The creators of the pop culture and fashion website Tom+Lorenzo decode the references behind the recurring elements of the most queer show on the planet, from the library to the runway, including the handsome men and the messages written with lipstick on the mirror. But you don’t need to have watched Drag Race (what are you waiting for?) to enjoy the moments and legendary figures from the drag world that inspire it.

As its authors warn, this is a book to read with one hand… with the other you’ll want to search for videos, songs, or more information on Google about the remarkable characters parading through its pages.

We witness the Stonewall riots through the legendary Marsha P. Johnson, the queen who walked through New York with flowers in her hair, and Stormé DeLarverie, the drag king who patrolled Greenwich Village in a jacket. We hear Crystal LaBeija, founder and matriarch of the formidable House of LaBeija, raise her voice to claim Black beauty at the Miss Gay America pageant. We sneak into the Harlem ballrooms where vogue was born, the dance popularized by Madonna, and into the clubs of 1990s London with Leigh Bowery and his impossible looks. All this with the music of The Rocky Horror Picture Show playing in the background. It’s the kind of history they didn’t teach you at school.

Author biography

Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez have been a couple for a couple of decades. In 2006, they left their respective jobs to pour all their knowledge of film, music, fashion, and advertising into a queer-oriented website initially focused on television and named Project RunGay. Fifteen years later, the website Tom & Lorenzo, where they critique television, popular culture, and fashion, attracted an audience now measured in millions. Tom and Lorenzo collaborate with various media such as People, Forbes, and The Huffington Post. In 2014 they published their first book Everyone Wants to Be Me or Do Me.