Drag Queens for Reproductive Rights: CCHS Drag Show Makes a Powerful Statement
On the evening of Friday, April 10, four drag queens lit up the stage in the Robert Frost Auditorium and raised almost $2000 for reproductive and LGBTQ rights. Over 100 Culver City High School students and community members sat in the audience, and the sheer energy of the performers made the space feel even fuller. The drag artists—Joń Benet, Chrissy D’Vour, Hawt Dawg, and Powder D’Vour—volunteered their time and talents for this fundraiser, which was jointly hosted by the CCHS Reproductive Rights Club and the CCHS Tolerance Club. The proceeds from ticket sales, which was a huge amount for a student organization to raise in one event, are to be donated to Planned Parenthood and the LA LGBT Center.
Luna-Violet Sands (‘27), the president of the Reproductive Rights Club, watched the show from backstage, excited but nervous. She and a dozen other students had worked for months to put this one-night program together, inspired by a similar drag show fundraiser run by the Reproductive Rights club 3 years ago. In January, Sands reached out to 12 local drag queens on Instagram, asking them to perform for a good cause. She received 5 responses, and 3 professional drag artists were ultimately part of the lineup, along with one student drag queen.
Besides the three adult queens, the show was almost entirely student run—AVPA Technical Theater students volunteered to act as stage managers and design the colorful lighting and sound that brought the show to life. And though they only hosted a single rehearsal, Sands said the performers “took the stage really well and figured out their space in the rehearsal and just nailed it. It went better than any of us expected.”
But the show wasn’t just a success for the hosts. “Something we didn’t really process until we got out there was . . . how special it was for the drag artists to be able to bring that opportunity to the community and the kids around them,” said Mica Zattelino (‘28), the secretary of the Reproductive Rights Club and the co-Lead Organizer of the drag show. “This was most of [the students’] first drag shows and something they might not have been able to go to if they hadn’t had it through school.” From the cheering and singing along, it was clear that this was a positive first experience with drag for many students.
For one student in particular, the drag show’s upbeat atmosphere was especially meaningful. Student drag queen Blake Doane (‘26), who goes by the drag name Hawt Dawg, rounded out the show’s program in a magnetic drag debut. Doane is president of the Tolerance Club and has long had an interest in drag and drag makeup. He’s also a natural performer who starred as Orpheus in AVPA Theater’s recent production of Hadestown. After hearing about the drag show, “He was like, ‘yeah, I want to do drag,’ and we were like, ‘great!’ And that was super exciting,” said Zatellino. As Hawt Dawg lip synced the lyrics to Chappel Roan’s “Picture You” and Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” her stage presence was tangible, and it was hard to believe this was her debut performance.
The idea of a student-run drag show was initiated by the Reproductive Rights Club, and their decision to collaborate with the Tolerance Club was not only natural, but it made the show into a powerful statement. “Women’s rights and the gay community are really intertwined,” said Luna-Violet Sands. The Reproductive Rights club is not called the Women’s Rights Club, and that’s because reproductive rights are not just important for women. They are essential to many members of the LGBTQ community who need access to birth control and transgender care to have control over their bodies.
Currently, far-right movements in the US are advocating to take away individuals’ rights to control their personal lives—their bodies, how they identify, who they love, and when and how they choose to have children. The collaboration between these two student clubs is a symbol of the unity between the fight for reproductive rights and the strength of the LGBTQ community. It’s also a symbol of the power of student organizations to bridge movements like these. They hope to make the drag show into an annual event to raise money and to fund the services these two clubs provide from creating menstrual product care packages for unhoused kids to field trips to the LA LGBT center.