“Would you rather live a safe life or an authentic one?”
For Shea Couleé, that question has felt like a dare all their life. The child of a Christian minister, the 30-year-old drag artist (neé Jaren Merrell) was born in a deeply religious household in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield, Illinois. Growing up black and queer, Couleé had few opportunities to see that it was possible to live authentically as their full selves. One notable exception, however, was seeing J. Alexander appear as a runway coach on America’s Next Top Model. Often referred to by contestants and judges as “Miss J,” Alexander used feminine pronouns; Couleé says they admired how she “would show up in women’s clothing, presenting dresses and blouses.”
“That’s just who she is — not dressing in drag, but just presenting as a very openly queer individual,” Couleé says. “To me, that was really wonderful. If I would have seen more representation like that, I would have been inspired to come out even quicker, but I really only had that one.”
Couleé is one of a growing number of drag performers who identify as non-binary, many of whom include their fellow RuPaul’s Drag Race alums. The ever-expanding list includes Adore Delano, Valentina, Jinkx Monsoon, Aja, BenDeLaCreme and Sasha Velour, the latter of whom Couleé competed against in Season 9 of the show. Couleé counts their RuPaul’s Drag Race sibling as pivotal in their own understanding of themselves as neither male nor female, along with Season Seven winner Violet Chachki (who identifies as gender fluid).
As Couleé prepares to begin developing an as-yet-untitled one-woman show based on the music of Britney Spears, the superstar sat down with them. to discuss their gender journey.
As you’re very aware, not every non-binary person views their gender the same way. It’s a really big umbrella. Some identify as somewhere along the spectrum between male and female, while others don’t identify with the concept of gender at all. How would you describe what it feels like to inhabit your own personal gender identity?
At least for me in my personal life, being non-binary is just a lot easier. It feels less forced. Growing up, my family had very specific expectations for how they wanted me to behave. There’s a lot of toxic masculinity in the black community, and most of that stems from oppression due to slavery, where black men have been very emasculated by cis men. Often they want to raise their sons to be as strong, hardened, and tough as possible, because life for black individuals can be very tough and simply dangerous. As a child who was softer, more vulnerable, and showed empathy, I’m sure it made me look like a target to my parents, someone who was weak.
But I’ve always been very strong-willed. Even though I knew I was different, I stayed very firm in just being me. Something that my mom would say all the time growing up — and I don’t even think she realized — was, “Oh, Jaren, boys don’t talk like that.” “Boys don’t stand like that.” Boys don’t do this and boys don’t do that. She was basically saying that some things that came very naturally to me were qualities that were only to be exhibited by a girl. That was really confusing, because it never really felt like it was so black and white, so this or that. I just felt like I was being me. Those were some of the first signs at a young age that I knew that my personal feelings about gender didn’t quite fit into the status quo.
