RuPaul’s Drag Race: Which of these 5 Asian queens is your favourite LGBTQ+ hero?

 If you’re a RuPaul’s Drag Race fan, you probably know to start your engines again real soon, because the groundbreaking, award-winning reality competition TV series will drop its 12th season on February 28. The 13 queens who will be competing for the title were “RuVealed” through Twitter in a video hosted by season 11 winner Yvie Oddly. One of them is a camp-loving Filipino-American with dreams of becoming a J-pop anime idol, Rock M. Sakura.

She’s far from being the first or the last Asian-American queen to make a bid for the Drag Race crown. Now a multimillion-dollar global brand with three international franchises (Drag Race Thailand, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and Canada's Drag Race), the show has undoubtedly been a major influence in drag culture, making it popular in mainstream entertainment.

It also continues to inspire queer kids all over the world to express their identity and creativity through drag, thanks to the queens – such as the following –who have done the work of integrating their personal and cultural background into their drag persona.

Ongina (Season 1)

As one of the pioneering drag queens on mainstream television, Ongina broke the typical drag queen mode by refusing to wear wigs on the show and making her baldness part of her signature drag look. The effortlessly bubbly, Philippines-born drag queen also made history by being one of the first reality TV stars to admit to living with HIV on national television. Ongina is now known as an HIV activist.

Jujubee (Season 2, All Stars Season 1)

Of Laotian and Thai descent, Jujubee became quickly known for her sharp wit, which made for an iconic “reading session” in Drag Race history. Her hilarious comments to her fellow cast members, which she had made both to their faces and behind their backs, set the bar for the kind of shade that fans have come to expect from the show:

Raja (Season 3)