Advancing The Slay Agenda 🏳️‍🌈🪩

In March of 2023, the Tennessee Adult Entertainment Act passed, making it the first anti-drag legislature. Although I'm fully self-aware of my casual to moderate cognizance level of the art form of drag, even now I feel myself full of profound overwhelm in appreciation for all that I've experienced so far. Coming up in a Christian nationalist household, makeup was often the only outlet for self expression that I could use consistently due to its ephemeralness. It was the only way I felt I was able to consistently and effectively communicate to the world that I was not like the conservatives in my life in charge of shaping my values as instructed by the alleged one true savior of the world. A savior who they told me didn't spend time with the pious and instead opted to befriend prostitutes and sinners. One who flipped tables and drove merchants out of the temple grounds. I could never see the same Jesus that prayed to in their actions. All I could see was a cult of control, censorship, and bigotry disguised as love for God and country.

I always found makeup to be a transformational method of communicating what I was experiencing internally, in both a succinct, and often times, striking way that I would dole out on a daily basis. It gave me the confidence to ward off enough imposter syndrome to enter spaces that would shape me as a girl into a woman. A woman who unceasingly has seen the value of independent music and thus devoted every career decision to date to whatever I thought would bring us closer to equity in ones ability to be heard. As a result, I've always felt a sense of camaraderie with drag, knowing how powerful it can be to temporarily transform, playfully creating empathy building moments with every brush stroke.

Around the time of the legislation passing I had come across an image that read, "THIS SYNTH KILLS FASCISTS" in one of legendary producer Tommie Sunshine's many Instagram mood board-like carousels. After looking up to see if I could purchase what I learned was a permanently sold out sticker, I was reminded amongst the search results the connection to American folk singer Woody Guthrie within the phrase.

It's been well documented that starting in 1943 Guthrie's guitar would bear the message, "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS". If you take a stroll through his catalog past his arguably most well-known track, "This Land Is Your Land", you'll see a man who passionately sought to inspire social change through his chosen form of expression. Guthrie was outspoken in his hatred of fascism, and even joined the military so he could personally kill nazis. As he shared in a wartime letter to his second wife that he had,

“a personal hate so strong that it makes you want to kill in order to keep the people you love from being slaves…because if you really love anybody or anything or any principle or any science or belief, you will hate, hate, hate, and keep hating anybody or anything that tries to hurt, or kill or destroy that which you love. Unless love has got this hate, it’s not love at all, it’s a cave full of mysticism, and one of the most dangerous forms of cowardice”

I thought about that sticker, specifically the word, "KILLS," for weeks after I saw it. I thought about all the immediate death in the world as a result of COVID, the deaths of small children from mass shootings or of that get swept away with an utterance of "thoughts and prayers", and how subsequently the constant fear-mongering disguised as well intentioned rhetoric has stripped us of so much, but most unfortunately of all, our ability to see the power we wield collectively when we choose to stand up to injustice. The goal should not be to perpetuate cycles of oppressive violence— our sights should always be on collective liberation. Drag ban bill fresh in my mind, I opened a new image in Photoshop, and typed the words, "this synth slays fascism" and started experimenting with fonts.

I should mention that all the while this TikTok had been marinating in my brain for well over a year prior, just in case my pun is not painfully obvious:

I couldn’t find anything within my personal font stockpile that felt right, so I randomly shot the following texts at my friend Sara Grossman:

Of all people, I knew she would not just have insight to my oddly phrased inquiry about design trends within the LGBTQ+ community, but also appreciate the idea I was working on. In addition to owning a successful queer marketing company CODE-mktg, based in Denver, she also is the founder of the non-profit, The Dru Project, which she started in honor of her best friend, Drew Leinonen, who passed away in the mass shooting that took place at Pulse nightclub, a place I also used to go dancing at in my college years with friends who also lost people that horrific night. She’s really transmuted her pain in such a beautifully impactful way, as the organization has given away over $250,000 in college scholarships, mini-grants for gay-straight alliances and out-of-work drag entertainers, and published one of the most comprehensive GSA guides in the country.

