RuPaul’s Drag Race icon Gigi Goode proudly comes out as a ‘trans, non-binary person’
Gigi Goode has come out as “trans, non-binary”. (Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for VH1 “RuPaul’s Drag Race”/Screen capture via Instagram)
RuPaul’s Drag Race star Gigi Goode has come out as a “trans, non-binary person” and opened up about her transitioning journey.
Goode, the 23-year-old season 12 icon, candidly told her 1.3 million Instagram Sunday evening (29 August) following facial feminisation surgery, otherwise known as facial gender-affirming surgery, which softens the face.
After sharing that she is gender-fluid some two years ago, Goode said she “very much” identifies with and now “leans more towards” the non-binary side of the spectrum.
Speaking to her “dolls”, she said she sought gender affirmation surgery in January and is going to legally change her name to her stage one.
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“Right at the beginning of the year, I decided to begin the process of hormone replacement therapy,” she said in the eight-minute-long video, “which for those of you who don’t know, is the process of taking oestrogen and testosterone blockers as a means of bringing in the woman and pushing out the man.”
Gigi Goode says the pandemic gave her time to pause and realise she is trans
The coronavirus pandemic, Gigi Goode said, was a “crucial” moment to let her breathe and, at last, reflect on her gender identity after having so little time when the episodes of Drag Race “were airing”.
“On Drag Race, which was almost two years ago, I came out as gender-fluid, which I still very much identify with,” she said. “I would say that I’m leaning more towards the non-binary side of that.
“If the world hadn’t shut down,” Goode added, “I really wouldn’t have to process it further.”
In the Drag Race werk room, Gigi Goode, then 21, told her fellow queens that she felt “both and neither” and she “teeters between male and female throughout my whole life”. This was the first time, she said, that she had spoken about her gender-fluidity.
Years later and among her realisations, watching the television show Veneno, which charts the life of trans singer Cristina Ortiz Rodríguez, gave her the blueprints to be “who I’m supposed to be”.
“I knew that I wanted this to be a journey I was going on by myself, on my own, without any input from the outside world,” she said.
“It depends on the person and what they feel they need to feminize their face. Without getting into too much detail, which I may or may not do – I don’t feel like it’s anyone’s business but my own, I just feminized the parts of my face that I felt needed feminisation.
“I’m just going to look a little bit more feminine or born a female.
“I do identify as a trans, non-binary person, but I prefer she/her pronouns,” she said, adding that she will be known as Gigi Goode “from here on out”.
