The upcoming festivites at RuPaul's DragCon in LA took a rather dramatic turn after the shocking ban of Drag Race season 2 winner Tyra Sanchez from the event.
Tyra's ban comes after the drag queen allegedly threatened violence against fellow Drag Race alum Phi Phi O'Hara and Tatianna in a social media video from a couple weeks prior. The video, which has now been shared by Phi Phi O’Hara on Twitter, has the fandom in an uproar:
Once the damage was done and multiple red flags were in the air, Sanchez responded to her banned status from DragCon on Monday.
A representative from World of Wonder (the production company that runs DragCon and produces Drag Race) stated in an email to Sanchez that they would permit the season 2 winner to participate at DragCon so long as she posted a video apologizing for her video, to which Sanchez responded that she already apologized and would not be apologizing any further.
"Multiple times I have stated that violence is not the answer and that queens of my upbringing sometimes express ourselves different than most," writes Sanchez. "I understand you may not understand this as you have only appropriated our lives, our attitudes and our mannerisms."
She continued:
"You can continue to push your narrative that I’m some angry black queen, but you and I know that is simply untrue. If you want to remove me from DragCon because of some drag queen drama then by all means remove me."
The narrative which Tyra mentions is one that many other queens of color (most recently, season 10's The Vixen) have experienced. Whether or not this debate will cause more of a stir as the summer event draws closer, remains to be seen.
