Race feel like, “We’re having fun! Just playing dress-up.” Real shit happens; this is not that crazy. Be celebratory. Be in the moment. Have fun. And now I'm shot into the stratosphere of being loved for being myself — which is wild because that's all I wanted from my family, and to this day I don't have that, but I have it from the whole world, which is so wild.
How are you living with grief now? I'm sure you've experienced this too: Right after my dad died, everyone was reaching out, but then after some time, you're still in the grief but people don't ask you about it anymore.
It's the polite niceness: “Let me just check in,” and then, “You're posting again.”
The posting again! Yes!! So how are you living with grief now, recognizing that it's an ongoing process?
Oh yes, it never leaves. I make [performance] numbers up about it when trauma gets brought up. I definitely was in grief for so long with my dad that when these other family members had passed, it allowed me to fully let that lie. I personally did a lot of — well, I mean, this is a fun podcast, right? We're just gonna get into it? [Laughs] I did a lot of meditation workshops and retreats, and I’ve done shrooms and connected and done DMT, which takes you to the death of your ego. I was able to do a lot of healing in this very safe practice with my shaman, and she helped guide me through this death experience so I could let go and move on, and it was beautiful.
And you shared on the show a bit about the difficult relationship that you have with some of your family today. That's a part of being a public figure that everyone navigates through differently because ultimately, it's your decision on how much of yourself that you want to bring into public consciousness and where the boundary lies by way of what people can know. Your trauma is not for people to digest. But, by the nature of reality television, people always have opinions about the things they see. How did you decide how much to discuss on the show, especially when I imagine you didn't know where your relationship was going to end up with your family?
It was intentional, because my whole upbringing with my family was me trying to get them to say that they love me or that they even like me. So everything I did, like Continental, was just so my mom could say she's proud — but it never happened. And it just came at a certain time, especially getting ready for this and the things that they have put me through; my dad had left me the generational home and they were all fighting for it tooth and nail. They were all so entitled, as if they should have gotten this house, and I even gave it away so they could just leave me alone. I did all these things, and I'm like, “You can have all of that. But from this moment forward, going on, this blessing is mine. This is not to prove anything to you. I don't even need you all to call me.” If all of a sudden, some family member that I don't even know has a surgery that they need that just happens to be $200,000, you know? No ma’am. Accountability. That's why I did it. And then I blocked them all. Healthy boundaries. Like, how many times are you gonna be abused before you leave? It’s the same thing, even if it's family.
That's the tough thing: There are no hard-and-fast rules with this, because I know I spent my whole life being told, “Your family are the ones who will always be there for you, no matter what.”
Unless you're gay. [Laughs]
When do you make that decision to walk away, and when do you make a decision to close the doors and definitively say, “This is actually for me”? It's tough because there are no rules about it. But back to Drag Race: It’s 15 seasons into a show, and any show is going to have to test itself to keep itself going. I know other shows — which I won’t name — have failed to keep the momentum going and I'm wondering for you: You come on Season 15, you look around the room and you’re like, “What kind of television are we going to make?”
I walked in and was like, “Who wants to make Emmy Award-winning television, y’all? We’re here to make a show!” because I knew that we were doing a show and you have to be big in personality. And a lot of the girls are younger than me, so they grew up with Drag Race. They actually were brought up on it, whereas I had the experience of drag prior to the show. So for them, having been fans from little kids’ time, they also know what was entertaining to them. Luxx Noir London is a perfect example: the sound bites, the references; it's so chic, it’s so subtle — I didn't even realize half of the things she was saying there until the fans got it immediately. I was like, “This girl! She’s too clever.”
One of the big narratives on Season 15 was people immediately recognizing the icon that you are from the outset of the competition. I imagine that this happens to you a lot in life. How do you humanize yourself for people? Because when they come over to you and they give you the “you're an icon, you’re a legend” energy, I'm sure it's great, but then also, it doesn't allow you to be just another person getting to know them because they're putting you on an immediate pedestal and there are expectations that come with that — and you might want to just be able to be another Judy in the room. Do you have tactics with which to sort of deconstruct their idea of who you are?
I think I’ve always done that, because I was told by my drag mother, “You look like a real intimidating bitch on stage, so you better remember where you came from.” So it's really this Aloha spirit that I always find helps me navigate when I'm not on stage, because everyone just thinks that I'm a bitch because of how I perform and then they're like, “Wow, she’s really nice!” So I get my jollies off of turning people's minds to be like, “She's actually really funny and nice and goofy,” and that's the perfect balance, I think, for people to feel that they can relate to me instead of putting me on that pedestal.
Let’s talk about that finale! You’ve spoken a little about the decision-making around wanting to show your body; it’s something that you're known for. It was just so fun for me: I was watching the finale with my mom in Pittsburgh and she was just like, “That’s the Sasha Colby experience!”