Delighted by the idea, she informed me that there was a font, Gilbert, which was created in honor of artist, designer, and activist Gilbert Baker. Baker is responsible for hand-stitching and hand-dying the very first rainbow flag in 1978, which was used as a symbol in response to the homophobic pink triangles being used by Nazis to identify suspected or openly gay folk at the time. "They had a whole code of emblems that they used to oppress people,” he explained in an interview, “and we needed something to answer that." It was everything I needed in that moment to connect deeper to the meaning of the phrase. It was bold, future-forward, but with delicate detailing. I played around with the design for awhile before landing on what is now available for purchase in my newly launched store.

To further cram meaning into the moment, I made every detail deliberate. Around the same time I had been learning more about Disco Demolition Night, the anti-disco MLB promotional night held on on July 12, 1979, that quickly erupted into a riot where rioters leveraged the evening as an excuse to burn records from marginalized groups. I had also caught a deep dive on the origins of the sparkle emoji and how it's been co-opted by Big Tech as the universal symbol for AI in an attempt to mask the nuanced complexities surrounding the technology, namely its unsustainability.

When I first landed in Raleigh, I had noticed a slew of pro-MAGA stickers scattered throughout downtown. Seeing messaging with the intention to distort reality and paint 45 as the clear solution to all our problems didn't make me feel safe, so I assumed folks with less privileges than a straight-presenting white lady would feel all the more uneasy, so every single last one that I could reach had to go. So I, armed with a razor blade and Goo Gone, personally made it a point to very thoroughly take every single one down. I took them down in front of food halls, places of worship, and in other high traffic pedestrian areas. At one point, it became a face-off with the person posting the stickers around town. In one area of town as soon as I took them all down they would be quickly replaced within 24 hours. Eventually my persistence prevented them from returning, until some crept back into a few areas just before the 2024 Election.

Fascism wants us constantly stressed and scared to the point of overwhelm at every turn so we have no energy to stand up to our oppressors. We are barely two weeks into this administration and it is already so fucking exhausting. This is gonna be a long four years, and we are going to need all the hope we can muster to get through this. I want people to always remember that even in the darkest rooms, all it takes is just a little sliver of light hitting a disco ball for it to reflect it out in every direction. It is my hope that anyone that comes in contact with any of my stickers that people are able to remember that we must defend our joy, playfulness, creativity, and rest at every corner, as it is the only thing that will truly set us free. We need to be throwing our support behind people whose visions make us feel lighter in our bodies as we take them in. Those of us stubbornly dreaming and creating in the direction of the future we want deserve to have our light travel as far as it can possibly spread. As Baker once said himself when speaking to his own creation, “visibility is key to our success and to our justice." 

I've had these stickers printed for awhile. In fact, it’s almost been a year now. 🫣 I even put some up around Brooklyn when I was in Williamsburg last summer dog sitting for a friend. With every slap to a pole, park bench, or other public-facing surface, I thought of all the times when I went to unfamiliar areas I always looked for proof of safety in the form of street art. In my mind, artists are the most empathetic, so the more easy it is to detect their presence in an area, the safer I am to authentically navigate an area.

jukebox at Luckydog in Brooklyn, NY

Anyway this is my gift to the internet for these trying times. I am currently in talks with a store in downtown Raleigh to sell these IRL as well. Because she was so instrumental to this coming to life, I am donating 30% of the proceeds from sticker sales to The Dru Project, which has a new second edition of their GSA guide coming soon! Additionally, I plan to reinvest whatever I make from these into future SKOA related offerings, some of which are in the works as we speak. Yer girl is hankering to get scrappy with some zines so we can make sure valuable info gets to where it needs to go in our communities. If anyone is interested in collaborating, hmu!