drag queen

noun

plural drag queens

: a person and especially a man who performs as an entertainer in usually female drag (see drag entry 1 sense 7b(1))

Drag queens, who are traditionally male, dress in "drag" as female characters.

—Laura Wavra

For the past decade, (basically since RuPaul started Drag Race) traditional drag queens (ie, cis men performing as female characters) have been blowing up in the popular zeitgeist …

—Brittany Knupper

Drag is not simply female impersonation, but involves drag queens exaggerating femininity and drag kings exaggerating masculinity.

—Shannon Kelly

[Victoria] Sin is a female-bodied non-binary drag queen, examining how Western ideals of femininity are produced and consumed.

—Amrou Al-Kadhi

They are a black, non-binary drag queen with a beard in a part of the country that has a reputation for being anti-LGBTQ+.

—Bailey Shelton

Examples of drag queen in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Chappell Roan has built her rising music career in the persona of a drag queen. —Eleanor Nash, Kansas City Star, 5 Apr. 2024

Dry your succulent tears of a drag queen with candy bar wrappers abound because, after three weeks of RuPaul's Drag Race season 16, the sweet Hershii LiqCour-Jete is this year's honorable (and, frankly, iconic) inductee into the Porkchop Loading Dock. —Joey Nolfi, EW.com, 22 Jan. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1941, in the meaning defined above