And that's why I did it. At the end of the day, the whole package was: If you allow me, this is what Sasha Colby could do. She could interview Charo, she could sew something, but you’ve never just seen me do [what I do]. I was just like, “Let's just do brunch. Let's be drunk Sasha Colby at brunch at the third number and I'm pretty much just naked and rolling around on the ground!” And that's my safe spot, but that's actually — that's me.
With this cash prize — which has been doubled — I’m curious: We hear people talk about the big things they want to buy, but what are some of the smaller things you plan to purchase that you previously might have said no to?
Oh, I mean — groceries! [Laughs] My bank is like, “This hoe has had negative $200 for about 20 years and now this bitch has $200,000? Somebody make a call!” [Laughs] It’s just the freedom to be able to take my friends out to dinner. I've been living off of my friends' generosity for so long and they happily do it, but it was so nice to actually be in a space where I can give back and at least take care of my friends. That's been the best. And I do have one niece that I talk to that’s my actual family, and I’ve raised her since she was a kid and she has two kids and I enjoy helping her. I enjoy buying toys — buying love from my relatives. [Laughs] But getting the kids something that they want and being able to do that and not feeling stressed — that piece of mind is just great.
We don’t talk about this a lot, but making it as a professional drag queen when you don't have a platform like Drag Race is difficult. It's a gig economy. We know there's increasingly more people doing drag. Clubs are shutting down right and left. People are not going out as they once did, perhaps because of the pandemic. What was it like for you, before the Drag Race of it all, having to make a living doing this thing that you're passionate about in which there’s not necessarily a blueprint?
You are definitely your own contractor. You’re in charge of: “Okay, if I have two or three bookings this week, this is what I can pay for; this is what I can do.” You have to give yourself a quota to make a week or to just be able to make rent and make do. And it's still so fringe and it's still so raw and gritty when you're not well-known well-known like a Drag Race-r. For me, it still had this level of control, though; I'm signing in for myself. I can decide whether or not I want to take this booking. The crazy amount of bookings that I've done in 20 years and in the craziest places — I think I've done everything already, and that’s just because I wanted to work and I had to keep working; just never say no, and now I get to say no sometimes. I have to practice that though! [Laughs]
You get to say no! And it’s funny: It used to be that the reward was the “yes,” and now, the reward is the “no”! And speaking of all the travel you do: You’ve gotten to go so many places and see so many cities. Are there cities for you that stand out as epicenters of queer culture? We know we have these classic epicenters: LA, New York, Chicago. What are some queer epicenters that you found that are sort of more off the beaten path that people might not think of as great queer places?
I didn't know DC is so gay! DC is so gay. You think San Francisco is gay? DC is gay. San Francisco is queer, but DC is gay. [Laughs] I never realized that it was such a big deal; I was asked, “Which city is more queer: LA or New York?” and I said, “Oh, wait, which city is more queer? Bushwick! Brooklyn.” [Laughs] The queerest of them all. I think it was a Brooklyn interview and they were like, “Period!” [Laughs]
You've now done all of this incredible press around the show: You have this fabulous feature in Vogue. you’re doing The Daily Show, you're doing all of this press — a lot of which is reaching an audience of people who might not otherwise be exposed to drag artistry. And in that, you are this incredibly visible trans person who is seen winning, conquering, being their whole self at a time where, as you mentioned earlier, we're watching the rights and the dignity of trans people being revoked by legislatures — legislators? Whatever — they mainly don’t even deserve a title. And you spoke earlier of the pendulum, and clearly the pendulum's not in the right place at the moment, but from what you're saying, I imagine you to be someone who believes this will pass.
It has to. This too shall pass. Literally, that is life: back and forth. So if we're on this side, it's going to have to swing back to where we are at least treated with dignity, because there can't be that many people in the world — I refuse to think there are that many people [who are against trans rights]. People act and vote and do things based on themselves. They don't really take into consideration anyone else. When we have our one vote, we vote for what we want and that's our one time to be selfish. So there aren't necessarily a lot of people that hate us, but they just have to think about themselves a lot and their values align with a lot of this miscommunication and this false narrative. It all just boils down to white men trying to control everyone's bodies; women's reproductive organs, the fact that we can't get good healthcare, what they're trying to do to trans people. It's just all about control. So I’m sitting here wondering: How did this happen? How are we now going from Roe vs. Wade to sports bans? They’re just finding anything to throw at this and hoping something will stick. That's really what it is. It's ridiculous. It’s ridiculous.
And for us, as people who see all this and know it for what it is, having to legitimize it by reacting to it — it’s like staring at the sky and someone saying, “The sky is red.” We obviously know the sky is blue, but there are enough people who will believe the sky is red if we don’t speak out against it.
I think the only way to combat that is to just keep living positive, happy, beautiful, queer, loud lives because that's our only protest right now. They're saying all these things and just our mere existence is going to prove that wrong. We don't even have to scream and fight back or even tell them the sky is blue. We could just be the sky.